Wait. Don't try, you, thirsty for good sounds, to find my E-mail address to request the name of these dozen plus names. It is a single piece of art that inhabited my stereo for a couple of days and seemed to not want to leave. And that is because I am a true lover of art. As in original. Not as in good craft. And we need to make the distinction between art and craft. Let's face it: many people can draw cubist influenced pictures nowadays, but Picasso showed how in the first place. Anyone can make rhymes on the Jobim or Vinicius' style — but who introduced the marvel to us?? And to the world, for that matter?
Well, don't rush. I will tell you the name of this finding. Yes, finding. Because, like most talents, it comes from an unexpected place and has no big pop machine backing its release. But, first, go into that area in your gray matter that stores the good things that life has to offer. There yet? Well, when was the last time a new name entered it as being truly original, pure, humorous and sensual Brazilian music? And played by a real musician and his real musician friends—with names, not numbers)?
Oh, ok: you are remembering that Caetano, or that solo by that great former band member who had full reasons to show you what he/she /it had best. All right, there are plenty of authors in our "verde-amarelo" repertoire to make us proud to be from the Pátria Amada (Beloved Country). But is this list of a recent (green-yellow—the national colors) season? Or a compilation of well-endowed names, for long making our intimate moments more intimate, giving our "get-togethers" a better ambiance?
Now, let me get deeper, and more anal: which one of them had a great set of pieces of varied—truly varied— sound styles, with real swift lyrics and elegy? Which was celebrated by the national unanimity—one of the few unanimities that is not stupid: writer Luís Fernando Veríssimo, to cite only one? Which was played homage to by a radio station in the city where whoever isn't a musician is a tourist: Prague?
If you want to hear a sincere scorn on the capabilities of our average musician, please go get Música Pra Gente Grande, by Arthur de Faria. And don't shy away because of the title—a paradox remnant of that Sunday morning hour of Concertos Para a Juventude (Concerts for the Youth). And it is not necessary to be "gente grande" (grown-up person) to listen to this CD. You will become one afterwards, at least musically.
Arthur offers this blind date with the widest ebb of genres in his typical childish maturity. Like an unpretentious "Gaúcho" (that is possible, sometimes), he spreads his years of music knowledge with a flagrant sensuality and the fluency of an outrageous flexibility that you haven't—and can't—find in the current constellation of artists. It was necessary for someone with the sole ambition of making something good (let's put it in capital letters, if you will: GOOD!) so that we could have this witty extravaganza that not only compellingly advocates the Brazilian true sounds, but stylishly contributes another few to them.
When you listen to Arthur's work you will find that it isn't just another version of the good old stuff you love. You will find originality at its most, a satire that stings, a warm ductile length of lyrical spins you are not used to, and will be besotted by a soft vibration that is acquiescing in a sanity that our latest media-celebrated offspring has not, and will never, achieve.
Replete with styles we would be otherwise afraid of or unprepared for, like waltzes (in a way grandma would never imagine, but would certainly enjoy as well), cantiga de roda (for the wise ones), choro-canção (originality, anyone?), samba (not from Som Livre, that is), milonga (for all nationalities outside the Pampas, too), baião (by a Gaúcho: don't miss it!), corta-jaca (check it, I can't explain...), and even covers that won't disappoint. Performed by a population of instruments that goes from the pocket latophone to the fagote, the banjo and the trombone, a sax alto, mandolin, drums and other percussion instruments, plus the homey piano and Verbosis of Arthur himself. For those who need to categorize, there could be comparisons to the old sambistas de bar, to Arnaldo Antunes in a Gilberto Gil mood, or a drunk Jobim, also a tropical Badalamenti, even a crazier Noel Rosa... who knows?
For me, it's a pledge for good sense in music, a graphic verve for the non and initiate alike. It is something that can be listened by the widest array of tastes. It smoothes out all distress without the need for dimming the lights, it speeds the brain without the pretension of the professional anarch-artist, it adds to our feelings without tiring our patience and gives us the opportunity to dive into the classical without having to make up for the sleepy parts... It is a creation, not a release. Something that will endure. Like it or not, mass-media-oriented consumers.
Information about the CD can be obtained at 107.1@ulbra.tche.br, the E-mail of musician Arthur de Faria.