Raymundo Sodré
Matrix Page
Curation & Recommendations...of and for musicians, writers, academics, painters, choreographers, filmmakers, theater directors, sound and set designers, chefs...
CURATION
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from this page:
by Title Holder
Network Node
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Name:
Raymundo Sodré
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City/Place:
Salvador, Bahia
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Country:
Brazil
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Hometown:
Ipirá, Bahia
Life & Work
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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.
Matrix Music Player
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A Massa - Raymundo Sodré
13 tracks
60,356 plays |
13,692 views
Pathways and crossroads uncoiling from the sprawling cultural matrix of Terra Brasilis: Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian...
Laroyê!
...conceived in a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the slums of Kingston to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...
...together with Raymundo Sodré of the backlands of Bahia who, while in conversation in consideration of the sequence above, opined for the ages: "Where there's misery there's music!" Thus A Massa, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile by the dictatorship. And thus the Matrix.
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze: manager, Kamasi Washington
🔗connections from Kamasi include ↓
Susan Rogers
"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
🔗connections from Susan include ↓
Randy Brecker
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
🔗connections from Randy include ↓
Herbie Hancock
🔗connections from Herbie include ↓
Alfredo Rodrigues
🔗connections from Alfredo include ↓
Munir Hossn
🔗connections from Munir include ↓
Roberto Mendes
🔗connections from Roberto include ↓
Maria Bethânia
🔗connections from Maria include ↓
J. Velloso
🔗connections from J. include ↓
João do Boi ↓
The Matrix is a small world network wherein all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of fame or location.
Wolfram MathWorld on the Small World Phenomenon
Matemática Wolfram sobre o Fenômeno do Mundo Pequeno
And while the Matrix's utilization of small world gravity is unprecedented, small world networks are all around us, even inside us: our brains contain small world networks. Humanity itself is a small world network wherein over 8 billion human beings average 6 or fewer steps between any two given people, anywhere. Those steps are seldom all transitable though. In the Matrix they are. In a small world great things are possible.
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd-Webber: UK's premier cellist; brother of Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad: Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals: World's premier klezmer violinist
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome: Salvador da Bahia (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
Recommend somebody and you will appear on that person's page. Somebody recommends you and they will appear on your page.
Both pulled by the inexorable mathematical gravity of the small world phenomenon to within range of everybody inside.
And by logical extension, to within range of all humanity outside as well.
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 founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
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