Source: Concierge.com

by John Oseid

Last week I witnessed a bunch of rambunctious Brazilians tear up Brooklyn. Nobody called the cops; it was a musical melée confined to BAM, downtown Brooklyn's great Beaux Arts theater-turned-progressive art house. By the middle of the Red Hot + Rio 2 show, beach balls were flying around the hall and musicians and fans alike were cramming the aisles. Fire codes were broken, for sure.

Red Hot + Rio 2: The Next Generation of Samba Soul lived up to its billing. New Yorkers were treated to a handful of young Brazilian artists they've had few chances to hear before. The show was a follow-up to the hugely successful Red, Hot + Rio, an acclaimed 1996 album and series of AIDS benefit performances built around Tom Jobim's bossa nova tunes. This year's crew performed mostly seventies soulful samba/funk/rock classics by Jorge Ben Jor and the late Tim Maia. Proceeds from the show go toward the New York-based BrazilFoundation, which works on health issues and community and cultural development in Brazil. Check out the site for how to make a contribution.

Daughter of bossa nova mastermind João Gilberto and the best known of the Red Hot artists, Bebel Gilberto dedicated the show to "songs of our heroes." Playing before a backdrop of trippy, hypnotic videos, a seventeen-member band with a killer horn section was backed by veteran drummer João Parahyba. Singers came out for two or three song sets, and collaborated at times.

The audience was taken with the charming banter of Curumin, a skinny Japanese-Brazilian samba-hop artist who bopped around the stage singing "Take It Easy My Brother Charles" and "Xica da Silva," a Ben Jor composition from a famous telenovela of the same name. Nouveau-hippie CéU has recently built herself quite a reputation in the States. After singing a few solo tunes, she was joined by Moreno Veloso, son of the legendary Caetano, on Tim Maia's sweet reggae/soul "Imunização Racional (Que Beleza)." But it was a scruffy guy named Otto who nearly stole the show. I had never heard of the Pernambuco-born percussionist-turned-singer, and in a hoodie and rumpled jeans, the bearded Otto looked to me like an anti-globalist who just got out of bed. By the time he was on to the classic Jorge Ben Jor composition "Taj Mahal," he was peeling off layers and running up and down aisles. All hands in the air, the house rocked to a very familiar refrain: Watch the video clip above of Jorge Ben Jor himself performing his song and you'll learn from where Rod Stewart "borrowed" "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy."

Considering that samba soul, like many great modern Brazilian music movements, has syncretic links to America, the finale was a real coup. The crowed turned around to the sounds of samba drums from the foyer and went to its feet as a dozen or so joyous teenagers drummed down the aisles and up the stage. The Brazilian stars paid their respects as well and then it was lights out. The group was called Harlem Samba. Who knew?

Source: Daily News

Curumin among the best of new Brasil
Jim Farber

There's a stereotype of Brazilian music - two, in fact. Either it's a swooning vocal ba-de-dah-ing over a languid bossa nova guitar, or a rash of samba drums flailing away like it's the peak of carnival.

That's fine, but there's a whole generation of younger Brazilians who either roll their eyes at such sounds, or use them as just a jumping-off point for something fresh. A host of stars of that ilk - including CéU, Otto and Curumin - will coalesce tonight at a densely packed show at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House titled "Red Hot Rio 2: The Next Generation of Samba Soul."

"I don't want to be the guy who just represents Brazilian music to the world," declares Curumin, perhaps the most exciting of these new stars. "I will always have a Brazilian flavor to my music, because I'm from here. But I want my music to be whatever I want it to be."

And he wants it to be a lot. If you listen to "Japan Pop Show," the new CD by Curumin (pronounced Kooro-mean), you'll hear a mad mutt of funk, hip hop, lounge, pop and electronica, along with hints of Brazilian jazz and the kind of samba rock pioneered by '70s S.O.B.'s stars like Jorge Ben and Tim Maia.

It's to Curumin's credit that he kneaded this thick sonic dough into something not just digestible but delicious. "Japan Pop Show" includes some of the catchiest music released this year, including a single, "Compacto," that rates as an ideal song of summer. Unfortunately, it came out here after the temperature plunged. "Well," says Curumin, "at least it's summer in Brazil."

In both his sound, and in his genes, Curumin epitomizes his Brazilian home city of São Paulo, which is one of the most ethnically diverse places on earth. Born Luciano Nakata Albuquerque, Curumin boasts a Spanish father and a Japanese mother. (São Paulo has the largest Japanese population of any city outside that country.)

Curumin has been playing in bands since before puberty, accounting for his nickname, which refers to a precocious child. He grew up not just with the music of Brazilian tropicalia (advanced by musicians like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil) but also U.S. heavy metal, hip hop and soul. His first album, 2006's infectious "Achados e Pardidos," contained an innovative take on Stevie Wonder's "You Haven't Done Nothing," which disrupted its beat with burping new rhythms.

In the last few years, Curumin found himself becoming part of a loose scene in São Paulo along with the electro-dance acts CSS and Telepathique, all of whom circumvent traditional Brazilian styles. Ironically, they've all gotten more attention in the States than at home.

Tonight's BAM show also includes a showcase for the sultry female singer CéU (who made a splash here with her self-titled debut, even scoring a Latin Grammy) and Otto, a percussionist from Recife in eastern Brazil. He's part of a significant scene documented in a recent compilation CD put together by David Byrne's Luaka Bop Records. To Curumin, the value of all these artists is that they push the bounds of nationality in the Internet age. "There is no more 'Brazilian music,' or 'U.K. music' or 'French music,'" he says. "We're taking from all these sounds and bringing down the boundaries."

Source: New York Times

“Red Hot + Rio 2” flashed back to the 1970s at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Thursday night. Fresh-faced young singers took turns backed by a full band and horn section in songs from Brazil’s era of “samba soul”: mostly hits by Jorge Ben Jor, along with songs from Tim Maia and Gilberto Gil that aligned the deep, strutting beat of samba with soul, reggae and rock. The singers were among Brazil’s leading younger musicians — Curumin, CéU, Otto, Moreno Veloso and Bebel Gilberto — along with José González, an Argentine Swede.

The songs are still irresistible. They celebrate love, nature, music and history in catchy singalong phrases, whether bemoaning a painful breakup in breezy samba-pop, as Ms. Gilberto did in “Que Pena,” or singing about a slave who became a powerful woman in the reggae of “Xica da Silva,” performed by Curumin.

Brazilian music is, and has always been, cunningly porous, absorbing possibilities from all over the vicinity. Among them were the fuzz-toned guitar riff and folk-rock harmonies in “A Minha Menina” and the scrubbing disco rhythm guitar (akin to the role of the cavaquinho, the small guitar in a samba) in “Os Alquimistas Estão Chegando.” The band, directed by Alexandre Kassin and featuring the drumming of João Parahyba — who created subtle, fluttering cross-rhythms with brisk strokes of his brushes — more or less recreated the arrangements of the old recordings.

Unlike, say, Rascal Flatts singing the Eagles, the younger generation performed its elders’ songs with a knowing flair. Curumin, Mr. González and Mr. Veloso applied wryly earnest tenor voices to their songs; CéU brought supple sweetness to hers. Following through on Mr. Ben Jor’s own freewheeling vocal style, Otto, from Pernambuco, cackled and growled at times; he also jumped around the stage, stripped off his jacket and one of two shirts, and sang part of “Taj Mahal” — the Jorge Ben Jor song from which Rod Stewart took the melody of “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” — while out in the audience. By the finale, when singers shared rockers like “Ponta de Lança Africano (Umbabarauma), a song about soccer, and “Aquele Abraço,” a song about Rio de Janeiro with the Harlem Samba drummers joining the band, Ms. Gilberto was doing bouncy go-go dance moves.

It was a jubilant show, but it was also a missed opportunity. In their own careers the performers on the bill extend the Brazilian mix even further. Mr. Veloso’s and Mr. Kassin’s shared group, the +2s, toys with electronics and structural convolutions; Otto and Curumin draw idiosyncratically on hip-hop; CéU has infusions of blues and electronica. And those performers rarely get an American showcase like the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Wonderful as the oldies were in their 1970s versions, it would have been a treat to hear how this next generation could transform them.

You can create your own "photoslice" using Curumins's song as soundtrack, and share it with your friends.

Click Here

Source:World's Fair News

It takes dedication to leave the lovely climes of São Paulo (82 °F as of 3:30 pm today…) for the relative cold of New York, but Curumin, as well as CéU, Bebel Gilberto, José González, Otto, and others, are heading north to play at Red Hot + Rio 2: The Next Generation of Samba Soul, December 4 and 5 (this Thursday and Friday) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Both The Village Voice and The New Yorker have things to say about it (and for the latter, things to draw about, as well). Here’s The Voice’s take:

“Luciano Nakata Albuquerque—a/k/a Tim Maia’s heir apparent Curumin—has run a band since age eight. Still, the new world that the Brazilian-Japanese artist represents most fully came to fruition in this hemisphere on historic November 4, when he dropped his essential second disc, Japan Pop Show. The São Paulo native is perhaps the foremost visionary of samba-hop as an artist, but as a person, he even more importantly embodies the rise and flowering of a global generation fearlessly exploding restrictive divisions. This shift is reflected in his facility with everything from Chief Xcel’s patronage to the trippy space rock of ‘Mistério Stereo, making him the perfect multifaceted act to represent the melting pot and the Mountaintop in this lineup. With CéU, Bebel Gilberto, José González, Otto, and João Parahyba (of Trio Mocotó) at Red Hot + Rio 2: The Next Generation of Samba Soul.”

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave)
Dec 4 & 5 at 8pm
Tickets: $25, $45, $65
http://BAM.org

In recognition of World Aids Day (Dec. 1), a portion of the proceeds from Red Hot + Rio 2 will benefit BrazilFoundation’s AIDS-related projects. BrazilFoundation is a non-profit organization which invests in sustainable and socially progressive humanitarian causes throughout Brazil. More information about this organization can be found at www.Brazilfoundation.org.

Curumin's “Caixa Preta” is also available FOR FREE on iTunes, as the FREE Latin single of the week (11/25/08 to 12/02/08)!

FREE DOWNLOAD HERE.

Source: Mainstream Isn't So Bad

When it comes to dance music, Brazil seems to be the place to be searching for the next big thing. In the last year or so, it's pumped out some hot albums from CSS, Bonde Do Role, Telepathique, and DJ Dolores. And now, to end the year in style, Curumin is releasing his sophomore effort, Japanpopshow. Curumin is the stage name of Brazilian musician Luciano Nakata Albuquerque, an artist who's been involved with making music since the age of eight.

His style starts in his native Latin sounds of samba and bossa nova (as well as Portugese lyrics for the most part), but heavily incorporates a diverse collection of world influences such as jazz, hip-hop, dub, and afro-beat, leaving the listener wondering what's gonna hit them next. The album opens with the title track, a dark number with an almost spoken word thread running over an Encino Morricone guitar line and bird calls via The Orb. Yea, there's a lot going on there for sure, and that's only the first track. Then you move on to Compacto, a laid back number that will make you picture Curumin strolling along a boardwalk in California strumming a guitar along the way.

The third cut, Kyoto, features Curumin rapping (in Portugese) alongside Blackalicious and Lateed the Turthseeker (in English) over a throw-back hip-hop beat reminiscent of the Fabolous' track Can't Deny It. Then it's on to the trip-hop lo-fi Dancando No Escuro, the thick and heavy technoesque Salto No Vacuo Com Joelhada (resplendent with delicate music box accompanyment), and the more traditional Latin tinged Magrela Fever.

I could honestly go track by track like this, with each having a completely unique flavor. Instead I'll offer Sambito (Totaru Shock) below, a song that starts out as a lo-fi AM radio sounding Latin track that quickly picks up some juice with a retro remix feel.

Source: UOL Música

Fonte: Latino USA

Click to Listen

Source: New Times Music

After years of working behind the scenes as a composer and producer with many of Brazil's new names in the pop scene (Zélia Duncan, CéU, and Pato Fu among them), São Paulo-based Beto Villares emerges with his first solo project, a sonic summary of the various genres he's worked around over the years. One of the tracks that grabs your attention is "Lume," which borrows its basic structure from Villa Lobos' "Bachianas Brasileiras," expanding it into an old-fashioned "marchinha," a beat common during Carnaval in the 1940s that has almost disappeared in recent years. On "Medo," he takes inspiration from maracatu for a song that talks about his different fears. Fernanda Takai (of Pato Fu) takes the lead on the beautiful "Incerteza," a tune about the uncertainties of a romantic relationship. Listen also to "Excelentes Lugares Bonitos," an uptempo song that describes the beauties of the diverse regions of Brazil. This self-titled debut does a good job of defying classification, and this genre-blurring album should surprise listeners at every turn.

Click on the banner to access JapanPopShow hot site

Source: Global Groove Connection

Cutting-Edge Brazilian Producer Beto Villares Chats with GGC

Beto Villares is a very cool and unassuming music and soundtrack producer from SP, Brazil. He's the architect behind Grammy-nominated Brazilian siren CéU's 2007 debut and part of a web of like-minded musicians and producers behind the city's creative renaissance. In this lengthy interview, Beto talked about his own project -- just released in the U.S. by Six Degrees -- and the mundane magic that still happens in Brazil when people with instruments and good vibes get together on any street corner to play. Look out for an upcoming feature story in Global Rhythm magazine (www.globalrhythm.net).

Read more

Source: New York Times

“Música do Brasil” is a four-disc survey of traditional music from across Brazil, field-recorded in the late 1990s. Released by the multimedia company Abril, which also produced a television series on the same theme, it has a staggering depth and variety of singing, string playing, drumming, sacred music and party music. If you are lucky enough to hear it, you will understand how this country’s pop vanguard will never lack ideas from its roots. (The set is unavailable on Amazon, but keep looking.) The musician and producer Beto Villares helped compile “Música do Brasil,” and his own first album, “Beto Villares” — made in 2003 but just released here by Six Degrees — reveals his perfect sense of security about matching electronics, pop and jazz with the rustic verities of Brazilian music, its bass drums, tambourines, flutes and hand claps. New and ancient co-exist happily; the tracks all have the right sense of scale. This great record should be celebrated, even if we’re celebrating it five years late."

French magazine Brazuca's compilation "Criolina Globrazilian Grooves" with 34 artists from the new underground Brazilian musical scene influenced by the rythms and sounds of the world.

Tracks List:

Volume 1

1. Ogodô Ano 2000 - Lucas Santanna e Seleção Natural
(feat. Tom Zé)
www.diginois.com.br
2. Fuleragem - Eddie
www.myspace.com/bandaeddie
3. Samba Negro – Cabruêra
www.myspace.com/cabrueramusic
4. V.V. – B. Negão
www.bnegao.com.br
5. Laura Bush Tem Um Senhor Problema – Mundo Livre S/A
www.myspace.com/mundolivresa
6. Gonzalito Airlines – Brasov
www.brasov.com.br
7. Ritmo Bom (com Miguel Bezerra) – DJ LK
www.luciok.com.br
8. Tem Dendê – DJ Patricktor 4
www.myspace.com/djpatricktor4
9. Envernizado – Academia da Berlinda
www.myspace.com/academiadaberlinda
10. Afoxé – Piramidi
www.myspace.com/piramidi
11. Fogueiral – Casa de Farinha
www.casadefarinha.multiply.com
12. Os Urubus Só Pensam Em Te Comer – Cidadão Instigado
www.myspace.com/cidadaoinstigado
13. De Repente – Control Z
www.alvodiscos.com.br
14. Guerreiro (Chico Mann Remix) – Curumin
www.myspace.com/curumin
15. 3 Segundos – DJ Bruno Pedrosa (feat. João do Morro)
www.myspace.com/deejaybrunopedrosa
16. Começa a Valer a Partir de Agora – Songoro Cosongo
www.songorocosongo.com.br
17. Circo Sambada – Eder “O” Rocha
www.myspace.com/ederorocha

Volume 2

1. Samba Manco – Kiko Dinucci E Bando AfroMacarrônico
www.myspace.com/afromacarronico
2. Eu Pisei Na Pedra - Chico Correa & Eletronic Band
www.myspace.com/chicocorreaelectronicband
3. Mar Morro - Cérebro Eletrônico
www.myspace.com/cerebroeletronico
4. Teta - Wado
www.myspace.com/wwwado
5. O Peixe – Toró de Palpite
www.myspace.com/torodepalpites
6. Não dê Desgosto – Alessandra Leão
www.myspace.com/alessandraleao
7. Amigo – Diego de Moraes e o Sindicato
www.myspace.com/diegodemoraes
8. Sem Saber - Argamassa
www.myspace.com/argamassa
9. Troça Adubada - Buguinha Dub
www.myspace.com/buguinhadub
10. Gaucho (Corta-Jaca) - Cacai Nunes
www.cacainunes.com.br
11. Kai Fora - Catarina Dee Jah
www.myspace.com/catarinadeejah
12. Didi e Gonzaga - Dudu Maia
www.dudumaia.com
13. Indo-Européia – Neguedmundo
www.myspace.com/neguedmundo
14. Danda Luanda – Luciana Oliveira
www.myspace.com/lucianaoliveira
15. Santo Deserto – Do Amor
www.myspace.com/doamor
16. Afroka – Guizado
www.myspace.com/guizado
17. A balada do Pistoleiro – Super Stereo Surf
www.superstereosurf.com

Free download here!!!

Source: Make Major Moves

Photos: Michael Alan Goldberg

Fonte:PRI's The World

In Brazil, when musicians want a producer who is knowledgable, artistic, and can get the job done, they know who to turn to.

When Brazilian television and cinema want a composer to add edge and hipness to their productions, they know who to turn to.

His name is Beto Villares.

Read more

Source: Global Groove Connection

Beto Villares takes the plunge

Brazilian producer Beto Villares' self-titled debut stands out as the best album I've heard so far this year. Not surprising for someone whose credentials range from composing film scores to producing multi-platinum selling recording artists. Most notably Villares is recognized for his contemporary global stylings on Brazilian chanteuse CéU's Grammy-nominated breakthrough --one of the biggest selling international records of 2007. Stepping out with his own project Villares presents a microcosm of Brazil's rich, musical landscape. Paying homage to the musical legacy of a country such as his is always a grand aspiration, but the Sao Paulo native does so from a unique perspective, infusing a new dynamic that's nothing short of sublime. The 16-track sonic voyage soaks up Brazil’s diversity into the fold of other global influences. The result reflects the magical tapestry of Villares' musical DNA. Delicate bossa novas are subtly embellished with overdubbed voices hovering in the background, eerily meandering synthesizers, and layers of percussion. Rapping in Portuguese collides with percolating rhythms, Latin funk grooves, and crypto-reggae beats. And sambas combine with old-world arrangements within looping beats. Villares' lush musings seamlessly flow in a mapped out universe of his creation and the sounds emanating are close to cosmic.

Lissette Corsa

Baile Samba Jazz

Noites Cariocas by Jacob do Bandolim

Organ Hammond - Ehud Asherie
Guitar - Bina Coquet
Drums - Adriano Santos
Percussion - Nanny Assis and Meia Noite
Video by Matt Rogers

Source: New York Times

"The opening band, Télépathique, is Brazilian, from Sao Paulo, and played slyly metamorphosing dance music: electro to dance-rock to techno to funk, as Érico Theobaldo moved among turntables, laptops and a drum kit. The band’s blithe grooves and tales of desire link it to the knowing internationalist hedonism of CSS, from Brazil, and the Brazilian Girls, from New York City, with plenty of its own smart twists.

Mylene, the band’s singer, arrived onstage in a red dress that showed off her tattoos, started moving to the synth-pop beat and sang, 'I’m not the man you think I am/I’m not that kind of guy.'"

By JON PARELES
Published: September 5, 2008

Read more

Source: What to wear during an orange alert?

September 4th, 2008 - The Filmore at Irving Plaza - New York, NY - Tricky w/ Télépathique

Images and Review by Dominick Mastrangelo

Brazilian dance/electronica upstarts, Télépathique, brought their laptops and irresistibly catchy dance tunes to the Filmore last Thursday. While headliner, and trip-hop maestro, Tricky, spent the majority of his set silhouetted or with his back to the stage, Télépathique brought the near-capacity crowd much closer than arm's length. Vocalist, Mylene, hopped into the crowd at one point to sing and constantly leaned out over the audience as her band performed songs from their debut full-length, Last Time On Earth (a record that's been out for two years in their country but just saw its American release last month.) To be sure, most of the crowd was there to see Tricky who is touring on his new record Knowle West Boy, but on the night it was Télépathique who were good value and all the more entertaining.

Source: Prefixmag