In review--Brazilian gods are watching!

-

Mario Adnet & Philippe Baden Powell
Afro Samba Jazz
The Music of Baden Powell
Adventure Music


I spent two weeks listening to Brazilian guitarists Mario Adnet and Philippe Baden Powell’s Afro Samba Jazz and I am still savoring every minute of it. Similar to Virginia Rodrigues’ Mares Profundos (Edge Music, 2003), Adnet’s and Powell’s interpretations celebrate the much revered Baden Powell Afro-sambas. A bus load of musicians appear on the recording including Monica Salmaso, the Adnet clan, Teco Cardosa and too many musicians to name here. They bring their horns, drums, flutes, clarinets, saxophones, guitars and double bass, reminding me of carnival season 6 months premature.

 On first listen I experienced a memory of hearing Astrud Gilberto’s interpretation of Berimbau on a great hits album I once owned. Then of course, in 2003 I listened to Virginia Rodrigues’ Celso Fonseca’s covers of Baden Powell’s Afro-Samba classics. The sambas engage listeners with lush African polyrhythms, catchy melodic phrases and beautiful odes to a pantheon of Yoruba gods. From the gorgeous Brazilian masterpieces Song for Xango and Song for Yemanja to the haunting Lamento de Exù, Philippe Baden Powell and company pay tribute to his famous composer/guitarist father.

 Powell junior, teamed up with Mario Adet, a musician respected by his father. In the liner notes, Powell reminisces about how he met Adnet. “’He’s the man!’ was how my father referred to Mario Adnet after being interviewed by him for a newspaper article. Baden was impressed and excited that he had found someone to ‘shoot the breeze’…” This meeting of minds eventually led to this collaboration with some of the greatest Afro-samba musicians of Brazil--tender, respectful and masterful.

 I could say more about this fabulous recording, but I just can’t get my mind around it. The music invites me to dance and not be crunched over my laptop. I invite you to pick up this recording and feel it for yourself. As far as healing qualities, sambas rate high with a lot of the experts such as Don Campbell for one. It’s music for chilling, but it won’t sing you to sleep at night. Though sambas act as a great pick me up in the morning or midday when brains begin to fog and spirits sag. Sure, why not? Couldn’t it be carnival season every day? And did I forget to mention that sambas possess sensuality and certainly Afro-sambas compete for the sexiest music on the planet. Argentine tango move over...

 Adventure Music

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to Peyote Songs & The Native American Church

-
Image
Father Peyote: Songs of the Native American Church Introduction to the Peyote Church Ceremony This is an archival article written in 2003.  It's not updated.  For more recent recordings, go to Canyon Records website, http://www.canyonrecords.com When some people speak of Native American ceremonies, the peyote ceremony or the ingestion of the hallucinogen peyote (contains mescaline) usually surfaces. However, there is too much false information being passed around in the non-native community surrounding peyote meetings. The first thing people need to know about the Native American connection to peyote is that the plant is sacred medicine ingested as a sacrament during healing ceremonies of the Native American Church. The second thing, people need to know is that the Native American Church is not a set structure like the Christian Church. The peyote meeting could take place in a Navajo hogan or a teepee. And finally, since the peyote meeting does in part derive from Nat
Read more

The Practice--Treasure Hunt from the book Whole Music

-
Image
Excerpt from Whole Music The Practice: Musical Treasure Hunt Similar to treasure hunts from our childhood, I’m going to send you on a music treasure hunt in which the pleasures are many.  Pretend that you are a song catcher visiting other cultures where you collect new sounds. While I mentioned sound healers earlier, another important player with music preservation are ethnomusicologists who combine cultural anthropology with music preservation.  Two famous song catchers are the late Alan Lomax, and the world beat drummer Mickey Hart.  I recommend learning more about these song catchers through books, and documentaries. 1) Step One-- Head over to YouTube, and look up the following music traditions: ·          Aboriginal Didgeridoo ·          Finnish Runo-Songs (Traditional singer) ·          Gregorian chants ·          Griot Music of Mali (Acoustic, not pop music) ·          Sanskrit Chants Sung by Hindu Indians in Context (aka Kirtans)
Read more

Talking about Timbre

-
Image
Wikipedia As I mention in my book Whole Music , when I was a child I fell in love with timbre and the voices of the individual instruments we listened to in music class.  Each instrument conjured a specific emotions or feeling in me.  The French horn caused me to feel majestic and the cello invoked melancholy.  My moods would shift with each instrument that I heard and my moods would shift quickly. Today, I listen to more than timbre, but I have an understanding of how tone, frequencies of the tone and timbre (the color of the tone) affect me on all levels.  And I wonder what listening to an entire symphony does with its many voices, themes, keys, musical passages etc... In the concept of "whole music" I prefer not to separate musical components, but in the case of this post, I will present solo instruments for your listening and feeling pleasure. If you keep a music journal (and I hope that you do by now), write down the emotions that come up with each instrument.  R
Read more