Submitted by Chuck Reider
This is part one of a two-part story on Brazilian music and its influence on an arrangement in Reno Jazz Orchestra’s Earth, Wind, and Fire recording project. Read more in part 2.
Let’s take a trip to Brazil by focusing on one arrangement to be featured on the Reno Jazz Orchestra’s (RJO) Earth, Wind, and Fire recording project. It is actually two Brazilian songs put together into one piece “Ponta de Areia” and “Zanzibar.”
Though EWF is world renowned for their funk and soul, they had jazz roots starting with leader Maurice White performing with jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis. White and the band have had a life-long love for Brazilian music and the songs above were featured on two different albums. First let me introduce you to Brazilian music, and then the composers.
The samba is probably the most familiar to all of us. It became popular in Brazil when in 1929 the first radio station in Rio de Janeiro introduced it to a large audience. In its early days, most samba singers were male, however the most famous samba singer was Carmen Miranda who moved to Hollywood and became a movie star.
Today the samba is an integral part of Carnaval with its driving beat and as popular today world-wide as it was in the 1930s in Brazil. A very unique Brazilian samba drum, the cuica, is a tunable “talking drum” and is named after the grey four-eyed opossum known for its high-pitched cry.
Jazz fans are familiar with the bossa nova that was made famous by Antonio Carlos Jobim in the early sixties. It is smoother and usually slower than a samba and incorporates more jazz harmonies. MPB (Musica popular brasileira) or popular Brazilian music evolved from the bossa nova in the sixties and includes artists such as Ivan Lins, Gilberto Gil, and Milton Nascimento (composer of “Ponta de Areia”).
One of the oldest Brazilian music styles is capoeira, performed as a backdrop to the sport of capoeira. The sport was developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil as a dance to disguise that they were in fact practicing fighting techniques and is now a recognized martial art.
The music is traditional, passed on orally, and invokes a connection to the spiritual world to inspire to the martial artists. It employs a uniquely Brazilian instrument the berimbau, a single string attached to a bow with a gourd at the bottom. The faster the berimbau is played the faster martial artists’ movements.
Never heard one? You are in luck because our bassist Hans Halt performs it on the intro to our Brazilian arrangement. Can’t wait? I guess you will have to Google it! I have only touched the surface of all the great Brazilian music available to us, but it is time to move on to the composers.
It’s time for a shout out to all our supporters who have made the EWF recording project possible. Thank you!!!
For more information on the Earth, Wind, and Fire recording project visit: https://www.renojazzorchestra.org/ewf/index.html
Chuck Reider is the executive director of the Reno Jazz Orchestra
