Bio:
Beyond beaches and carnival and tragedies urban and ecological, Brazil contains an Incandescent Country analogous in many ways to the Mississippi Delta and Deep South. This is the Brazilian Nordeste (Northeast), a place unique in the world, into which entered through the great Baía de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints) more enslaved human beings than any other port-of-call throughout the history of mankind. From coastal rainforest into a harsh interior humanity bled into a hot cauldron of Indigenous and Sephardic peoples likewise running from destruction.
And in astounding irony amidst this suffering, music was born: the primordial samba — chula — which journeyed south to Rio de Janeiro to evolve into the national music of Brazil; hinterland manifestations danced in pairs upon pounded earth by the light of lanterns and the moon (“chula” is a Portuguese-language word meaning something of no value, now transmuted into a term of pride).
No time machine is necessary to hear this abiding art. It’s still out there. People who were raised in it, before the arrival of electricity, radio and records, still live. Paramount among these is Raymundo Sodré, yanked from poverty to national fame in Brazil: a major label deal, a huge hit blasting from every radio from the Amazonian jungle to the urban jungles of Rio and São Paulo. The hit in question was Sodré’s defense of the “little” people, the powerless, Sodré’s people. During the dictatorship Sodré stood up to one of the most powerful men in government and his career was destroyed for it. He fled the country to avoid death. He returned nine years later.
Luiz Gonzaga, Jackson do Pandeiro, Raymundo Sodré. Sodré is last in a great triumvirate of masters of the moving music of the Nordeste’s hardscrabble backlands...
Music which is a powerful, passionate distillation of the genius of a multi-stranded culture born in strife and struggle, in a little-known and less understood part of Brazil. Music to lift souls suffering by (dis)virtue of the evil that men do.
Music that the entire world could use right now.
PORTUGUÊS
Além das praias, do carnaval e das tragédias urbanas e ecológicas, o Brasil contém um País Incandescente, análogo em muitos aspectos ao Delta do Mississippi e ao Deep South. Esse é o Nordeste brasileiro, um lugar único no mundo, no qual entraram pela grande Baía de Todos os Santos mais seres humanos escravizados do que em qualquer outro porto de escala ao longo da história da humanidade. Da floresta tropical costeira para um interior inóspito humanidade sangrou em um caldeirão quente de povos indígenas e sefarditas também fugindo da destruição.
E numa ironia surpreendente em meio a esse sofrimento nasceu música: o samba primordial — chula — que viajou para o sul até o Rio de Janeiro para evoluir para a música nacional do Brasil; manifestações sertanejas dançadas em pares sobre a terra batida à luz de lanternas e da lua ("chula" é uma palavra da língua portuguesa que significa algo sem valor, agora transmutada em um termo de orgulho).
Não é necessário uma máquina do tempo para ouvir essa arte duradoura. Ela ainda está por aí. Pessoas que foram criadas nela, antes da chegada da eletricidade, do rádio e dos discos, ainda vivem. Entre elas, destaca-se Raymundo Sodré, arrancado da pobreza para a fama nacional no Brasil: um contrato com uma grande gravadora, um grande sucesso estourando em todas as rádios desde a selva amazônica até as selvas urbanas do Rio e de São Paulo. O hit em questão era a defesa de Sodré das pessoas "pequenas", os sem poder, o povo de Sodré. Durante a ditadura Sodré enfrentou um dos homens mais poderosos do governo e sua carreira foi destruída por isso. Ele fugiu do país para evitar a morte. Voltou nove anos depois.
Luiz Gonzaga, Jackson do Pandeiro, Raymundo Sodré. Sodré é o último de um grande triunvirato de mestres da música comovente do sertão nordestino...
Música que é uma destilação poderosa e apaixonada do gênio de uma cultura multifacetada nascida em conflitos e lutas, em uma parte pouco conhecida e menos compreendida do Brasil. Música para elevar as almas que sofrem pela (des)virtude do mal que os homens fazem.
Música que o mundo inteiro poderia usar neste momento.
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).