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Brazil's Backland Resonance PDF Print E-mail
Written by Bruce Gilman   
Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:35

Brazilian band Cordel do Fogo EncantadoThe most penetrating Brazilian music originates in the country's proving ground, the Northeast, in particular, the state of Pernambuco, a reservoir of good music and musicians.

Whether it's baião king Luiz Gonzaga, Bossa Nova pioneer João Gilberto, Música Armorial with its banda de pífanos, Tropacália protagonist Gilberto Gil, Mangue Beat groundbreakers Chico Science & Nação Zumbi, or artists like Jackson do Pandeiro, Lenine, and Hermeto Pascoal; the sounds emanating from the Northeast are rich not only in their (Iberian and Moorish) sonorities but also in their remarkable, highly original mixtures of rhythm.

Weaving together the passionate and the primitive in a powerful amalgam of theater, percussion, and poetry, Cordel do Fogo Encantado (Poem of the Enchanted Fire), exposes the newest link in this rich cultural chain.

The group hails from the city of Arcoverde, 250 kilometers from Recife, entryway to Brazil's vast arid interior, the sertão, and its domain of enchanted ancestral spirits. This is where the historic stage was set for bloody conflicts between indigenous people and the press of civilization, and where a disseminating terminal for cult forms of religion propagated.

Always present here is the enchanted (encantado), the apocalyptic, the prophetic, the otherworldly. Its archetypal element, be it from a lamp's light, the blazing sun, or the perennial drought, is fire (fogo), inconstant, eternal, and always changing.

Here, a word synonymous with imaginative writing, Cordel, weaves together the beliefs of poor and illiterate people. Literatura de cordel (string literature) refers to popular and cheaply printed pamphlets, neither bound nor published professionally, that are produced and sold at fairs by side street vendors who hang them on cords, allowing potential clients to peruse, or to read aloud for those who can't, poems, stories, and songs.

In this archaic locality a troupe of artisans, embracing prophecies and a ritualistic ambiance, caught the public's attention with their theater piece entitled Cordel do Fogo Encantado.

The group - Lira Paes, Clayton Barros, and Emerson Calado - toured the state for two years, their theater performances punctuated with poetry and music. In Recife, they were augmented by Nego Henrique and Rafa Almeida, percussionist cousins who had been attending umbanda rituals since childhood, rituals that were repressed in the backlands.

At the Rec-Beat Festival, Pernambuco's showcase for innovative talent, Cordel, with its charisma and riveting dramatic effects, further propelled by an Afro-Brazilian rhythmic and melodic force, surfaced as a local sensation.

Their mixture of rhythm, drama, and poetry, speaking to the spiritual side of the listeners and furnishing a lift away from the everyday constraints of reality, crossed frontiers, catching critics' attention, receiving greater visibility, and earning Cordel fitting acclaim as a revelation.

Bearing strong impressions of the sertão by speaking of fear, desire, and love, Cordel, with certainty, is one of the most creative and successful bands to surface in Pernambuco over the past five years; however, they reject being pigeonholed as "regional."

And though their comprehensive grasp of Northeastern tradition fits in well with the ethos of the Mangue Beat movement, Cordel is heir to no movement. (Mangue bit, a phrase figuratively used to contrast the bit of a computer with the region's poverty, is a movement that became known as "Mangue Beat" through mistakes made in the Brazilian press.)

Their trajectory has been similar to that of Mangue Beat bands like Mundo Livre S/A, Mestre Ambrósio, and Chico Science & Nação Zumbi, bands that emerged on the coast, amidst Recife's urban chaos. But Cordel arrived on the scene with music assimilated from the backlands: indigenous ceremonial dancing, samba de côco, liturgical drama, and poetic-musical forms.

To its theatrical base, enhanced by (often improvised) poetry and a percussive arsenal, Cordel interweaves rock, maracatu, embolada, frevo, pop, samba, ciranda, and reggae, creating a hybridization that has no name and is perplexing to dancers.

Employing a guitar (the single harmonic instrument), percussion, and their voices, Cordel bewitches their audience, achieving with showmanship and instrumental bravura more power and authority than groups equipped with towering Marshall amplifiers. The power to create both a hushed order and an almost frenzied excitement, a paradox of settled calm and of deep disturbance, has been central to their success.

The group's relationship with its following is one of sending and receiving messages. Crowds, flocking to their performances, relish the group's unearthly, faintly menacing aura, devouring their imaginative textures like penitents released from fasting.

Though the contrast between diffuse and almost delirious density does take some getting used to, to miss Cordel is to miss one of Brazil's most unconventional bands, a band whose shows are spine chilling.

The power, the pacing, the textures, and the almost unbearable spiritual grandeur of their shows, notwithstanding, left some doubt about Cordel's ability to transition from the stage to a CD format without losing vitality.

 Cordel's first self-titled CD, produced by Naná Vasconcelos, captures all the textural imagination and richly varied language of the backlands, achieving the perfect balance between folk wisdom and ferocity.
 
 This CD, a culture shock for newcomers, is impregnated with the profound roots of the sertão. First time listeners may sense the absence of conventional instruments, but not the enormous conviction of percussion without clichés and of poetry without pretension.
 
 Connecting with quick musical resourcefulness, the disc loses none of Cordel's power to entrance, stimulate, and provoke. The set of eighteen tracks, extracted from their original theater piece, many with dual titles in the manner of literatura de cordel, opens with one of the sertão's starkest sounds, a cowherd's chanting sadly, enclosed by a cow bell and sundry studio effects, leaving no doubt about its source or what is to follow.

Clayton Barros's vigorous, swirling sound-collages are especially well displayed on "Boi Luzeiro" ou "A Pega de Violento, Vaidoso e Avoador" ("Enlightened Bull" or "The Fight of the Violent, Vain, and Flyer"). His strong lyrical sensibility enables him to unify the unruly material, despite its angularity.

The track also reveals an important reference to the sertão - the poetic improvisation employed by those who live there, sertanejos, as does "Chover" ou "Invocação Para um Dia Líqüido" ("To Rain" or "Invoking a Liquid Day"). Reaching the summit of five-way interaction, "Alto do Cruzeiro" ou "O Auto do Cruzeiro" ("The Cross Heights" or "The Play of the Cross"), full of jangling dissonance and with strangely macabre overtones, is perhaps most mood-provoking in terms of the textures established between guitar and percussion.

"Profecia Final" ou "No Mais Profundo" ("Final Prophecy" or "In the Deepest"), affecting a farewell in prophetic tones, cites the bandit-hero Lampião, the mystic Antônio Conselheiro, and under peals of profane laughter from the candomblé jester and agent of magic, Exu, the litanies of religious pilgrims. "

Ai se Sêsse" ("If it Were") by Zé da Luz, a poet idolized in the sertão, though unknown outside that universe, brings closure to the CD with unexpected atmospheric compassion. From the disparate flute and percussion ribbons that wind through "Salve" to the stabbing percussion lines of "Pedrinha" to the taut incisive quality of "Catingueira," the playing is fierce; nothing can hide Cordel's unostentatious versatility and fearsome intensity.

Until now, an official DVD of the group hasn't existed, so for those who have never caught the group live, prepare to be bowled over by the perfect marriage of the music, poetry, wit, and witchcraft captured on MTV Presents Cordel do Fogo Encantado.

Stunningly filmed, it is a hotly uninhibited documentary. Cordel's electrifying performance and sheer energy, acutely alive to voluble expressive freedom, is astounding; their hyperactivity provides its own fascination and visual commentary.

More intense than a CD, the DVD experience, quite apart from being more convenient to access, offers added material: irresistible physicality and moment-to-moment shifts of camera angle and color are effectively complemented by illuminating commentaries, interspersed with entertaining vignettes from group members. Subtitles are provided in four languages - Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French.

The tingle factor comes to the fore when Lirinha, trancelike, but sure in his pacing, recites with forceful declamation and emphatic meaning "Os Anjos Caídos," the piece he composed for the sound track of the Cacá Diegues film Deus é Brasileiro, which talks about an angel who fell from Heaven when the Creator cut his wings.

In addition to "Os Anjos Caídos," 10 other tracks from the group's second CD, O Palhaço do Circo Sem Futuro (The Clown from the Circus Without a Future) are included. The most pithy and relevant aspect of the DVD is the impression conveyed of an utterly unpretentious group of artists performing with disarming frankness and an uncanny sense of drama - not to mention a lethal twinkle. The only flaw of this fascinating montage is that, though skillfully edited, it leaves one impatient to hear the group in person.

Cordel do Fogo Encantado's performances are story-like, expressing, both the sacred and profound. Incendiary and sophisticated language, mixed with eclectic rhythms and furious percussion is unequivocally a sound born in the musical laboratory of Northeastern culture, from the lineage and legacies of its singers and poets.

In a climate of urgency and heat where rules are sacred, yet arbitrary, and so must be tested, the band steadily absorbs folk and popular art, varying, transforming, and combining their sources into live and recorded performances.

Dispensing with rules and the rational, raising emotional temperatures, improvising and arranging according to what intuition tells them, Cordel do Fogo Encantado functions as a sonorous block in the service of Northeastern oral tradition, creating a volume and tension without precedents in Brazilian music.
______________________

Poeira (ou Tambores do Vento Que Vem)  

O pão que nasce do fogo  
Na roda da saia 
Na gira da  terra    
O vento que rasga telhado   
Tambor ritmado   
Trompetes de guerra   
A guerra que traz a poeira   
Que bate na gente   
Poeira que vem do sertão   
Configuração   
Bafo quente   

Vem poeira   
Vem poeira
Vem poeira

Trago poeira da terra queimada e a fumaça   
Ah! Sequidão* sequidão Pojuca   
Malhada Craíba   
Juazeiro torto 
Moxotó velado  
Serra das Varas

Trago poeira da terra queimada e a fumaça   
Ah! sequidão sequidão Pojuca  
Malhada Craíba 
Juazeiro torto  
Moxotó velado
Cabrobó, Floresta, Belém do São Francisco
Terra da massa   
 
*Drought, inspired in a trope  by Ciço Gomes
______________________

Dust (or Drums of the Coming Wind) 
(Lyrics: Lirinha / Music: Clayton Barros)

The bread that's born from the fire 
In the spinning of the skirt 
In the spinning of the earth  
The wind that destroys roofs 
The rhythm of the drum 
Trumpets of war 
The war that brings the dust 
That hits us 
Dust that comes from the hinterlands 
Configuration 
Hot breath 

Come dust 
Come dust
Come dust

I bring the dust from the burned ground and the smoke 
Oh, Pojuca, drought  
Quilted Craíba 
Twisted Juazeiro
Veiled Moxotó  
Varas Mountains

I bring the dust from the burned ground and the smoke 
Oh, Pojuca drought 
Quilted Craíba 
Twisted Juazeiro
Veiled Moxotó
Cabrobó,Floresta, Belém do São Francisco 
Land of the masses  
______________________

Profecia (ou Testamento da Ira)

Salve o povo Xucuru

Na cumeeira da serra Ororubá o velho profeta já dizia
Uma nova era se abre com duas vibras trançadas 
Seca e sangue  
Seca e sangue*     

Herdeiros do novo milênio
Ninguém tem mais dúvidas 
O sertão vai virar mar 
E o mar sim 
Depois de encharcar as mais estreitas veredas
Virará sertão    

Antôe tinha razão rebanho da fé

A terra é de todos a terra é de ninguém  
Pisarão na terra dele todos os seus 
E os documentos dos homens incrédulos  
Não resistirão a Sua ira  

Filhos do caldeirão  
Herdeiros do fim do mundo  
Queimai vossa história tão mal contada  

Ah! Joana Imaginária  
Permita que o Conselheiro    
Encoste sua cabeleira    
No teu colo de oratórios    
Tua saia de rosários    
Teu beijo de cera quente  

E assim na derradeira lua branca    
Quando todos os rios virarem leite 
E as barrancas cuscuz de milho  
E as estrelas tocadeiras de viola    
Caírem uma por uma  
Os soldados do rei D. Sebastião  
Mostrarão o caminho  

*Prophecy of Shaman Cauã (excerpt from the book Lampião Seu Tempo e Seu Reinado, Vol. 1, Frederico Bezerra Maciel)
______________________

Prophecy (or The Will of Wrath)
(Lyrics: Lirinha / Music: Clayton Barros)

Long live the Xucuru people 

On the top of the Ororubá mountain, the old prophet used to say 
That a new time, with two entwined fibers, will come  
Drought and blood 
Drought and blood 
   
Heirs of the new millennium 
There's no doubt anymore 
The hinterlands will become the sea 
And the sea 
After flooding the narrowest trails 
Will become the hinterland 

Antôe was right, flock of faith 

The land belongs to every one and to no one 
They will all step on this ground 
And the documents of the unfaithful men 
Won't resist His wrath 

Sons of the caldron 
Heirs of the end of the world 
Burn your story so poorly told 

Oh! Imaginary Joana 
Allow Conselheiro  
To lean his long hair 
On your bosom of prayers 
Your skirt of rosaries 
Your kiss of hot wax 

And then, under the last white moon 
When all the rivers turn into milk 
And the river banks, corn couscous
And the stars, guitar players 
Fall one by one 
The soldiers of King Sebastião 
Will show the way 
______________________

Boi Luzeiro (ou A Pega de Violento, Vaidoso e Avoador)

Vem rodar no meu terreiro boi Luzeiro
Vem soltar fitas na seca 
Vem tacar fogo no mundo  
Violento Vaidoso e Avoador

Quando o dia nascer e morrer
Seu nananunrei*

Cigarro Pai Tomás cigarro (um trago) 
Incensa a tarde baforadas de verão 
Os retirantes já cruzaram meio mundo  
Eu fico aqui esperando outro batuque  
Uma mulher com dois olhos de trovão  
A Nau mergulhou meu Bumba cadê? 

Seu nananunrei * 

Quando o dia nascer e morrer  
Boi  

*Expression created by Lirinha, Barros, and Cacau Arcoverde
______________________

Enlightened Bull (or The Fight of the Violent, the Vain, and Flyer)
(Lyrics and music: Lirinha / Clayton Barros)

Come spin on my ground, enlightened bull
Come release the ribbons on the drought 
Come set fire to the world 
Violent, Vain, and Flyer

When the day comes and goes 
Mr. nananunrei

Father Tomás's cigarette (a drag)  
Perfumes the afternoon with breaths of summer 
The pilgrims have already crossed half the world 
And I stay here waiting for another drum beat 
A woman with two eyes of thunder 
The ship has sunk, where's my Bumbá? 

Mr. nananunrei  

When the day comes and goes 
Bull
______________________

Os Anjos Caídos (ou A Construção do Caos) 

Os homens são anjos caídos
Que Deus mandou para Terra
Porque botaram defeito na criação do mundo.
Aqui, começaram a inventar coisas,
A imitar Deus.
E Deus ficou zangado,
Mandou muita chuva e muito fogo,
Eu vi de perto a sua raiva sacra,
Pois foram sete dias de trabalho intenso,
Eu vi de perto,
Quando chegava uma noite escura

Só meu candeeiro é quem velava o Seu sono santo
Santo que é Seu nome e Seu sorriso raro  
Eu voava alto porque tinha um grande par de asas
Até que um dia caí

E aqui estou nesse terreiro de samba
Ouvindo o trabalho do Céu
E aqui estou nesse terreiro de guerra
Ouvindo o batalha do Céu
Nesse terreiro de anjos caídos

Cá na Terra trabalho é todo dia
Levantar, quebrar parede, matar fome matar a sede
Carregar na cabeça uma bacia
E esse fogo que a Sua boca envia
Pra nossa criação

Ah, Deus
Esse terreiro de anjos
Ah, esse errar que é sem fim
Essa paixão que tão gigante
Esse amor que é só Seu
Esperando Você chegar

Os Homens aprenderam com Deus a criar
E foi com os Homens que Deus aprendeu a amar  
______________________

Fallen Angels ( or The Building of Chaos) 
(lyrics: Lirinha; music and arrangement: Cordel do Fogo Ecantado)

Men are fallen angels
That God sent to Earth 
Because they found flaws in the creation of the world
They started to invent things here 
To imitate God 
And God got angry, 
He sent a lot of rain and a lot of fire 
I saw his holy wrath from a short distance   
And there were 7 days of intense struggle 
I saw it from a short distance 
When a dark night came 

Only my lamp guarded His holy sleep 
Your name and Your rare smile are holy
I soared because I had a large pair of winds 
And one day I fell 

And here I am in this samba yard 
Listening to the work of the sky 
Here I am on this field of war 
Listening to the battle in the sky
In this yard of fallen angels 

Here on Earth, everyday's a working day 
Get up, break walls, eat, quench the thirst 
To carry a bowl on top of the head 
This fire that your mouth sends  
To our creation 

O God, this yard of angels
Oh, these endless mistakes 
This giant passion and this love that belongs to You 
Waiting for You to arrive 

Men learned from God how to create
And God learned from men how to love

Journalist, musician, and educator Bruce Gilman has served as music editor of Brazzil magazine, an international monthly publication based in Los Angeles, for close to a decade. During that time he has written scores of articles on the most influential Brazilian artists and genres, program notes for festivals in the United States and abroad, numerous CD liner notes, and an essay, "The Politics of Samba," that appeared in the Georgetown Journal.

Comments (1)Add Comment
The Observer
written by Guest, January 24, 2006
George Bush has been a blessing for the American people. He is moral, honest and has values that many Americans still cherish. He is a born-again Christian, which means he is going to heaven. His faith helps him to guide our country through rough times and practice "compassionate conservatism." Thank God George Bush is president.

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