【Repost】Religious Syncretism
by musicabrasileira
“The Afro-Sambas from Baden Powell and Vinícius de Moraes”… Many guitarists all over the world respectfully smile when they hear these words. The compositions are true masterpieces that never seem to loose their inspiring quality. The two legends in Brazilian Music recorded the album in 1966 as a conclusion of their mutual interest in the Afro-Brazilian culture.
en years after the death of Vinícius de Moraes (1980),Baden Powellrecorded the songs again for an album that was released in 1990 as a limited edition. Now it’s made available for the large audience.
As a witness of the rise of Bossa Nova,Baden Powell(1937, Varre-Sai (north of Rio de Janeiro)) got in contact withTom Jobimin 1959. Three years later Jobim introduced him to Vinícius de Moraes. The two got along together in a remarkable way. Baden crashed down at the apartment of his new friend for endless discussions about the Afro-Brazilian culture, theCandomblé. They were fascinated by the music and words that are used during the rituals. The talks about the West African religions and how they were mixed in Brazil with Catholicism started off the idea to integrate the knowledge into their own music. An intensive session of composing resulted in the Afro-Sambas fromBaden Powelland Vinícius de Moraes! Baden Powell’s unique guitar style seemed to have been developed especially for this purpose. His classical training which he combined with an inimitable samba-technique completely comes to right when he plays the afro-sambas. His work is praised as a typical and pure Brazilian guitar style.
In 1968 Baden moved to Europe to live in France. From there on he frequented venues all over Europe where he was immense popular. In the mid-70s the guitarist suffered health problems, caused by his drinking addiction. In 1983 he decided to live in (of all places) Baden-Baden in Germany. Five years later Baden returned to Brazil where he re-recorded the Afro-Sambas. He wanted to stay close to the original recording and take profit of the enormously improved recording quality. Just like on the original recording, the female vocal quartet Quarteto em Cy was invited to assist the voice of Baden Powell. A small army of percussionists added to the African influence of the music. We hear percussion instruments that are commonly used in theCandomblé.
Baden wrote the opening “Abertura”(opening) especially for this album. There are two other songs that don’t appear on the original album of 1966: “Labareda” and “Variações sobre Berimbau.” As a tribute to Vinícius de Moraes, Baden kept the arrangements of the other songs as close as possible to the original ones from the 1966 record. We can hear the finesse, power and character of Baden’s guitar all over this album. The countless rhythmic variations he turns out of his right hand are puzzling concerns for many guitarists. After his religious conversion to Evangelical faith (1997), Baden succeeded to quit his drinking addictions. But, funny enough, he also changed all African allusions during his performances to a Christian-tolerated level, an act that wasn’t much appreciated by his Afro-Samba followers!
Far too young, Baden Powell passed away in 2000 after suffering from diabetic and kidney problems. The guitarist, singer/composer will mainly be remembered for his amazing guitar technique and how he changed the Brazilian music scene with the music that we find on this album, the Afro-Sambas!
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by Andre C. Castilla
Os Afro-Sambas , which was originally recorded in 1966, is certainly one of the most important works of contemporary Brazilian Music truly reflecting the transition period from the stylish Bossa Nova of the late 50's to the revolutionary Tropicalia of the late 60's. Eight of the eleven compositions are the same of the original one, while two are also compostions of Baden and Vinicius from the same period and the opening was made by Baden alone specially for this recording. All tracks reflect religious syncretism, the mixture of West African religions of slavery origin and the European Catholicism, found mostly on Bahia State in form of Ubanda and Candoble religions. The most frequent music theme is love, specially love delusions and solitude. The understanding of singed Brazilian Portuguese would be a must to get into Vinicius poetry in full depth, as there are no lyrics on this set. As one of the most important contemporary Brazilian poets Vinicius de Moraes also has an important role on Brazilian Popular Music with his solo and works with other Brazilian musicians. His work with Baden is an encounter with one of the best Brazilian guitar players, whose strong classical influence is fantastically merged into samba.
This album uses all the sound technology available on 90's so its is pristine recording, which permits to the listener distinguish easily all the different percussion instruments. The 66 album was recorded on a 2 channel studio, and this means a huge difference in sound quality, Now the original one is only available on both Vinicius and Baden complete works box set. Although this 1990 recording is not the original one, Baden tried to keep this version as similar as possible as to the 66' one giving us opportunity to fully appreciate this hallmark of Brazilian Music. There is also an interesting religious aspect to be mentioned. The Brazilian afro religions are not well tolerated by the evangelic Christians. Later in his life when Baden had converted to an evangelic cult he renegaded this work changing afro words to more Christian oriented ones during presentations.
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by Robert Keith
Os Afro Sambas is, in my opinion, the finest Brazilian album ever recorded. It sounds like nothing else that came before it or since. I'm a fan of Tropicalia, Brazilian Nordeste and Forro. Os Afro Sambas doesn't fit neatly into any category. Vinicius and Baden both had roots in Bossa Nova, but this album was their intentional attempt to move beyond it. It's experimental with wonderful hooks, spontaneous lead vocals, haunting Gregorian female vocals, spare songs and loose, but perfect, production. It's not as hi-fi as the albums that would follow it, but it doesn't need to be.
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