Customer Reviews

Brazil Classics 2: O Samba

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

... [A]s with each album in this series, "O Samba" is
probably the best introduction/sampler to Samba you can find on the
market. Samba is a very complicated and intricate genre, with many
sub-categories and can describe anything from what we think of as
Bossa Nova to the "Samba Enredo" of the "Escolas de
Samba" that parade and compete during Carnaval, incorporating
thousands of dancers, singers and musicians.

This disc features some
big names in Samba such as Clara Nunes, Beth Carvalho, Alcione, and
Martinho da Vila. The compilers of this album knew exactly what they
were doing when they selected both the artists and the material.
Although it features different styles of samba, the songs are well
arranged and make for an excellent mix (good to set a mood at
parties).

My recommendation is to buy this album, using it as a
guide if you want to explore further. Anything that you can buy from
Clara Nunes will be great, I have about 10 albums from her and love
all of them. Unfortunately she died in 1984, so her music couldn't be
ruined with cheezy synthesizers (while I think synthesizers can be
used to great effect, on their own merits, they are terrible when used
to replace string sections, vocals or any other instruments and have
no place in samba). The newer albums available from Martinho Da Vila
are still good as well, though I have to warn you that at some point
Alcione became completely wretched and started making what I can only
call "Brazilian slow jams" that sound like they were
produced by Babyface or Kashif. If you like that kind of thing, then
by all means feel free, I'm just posting a warning for the people with
taste. Because of this, I'm afraid to buy newer albums by Beth
Carvalho, but I can attest to any older ones you come across being
top-rate. Feel free to email me for recommendations -
ze_povinho@hotmail.com

As a child, I had many of these songs on cassette, and after nearly 20 years of playing it over and over again, it was starting to deteriorate and I seemed to be unsuccessful at finding any album that had all these great, classic pagode songs on them. But luckily, I accidentally ran into this CD and decided to check it out. To my pleasant suprise it had everything I could have ever wanted in a Samba CD. Keep in mind, there are different forms of Samba. This one being Pagode style. So this is not Carnaval style samba. Pagode is a style that was made popular in the 70's by artists such as Beth Carvalho. Pagode is basically a word for "back yard samba party", because it is played informally at parties and neighborhood gatherings. The singer is accompanied by a smaller band and the batteria (drums) are not prescent the way they are in Carnaval samba music. Aside from Beth Carvalho (my personal favorite!), other great pagode artists (who also appear on this album as well) are, Zeca Pagodinho, Martinho da Vila, Alcione, and Clara Nunes. Be sure to check out "batuca no chao", "S.P.C", "sufoco" and "o encanto do gantois". They are classics!

This is the 2nd in a collection of Brazilian compilations brought to us, the North American audience, by David Byrne. I am so glad that I am one of the many who have taken an interest in this series! There is a wonderful cross section of sounds taken from the favelas (barrios or poor neighborhoods) of Rio de Janeiro and other parts of Brazil.

Perhaps one of the most well known genres of Brazilian music is the samba, but few people know there is so much more to the repertoire of Brazilian music than just that. There is the pagode and also the ballads, of course (the fado as an example--which is common in the Azores and in Portugal). Some of the most danceable music is played as a form of worship to the orixas (or patron gods and goddesses in Brazilian santeria worship).

The songs range from "A Deusa Dos Orixas" and "Ijexa (Filhos de Gandhy)" by Clara Nunes (a beautiful singer taken before her time, due to a botched varicose vein operation in the early 1980s), to "Formosa," a lively samba by Ciro Monteiro.

This is a wonderfully rich and educational journey through the backroads of Brazil that some people completely bypass when they consider the music from that part of the world.

Only two or three really make the grade, and those come in at 4 out of 5 at best. The real source for great sambas of the same sound/period is from a different anthology: "Brasil: a Century of Song: Volume 1 = Carnaval". The majority of these are at least 4 stars, and quite a few clock in at 5. The other three volumes in the series ['Folk & Traditional', 'Bossa Nova Era' and 'MPB - Musica Popular Brasileira'] are just as good!

Problem is [when you're searching for this type of music] is that Brasilians spell the name of their country "Brasil" not "Brazil", and Amazon's search engine doesn't bridge the gap. You type in "Brazil", you're going to miss a lot of good CD's.

All in all, 'Brazil Classics' volumes 1 & 2 are more or less tepid . . . though volume 3 ('Forro, etc.') really takes off running and never stops. That one's definitely 5 stars, pretty much all the way through.

la seleccion de sambas de este cd, si bien despareja en cuanto a temas e interpretes es una buena guia de introduccion a este genero musical. Se pueden oir variadas composiciones e interpretes y a partir de ella profundizar en este vasto ritmo musical brasilero. Para aquellos que desean una introduccion , no para los que ya conocen algo mas de esta musica