Offering American listeners a rarely heard perspective on contemporary Brazilian music, Blue Jackel Entertainment has just released Babel by Pau Brasil, a five-member jazzy ensemble known for their originality and improvisational skills. The disc won past year's Sharp Award (the Brazilian Grammy) as best instrumental group. Led by bassist Rodolfo Stroeter, the group counts also on keyboardist Lelo Nazário, saxophonist Teco Cardoso, drummer Eduardo Nazário, and singer-guitarist Marlui Miranda.
New York-based Blue Jack, which recently released the four-CD boxed set Brasil: A Century of Song, is also bringing north to those who appreciate Brazilian-flavored jazz the sound of Banda Mantiqueira. Mantiqueira's album is called Aldeia and it includes Tom Jobim's "Insensatez", Pixinguinha's "Carinhoso", and João Bosco's "Linha e Passe."
Brazil Update Weekly, the New York company that for years has allowed people in the US to follow the novelas (soap operas) and everything else that is being shown on Brazilian Globo TV via videotape has a new muse. Patrícia Hernandes is the stunning beauty who from now on will grace TV and printed ads, as well as all kind of publicity and every box containing the Brazil Update programs
The 18-year old model, who is also a ballerina and dance teacher, is just finishing high school. Daughter of a Brazilian mother and a Cuban father, Patrícia was discovered by Brazil Update's President, Carlos Wattimo, when eating at a New Jersey coffee shop with her parents.
As part of a campaign to show that the consulate cares for more than just promoting parties for their Yankee hosts and charging high fees for documents, the Brazilian General Consulate in New York is offering group health insurance to Brazilians. The benefit that cost around $120 a month is offered to every Brazilian independently of his or her legal status in the country.
Even though the New York office has jurisdiction over some 200,000 Brazilians in the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania, only 100 people have taken up the offer. Carioca (from Rio) Marcus Camacho de Vincenzi, 50, the consul, has created the concept of "itinerant consulate." In the past 18 months, he has exchanged his comfortable offices at Manhattan's 5th Ave. 22 times for a small room in cities with a large concentration of Brazilians.
To celebrate his 50th anniversary as an entertainer, veteran TV comedian Chico Anísio is giving up Globo TV for Hollywood. When everybody was betting on his retirement, Chico Anísio, who is very mad at most Brazilian TV reviewers, decided to leave the country "to prove to myself that our critics are wrong when they say that I am all washed up." And this is no wishful thinking.
According to the comedian himself, he already has prepared 20 film scripts and seven TV comedy shows. Four of the scripts are already being examined by Roberto de Niro's TriBeCa Production. Chico moves to New York with his family in September "But I am sure that in one year I will be in Los Angeles," he says. "The studios are all there."
In the US, Chico Anísio will also try to revert a face paralysis after an operation at Ivo Pitanguy's clinic. According to dr. Edgar Alves Costa, the doctor who recently operated on him, the comedian had "a severe respiratory problem during surgery" and spent two days in an ICU (Intensive Care Unit).