Location & Map:
R. Treze de Maio, 32 - Cachoeira, BA, 44300-000 [open map]
Life & Work
Bio:
A Festa da Boa Morte é baseada na data da festa católica da Assunção (a ascensão da Virgem Maria ao Céu), mas o que a torna tão marcante é menos o motivo da festa e mais quem está participando dela.
Isso seria a Irmandade da Boa Morte, uma sociedade laica fundada por membros da mais baixa casta social da sociedade baiana do século XIX, mulheres idosas escravizadas, mulheres que se uniram para ajudar umas às outras na vida e na morte em uma irmandade que continua até hoje.
Quem disse "Idade antes da beleza" obviamente nunca esteve em Cachoeira no meio de agosto.
Primeiro Dia
19:00 - Missa na capela da irmandade, em homenagem às irmãs falecidas.
20:00 - Uma procissão saindo da capela da irmandade e percorrendo as ruas de Cachoeira.
21:00 - A Ceia Branca, ou seja, alimentos sem dendê, para as irmãs e convidados. Vestimentas brancas são usadas.
Segundo Dia
19:00 - Missa na capela da irmandade.
20:00 - Uma procissão pelas ruas de Cachoeira, acompanhada por músicos das filarmônicas da cidade.
Terceiro Dia
05:00 - Alvorada com fogos de artifício.
09:00 - Uma reunião augusta das irmãs em sua sede com o governador da Bahia, ministros, secretários e outros de sua estirpe.
Quarto Dia
20:00 - Distribuição de cozido (um jantar cozido de legumes e carnes variados) e depois, samba-de-roda.
Quinto Dia
20:00 - Cerimônias de encerramento, com caruru (uma refeição elaborada em torno de um prato feito com quiabo) e depois, samba-de-roda!
English:
The Festa da Boa Morte is based in and around the date of the Catholic feast of the Assumption (the rise of the Virgin Mary into Heaven), but what makes it resonate so is less the festa’s motive and more who is doing the feasting.
That would be the Irmandade da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of the Good Death), a lay society founded by members of 19th century Bahian society’s lowest social caste, elderly slave women, women who bonded together to help provide for each other in life and in death in a sisterhood which continues to this day.
Whoever said “Age before beauty” had obviously never been to Cachoeira in mid-August.
First Day
7:00 p.m. – Mass in the sisterhood’s chapel, in honor of departed sisters.
8:00 p.m. – A procession leaving the sisterhood’s chapel and weaving through the streets of Cachoeira.
9:00 p.m. – The Ceia Branca (White Dinner, that is, foodstuffs without dendé, palm oil), for the sisters and invited guests. White clothing is worn.
Second Day
7:00 p.m. – Mass in the sisterhood’s chapel.
8:00 p.m. – A procession through the streets of Cachoeira, accompanied by musicians from the city’s filarmônicas.
Third Day
5:00 a.m. – A dawn calling (alvorada) with fireworks.
9:00 a.m. – An august meeting of the sisters in their headquarters with Bahia’s governor, ministers, secretaries, and others of their ilk.
Fourth Day
8:00 p.m. – Distribution of cozido (a boiled dinner of assorted vegetables and meats) and after, samba-de-roda.
Fifth Day
8:00 p.m. – Closing ceremonies, with caruru (a meal built around a dish made with okra) and after, samba-de-roda!
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
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 MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).