Customer Reviews

Batucada Brazileira

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It's revealing why there's no group listed as the artist for these tracks and why the tracks have no names -- my belief is that it was recorded by amateurs who had practiced very little and they used few musicians. That's why it's anonymous. Instead of this CD, buy anything recorded by Mocidade Independente, a true professional, world class samba school, arguably the best bateria in Rio, such as Mocidade's CD, "Batucada Brasiliera," the 2 CD version, found elsewhere here at Amazon.

It is true, this is not batucada like Mocidade. I wouldn't say I love this CD. The nice thing is it is more improvisational and has fewer instruments. It is more like what you would play in a small group improvisational setting. I disagree that the musicians are amateurs, they are quite good. The mocidade folks rock, but they are usually playing arranged pieces. You can't have 10 tamborims all improvising differently and have it sound good. Improvising figures based on rhythmic ideas is not a trival task and you won't learn it listening to mocidade. This cd was given to me by the director of the samba group I play in and for that it has been a great source of ideas. I recommend it highly for that. There are not so many easily available recordings of batucada style samba in the US so sometimes you use what you can get.