Brazil
Boogarins, Jazz Cafe review - psychedelic hues and Brazilian groovesWednesday, 17 July 2019
I never quite know where I stand with with jazz. The endless, drifting circular loops of sound, subversive grooves and syncopated rhythms are like having the same conversation over and over, with slightly different turns of phrase and emphasis on... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jambú e os Míticos Sons da AmazôniaSunday, 30 June 2019
Belém’s population is one-and-a-half million. Located 100km south of Brazil’s north coast on the east bank of the Amazon feeder river Pará, it’s the capital of the state sharing its name with the waterway. The city is only 160km south of the equator... Read more... |
Milton Nascimento, Barbican review – besotted audience hails frail legendWednesday, 19 June 2019
Milton Nascimento is 76. Physically, he is quite frail; he had to be helped carefully onto the stage and then up into a high stool for this London concert by a couple of band members. But that arrival and rather ungainly progress were, as one might... Read more... |
Sergio Mendes, RFH review - tight discipline, exceptional musicianshipTuesday, 07 May 2019
The last time Sergio Mendes, the Brazilian bossa nova legend, played at the Royal Festival Hall was in 1980 when he opened for Frank Sinatra. He shakes his head in wonder at the memory, though it’s not so long ago in the scheme of things – his... Read more... |
Bebel Gilberto, Union Chapel review - less effort, more transcendence, pleaseTuesday, 16 April 2019
How do we want our fleeting, precious, close-up glimpses of the royals to be? Do we want the mystique, the aura, glamour and transcendence? Or would we rather be reassured that they are, in their way, just like us? No performer could have given more... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 23 - the hottest Brazil sounds for 2019 with guest Tiago Di MauroSaturday, 05 January 2019
The focus of this radio show, one of Peter Culshaw’s occasional updates of global music, is the new sounds coming from Brazil in 2019. The country seems to entering a dark period with new President Bolsanaro having just taken office, but however... Read more... |
BaianaSystem, Village Underground - the new Brazilian contendersMonday, 06 August 2018
The post-modernists have taken over the asylum. At least, that's what I thought twice this week. Once when I saw Vlad Putin on YouTube doing karaoke to an adoring audience. The other was seeing Brazil’s latest contenders BaianaSystem, who played to... Read more... |
Blu-ray/DVD: Neon BullMonday, 14 May 2018
The naturalism of Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull has an engrossing inconsequence – if that's not a contradiction in terms – that surely betrays the Brazilian director’s origins as a documentarist. Narrative in any traditional plot sense is... Read more... |
Tim Maia tribute, The Jazz Café review - the Brazilian wild soul legend revival continuesTuesday, 20 March 2018
The packed crowd at the Jazz Café was fired up by a sizzling samba soul band led by Kita Steuer on bass and vocals, singing along to a production line of hits, complete with dynamic brass section and superior percussion. All songs by a singular... Read more... |
Aquarius review - 'the unease of contemporary Brazil'Saturday, 25 March 2017
Politics certainly caught up with Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius. The Brazilian director and his cast appeared at their Cannes competition premiere last year with placards protesting that democracy in their native land was in peril: it was the day... Read more... |
The Lost City of ZTuesday, 21 March 2017
Percy Fawcett: does the name ring a bell? He ought by rights to sit in the pantheon of boys’ own explorers alongside Cook and Ross, Parry and Franklin, Livingstone and Mungo Park, Scott and Shackleton. Either side of the Great War, he returned again... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Erasmo CarlosSunday, 05 February 2017
Erasmo Carlos got his break in August 1965 when the TV show Jovem Guarda (The Young Guard) began its run. Filmed before a live audience in São Paulo and broadcast nationally, it was pop as never seen before in Brazil. On screen, Roberto Carlos and... Read more... |
