Ponderosa Stomp-The film

Bricolagem

1. Tá Falado - Orquestra Contemporânea de Olinda

A terrific new band from Olinda, Pernambuco, Brazil. They have a full brass section and listen to lots of Afro-pop.

2. Eternamente - Walter Franco

Walter Franco was not a Tropicalista, but his output from the early 1970s fits with the kinds of experimentation the tropicalistas were doing.

3. Vale do Jucá - Siba e a fuloresta do samba

This is a ciranda, a round dance that resembles the jewish wedding standard the hora. Most cirandas are more lightweight, not haunting like this one.

4. Cachaça - Songo

This is a Pernambucan band doing a carimbó, a dance style from the delta of the Amazon. This carimbó demands that the listener stop worrying and start drinking cachaça, assuring that it’s okay, no one will get drunk, really.

5. Roendo as unhas - Paulinho da Viola

This is an atypical samba by Paulinho da Viola, who is known as a somewhat traditionalist sambista who has been playing classy, bossa-inflected sambas since the 1960s.

My samba doesn't care that I'm alone
Walking, gnawing my nails at dawn

My samba doesn't care if I don't pull off a rhyme
If I pick up my guitar, it falls out of tune

My samba doesn't care if I don't have love
If I give my heart away like this, indiscriminately

My samba doesn't care if I disappear
If I disappear, If I disappear, If
If I tell a lie, and don't repent

6. Mã - Tom Zé

I don't know any other sambas that harbor such dread and paranoid adrenaline, especially when the refrain "Nice baptism. Put the baby in the water. Nice baptism" comes in. It makes me think of a parade that has gone wrong and gotten tense.

7. Cobrinha - Tiné

This is as close as you can get to counterpoint in a samba. I think it has a little Cuban charanga influence in it. Tiné is from Arcoverde, a small town far from the beach, in the arid interior of Pernambuco.

The lyrics, as far as I understand them, are about a poker game that gets violent. The verse reviews how you can tell the difference between a venomous snake and a harmless fake. The chorus chronicles the knife fight (after one of the players is determined to be a real threat).

8. Cuidado com a outra - Nelson Cavaquinho

I'm going to open the door
One more time
You can come in
It's mother's day
So I've decided to forgive you

9. Hulla-hulla - Rita Lee

This is from Rita Lee, lead singer of Os Mutantes from her 1970 solo record Build Up. The Lee in Rita Lee comes from General Lee--Rita was from one of many families of southerners who moved to Brazil after the confederacy fell.

I'm going to an island
Somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean
There, one day, strange foreign beings descended
And modified all of the nature present in the area

Hulla-Hulla, let's go there
Coca-cola in a coconut will do
Hulla-Hulla, let's dance
With the beautiful people from there

There, the rubber trees grow even higher
And produce a flavorful gum that the young people chew
To the rhythm of the new dance
That the strange beings taught them

Chewing gum, let's chew
Hulla-Rock, let's dance
It's fun to sway
With the beautiful people from there

And thanks to the strange beings
Fruit now grows as ice cream
And the amazing birds that brought them
Transport the people in their bellies
And from their windows one can contemplate all of paradise

Boeing-Boeing, let's fly
Up above, let's look
Everyone will put on a play for us
But we will return

Hulla-Hulla, let's go there
Coca-cola in a coconut will do
Hulla-Hulla, let's dance
With the beautiful people from there

10. Homem da gravata florida - Jorge Ben

This is from the period in Jorge Ben's career when he was really into writing songs about alchemy. This one isn't about that, though. Instead, for some random reason, it is praising a guy who has a really loud floral tie.

There goes the man with the floral tie
My God in heaven! What a beautiful tie!
What a sensational tie
Look at the details of this tie
What a combination of colors
What tropical perfection
What a beautiful rose
Turquoise unfolding
Over cloves
And the daisies, the daisies
Lovely with jasmin
This is not just a tie
This tie is an essay
On the harmony of beautiful things
It's a hanging garden
Around the neck
Of a nice, happy man
Happy, happy, because with that tie
Even an ugly man becomes a prince
Nice, nice, nice
Because with that tie
He is expected and well received
He is adored anywhere
Wherever he passes, flowers and loves are born
With a sweet floral tie
Like this, life is beautiful to live.
Even me, even me, even me.

11. Jorge de capadócia - Caetano Veloso (song by Jorge Ben)

I am wearing the clothes and armor of St. George
So that my enemies have feet, and can't reach me
So that my enemies have hands, and can't touch me
So that my enemies have eyes, and can't see me
And they won't even be able to have thoughts that will do me any harm
Firearms won't reach my body
Knives and swords will break without even touching me
Ropes will break, without tying me up
Because I am wearing the clothes and armor of St. George
George is from Capadócia
Long live George!

12. Pirâmides - Walter Franco

13. Ai que saudade dessa nega - Ed Lincoln

Oh, how I miss that girl.

14. Ciranda enrustida - Acadêmia da Berlinda

Acadêmia da Berlinda has a history a lot like Grupo Fantasma had in Austin, Texas. In both cases, musicians with other projects came together to get drunk and make people dance. The other parallel is that much of Academia's stuff is a Pernambucan take on the cumbia. There are members of the Orquestra Contemporânea de Olinda in the band, as well as the drummer of the Nação Zumbi.

15. Que beleza - Tim Maia

This tune was recorded in 1976 by Tim Maia during the six months that he was in the "Racional" cult. At that time, he was at his peak vocally, but all the lyrics are about the importance of reading a book called "Universe in Disenchantment." He and his family disavowed the record for decades until just recently, so it became a favorite for crate-digging Brazilians and visitors. Lots and lots of Brazilian hip-hop tracks have samples from this record.

16. Adeus Maria fulô - Os Mutantes

Os Mutantes doing a classic late 1940s baião by Luis Gonzaga.

17. A chegada de Zé do Né na Lagoa de Dentro - Cordel do Fogo Encantado

"The Arrival of Zé do Né to the inner lagoon." Zé do Né is a cowherder, who sings "aboio" cowherding songs. Oooo nostalgia, he sings. For the longest time, I thought that inner lagoon was an imagined place, but found out recently that it is actually on the map, and that the aboio sample was recorded there.

18. 12 linhas - Siba e a fuloresta do samba

In every head, a world
Every life, a manuscript
Every idea, a reading
Every chapter, a story
For every page of glory
Has a stain that invades
For every voice of truth
Another says: maybe it isn't
For every mouth that kisses
There is another that prays for plague
For every hand that caresses
There is another hand that stones

In every face a tear
In every tear a sorrow
In every crime an author
Whose name is unknown
In every hit/coup suffered
Resentment is generated
In every year of waiting
A patient one tires
In every voice of vengeance
A threatening shout
And in every day that passes
There goes our hope

19. Me deixe mudo - Walter Franco

"It leaves me mute." This tune was performed at one of the early 1970s televised song festivals during the time when censorship and repression was strong. As opposed to others, like Chico Buarque, who used double meanings masterfully in their songs to try to get around the censors, Franco took a pointillist approach, his song gradually emerging from silence.

20. Aquele lugar (samba) - Seu Ismael

This is the only field recording of mine that I've included. I know, it's painfully ethnomusicological, but there was an old guy playing on his porch next to our apartment with a little amp with a blown-out speaker. His name turned out to be Seu Ismael, and he didn't mind me recording.

21. Festa no coco - Tiné w/ Coco Raízes

This is samba de coco.

Almost there

Hello all--

Don't give up on me! I'm burning the mixes right now as I type. My computer has been in the shop three times in the last five weeks, so I haven't been able to send it off yet. I'm happy with it. I gathered my favorite Brazilian songs, old and new, with a bias toward the state of Pernambuco.

Summer Mixes

I have been hooked on these all summer. Really fantastic and so much stuff I haven't heard before.

Hot Scrub 2009

Hey Folks, here is a new summer mix for you!
http://drop.io/hotscrub2009/chronological#
Texas Summer 2009

Francisco Lupica's Cosmic Beam Experience

Lose Weight The Satchmo Way!

Louis Armstrong was greatly concerned with his health and bodily functions. He made frequent use of laxatives as a means of controlling his weight, a practice he advocated both to personal acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss. He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family. (Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, advertisements for Swiss Kriss; the ads bore a picture of him sitting on a toilet — as viewed through a keyhole — with the slogan "Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'")