Elza Soares
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Elza Soares globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Title Holder
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Elza Soares
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City/Place:
Rio de Janeiro
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Country:
Brazil
Current News
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What's Up?
Pra falar sobre qualquer coisa relacionada a Elza, precisamos ser superlativos. Porque Elza é superlativa. Qualquer elogio à ela ainda será pouco pro tanto que ela trouxe, traz e trará para a música e a cultura brasileira.
A cada trabalho ela se reinventa e traz luz a assuntos da nossa atualidade. Elza ferve a sociedade através de sua voz potente e através de suas escolhas que sempre me surpreendem.
E não é diferente nesse trabalho.
A primeira pergunta que me fiz foi: Por que “Planeta Fome”?
Uma história que Elza sempre conta, que biógrafos e historiadores sempre trazem à tona como representação do primeiro momento de posicionamento dela diante do público.
Por que voltar a essa história agora como título do disco?
Comecei a ouvir com essa pergunta e já na primeira faixa recebi uma pista.
A sua fome de reinvenção permanece lá.
A sua fome de manter-se relevante continua lá, cantando todas as suas indignações, fazendo com que sua música seja um eterno grito com a voz rouca que vai nos encantando, dizendo ao Brasil: “Tome mais, eu tenho sempre mais pra te dar”.
Depois de “Deus é Mulher”, a grande pergunta é: Como Elza vai fazer um trabalho que tenha um impacto tão grande? E esse tem.
Ela canta o hoje, as indignação do hoje.
Ela subverte a lógica de que existe um caminho seguro para o artista. Mais uma vez ela se reinventa. Elza dialoga com a música de hoje e ao mesmo tempo, mantém toda a potência de sua história.
Na segunda música, eu já estava sem fôlego.
E cada participação é uma escolha consciente sobre quem ela quer andar de mãos dadas, Virgínia Rodrigues, Russo Passapusso e seus versos desconcertantes, Rafael Mike que compôs e canta com Elza uma música que revisita a sua obra e traz um novo sentido pra dita “ carne mais barata" e ainda tem B negão, orquestra Rumpilez e Pedro Loureiro que mostram que Elza sabe o que faz.
Entre agogôs e guitarras, Elza vai cantando tudo o que deseja e tudo o que tem fome.
Fome de amor, de justiça, de força.
E assim ela faz mais uma obra prima sobre o hoje, que tem sido sua grande meta conquistada com maestria.
E dessa forma o álbum segue inteiro, deixando a gente sem surpreso a cada faixa que em conjunto completam uma viagem sobre o Brasil de hoje ou talvez de ontem e que ela canta para que tenhamos um outro amanhã.
Um disco pra ser escutado e ré escutado. Dona Elza canta e agente escuta.
Não disse que era impossível não ser superlativo?
Só faltou dizer algo que já é evidente: corajosa e inspiradora.
- Lázaro Ramos
Life & Work
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Bio:
A grande diva da MPB, a carioca Elza Soares, nascida e criada em uma favela, filha de lavadeira, casou-se aos 12 anos e aos 13 já era mãe. Por essa época participou do programa do Ary Barroso e ganhou a nota máxima.
No final da década de 50 foi em turnê com Mercedes Batista para Argentina, onde passou um ano.
Seu primeiro sucesso veio com o compacto “Se Acaso Você Chegasse” (Lupicínio Rodrigues), onde introduziram um scat a lá Louis Armstrong, injetando uma jazzficação no samba divergente da bossa nova.
Em seguida mudou-se para São Paulo, onde passou a se apresentar em diversas casas de espetáculos, fazendo sucesso com sua voz rouca e marcante.
Depois de gravar seu segundo disco, “Bossa Negra”, viajou para o Chile em 1962 como representante do Brasil na copa do mundo. Foi então que conheceu o jogador Mané Garrincha, seu segundo marido.
Com seu estilo despachado, exagerado, conquistou platéias no Brasil e no mundo, passando temporadas nos EUA e Europa.
Considerada uma eterna vanguardista, Elza Soares tem o dom de inovar tudo que canta. Ousada, atemporal, ela sempre abriu espaço para diversas tendências artísticas.
Admirada por artistas como Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Lobão, Cazuza entre outros, Elza se encontra em um momento muito especial da sua carreira, pois está envolvida em um belíssimo projeto denominado "A Mulher do Fim do Mundo", sob produção musical de Guilherme Kastrup, que uniu a cena musical da vanguarda paulista à voz da cantora.
Enfim, Elza Soares continua com agenda cheia, e com uma vitalidade sobrenatural para seguir com sua respeitada carreira.
Clips (more may be added)
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics — there’s no other place like it in the world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (and here; the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet, and in the past it extended into what is now urban Salvador), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Ex Terra Brasilis
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX