João do Boi via Matrix

The Birth of the Matrix →

No princípio...

Imagine uma rede em que, por alguma mágica fantástica, todos dentro tenderiam a poucos passos detectáveis de todos os outros... na rede e no planeta...

Imagine uma rede que seria mais sobre pessoas que você não conhece do que sobre pessoas que você conhece. E ainda mais importante: sobre pessoas que não o conhecem, mas cujas vidas seriam enriquecidas se o conhecessem...

Imagine uma rede que incluiria todos na economia criativa global da humanidade...

Você está imaginando O Matrix (Rede Online)!

Esse Matrix baiano foi fundado (com afeto!) numa questão fundamental: Como é possível fazer com que os músicos mais importantes historicamente do Brasil sejam descobertos por pessoas que vivem em qualquer lugar da Terra?

A resposta foi incluí-los num matrix no sentido original da palavra: “fonte”, de “mater”, latim para “mãe”...

...um matrix que também incluiria membros da economia criativa de todo o mundo: escritores e jornalistas, pintores, cineastas, coreógrafos, programadores de computador, designers de som e cenografia, designers de moda, matemáticos…

Por este meio, podemos pessoalmente alcançar profundamente a realidade da economia criativa global que está realmente lá fora: Roberto Mendes de Santo Amaro pode recomendar João do Boi de São Braz. Munir Hossn de Salvador, mas agora morando em Paris, pode recomendar Roberto Mendes. Alfredo Rodriguez de Havana, mas agora morando em Nova York, pode recomendar Munir Hossn. E Quincy Jones de Los Angeles pode recomendar Alfredo Rodriguez. Quem conhece Quincy Jones agora pode descobrir João do Boi (entre os músicos absolutamente mais fundamentais do Brasil) em apenas quatro passos.

Este não é um exemplo isolado. Caminhos curtos de apenas alguns passos entre pessoas criativas amplamente díspares são universais em todo o Matrix. Tal é o fantástico poder matemático do fenômeno do pequeno mundo, o fenômeno responsável pelos "seis graus de separação", unindo a maioria dos seres humanos à maioria dos outros em cerca de seis passos. Essa é a superpotência do Matrix baiano.

O Matrix baiano está aberta a todos da economia criativa global. Foi construído numa loja de discos no Centro Histórico de Salvador por um americano que trabalhou anteriormente em Nova York recuperando royalties não pagos para artistas como Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam), Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto, o primeiro produtor de Bob Marley, Clement Dodd, o mestre de jazz Jim Hall e outros.

Agora o projeto é mostrar ao mundo o que é que a Bahia tem. Ao permitir que todos na economia criativa global também podem estender a mão ao redor do mundo e mostram ao mundo o que é que eles têm.

O Matrix é capaz de atingir profundamente... esta é a vila de São Braz, no Recôncavo baiano, criada por escravizados que escaparam para uma liberdade marginal...

In the beginning...

Imagine a network wherein by some fantastic magic everybody within would tend to within scant, discoverable steps of everybody else... in the network, and on the planet...

Imagine a network that would be more about people you don't know than people you do know. And even more importantly: about people who don't know you but whose lives would be enriched if they did...

Imagine a network which would include all in humanity's global creative economy...

You are imagining The Matrix (Online Network)!

This Bahian Matrix was founded (with love!) on a fundamental question: How is it possible to make Brazil’s most historically important musicians discoverable by people living anywhere around the Earth?

The answer was to include them in a matrix in the original sense of the word: “source”, from “mater”, Latin for “mother”...

...a matrix which would also include members of the creative economy from everywhere else: writers and journalists, painters, filmmakers, choreographers, computer programmers, sound and set designers, fashion designers, mathematicians…

By this means we can personally reach deeply into the reality of the global creative economy that is really out there: Roberto Mendes of Santo Amaro can recommend João do Boi of São Braz. Munir Hossn of Salvador but now living in Paris can recommend Roberto Mendes. Alfredo Rodriguez of Havana but now living in New York City can recommend Munir Hossn. And Quincy Jones of Los Angeles can recommend Alfredo Rodriguez. Anybody who knows Quincy Jones can now discover João do Boi (top photo; "John of the Ox" in English, the vastly important Son House of Brazil) in just four steps.

This is not an isolated example. Short pathways of just a few steps between widely disparate creative people are universal throughout the Matrix. Such is the fantastic mathematical power of the small world phenomenon, the phenomenon responsible for “six degrees of separation”, joining most human beings to most others within some six or so steps. This is the Bahian Matrix’s superpower.

The Bahian Matrix is open to all in the global creative economy. It was built in a record shop in Salvador’s Centro Histórico by an American who formerly worked in New York city retrieving unpaid royalties for artists including Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam), Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto, Bob Marley’s first producer Clement Dodd, jazz great Jim Hall and others.

Now the project is to show the world o que é que a Bahia tem (what it is that Bahia has). By letting everybody in the global creative economy likewise reach out across the planet to connect as they wish and show the world what it is that they have too.

The Matrix is capable of reaching deeply...this is João's village of São Braz, in the Bahian Recôncavo, created by enslaved who'd escaped to a marginal freedom...

ALL IS CLOSER THAN WE IMAGINE
(Imagine João do Boi) I RECOMMEND
You can recommend João do Boi from below when logged in ←

CURATION

from this node by: Criador acima/Creator above

This is the Universe of

Name: João do Boi
City/Place: São Braz, Bahia
Country: Brazil

Life & Work

Bio: Samba-chula (or samba-de-roda, there is a slight difference) is a seminal but dying art played nowadays by a mere handful of people. The music fulfilled a role analogous to that of the delta blues in the United States in that it was/is the root foundation for most everything which came after it in Brazil's musical world, from the golden age of radio to bossa nova to tropicália to Brazilian hip hop. And ironically and in total contradiction to the situation of the blues, this cornerstone of culture now finds itself precariously close to disappearing forever (although those last legs certainly do have some life left in them!).

"Chula" is a Portuguese-language word denoting something worthless, of no value. It was applied by the masters to the music of the Bantus on the sugarcane plantations of the Bahian Recôncavo, coming to be innocently used by the slaves themselves and eventually metamorphosing into a term of pride. The rhythmic basis for samba-chula is that of the candomblé rhythm called cabila, or cabula, utilized in candomblé angola (candomblé is the West African religion transplanted to Brazil aboard the negreiros; candomblé angola was the first of the three candomblé nations to arrive on Brazilian soil). Laced into the polyrhythms of the atabaques, pandeiros, and rebôlo are the patterns of the cavaquinho (a small, high-pitched string instrument), the viola (a double-strung guitar-like instrument, though smaller), and the violão (guitar); (specific instrumentation varies from group to group). The dancing style -- precursor to the more ostentatious style of Rio de Janeiro -- echoes that of candomblé angola ceremonies.

Towards the end of the 19th century there was a huge outpouring of freed Bahian slaves moving to Rio, looking for work. These people carried their music with them to the territory around another great bay (Guanabara), where their descendents, forced up into the morros (hills) would come to see this heritage rise from its lowly-esteemed position to proudly assume the mantle of the National Music of Brazil. But not all freed slaves would make the journey south, and in Bahia the primordial samba, samba-chula, would live on, sublimating away over the course of a century-and-some-decades like vapor from dry ice until now almost nothing is left behind.

Of the few people left in the backwaters of Bahia who continue to sing and play this essential music (having learned it from their parents, who learned it from their parents, who learned it from...), it can be safely stated that none express it with more vitality and charisma than the Saturno Brothers, João and Antônio, popularly known as João do Boi (John of the Ox, for the cows he keeps) and Alumínio (Aluminum, for the way he shone, literally, as an energetic, sweat-drenched kid on the football fields of his youth).

The brothers play together with friends and family from the small community of São Braz, located some 5 kilometers outside of Santo Amaro, itself located at the north end of the Baía de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints), the huge bay "discovered" by Amerigo Vespucci on All Saints Day in 1501 (Santo Amaro is hometown to Caetano Veloso and his sister Maria Bethânia).

(Alumínio is now with God)

It'd be great to board a time-machine and pay a visit to 1930s Louisiana or Mississippi or Alabama, stepping up to a front porch on a humid summer's evening to clap hands to the rural American version of the above. But alas that time is gone and the time-machine is only a wistful figment of our imagination. Things have "progressed" more slowly here, but soon enough one will never be able to see or hear again what now requires but a journey into the Bahian interior to bear witness (or dance) to, if one knows where to go, and on what night...

Clips (more may be added)

3:29
João do Boi in the Quilombo of São Braz, Bahia
By João do Boi

602 views

Do you recommend João do Boi?

Imagine the world's creative economy at your fingertips. Imagine 10 doors side-by-side. Beyond each, 10 more, each opening to a "creative" somewhere around the planet. After passing through 8 such doorways you will have followed 1 pathway out of 100 million possible (2 sets of doorways yield 10 x 10 = 100 pathways). This is a simplified version of the metamathematics that makes it possible to reach anybody in the global creative economy in just a few steps. It doesn't mean that everybody will be reached by everybody. It does mean that everybody can be reached by everybody.