Novos Baianos

Brazilian music has been on the Eat Rio menu quite a bit recently – we’ve charted the highs of João Gilberto and Bossa Nova and we plumbed the lows of a plagiarising Rod Stewart, legs akimbo. In one of the comments I was even accused of having good taste in music! Well, I feel that I have a real ace left up my sleeve when it comes to Brazilian music recommendations.

There is a very select group of albums that I mentally file under the label “Solid Gold”. You know, no dud tracks – what you might call perfect albums. This list includes Blondie’s Parallel Lines, Neil Young’s After The Goldrush, Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Van Morrison’s Moondance (you’ll let me know if this starts to get a little self-indulgent won’t you?).

Well, since coming to Brazil I have a new album to add to this list of mine. It is called Acabou Chorare (which means ‘No More Crying’) and is the work of a group called Novos Baianos. What can I say about this album? It really is one of my favourite albums of all time – a beautiful piece of work.

Novos Baianos – the founding members (from left to right) Luiz Galvão, Baby Consuelo, Paulinho Boca de Cantor and Moraes Moreira.

I really like that photo (above) – they look like a happy, crazy bunch don’t they? I also like it because you can actually see their faces – many of the photos of these guys are very grainy and show them mixed in with their band (A Cor do som – the colour of sound), friends and a few kids thrown in for good measure.

Three words that spring to mind? Hippy commune collective!

Interestingly, Novos Baianos were good friends with the older João Gilberto who acted in some ways as a mentor and influenced their early work, only, in turn, to be influenced right back by their work!

These guys were a pretty amazing bunch and archetypal hippies. Having moved down from Salvador (in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia), they all lived together in a Jacarepaguá (in Brazil’s west zone) – the group, their partners and kids all mixed together. Apparently they shared everything and kept their earnings in a bag on the back of the front door – when someone needed money they would help themselves!

Novos Baianos hanging out in front of Arcos da Lapa, Rio de Janeiro.

They embraced/embodied the 60s/70s counterculture, consuming LSD sem economia, playing football (probably not after the acid, but who knows?), making music and generally enjoying life.

During this period, Paulinho Boca de Cantor’s girlfriend had a baby daughter. For 2 years this daughter went without a proper name – she was just called Buchinha (the diminuitive of the French word for ‘mouth’, bouche – presumably to match her father’s name Boca, Portuguese for ‘mouth’). One day their old friend João Gilberto visited and, on hearing that they hadn’t named the child, insisted on doing so himself – at the age of 2, Buchinha became Maria.

Good times…

Predictably, this idyllic (well, for some I guess) life couldn’t last. The end came when Moraes Moreira got together with a middle class girl from rich Zona Sul. The new girlfriend wanted to employ a nanny to look after the children. The rest of the group resisted this and eventually Moraes went to live elsewhere. The group split in 1979, though they have reunited quite a few times for special performances and to make recordings.

OK, so there’s a little background about these Brazilian music legends. But none of that means much without the music! Acabou Chorare is a really special album and I find it very difficult to pick just one song to recommend. The different tracks include a really interesting combination of styles and you should definitely listen to the whole album. But if you forced me to choose one, maybe I’d go for this:

 Maybe a live version isn’t the best place to start, but I just love seeing them playing in what looks like their own scratchy backyard!

There have been a couple of really interesting looking documentaries made about Novos Baianos. One is called Filhos de João (a reference to the importance of the group’s relationship with João Gilberto) – I haven’t seen it yet, but am trying to find a copy. Another is this one called Novos Baianos FC (the name of a later album). If you are learning Portuguese this could be good practice as the narrator sounds very ‘relaxed’ shall we say, and so speaks very slowly. If you don’t speak Portuguese then just take a quick look at the old footage – it gives you a great feel for the way of life these guys had. Enjoy.