Category: Nordeste

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Jackson do Pandeiro – O Cabra da Peste (1966) (REPOST)

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Hi there folks. Today, by request, I resurrect an old dead post from June of 2010, enjoy!

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Jackson do Pandeiro
“O Cabra da Peste”

Original release: 1966, “Jackson do Pandeiro – O Cabra da Peste”, Continental, PPL 12265)

Censored release: 1969

reissue: 1978, “Jackson do Pandeiro – O Cabra da Peste – Edição Limitada”, Popular/GE/Continental, 146411047)

This pressing, Warner/Continental CD, 2001 (092741523-2)

01. Capoeira mata um (Alvaro Castilho – De Castro) Balanço
02. Tá roendo (Figueirôa – Maruim) Samba
03. A ordem é samba (Jackson do Pandeiro – Severino Ramos) Samba
04. Pinicapau (Codó) Baião
05. Forró quentinho (Almira Castilho) Forró
06. Bodocongó (HUmberto Teixeira – Cicero Nunes) Baião
07. Secretária do diabo (Osvaldo Oliveira – Reinaldo Costa) Forró
08. Vou sambalançar (Antonio Barros – Jackson do Pandeiro) Samba
09. Alegria do vaqueiro (Zé Katraca) Baião
10. Forró do Biá (Luiz Moreno – Jeronimo) Forró
11. Papai vai de trem (Ivo Martins – Jackson do Pandeiro) Baião

DELETED TRACK between tracks 10 and 11 above, Polícia Feminina (Severino Ramos – José Pereira) Forró

What a confusing release history this album has had, which utter lack of any information whatsoever on the CD reissue fails to clear up. This is what I was I have been able to piece together for you: “O Cabra da Peste” was released in 1966 (sometimes listed as 1963, which I originally fell for but was thankfully corrected about), censored and re-released without the song “Polícia Feminina” in 1969, then reissued again in limited edition in 1978, from which I suspect this album cover at the top was taken. I am not sure what is meant by the text under the photo, “rerecording with a new cover,” unless they consider the removal of one track to be a rerecording. Or perhaps by 78 they decided to put “Polícia Feminina” (a fairly innocuous and silly song about having your heart locked up in prison, etc) back on the album…. Whatever the case may be, the CD issue is still missing the track. The recording is in mono, so we can at least be glad they didn’t use a version “electronically rechannelled for stereo”…

Jackson do Pandeiro recorded a ton of hit songs that are very important for Brazilian popular music. None of those are on here. (You might, however, want to visit the previous post of O Rei do Ritmo on this site..). I read one review of this album, in Portuguese, that criticized the song selection as being the weakest of any album from Jackson’s career.. Well, if that’s true, I am still pretty impressed by this record and it only shows just how much of a genius this guy to give these tunes so much life. It’s a solid set of forró, samba, and samba de coco. And although there might not be anything that immediately has you singing along like many of his better-known releases, there are some real stand-out cuts here. “Capoeira mata um” totally kicks off right. “A ordém é samba” written by Jackson and and Severino Ramos, and “Bodocongó″ by Humberto Teixeira e Cícero Nunes are catchy tunes and hot performances, showing just how easily Jackson could interpret a variety of styles and have it still come out like, well, Jackson do Pandeiro. One difference between material from this era and his earlier 1950s successes can be found in the suingue (or, swing) of the rhythm section — the influence of bossa nova is felt in the way the drummer lays down some jazzed-out chops on even the forró numbers. While this might not be the place to start for people new to Jackson do Pandeiro, this a fine album on its own. It makes me happy.

Jackson do Pandeiro – A Cabra da Peste (1963) FLAC LOSSLESS

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Jackson do Pandeiro – Os Grandes Sucessos de Jackson do Pandeiro (1975) 24-96khz vinyl

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Jackson do Pandeiro
“Os Grandes Successos de Jackson do Pandeiro”
Released 1975 on Tropicana / CBS Records (01320)
[which was also Columbia – Epic – Sony in Brazil…]

1. Morena Bela
(Juarez Santiago / Onildo Almeida)
2. Tum Tum Tum
(Ari Monteiro / Cristóvão de Alencar)
3. Casaca de Couro
(Rui de Morais / Silva)
4. Lamento Cego
(Jackson do Pandeiro / Nivaldo da Silva Lima)
5. Forró De Surubim
(Antônio Barros Silva / José Batista)
6. Mané Gardino
(Ari Monteiro / Elias Soares)
7. Cantiga Do Sapo
(Buco do Pandeiro / Jackson do Pandeiro)
8. Tem Mulher, Tô Lá
(J. Luna / Zé Catraca)
9. Penerou Gavião
(Jackson do Pandeiro / Odilon Vargas)
10. Sina De Cigarra
(Delmiro Ramos / Jackson do Pandeiro)
11. Chu Chu Beleza
(João Silva / Raimundo Evangelista)
12. Forró Em Campina
(Jackson do Pandeiro)

Tracks 1, 10, 11, and 12 are in stereo
Track 2 through 9 are in mono

This is a rather generic compilation of Jackson’s material released on the CBS subsidiary Tropicana in the mid-70s, without any indication of the provinence of any of the material included on it. It has all the tell-tales of a contractural obligation album, which in the case of Jackson is much less of a straight-forward thing than the phrase suggests. I know much less about his life than I would like (and am still waiting to find myself a copy of his biograpy, O Rei do Ritmo), but one bit of wisdom I’ve collected over the years is that Jackson had a nasty habit of entering into business deals with a record label while still under contract to another.

Thus, around the mid-70s we see Jackson leave CBS/Sony and begin recording for smaller or independent labels like Chantecler/Alvorada or Continental – however, CBS continued to release anthology after anthology of his material, leading me to the impression that he still owed them some albums…

My guess is that, with this particular release called “Os Grandes Sucessos” (The Greatest Hits..) which in fact lacks pretty much all of his biggest hits, they were trying to promote some of his newer material included here by capitalizing on some of his earlier, albiet lesser-remembered hits (many of them released as 78 RPM`s on another US-owned label, which were collected and shared HERE although the links were taken down so quickly I have been too spooked to put up new links). Jackson’s discography is so confusing, and the plethora of labels he recorded for so baffling in number, that I wouldn’t be surprised if the executives Tropicana (and their conglomarate corporate overlords) were counting on this chaos in order not to have to pay out on royalties — there are composer credits here, but absolutely nothing on the publishing rights. A little fishy. And though any single-LP collection of Jackson do Pandeiro is going to lack some favorites, there are obvious glaring omissions here of ANY of the recordings that were synonomous with him as a `household name.` So what we get is a mixture of his lesser-known hits and some songs that I don’t think were ever hits at all — namely, material from recent CBS releases like the LP`s “Sina de Cigarra” and “Tem Mulher, Tô Lá.” All of Jackson’s discography on vinyl is frustratingly rare — and even more frustrating, badly represented on compact disc for someone who represents such a huge part of Brazil’s musical patrimony – that I want to make it clear I am not making a critique of those early 70s albums from Jackson. Because in fact I still have yet to hear them! In that sense, I would have been happier if this had been strictly a collection culled from those early 70s discs, rather than a haphazard, somewhat random stroll through his career.

All that being said, this is still Jackson do Pandeiro and ipso facto a truly enjoyable listen. It includes some of my favorites from him like “Tum-tum-tum,” “Cantigo do sapo” (the best song ever about improvising frogs), and “Lamento cego.” And the newer material is also high-caliber stuff.

Some technical notes of interest for those who care… The chaotic nature of this weird collection presents some challenges for somebody wanting to do a decent digitalization of it. The album mixes songs recorded and mixed in MONO (the majority here) with song in stereo, all of them mastered at different maximum volumes, and seemingly all thrown together without much attention to detail. My solution involved a change from my usual workflow for vinyl digitalization. The first part, the actual vinyl transfer, is identical to the usual; it’s in the editing and post-processing that things get weird:

Vinyl original pressing -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply) > Creek Audio OBH-15 -> M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard -> Adobe Audition 3.0 at 24-bits 96khz -> Click Repair light settings, additional clicks and pops removed in Audition ->

-> For tracks 2 THROUGH 9, a second pass in Click Repair solely to use its Stereo->Mono fold-down feature
-> Checking for aditional blemishes in Audition again, and comparing to “false stereo” source for differences

-> Normalizing the amplitude of each track, individually, to 0 decibels.

I’ve been skipping the step of normalizing on a lot of my recent vinyl rips, because I believe one of the great things about vinyl/analog is how much you can turn up the volume on a system before you start to hear distortions, and normalizing everything to 0db kind of defeats this pleasure to my ears. However, the tracks on this compilation are so all-over-the place in terms of their overall levels, I think I’ve actually made an improvement over the original vinyl mastering (or should I say, lack therein).

dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced -> ID Tags done in foobar2000 v.1.0.1 and Tag & Rename.

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Jackson do Pandeiro – Chiclete Com Banana: 1958-60 (2008)

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Jackson do Pandeiro
“Chiclete Com Banana”
The Columbia Records Sessions 1958-60
Released 2008 by Discobertas Records (DB – 002)

DISC ONE

1. Tum, Tum, Tum
2. Pacífico Pacato
3. Boa Noite
4. Nortista Quatrocentão
5. Sem Querer
6. Vou Sambar
7. Boi da Cara Preta
8. Linda
9. Baião do Bambolê
10. Quadro Negro
11. Forró na Gafieira
12. Cantiga do Sapo
13. Naquela Base
14. Quem Não Chora Não Mama

DISC TWO

1. Chiclete com Banana
2. Forró de Surubim
2. Lágrima
3. De Arerê
4. Ogum de Malê
5. Sarava o Endá
6. Casaca de Couro
7. Lamento Cego
8. Valsa Neném
9. Mane Gardino
10. Acorrentado
11. Leva Teu Gererê
12. Vou Buscar Maria
13. Penerou Gavião

I have already lamented previously about the current sad state of Jackson do Pandeiro’s discography. I don’t know if it is due to evil record executives or quarelling family members, but his very extensive catalog of recordings is barely in print, limited to three titles that represent full albums (O Forró de Jackson, O Rei do Rítmo, and A Cabra da Peste) and few compilations with generic packaging that do little to honor the man. But alas it must just be me, the gringo commodity fetishizer, who gets so worked up about OBJECTS and the lack of them. What’s important is the music, right? Well, when you can find it. When you want Jackson do Pandeiro in better quality than a crappy mp3 you found on the internet, then you find yourself with a problem.

Let us welcome Discobertas records, then, into this sad story. They have done the world a service, and brought us a focused, concise collection of music: pretty much everything Jackson recorded for the Columbia record label in his brief tenure there from September 1958 to September of 1960. This is music that makes me glad to be alive.

As the liner notes point out, Jackson do Pandeiro shocked everyone when he left Copacabana Records, with whom he had made a ton of hit records and become a national sensation, and left for the (American-owned) Columbia. Ironic, then, that he end there recording one of his most famous tunes and one of the most famous moments of musical social critique and satire of American imperialism – ‘Chiclete Com Banana’.

By this time, Jackson do Pandeiro was living in Rio, starring in films, and living it up carioca-style. The majority of the tracks on this collection were released on 78’s and many will be unfamiliar even to Brazilian fans. In addition to the expected songs of baião and coco, there are also styles like rojão, batuque, marcha and samba represented here. And it is samba that is perhaps the most starteling revelation here — not that Jackson could sing samba, since he had already done so quite well, but the way it’s presented here. With horn charts and strings often replacing instruments like the sanfona or concertina, one wonders if Columbia was trying to make a samba star out of Jackson. Or perhaps it was his own initiative to do something different? There is a recent book about the man (“O Rei do Ritmo” by Fernando Moura and Antonio Vicente) that may or may not shine some light on this issue.. I have only come across the book once and wish I had bought it, since I am too lazy to remember to order a copy. It has a discography in it that appears almost identical to the one found on the Jackson do Pandeiro ‘official’ website — it appears that one was copied directly from the other, but I won’t point fingers. A great deal of the material here appears to have been recorded with Britinho e Sua Orchestra as his backing band — Britinho was a pianist whose band was sort of the house band at Columbia for putting out popular dance records, mostly samba, in the 50s.

This is usually the point where Flabbergast begins complaining about the quality of audio mastering or packaging or whatnot. Well today I am going to cut Discobertas some slack, because they have done a bang-up job on recent reissues from Beth Carvalho and Elza Soares. This was their second release (not sure which was the first in their catalog)… Armed with only a single photo of Jackson (from the ‘personal archive of the family’), reproduced about five times, they give us the following weird disclaimer in the CD insert: roughly translated, “All efforts were made in the attempt to locate the musicians, composers and photographers involved in the historic material that this project finally makes available. Any corrections will have to be made in subsequent editions (pressings).”

Kind of a weird thing to say on your own record, no? Seems like these guys had as hard a time putting together solid info on Jackson as even the casual listener, which is kind of discouraging.. They do, however, provide the precise catalog numbers of all the releases on 78 and the few that appeared on LPs. As far as I can tell, Jackson had two full length releases (LPs) on Columbia, the majority of which was material already released on 78 with a few new things thrown in. Thus, this seems to be *everything* for Columbia right here on these two discs.

Interesting side note- the producers thank Erasmo Carlos in the liner notes… Maybe just for being a cool guy, or a friend, or maybe they showed up at his house to look at his record collection in desperate need??

Another note — I can’t figure out the source material for this reissue — original tapes, or vinyl? Although the notes above this mention the old standard disclaimer of ‘these original recordings were made on magnetic tape between 1958 and 1960, every technical resource available has been made to improve the audio quality…”, they never come out and say ‘mastered from the original master tapes’. Instead they do a good job of tucking that information away under “Digitalização e pre-edição – Marcelo Fróes” which doesn’t really specify what was digitized. A lot of the tunes too crystal clear to have been done from anything besides tape, but then a lot can be done with pristine copies of original vinyl (such as one might find in Erasmo Carlos’ house..). Usually, working from the original master tapes is something people like to brag about, so the jury is out until they ‘come clean’. But it sounds good to my ears, and this stuff is pure gold musically.

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