Brazil goes to Dalston

At the beginning of last week I made a flying visit to London for the Violeiros do Brasil gig that I wrote about in my last posting. Dalston seems an unlikely venue for such an event but the Café Oto in Ashwin Street came as a pleasant surprise. It was large enough to accomodate the audience, had reasonable acoustics and sold bottles of wine at affordable prices. What more could a person want? On top of that I had arranged to meet up with my old mate Nobby (who will be known to readers of this blog as Dendron the Roadie, long suffering road manager to The Jugular Vein back in the '60's). Accompanying him was his long time partner Chrissie  who is a jazz journalist, and I was very interested in how they would respond to the evening's music

The proceedings kicked off with the showing of excerpts from Myriam Taubkin and Sérgio Roizenblit's documentary film - Violeiros do Brasil, which Myriam herself introduced. I was already acquainted with this excellent movie as I own it on DVD, but it helped introduce an unfamiliar audience to the instrument - the viola or ten string guitar - and the two artists that were performing that night, Ivan Vilela and Pereira da Viola. (I thoroughly recommend that you buy or rent this DVD. As well as some great music it contains some wonderful scenes of the Brazilian landscape which will give you a much better sense of the country than endless images of Rio de Janeiro - however fascinating Rio might be, it's not all there is to Brazil.)

First on to the stage was Ivan Vilela, whose modest demeanour belies his sublime musicianship. His set included material from a number of Brazilian composers including Edu Lobo, as well as some of his own compositions and a surprising but exquisite 'Eleanor Rigby'.

He was followed by Pereira Da Viola who sang as well as played, and whose material was on the whole a little less cerebral than Vilela's. But it was none the less engaging for that, and as a player he was most impressive. They came together at the end and played a few things together, much to the delight of the crowd ( which included a large number of ex-pat Brazilians) and left the stage to prolonged applause.

After the performance I was able to record a brief conversation with Myriam Taubkin, and to talk to her about herself and the project. Here is a transcription:-

Voltarol: I know from talking to your brother Benjamin that you come from a very musical family. Were you born in São Paulo?



Myriam Taubkin: Yes I was.


V: I know you from your production work and your promotional and archiving activities but did you play or sing?

MT: Yes. I was a singer when I was really young. From a child of seven, eight, nine until my thirties. I was a professional and I loved to sing – but not to be a singer. I didn’t like to be a singer as a professional career. I loved to sing, but maybe because I was a producer at the same time. I received the words of all the singers and composers when I used to work in public institutions – I had to wait for people to tell me if what I did was good. That’s not my way. I used to listen to all the criticism and take it to heart, so I chose to be a producer! And I think that in Brazil my way is different. I don’t represent anyone. I’m not an agent for anyone, including my brothers. Both of them are musicians. I don’t like to sell musicians. I like to invite them to my projects. So – this work of musical curator and musical director is a whole conception of a spectacular concert, the lighting, the clothes, entrances and exits – everything – I think about everything. You know, Benjamin presented a big concert in São Paulo last week, in a marvellous venue, with twenty musicians on the stage. And Benjamin is a marvellous musician but – how can you say – it was not finished. The presentation was not right and he invited me to do this, to produce it. There were many musicians and a narrator, so I was responsible for that conception, for everything…and this is what I love to do.


V: I understand completely. I am a musician – sort of – and I love to make music and I have played professionally, but I often think that at heart I’m more of a punter - a customer for music. So I bring this to music. I used to work in record shops and I loved introducing new stuff to people – “Have you heard this? Have you heard that?” From there I went on to run clubs and to promote concerts and festivals…


MT: To convince people to listen…

V: Exactly…so I understand exactly where you are coming from. It’s that complete involvement in music but coming at it from a different direction. Yes, I can make music but what really pleases me is to get other people to get the same joy from music that I get – which is why I now write my blog and continue to promote music. I think we are similar people in that respect.

I first noticed your name on the ‘Arranjadores’ (arrangers) CD, which was a Projeto Memória Brasileira (Brazilian Memory Project) release in 1992. Where you the founder of the project?


MT: Yes, I founded it. It was my concept. My first project was in 1987. It was ‘Memorias Piano Brasiliero’ - Brazilian Piano Memory – with eleven popular Brazilian pianists. This was the first one. The second one was in 1989. This was guitars. This was called ‘Violões’. ‘Arrangers’ was third. And then Violeiros do Brasil which was in 1997. So now for this documentary - ‘Violeiros do Brasil’ DVD – and for the book we have produced, we went back to the same musicians from the 1997 CD, to see how they improve, and how they live today. This was fantastic because I had the opportunity to enter into their…um…how do you say…intimidade?


V: Their private lives…?


MT: Yes. And I knew all of them very well, so I was at home and it was fantastic.


V: Yes. In the documentary it comes across that they are very comfortable talking to the camera, and it feels as if you are participating in a conversation with friends. It’s a lovely atmosphere, and every time I watch it I get big saudades* for Brazil!


MT: Ah! (Laughs) Thank you!


V: So. As I understand the project you are documenting various aspects of Brazilian music – specialist areas. I have the Arrangers, the guitars, the violas…


MT: The accordions, the percussion…


V: Ah. Well that I don’t have. I have the accordion – the Sanfona of São Paulo and,,,


MT: Rio Grande do Sul…


V: Yes…which I love. I was converted to a love of the accordion by Brazilian musicians. I used to think that hell for musicians would be full of accordions and banjos but then I heard Sivuca and…


MT: Dominguinhos?


V: Yes! And Toninho Ferragutti…and I suddenly realised that the problem is not the accordion or the banjo or the bagpipes. It is who plays it. And it is the musical soul of that person.


MT: That’s it! And you know that this project is not only to record the old people, the masters, but modern stuff also – what’s going on now. But you know the Viola - this instrument has a marvellous future because there is no instrument that is quite the same, and it came to Brazil with no rules - from one land to another. So if you are a young musician and you want to play the viola you can discover it and you can find out …a lot of new things that no one before him has done...There is nothing written down about how to play. All the other instruments have this. So this is why the viola for me is so fantastic. I’m not so preoccupied with the tradition…but the way they play now…the 21st century. This is what I feel.

V: One of the things that fascinates me about Brazilian musicians generally, is that they don’t seem to be too bothered by musical boundaries, by musical compartments. Many great players seem to move freely between folk – traditional music – and jazz and popular music. They don’t see walls, and we saw that this evening. Some of the music played was very traditional and some was very harmonically advanced, very sophisticated and yet the elements come together beautifully. You seem to see this as an aspect of the viola, but it seems to me more a function of Brazilian musicality that comes to fruition with the viola because it is an unwritten book – it is a blank sheet.


MT: You know, the classical composers in Brazil have always had a sense of traditional music so the frontier, the meeting point between classical and popular music in Brazil…there is no frontier I think. You can cross over…because the traditional music in Brazil – the Lundu, the Modinha, Samba, Coco, Maracatu – is too strong for inspiration. The roots, the musical culture is so strong that it inspires the musicians to begin here and then open up because in Brazil we are a new people, another kind of people, completely different. And I think that music expresses this.

V: Ok. One last question. In England we have a radio programme called Desert Island Discs, where you are cast away on a desert island and have to choose which eight records you would take with you. I am much crueller than that and I will only let you take one. What would it be?


MT: One? Only one?


V: Yes, one. Come on. The ship is going down. All your CDs are around you. You only have ten seconds to get out of there! Grab one! What would it be?


MT: It’s very difficult…


V: I know! That’s the whole point!


MT: I think Milton Nascimento. Clube da Esquinha.


V: That’s great Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed this evening and I’ve enjoyed our conversation.


MT: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.


*saudades: no direct English equivalent but a kind of bitter-sweet nostalgic longing

When is a viola not a viola?

In England we know the viola to be a larger kind of violin, but in Brazil the viola is a ten string guitar, with the strings in five courses of two. It is, I think, a close relative of the Portuguese guitar, but has taken on a distinctly Brazilian identity and adherents can be found all over that country. I first came across it on a CD compilation of purely instrumental music that was recommended to me in one of my favourite São Paulo CD shops – Pops Discos.

The compilation - which came out in 1995 -was called Sem Palavras (without words) and had quite a bit of material from artists that I knew as well as stuff that was new to me.

One of the latter was a track called O Ganso (The Goose), written and performed by one Almir Sater and it grabbed my attention because it was so different to what I had come to expect from Brazilian music. The only details on the CD were of the artists and composers so I was under the impression that I had been listening to a twelve-string guitar until a couple of years later when I acquired a CD called Violeros do Brasil, and there was Almir Sater playing what I now know to be the Viola. Here's a clip of him performing the piece on a Brazilian TV show in 2008




This new CD, issued in 1999 was another Núcleo Contemporâneo production which I bought purely on the strength of the label’s track record (which I have written about before on this blog - see A random selection) and I was not disappointed. Here was a whole bunch of viola players – or violeiros – and everyone was a virtuoso. Wonderful stuff!

Then last Christmas a package arrived from Brazil. It was a Christmas present from my ex-daughter-in-law, Marilia, with whom Mrs Voltarol and I are still on the very best of terms, and consisted of two DVDs and two CDs. As Marilia has been one of my two principal guides into the world of Brazilian music (the other being Woody of Boogiewoody Blog fame), I was excited to see what gems she had found for me this time. The first thing out of the box was the Violeiros do Brasil DVD  (see picture at top of page) and it went on the player there and then. It’s a beautiful film featuring all of the artists that appear on the CD of the same name, playing and talking about their music. Each one is filmed at or near the home of the artist so there is some breathtaking scenery in with that great music. Here is a promotional video that will give you a good idea of what it's all about



I am returning to Brazil in January and had already planned to seek out some of these performers if any of them were giving concerts around the São Paulo area. Imagine my delight then when I discovered that two of them will be appearing in London next month! Myriam Taubkin (sister of Benjamin) is the director of the Projeto Memória Brasileira and was the prime instigator of the Violeros do Brasil DVD. She will be introducing a short documentary film, followed by a performance by Ivan Vilela and Pereira da Viola at Café Oto in Dalston on the 10th November. Needless to say, I have already booked my tickets. See you there!

There are also concerts in Cambridge and Whitstable. Here are the details:-

Fri 13th NOV in Whitstable, Kent - FILM + CONCERT WITH IVAN VILELA

8pm   £ 8 / £6 (concs)  St. Peter's Church, Sydenham Street, Whitstable CT5 1HN
More information: 07515 348532
Tickets from Harbour Books, 21, Harbour St & Herbaceous, Oxford St Whitstable).



Sat 14th NOV in Cambridge - FILM + CONCERT WITH IVAN VILELA
7:30pm
MAA: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology University of Cambridge
Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3DZ

Crossing the tracks...

Since I started working my way through the Beatles back catalogue again I have been cross-referencing various tracks with versions that I already have by other people. A quick look at Youtube revealed the fact that some of my favourites are up there so I thought I'd post a few.

First off here's Assagai performing Hey Jude. The accompanying images are a bit bizarre to say the least, but the music is great. I first put a link to this on my blog in a posting called Mama Africa part 2 back in July 2008 but I hadn't learnt how to embed the clips at that point. For more information about the band and about African musical influences in general have a look at that posting and its predecessor called - not unsurprisingly - Mama Africa part 1



Next up is the Brazilian singer Rita Lee, who first gained fame in her home country with the highly influential band Os Mutantes (The Mutants). Although she was born in São Paulo her father was American and she grew up speaking English as well as Portuguese. In 2001 she made a Beatles 'covers' album called Aqui, ali, em qualquer lugar (Here, there and everywhere), which was released in the US under the rather dreadful title of  Bossa n' Beatles. Here's my favourite track from this album - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.



There is also a live version available which was recorded at a concert in Argentina which I include here, but in my opinion the original studio version outclasses it by a mile...



Finally, here's Jaco Pastorius's superb arrangement of Blackbird, from the first Word of Mouth album. It features the superb Toots Theilemans on chromatic harmonica. (See Bass thoughts for further information and clips.)


That's it for the moment. I should be back up to more regular postings again quite soon but - be warned - I have had several requests for more information about the doings in and around 'The Pastie Maker's Arms' (see Post-holiday Blues). I may well feel the need to oblige with further tales of life in Polpott from time to time...

Post-holiday Blues

That's everybody else's holidays - not mine. When you live as I do in a popular tourist area, one tends to sigh with relief at the end of the season and the mood in one's local boozer changes more than somewhat. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent...

It has been a quiet week here in Polpott. The Emmet harvest has finally been gathered in and stored in the Midlands, and life has become a tad quieter for the local populace. Weary B. & B. propietors assemble nightly in 'The Pastie Maker's Arms' to swap stories of the season's doings over foaming tankards of gin and tonic, and the air is heavy with the heady scent of overworked barmaid's armpits. Old Denzil sits in the corner and pontificates. He is hurriedly escorted from the room and Ron, the landlord, manages to clear up most of the mess ....

Big George, who is generally considered to be the richest farmer - if not actual person - in the area, tugs at the baler twine which keeps his coat together, then orders a pint of Byle. Big George is extremely hirsute as well as being tall and stout, but despite his chubbiness has a sharp little nose, and eyes that are set quite close together. Unkind people in the village say that being spoken to by Big George is like being addressed by a rat that is peering out of a bear's bottom (or words to that effect), but, being generally as prudent as they are churlish, they do not say it to his face.

"One pint of Byle's best bitter coming up." says Ron, taking Big George's Tankard down from where it hangs on the beam, and drawing off a foaming mugful from the spigot. "Any food tonight, Big George?"
Ron is extraordinarily proud of his food. A large sign outside the pub proclaims 'GOOD FOOD. Today's Special:' at the top and 'PUB GRUB' at the bottom. The area between the slogans consists of a square of blackboard paint onto which Ron chalks news of the day's offerings. Ron is an amiable soul despite being a tidge hen-pecked, but grammar, syntax and the use of the apostrophe are not his strong suits. As a consequence some of his culinary offerings seem a little bizarre at first glance. A local wag set the N.S.P.C.C. on him recently when the sign read: 'Sunday Lunch - Roast Pork and all the trimmings: £2.95. Children £1.50 including pudding".

Big George twangs at his baler twine (or 'farmer's weld' as it is known locally), hefts the waistband of his jeans back over his gut then nods in the direction of Sylvia, Ron's wife, who has just entered the bar bearing a laden tray. "Wha's that? I might 'ave some o' that" he says.
Someone has put money in the Juke-box. A song blasts out at ear shattering volume. Ron hastily dives under the bar and fumbles with unseen controls until the decibels drop to a comfortable level.
"What's that bloody racket?" enquires Old Denzil, who has just come back from the Gent's.
"That's a Bonnie Tyler is that." says Sylvia, who secretly fancies herself as a bit of a singer, back-combs her long peroxided hair, and is much given to wearing stonewashed stretch-denim jeans and high-heeled white boots.
"Ar..." replies Old Denzil, "It might be able ter tile but it can't bloody sing. Give us another Pernod and cider Ron, will yer?"

Me and 'The Lads'

My good friend Mike is a bit of a Beatles fan to say the least and since I’ve started writing this blog he has asked me more than once – “Do you think you’ll be writing anything about ‘The Lads’? Well Mike, the time has come and this has been indirectly prompted by the release yesterday of the complete remastered Beatles’ recordings. I say ‘indirectly’ because I probably wouldn’t be writing this if another Beatle enthusiast friend of mine hadn’t just splashed out on a complete set of the new issues. Big Al (for it was he), knowing that I was fond of their work and only owned two of their albums, has just donated his complete collection of the previous versions to me. Thanks Al! Anyway, it all set me to thinking about the Fab Four and how they affected me.

As I’ve related elsewhere in these pages (see Pop and Me) I was never really a pop music enthusiast, so I was somewhat underwhelmed by the first Beatles singles. I do remember though that I was quite impressed by their TV appearances and thought that there was something a bit different about them. Even though at that time they were including a few show tunes in their stage repertoire, they did not have the cheesiness of Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele and the like. One did not get a sense with The Beatles their music was just a stepping stone to full ‘showbiz’ careers. There were no cries of “I want to become an all-round entertainer” as parodied so wonderfully in the 1950’s Peter Sellers sketch “So little time” written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden.

The first single that actually grabbed my attention was ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. I liked the way the melody developed into an interesting bridge and I liked the harmonies and the riffs – although not enough to actually buy it. But that record put them firmly on my radar and from then on I was a Beatle watcher.

I got a job in a record shop in 1964 (see (High) Street Life) and one of the first albums I promoted was 'A Hard Day's Night'. (I can't give you a link for this. One of the quirks of the Blogger/Wikipedia relationship is the inability of Blogger to make sense of Wiki links that contain apostrophes. Someone might like to investigate that...) This was definitely a musical step forward and the album was frequently on the shop turntable. I also went to see the movie ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Day's_Night_(film) see previous observations about apostrophes!) and found it hugely enjoyable. No Summer Holiday this: it felt quite real and unshowbizzy, and the black and white cinematography gave it a great atmosphere. I watched it again recently and still found it highly likeable some 45 years later.


Beatles for Sale, Help, Rubber Soul and Revolver followed - each better than its predecessor. The film of Help itself was poor by comparison with ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, and certainly didn’t stand the test of time for me when I tried to watch it again recently. I kicked it into touch after about 40 minutes. But then came the masterwork – Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Cub Band.



By June 1967 I was in a band myself and working regularly (see Music in a jugular vein). All four band members assembled at Muff (the jug player)’s house and listened to the album together. Muff owned a better hi fi system than the rest of us – a Bang and Olufsen turntable and amplifier with a pair of Radford speakers – and we sat on the sofa in a row, like an audience in a theatre whilst we listened awestruck to the album. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight I now think that ‘Revolver’ has the edge on ‘Pepper’ as far as the music goes, but the record-making process was completely reinvented by that album.

Those for me were the ‘Glory Days’. Their remaining output was never quite in the same class as the music from 'Rubber Soul' onwards, although it still stood head and shoulders above everything else that was happening at that time – or at least, that’s how I felt about it then. Thanks to Big Al I am now about to embark on a marathon revisit to their material and I shall be writing about it in the very near future. Now, where did I put that Beatle jacket?

You play rhythm and I’ll play lead…

Now that I’m playing as part of an acoustic guitar duo again I’ve been thinking about the form generally, and its influence on me. I suppose that like most of my guitar-playing peers, my first experience was having a friend who was also learning to play and sitting down with him to strum chords together, but the first recorded duets I heard were by Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson. They were very exciting for me because they featured acoustic instruments and the music was blues based. As a consequence I felt that – if I really worked at it – I might be able to play that stuff one day. Here’s an example – this is Lang and Johnson playing ‘Blue Room’, recorded around 1929.



The next duo recording I heard was a track from the famous Davy Graham EP – ‘3/4 AD’. This featured Graham in an eponymous duet with Alexis Korner. As far as I know neither player recorded much in the guitar duo format apart from this, but it was another eye-opener for me and first gave me a sense of the idea of musical conversations. There is no clip available but a look at the original sleeve notes by Alexis Korner does shed some light on the proceedings.

Bert Jansch and John Renbourn were both influenced by Davy Graham, both signed to Transatlantic Records and both emerged on the London scene at around the same time, so it was inevitable that they would end up recording together. Their most famous project was the group ‘Pentangle’, but before that they made a duo album entitled Bert and John that was influential in its own right and spawned many an acoustic guitar duo in and around the sixties folk circuit. Here’s ‘Lucky Thirteen’ from that album, which was recorded in 1965.


I listened to a lot of music over the next thirty years or so, including a lot of jazz guitar duos. I also had several acoustic guitar duos myself, notably a partnership with the late John McCartney (who was better known as a superb electric bass player), The Blue Five with Leigh Heggarty, and a previous collaboration with my current musical partner – Chris White, but I didn’t hear another notable recording of the format until my second visit to Brazil in 1996/97. I was lying on the floor of a jazz bar-come-CD shop in Sâo Paulo at about eleven o’clock one night (for reasons that are too complicated to go into now but involve a free bottle of Cachaça) when I first heard Notenstock and was enchanted by them. Strictly speaking they were a trio, as the two French guitarists – Michel Jules and Stéphane Sarlin - were accompanied by Brazilian percussionist Luiz Carlos de Paula, but the music would have worked perfectly well without the percussion so it fits the bill as far as I’m concerned!

I have never come across anyone else in this country who knows their work and I haven’t been able to find much information on line, but I do know that their first album – ‘A Coté du Soleil’ was recorded in 1992, and a second album - ‘Live in Vienne’ – featured bassist Abraham Laboriel as a guest and was recorded in 1993. I know that the group were still playing in the later nineties because my son and his then-wife saw them in a club in Sâo Paulo and got a signed copy of the second CD, although sadly the line up had changed due to the early death of Michel Jules. I’ve only been able to find one example of their work on line – a tune from the first album entitled ‘Libra Livre’. You can listen to it here.

My next example is a couple of Brazilian guitarists who go under the name of Duofel. They have been playing together for over twenty five years and their musical range is as astonishing as some of their techniques. I have to thank my ex-daughter-in-law for bringing them to my attention. If you are interested in acoustic music that really explores new territory then I would urge you to go out and find their recordings. As an incentive, here’s ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ as you’ve probably never heard them before…


There are many other guitar duos out there that I haven’t mentioned, but the rest of my favourites are not exclusively acoustic – and that was the brief I set myself for this particular posting. I enjoy the work of Pete Oxley and Lusi D' Agostino for example, but they also play electric guitar. In fact, I can feel another posting coming on, dedicated to all the jazz guitar duos. Right. I’m off to trawl through my CDs again.

Voltarol rides again!

Thanks to Jules for the picture

After an arthritis driven lay-off I have just played my guitar in public for the first time in three years. Many would say that my absence from public performance was no great loss but for me, my return to playing was quite a significant moment. I have had arthritis in my hands for about nine years now, and for the last five or six of them there has been an increasing tendency for them to lock up at unlikely moments. At first this would only happen after quite a few hours of continuous playing but then it began to happen more frequently. Eventually the inevitable happened and they locked up in mid chord change, mid gig.

Despite having a total involvement with music from quite an early age (see the various autobiographical postings of this blog) I have never had great manual dexterity. Most of my more dexterous friends acquired their initial guitar playing skills quite rapidly and I was left way behind, but – as with the tortoise and the hare – my consistent plodding eventually got me to a standard that I was not ashamed of and I went on to play with some damn good musicians. So when the inevitable happened and I could no longer rely on my hands, I took the decision to stop playing guitar and switched to my other discipline, percussion.

The guitar, which had been a more or less constant part of my life for the last 48 years, was now something I didn’t even want to look at. Instead of being kept on a stand in my living room where I could pick it up whenever the fancy took me – which had been about once every half hour – it was returned permanently to its case and stashed under the bed. For the next two years I continued to convince myself that – since I could no longer play to the standard that I had been capable of, there was no point in playing at all. Then one day I just said ‘sod it’ and got the guitar out again.

At first I struggled. My fingers had lost their calluses as well as their flexibility, but I would play for ten or fifteen minutes at a stretch and within a couple of months I was playing for anything up to an hour at a time. I realised how much I had missed it and also that, provided that I didn’t attempt to play fast jazz changes any more, my hands were no longer locking up. Eventually I felt ready to play with someone else again and gave an old mate a call. He and I had played guitar duets together on and off over the last twenty odd years, and we’d also been in bands together during that time. We got together one evening for a session and were soon playing once a week and assembling a repertoire.

Last Wednesday we toddled along to a local pub that was running an acoustic evening and we played four numbers to a mildly receptive crowd. I made a few mistakes and we didn’t set the world on fire, but ultimately it was far more important to me than anything I’ve done in a long time and I realised that I had just leapt over a major psychological barrier and landed safely. I’m already looking forward to the next gig and am playing with a lot more freedom and originality than I have for a long time. The only downside is that someone videoed the performance and, watching the footage, I realise how much face pulling I do when I’m playing…