Today’s guest post is written by my good friend Antonio, whom I met when I was living in Rio de Janeiro. Antonio is a musician, poet, and teaches Portuguese to language learners like me! One class that he offers is learning Portuguese through Brazilian Music and I think that’s just the coolest ever ~ today he shares his knowledge and personal experiences with the lesser known genre of Brazilian music, Choro.
By contributing author, Antonio
For many people Bossa Nova is the signature genre from Brazil and they are quite right, if we consider the world wide popularity it has achieved. However, the first genuine urban Brazilian music to become really popular in the country was also born in Rio de Janeiro, in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was called Choro or Chorinho and it turned out to be one of the genres that influenced the birth of Bossa Nova.
Portinari’s paint called “Chorinho” (1942)
What calls our attention immediately is the absence of a vocalist. Guitar, flute and cavaquinho (the small guitar) were the basic instruments to perform it, but after a while other wind instruments and percussion came to join the group.
It started as an attempt to play the traditional songs from Europe, in a Brazilian way of course, and it ended being something completely original and remarkable. Improvising led them to create this new thing using the European skeleton they could get from the balls and all the traditional social pageantry around it. The “black star” arose from the white elite and shone as a unique movement of dialogue between the dominated and the dominant. That’s how it sounded before, back in 1922 when Pixinguinha, João Pernambuco and Donga were part of the Oito Batutas. Check it.
I grew up listening to Pixinguinha and I think most people here went through the same somehow. If not your mother or someone from the family listening to it at home, it was a neighbor or maybe advertising on TV. Nothing as a sweet flute to sell some goods, right?
However, the most recurrent memories I have involving this kind of music are from my early childhood, when I used to play around with a bunch of kids, among the adults having a party with all the smoke and liquor. At the end of the night, I would be sleeping on a table while my parents were having their final moments of joy and laughter with their friends. Sometimes I would wake up and look around to check how things were and I would find myself under the stars, listening to a smooth melody and thinking how happy I was to be there.
Armandinho is one of the top musicians in Brazil. All his career is a blessing. In this marvelous album he shows us his skills playing Choro and will take you to another place in time. Go for it. I highly recommend a fine “Caipirinha” to put you in the right mood.
Musical Passport 