Tag: MPB Especial

A MÚSICA BRASILEIRA DESTE SÉCULO POR SEUS AUTORES E INTÉRPRETES – NELSON CAVAQUINHO

Vale lembrar que os discos deste coleção não são vendidos separadamente. Mais informações no site do Sesc-SP: www.sescsp.com.br (Rodrigo Faour)

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Flabbergast free translation

Initiated into music by the composers Henricão and Rubens Campos – songwriters of many hits for Carmen Costa – the amenable Nelson Cavaquinho tells a variety of interesting stories from his life in this installment of MPB Especial (1973) from TV Cultural, whose audio is finally available to the public in CD format. Nelson tells about the way his songs found their way to being recorded in the studio. One of his first interpreters was Aicides Gerardi (NãoFaça Vontade a Ela), followed by Cyro Monteiro (Rugas) and many others, like Dalva de Oliveira (Palhaço), Clara Nunes (Sempre Mangueira) and Elis Regina (Folhas Secas). With his unmistakeably coarse voice, Nelson sings 25 gems from his repertoire, some of them with the help of the voice and guitar of his faithful partner Guilherme ade Brito. In general, they are sad songs, anguished and with a certain fear of death. Guilherme also has an interview, explaining that many songs he made together with Nelson in the ‘botaquins’ and bars of Praça Tiradentes in Rio, were lost and forgotten in the middle of drink, women, and cigarettes. Even so, quite a few songs escaped from oblivion and were not forgotton. Together, the duo remember some of tem, such as “A Flor e o Espinho, “Folhas Secas,” “Minha Festa” and other less-known gems, like the dramatic “Mulher Sem Alma” (‘Quase passei fome pra honrar seu nome / tropecei nos erros de uma mulher sem alma / mas n’ao perdi a calma”), Pecado (“Vai, antes que os vizinhos saibam… antes que o sol transforme em pedra o lamaçal que tu trouxeste / para dentro do meu lar”) and “Garça” És uma garça vadia/ voando na orgia sem ter direção). For his part, Nelson even recalls for us stories about some of the lengedary figures of the carioca scene that passed through his life, like Noel Rosa (who liked one of his sambas, ‘Devia Ser Condenanda’), Sérgio Porto (“he helped me pay for the furniture that I had in my house”) and Zé Kéti (“I got to know Zé when he worked in a factory in São Cristovão. He saved me when I needed some bus fare, because already I liked the bar (botequim) more than anything”). Even with a certain archaic machismo common to his era in some lyrics, the music of Nelson survives the new century as an ultimate expression of quality samba created by a natural-born artist, who never studied in order to exercise his craft – Rodrigo Faour
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Flabberburb:

While I treasure pretty much everything released in the massive SESC project that issued the audio from so many (perhaps all?) of the MPB Especial and Ensaio programs, it has to be admitted that some of them are important more for their historic value and for the stories contained on them than perhaps for the music contained therein. Examples might be João do Vale, and Adoniran Barbosa’s, the latter of whom’s handful of studio albums make a much better introduction than his MPB Especial showcase. But then there are those are truly amazing and revelatory in their musicality – too many to list, actually, but the ones from Cartola, Zé Keti, Dominguinhos, Paulinho da Viola, Elis Regina, Nara Leão — and THIS one, from Nelson Cavaquinho. In fact he actually sings some of these songs with more conviction in his voice than on the versions he put out on LP, perhaps being more relaxed in this conversational atmosphere than in a recording studio. His partner Guilherme de Brito helps out on guitar and voice, and together they just blow my mind. Nelson’s stories are both illuminating and sometimes funny, and more lucid than I might have expected (considering what a famous lush Nelson was…) — recalling how he was introduced to Ciro Monteiro or the fact that the first thing that comes to mind about Sérgio Porto is that he ‘lent’ him the money to pay for all the furniture he had in his house in Rio. Our inability to hear the questions in the interview annoy me once again: he says a few words about what he thinks of the ‘new generation’ of sambistas like Paulinho da Viola or (occasional samba composer) Chico Buarque, and Elis Regina interpretating Folhas Secas. But a big surprise is that I can’t find him mentioning Beth Carvalho anywhere here — is it possible they had not made their aquaintance yet? This seems weird anda doesn’t lend much support to the story Beth tells in her recent boxset, where she claims Nelson “gave” her the song Folhas Secas, and Elis stole it, getting her recording out first. And as this program has a date from late November of 73, it must have been after Beth Carvalho’s “Um canto pra um novo dia”… Although perhaps is SESC is listing the AIR date of these programs and not the date they were actually recorded? I dunno, I’m confused, but it doesn’t matter. Just check this one out.