Like Luiz Gonzaga and Luiz Vieira, Aldair Soares is one of the great voices of baião. It sounds as if he is being beamed in from a different time. Fortunately, the recording is as powerful as it was when it was cut nearly 70 years ago.
Aldair Soares - Alvoroço Do Sertão (baião) from Columbia 78rpm (1954)
Today, we have a sunny forró instrumental from the mighty Abdias. Abdias may have the most extensive catalog of any accordion player in the history of forró. Forró De Chico Gato was recorded at the tail end of his career at Columbia Records before he became a producer and one of the main members of the house band at CBS. The instrumentation will be familiar to folks who love CBS forró from the mid-1960s through the 1970s: The bass line is played by violão de sete cordas. There is a mellow, dark and boxy-sounding cavaquinho (I mean that in the best sense) and a zabumba. You can also hear a chattery wood block throughout. Getting all of these rhythm instruments to sound balanced and pleasant is not always easy, but the musicianship and recording quality is often stellar on Abdias recordings. He truly was one of the genuses of the genre.
Abdias - Forró De Chico Gato instrumental from Columbia 78rpm & Festa com 8 Baixos (1962)
OK, my blog is called forró LP blah blah blah and this is a samba. True... but, Dorival Caymmi's early work shares a lot in common with many forró artists, including Jackson Do Pandeiro, who incorporated instruments like the violão de sete cordas into his work. The 7 string guitar / bass was used more often in samba. I love Dorival Caymmi's earliest work and his upbeat 78rpm singles. His later work is a bit maddening, because he tended to favor slow cançãoes with his heavy baritone singing.
Dorival Caymmi - Columbia 78rpm (1941) & LP (1975)
Jackson Do Pandeiro's first compacto was a vinyl release of two 78rpm discs: Pacífico Pacato bw Tum-Tum-Tum and Nortista Quatrocentão bw Boa Noite. The song featured here is Boa Noite, which was later covered by Djalma Dias as Dono De Casa, Boa Noite and featured on this blog in 2013. This compacto is exceptionally scarce, and spun at 45rpm vs 33 1/3, which became the compacto standard in Brazil.
Revivendo has been reissuing early Brazilian music since the 1980s. Much of the music from the was only released on 78rpm singles. Some of the songs from this CD compilation, Samba Da Minha Terra, have appeared on scattered LP and CD reissues, but a fair portion appears here for the first and only time.
Grupo "X" never appeared on vinyl or CD compilations, possibly because they were only together for a short time. However, their output was prolific. According to Dicioáario MPB, Grupo "X" released a 26 78rpm singles in three years, 1936, 1937 and 1938, before splitting up. The liner notes indicate that there was a second phase of Grupo "X," but discographies do not list additional recordings. The group seemed to be primarily higher education students studying to be accountants, dentists and veterinarians in São Paulo. Despite music for most members seemingly being secondary to other careers, Grupo "X" held their own against the big groups: Quatro Ases e Um Coringa, Bando Da Lua (who became Carmen Miranda's backing group) and Anjos Do Inferno, also appearing on the CD compilation Samba Da Minha Terra from 1992.
Lembrando A Bahia is a rolicking samba from 1937. Bravo to Revivendo for assembling this amazing music that would otherwise be lost to the world.
Grupo "X" - Lembrando A Bahia (samba) - Columbia 78rpm (1937) from Samba Da Minha Terra - Revivendo (1992)
Walter Damasceno and Ary Lobo represented an interesting era in Northeastern Brazilian music. Compared to some of the softer baião singers who recorded middle-of-the-road music, Damasceno and Lobo sounded modern and vital. The United States had a similar period in the 1950s. 50s pop had a marshmallow quality until what we now call rhythm and blues and upbeat country and western helped shape a new vitality for the music. While Ary Lobo's career continued until his death in 1980, Damasceno disappeared in the early 1960s. Both Damasceno and Lobo lived through a time when the 78rpm was fading and vinyl was on the rise. Damasceno's 78s seem to be rarer than Lobos from this period, depending on the label. Odeon 78s are nearly impossible to find, but most appeared on his lone Odeon LP. He has a short stack of 78s on Columbia and a rare one on CBS. Damasceno and Lobo also recorded songs listed as rojão (the a side of this 78), but this does not seem to be a distinct rhythmic form. Songs weren't usually listed this way after the early 1960s. Rojão may simply be slang for upbeat baião or forró tunes. The tuba sounds amazing.
Walter Damasceno - Maria Do Amparo (baião) from Columbia 78rpm (1950s)
In the 1950s, remarkable breakthroughs were being made with magnetic tape. This vastly improved the quality of recordings. Walter Damasceno, along with Jackson do Pandeiro, Ary Lobo, Luiz Wanderley, Jair Alves and a number of other artists greatly benefitted from these advancements. Unfortunately, Brazil was a slower to adopt vinyl than the United States and Europe. As a result, there are quite a few artists classified as baião (later forró) who have songs lost to time because they were recorded on 78rpm shellac. 78rpm's are fragile and not many have survived. Very few 78rpm's were exported. Walter Damasceno recorded an LP and several compactos, so he is luckier than someone like Carlos Galindo, who was released exclusively on 78rpm. However, Damasceno's catalog contains 78rpm releases that are much more difficult to locate than his vinyl and were never compiled. The surge of interest in vintage forró in the last 10 years hopefully means that some of this rare music will be preserved. Unfortunately, with the music business being decimated by downloading, it is unlikely that this music will be professionally archived. On a lighter note, forró is one of the few genres that effectively uses tuba as a bass instrument. Jackson do Pandeiro was fond of the instrument and used it quite a bit on his horn heavy tracks. Props to Damasceno or his production team for an inspired choice!
Walter Damasceno - E O Treco Pego (rojão) from Columbia 78rpm (1950s)
Ah, the great Jackson do Pandeiro. He's the man Gilberto Gil called a genius also has the most substantial catalog in all of forró. Vou Buscar Maria comes from his self-titled 1959 Columbia LP. This wasn't one of his biggest hits, but is typical of his atypically excellent work. From Jackson, you often get all killer with no filler.
This particular pressing of the LP is bizarre. It appears to be a reissue on heavy vinyl, but the cover reproduction is unusual. Bootleg, perhaps? Alas, collectors, keep an eye out for reissues of all of Jackson's Columbia era material, although this 1959 album is far less common. His never-reissued Philips period remains his most coveted.
Jackson Do Pandeiro - Jackson do Pandeiro - Columbia (1959)
Part Three: Borrachinha - Bruxaria & Que Vontade De Comer Goiaba - Columbia 78rpm 1958
Much of Borrachinha's catalog has been lost to time. Very few of his 78s, even as digital files on blogs, YouTube or Soundcloud, are in circulation amongst collectors. Apparently, there is a lost album which was pressed, but hasn't appeared. This post includes both sides of his Columbia 78 from 1958. Borrachinha has a lot in common with Gordurinha, who were both affiliated with Jackson Do Pandeiro. Their presentation, phrasing and sound belong to a specific family of "cool" forró recordings that were popular in the late 50s and early 60s.
Gilvan Chaves – Vovó Sabina from Encantos do Nordeste - Columbia 1958
Forró is typically upbeat, catchy dance music from the northeast of Brazil. Like any popular genre, forró has sub-genres and branches that defy pure categorization. Elomar, Xangai, Jackson do Pandeiro, Carmélia Alvesand Borrachinha are a few of the artists that followed, created and broke the rules, inventing haunted northeastern folk mixed with forró.
In 1958, when forró wasn't the strict genre it became later, Gilvan Chaves created his classic LP: Encantos do Nordeste. The album shares similarities to Vinicius Des Moraes / Baden Powell's Os Afro Sambas and Zélia Barbosa's Sertão e Favelas, but Encantos do Nordeste is far less known and celebrated. The album has a hypnotizing quality. Songs flow like a single piece, with Chaves breaking into story between songs with minimal accompaniment. Incantations... Enchantments.... Charms of the Northeast... indeed.
