An insider's story of innovation
In the book Do Frevo ao Manguebeat, journalist reports how Recife has been on the forefront of Brazilian music, from Capiba to Chico Science's pop revolution
Silvio Essinger
30/11/2000
A "compendium" of the musical history of Recife (capital of Prenambuco, Northeast) in this century is what journalist José Teles, 47 years old, presents in the book Do Frevo ao Manguebeat (From Frevo to Manguebeat, printed on Editora 34), to be released on December 11th. Teles reveals theses that testify to the huge - and not always discussed - importance of the music made in Recife for the rest of the country - and, in a way, for the rest of the world, as well. After all, with Chico Science & Nação Zumbi, the mangue beat enjoyed wide and fast international projection, influencing the Portuguese (who founded the movement Tejo Beat in Lisbon) and the Scottish (who created the band Bloco Vomit, playing standard punk songs with maracatu drums), among other foreign musicians. That was a rare example of Brazilian invention in pop music, untouched by the premature death of Chico during the carnival of 1997. "The mangue beat has never stopped and there's no turning back", says Teles, pointing out that the music of the crabs with brains, with their satellite dishes sticking out of the mud, made the people of Recife proud of a town that was used to only making it to the headlines because of the extreme poverty and violence in the region.
The capital rivaled with Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo until the 60s in terms of economic and cultural importance, but Recife went down the hill along the military dictatorship - in the 90s, it was rated among the five worst cities to live in, according to the Population Crisis Committee (an institute from in Washington D.C.). The lack of prestige helped make the rest of the country forget about the pioneering cultural scenes that existed there. Starting with the frevo, a very successful style in the 40s and 50s, thanks to names like Capiba, Nelson Ferreira and Claudionor Germano. Essentially urban, the frevo is the root of the carnival exported from Bahia to the rest of the country in the last decades. "This carnival in Salvador as we know today did not exist before the Vassourinhas (a frevo group and also the most classic frevo song) landed there", tells Teles, referring to the show performed by the group on the streets of the capital of Bahia in 1951. Inspired by the contagious celebration proposed by Vassourinhas, Dodô & Osmar created the trio elétrico.
Other stories approached in Do Frevo ao Manguebeat place Recife on the front line of Brazilian music. The frevo albums, for instance, were printed on Rozenblit, a local label founded by José Rozenblit that eventually got national projection, with their own studios and printing machines, branches in Rio, etc. The label also released albums of famed artists from other cities and sates, such as Zé Keti (from Rio) and Tom Zé (from Bahia). Some of those LPs are now coming out on CD on the label InterCD (São Paulo). Crises and floods (Recife is surrounded by rivers and the sea) along the 70s ultimately made the company go bankrupt, closing down their doors in 1986. The frevo archives were retrieved by Polydisc, which re-lauched the titles on CD.
Besides a rich bossa nova scene (that revealed the likes of Geraldo Azevedo and Naná Vasconcelos), the town, as explained by José Teles, also had a tropicalist moment, started almost at the same time as the movement triggered by the guys from Bahia. With a great deal of rock'n'roll attitude, the movement had a TV show (Convocação Geral), a well-known band (the unpredictable Laboratório de Sons Estranhos, led by Aristides Guimarães) and brought to light musicians who would later become famous, such as producer Arto Lindsay (who used to play with the band Contribution in Recife, and later moved to the U.S., being part of the no wave scene in New York, in the early 80s) and the (then) guitar prodigy Robertinho do Recife (whose mad and unknown story deserves a whole chapter in the book).
Northeastern Woodstock
Another obscure moment of the musical history of Recife, undisclosed by the book, goes about the 70s bands. "That was the weirdest underground phase in Brazil. The left-wing militants were arrested, there was a lot of acid (LSD), a lot of crazy performances. There was even a northeastern Woodstock in Recife that nobody heard of, outside of the town", says Teles. Although regarded as subversive by political conservatism, rock'n'roll blossomed through the work of bands like the legendary Ave Sangria, who managed to make an album on Continental, in Rio de Janeiro. "In live presentations, Ave Sangria was as hot as Led Zeppelin", Teles continues. The band eventually introduced the rock-related ingredient into Alceu Valença's music in the 70s - he would even bring many of the band's members with him to Rio. Zé Ramalho, from the state of Paraíba (north of Pernambuco), was also living the underground scene in Recife. He made the trippy disc Paêbiru with Lula Côrtes, in 1975, on Rozenblit ("It wasn't a great album, but a hell of a trip", analyzes the journalist). Part of the copies was destroyed during one of the floods that hit the company's warehouse - which only added to their cult aura.
Little by little, with no repercussion in or outside of Recife, the rock movement initiated in the 70s lost its punch - Lenine, who debuted with the group Flor de Cactus, was one of its last sighs. The 80s were a lost decade, but some bands, mainly heavy metal and punk rock ones, resisted in the town. Within that scene, information (albums, books, videos) was being spread more easily, yielding the emergence of the mangue beat bands Chico Science & Nação Zumbi and mundo livre s/a. "That was the first 90s rock generation that related to computers. And it was a bright group, they would read a lot", claims José Teles. With his idea of mixing the funk (which he would dance to since childhood) with maracatu (which his parents enjoyed), Chico ended up as the shaper, together with Nação Zumbi, of the innovative sounds of the mangue (pronounced mun-guee; means mangrove swamp). "It has nothing to do with tropicalism", the journalist defends. "The guys in Bahia used to make music the same way as someone makes a patchwork quilt. The mangue beat is a new kind of music".
With national and international feedback starting in 1996 (with tours around Europe and a historic concert at the Central Park, in New York City), Chico, Nação and the mangue definitely placed Recife on the map of Brazilian music - that is, in spite of very little radio exposition. "Every week there is someone arriving in Recife, coming from America, willing to write a thesis on mangue. They will come to learn how to play. Chico has been turned into a myth, he's our Bob Marley. He was the most brainy, and yet, the most popular", Teles defines. Thanks to the mangue (and specially to Chico's spreading the word) traditional folk artists from Pernambuco, like Lia de Itamaracá, Selma do Coco and Mestre Salustiano were able to make their albums in the past few years. "Those people only gained visibility with the mangue beat", claims Teles. Today, with many names established in the market (Otto, former percussionist for mundo livre, is now the darling of the new Brazilian music) and big festivals (like Abril Pro Rock and Rec Beat), the town houses the fourth generation of mangue bands, according to the journalist. Even an anarchic movement has emerged recently, the Molusco Lama (Clam Mud), represented by the band Limpeza Pajé, who recorded interventions upon the tapes of a Manu Chao show in Recife. They have put it out in the album Bom Negócio.
The capital rivaled with Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo until the 60s in terms of economic and cultural importance, but Recife went down the hill along the military dictatorship - in the 90s, it was rated among the five worst cities to live in, according to the Population Crisis Committee (an institute from in Washington D.C.). The lack of prestige helped make the rest of the country forget about the pioneering cultural scenes that existed there. Starting with the frevo, a very successful style in the 40s and 50s, thanks to names like Capiba, Nelson Ferreira and Claudionor Germano. Essentially urban, the frevo is the root of the carnival exported from Bahia to the rest of the country in the last decades. "This carnival in Salvador as we know today did not exist before the Vassourinhas (a frevo group and also the most classic frevo song) landed there", tells Teles, referring to the show performed by the group on the streets of the capital of Bahia in 1951. Inspired by the contagious celebration proposed by Vassourinhas, Dodô & Osmar created the trio elétrico.
Other stories approached in Do Frevo ao Manguebeat place Recife on the front line of Brazilian music. The frevo albums, for instance, were printed on Rozenblit, a local label founded by José Rozenblit that eventually got national projection, with their own studios and printing machines, branches in Rio, etc. The label also released albums of famed artists from other cities and sates, such as Zé Keti (from Rio) and Tom Zé (from Bahia). Some of those LPs are now coming out on CD on the label InterCD (São Paulo). Crises and floods (Recife is surrounded by rivers and the sea) along the 70s ultimately made the company go bankrupt, closing down their doors in 1986. The frevo archives were retrieved by Polydisc, which re-lauched the titles on CD.
Besides a rich bossa nova scene (that revealed the likes of Geraldo Azevedo and Naná Vasconcelos), the town, as explained by José Teles, also had a tropicalist moment, started almost at the same time as the movement triggered by the guys from Bahia. With a great deal of rock'n'roll attitude, the movement had a TV show (Convocação Geral), a well-known band (the unpredictable Laboratório de Sons Estranhos, led by Aristides Guimarães) and brought to light musicians who would later become famous, such as producer Arto Lindsay (who used to play with the band Contribution in Recife, and later moved to the U.S., being part of the no wave scene in New York, in the early 80s) and the (then) guitar prodigy Robertinho do Recife (whose mad and unknown story deserves a whole chapter in the book).
Northeastern Woodstock
Another obscure moment of the musical history of Recife, undisclosed by the book, goes about the 70s bands. "That was the weirdest underground phase in Brazil. The left-wing militants were arrested, there was a lot of acid (LSD), a lot of crazy performances. There was even a northeastern Woodstock in Recife that nobody heard of, outside of the town", says Teles. Although regarded as subversive by political conservatism, rock'n'roll blossomed through the work of bands like the legendary Ave Sangria, who managed to make an album on Continental, in Rio de Janeiro. "In live presentations, Ave Sangria was as hot as Led Zeppelin", Teles continues. The band eventually introduced the rock-related ingredient into Alceu Valença's music in the 70s - he would even bring many of the band's members with him to Rio. Zé Ramalho, from the state of Paraíba (north of Pernambuco), was also living the underground scene in Recife. He made the trippy disc Paêbiru with Lula Côrtes, in 1975, on Rozenblit ("It wasn't a great album, but a hell of a trip", analyzes the journalist). Part of the copies was destroyed during one of the floods that hit the company's warehouse - which only added to their cult aura.
Little by little, with no repercussion in or outside of Recife, the rock movement initiated in the 70s lost its punch - Lenine, who debuted with the group Flor de Cactus, was one of its last sighs. The 80s were a lost decade, but some bands, mainly heavy metal and punk rock ones, resisted in the town. Within that scene, information (albums, books, videos) was being spread more easily, yielding the emergence of the mangue beat bands Chico Science & Nação Zumbi and mundo livre s/a. "That was the first 90s rock generation that related to computers. And it was a bright group, they would read a lot", claims José Teles. With his idea of mixing the funk (which he would dance to since childhood) with maracatu (which his parents enjoyed), Chico ended up as the shaper, together with Nação Zumbi, of the innovative sounds of the mangue (pronounced mun-guee; means mangrove swamp). "It has nothing to do with tropicalism", the journalist defends. "The guys in Bahia used to make music the same way as someone makes a patchwork quilt. The mangue beat is a new kind of music".
With national and international feedback starting in 1996 (with tours around Europe and a historic concert at the Central Park, in New York City), Chico, Nação and the mangue definitely placed Recife on the map of Brazilian music - that is, in spite of very little radio exposition. "Every week there is someone arriving in Recife, coming from America, willing to write a thesis on mangue. They will come to learn how to play. Chico has been turned into a myth, he's our Bob Marley. He was the most brainy, and yet, the most popular", Teles defines. Thanks to the mangue (and specially to Chico's spreading the word) traditional folk artists from Pernambuco, like Lia de Itamaracá, Selma do Coco and Mestre Salustiano were able to make their albums in the past few years. "Those people only gained visibility with the mangue beat", claims Teles. Today, with many names established in the market (Otto, former percussionist for mundo livre, is now the darling of the new Brazilian music) and big festivals (like Abril Pro Rock and Rec Beat), the town houses the fourth generation of mangue bands, according to the journalist. Even an anarchic movement has emerged recently, the Molusco Lama (Clam Mud), represented by the band Limpeza Pajé, who recorded interventions upon the tapes of a Manu Chao show in Recife. They have put it out in the album Bom Negócio.