The Berimbau: Soul of Brazilian Music

2. Theme and Variations: Tracing a Musical Motif from Bossa Nova to the 1990s

34 ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Chapter 2 Theme and Variations Tracing a Musical Motif from Bossa Nova to the 1990s ——lyrics from “Berimbau”1 Brazilian popular music composers began to search for a national voice drawing from traditional genres during two distinct periods. (See related discussion in chapter 5 regarding the search for a national voice prior to the 1950s.) The first phase took place with the rise of bossa nova music in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when composers started incorporating elements of Brazilian folklore into their jazz-influenced works. The second phase can be seen in public popular song festivals that were initially designed to promote tourism and that were sponsored by the military dictatorship from October 1966 until the early 1970s, when strict censorship limited artistic expression. Beginning with the Festival Internacional da Canção (International Song Festival), popular music festivals expanded the notion of MPB (popular Brazilian music) beyond the context of bossa nova. Works at these festivals often featured contemporary fusions of musical styles from disparate sources. Some of these compositions encountered negative public reaction, which was often framed as a type of cultural protectionism, whether in defense of a folkloric tradition or of a national ideal. The song “Berimbau,” composed by Baden Powell and Vinícius de Moraes, is an example of the first phase. One of the hallmarks of this song is Powell’s adaptation of the berimbau’s melodic rhythms for the guitar. This work served to nationally popularize the musical bow Berimbau me confirmou vai ter briga de amor, Tristeza camará. Berimbau confirmed to me that there will be a fight for love, Sadness, friend ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ 35 Tracing a Musical Motif from Bossa Nova to the 1990s beyond the folkloric context of capoeira and propel it into the Brazilian musical mainstream. This guitar motif has since become an iconic trope that symbolizes the berimbau, capoeira, Bahia, and northeastern music in many genres of popular Brazilian music. Four subsequent songs expand upon and amplify themes raised in “Berimbau.” In the late 1960s, “Lapinha,”2 by Baden Powell and lyricist Paulo Cesar Pinheiro, raises questions about authorship and the use of traditional material in popular music contexts.3 Around the same time, Gilberto Gil’s “Domingo no Parque” (Sunday in the Park) draws upon the berimbau’s status as a publicly legitimized national folkloric instrument .4 His local status enabled Gil to incorporate non-Brazilian musical elements and instruments into his composition—an aspect that was vigorously contested by radical audience members. By the late 1980s, the berimbau’s image in Brazilian popular music suggested more than a physical instrument, as demonstrated in Carlinhos Brown’s “Meia-Lua Inteira” (Full Half-Moon), recorded by Caetano Veloso, and another composition entitled “Berimbau” produced by the musical ensemble Olodum. Bossa Nova and a Modernizing Brazil Although bossa nova is celebrated today as a Brazilian musical treasure, the genre was not always received with open arms, due to its prominent influences from North American jazz music. Brazilian music critics and cultural nationalists like José Ramos Tinhorão launched scathing attacks in the mid-1960s on bossa nova composers as musicians who did not properly know how to feel the subtleties and swing of Afro-Brazilian rhythmic syncopation.5 He suggested that these composers could not be true carriers of Brazilian national musical traditions. In an extreme example, he portrayed bossa nova composers as culturally bastardized children from Rio de Janeiro’s wealthy southern beach neighborhoods that were influenced by North American music and culture. He believed that, because these composers did not know their own roots, bossa nova betrayed its Brazilian musical traditions.6 Issues and debates surrounding bossa nova and cultural authenticity mirrored Brazil’s struggles as a nation.7 The government of president ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ 36 Tracing a Musical Motif from Bossa Nova to the 1990s Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–60) undertook an ambitious modernization policy, in which the goal was to achieve the progress of fifty years in only five.8 Kubitschek’s largest project included the design and construction of a new capital, Brasília, located in the state of Goiás in Brazil’s heartland. This architecturally planned modernist Federal District was conceived as a means to draw the overpopulated coastal populations towards the center of the country. As a result of this rapid industrialization, financed in large part with foreign loans and investment, Brazil’s inflation rate increased dramatically. Kubitschek encouraged the importation of foreign...