POR AÍ

Native song

Ihu in the Kamayurá Indian language means everything you learn by hearing. Ihu Todos os Sons (Ihu All the Sounds) is also the name of Marlui Miranda's latest CD release. An expert in Brazilian indigenous music, Miranda, who has received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, for 17 years has been researching the subject. In this 17-track recording, the singer-researcher with a little hand from Gilberto Gil brings to life the chants of several Amazon Indian nations including the Kayapó, the Nhambikwara, the Yanomami, the Tukano and the Suyá. Released last year in Brazil, Ihu was acclaimed by critics who considered it one of the best productions of the year. The CD is being released by New York's Blue Jackel Entertainment. This new label has also just released Tony Mola's Bragadá, an album it presents as the newest wave in Brazilian music with Bahian rhythms blending with rap, salsa, Jamaican ragamuffin, samba and orixá rhythms. Mola cofounded Timbalada with Carlinhos Brown.

As it happens every September for 12 years now hundreds of thousands of Brazilians and Brazil lovers went September 1st , a Sunday, to New York's Litte Brazil Street (also known as 46th St.) to celebrate the Brazilian Independence Day. Brazilian food, culture and music were served in abundance in a party promoted by The Brasilians newspaper and small businesses. Representatives from the Brazilian consulate in New York were nowhere to be seen. They would throw their own party on Friday, September 6, one day before Independence Day. Only VIPs were invited to this bash that happened at the exclusive Plaza Hotel. Oddly enough the invitation, which had to be handed out at the Plaza, started with "The Consulate General of Brazil in New York and Republic National Bank of New York request the pleasure of your company..." hinting that the official celebration of Brazil's biggest national date was privately financed. What's a poor consulate to do? Celebrate parsimoniously inside the consulate itself? Or would it be asking too much for an organization that has been delaying the payment of its own workers for months on end?

For foreign eyes

Media Flux: Brasil, a New York TV program which is aired every Saturday at 4 PM on Time Warner Cable's Channel 16 will this month be showing interviews with Brazilian Indian leaders and showcase Brazil's Northeast. The states to be highlighted are Sergipe, Fortaleza, Bahia, Ceará and Pernambuco. The talks with the Indians were produced by the Amanaka'a Amazon Network and they will be complemented by material shot in the Amazon showing the inundated forests of Mamirauá.