Composed and posted on February 5, 2016
It is 2016 and it is an Olympic year. And what's more it is an historic Olympic year ... the year when the Olympic makes its first appearance in South America ... in Brazil!
I love the Olympics and I am fascinated by Brazil, but, unfortunately, it does not appear that going to the Brazil Olympics will be in the cards for me. However, as fate would have it, yesterday, I received news that a very important piece of Brazil would be coming to the Bay Area this year. Actually, two very important pieces of Brazil will be coming to the Paramount Theater in Oakland on April 12 and those two important pieces are Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
As the advertisement for the concert reads: "This is a monumental concert event with two living giants of Brazilian music performing together in the Bay Area for the first time, celebrating 50 years of incredible songs and performing material from their new live album, Dos Amigos, um Seculo de Musica (Two Friends, a Century of Music). Founding members of Brazil's Tropicalia movement and both born in the cultural hotbed of Bahia, Gil and Veloso radically reinvented Brazilian popular music in the mid-1960s by combining Beatlesque psychedelia, art rock and Brazil's northeastern roots rhythms. Additionally, both were jailed and later deported as dangerous musical subversives by the Brazilian government in the late 1960s."
Now I suppose reading that last sentence one might expect a lot of strident political music coming forth, but that is not the case. Please see the video for Voce e Linda and you will find the type of "subversion" that Caetano Veloso is most famous for and for which he still is the undisputed master.
Veloso's ability to sing a song so romantically is a marvel and is mesmerizing ... even if you do not understand a word he says ... the message is oh so clear. I am so looking forward to seeing what magic may still be with him and Gilbert Gil when they come to the Paramount. It should be grand.
But that is not all ... there is more.
As serendipity would have it, today is the first day of Carnival in Brazil. There will be a lot of samba dancing going on on the streets of Rio tonight. There is a lot of samba music out there to be listened to and perhaps some of you can recommend some good examples. But for now, I leave you with another Brazilian gem that I found last night while listening to Caetano Veloso. Enjoy.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
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