Some Brazilian Music To Set The Mood

Carnaval is coming, it's only a month away. So, to get the mood going, I'm posting a link to six or seven streaming programs of Brazilian music originally broadcast on your Sambamaster's Internet radio program, Brazilian Wax which aired from Feb-June 2009. Sadly, the station dissolved, so the program did too. But we've saved a few for you to enjoy at your leisure. There is a very special two-hour tribute featuring a live recording of Paulinho da Viola in 1980 made by Mr. SambaMaster in São Paulo...this is an EXCLUSIVE recording. Enjoy....Aprovete!

http://www.sambaparty.com/brazilianwax.html

The Story Behind the 2010 Carnaval Poster

I can’t go to Rio without at least one visit to the fabled Feira Hippie, Hippie Market, that takes place every Sunday in Ipanema’s Praça Osário. This arts and crafts fair, which started “back in the day”, now features mostly crappy jewelry made in China and ugly t-shirts imprinted in cheap plastic ink with recipes for caipirinhas, or the image of Corcovado, or the otherwise lovely stone-inlay pattern of the area’s beachfront sidewalks. No thanks. 

But there are dozens of painters, some artists, some hacks, gathered at the center of the feira displaying their works--most reasonably priced, and most absolutely dreadful. Ok, not dreadful, but not to my taste. Lots of happy, dancing sambistas, baianas, Corocovados and favela paintings. Yeah, I want a painting of a cheerful slum in full-bore party mode. But there are two artists from whom I've bought in the past. 

One dude, a total whack who I’ll save for another time, paints lots of flying saucers into his images of Ipanema and Leblon, and I LOVE them! 

The other is a fellow named Sebastião Vitorino Nunes, known as Vitorino. I met Vitorino back in 1999 when I bought a very large piece of his, maybe four feet by three feet. It is his version of the samba school Mangueira whose colors are green and pink. His style, or maybe it’s a technique, consists of repeating a handful of silhouetted figures in row after row, graduating from small to smaller from bottom to top. Sometimes he varies the colors in the figures, though even then, adhering to a limited palette, and sometimes the variations only exist in the slightly different positions of arms, hands, hair. 

In the Mangueira painting, the figures, about a third of whom are playing drums, are in straight lines, and rendered almost like gingerbread men, as is his style, in silhouette. They are against a shocking green background, wearing dark green shirts and pink trousers. There are at least 150 figures in the painting. Nice. 

I resolved then to somehow get Vitorino to create a poster for the Carnaval party I’ve produced in Austin since 1978. I’ve only used two Brazilian artists in the past, the legendary Rede in 1985, and the master of xilogravura (wood block printing) from Pernambuco, Jota Borges, in 1994, and wanted to have another Brazilian-created work in the gallery of our posters. I discussed this with his wife at one point in 2000 or 2001, but, owing to the distance involved, and the fact that I had no way to look at proofs other than snail mail, I was dissuaded from pursuing this course. 

Fast forward to 2009. On my recent visit to the Cidade Maravilhosa, I went to the feira twice. My first dip into that mayhem found Vitorino to be absent. Was he sick? Dead? Asleep? (His wife had told me on another trip that he tends to paint all night and sleep all day.) But interestingly, I saw more than a handful of what I’d call Vitorino imitators. Seems his style has caught on, and several painters were displaying inferior renditions of the Vitorino cookie-cutter technique. Yeah, mostly trash. 

But on my second trip to the feira, I was delighted to find him, actually his wife, showing new works exhibiting his familiar style, but imbued with more colors than his paintings I’d seen previously. I immediately saw one I thought would work as a Carnaval poster. This time the figures represented female dancers, male drummers, male dancers; the work exploded with color, energy and Carnaval. I had to have it. We started negotiating and finally hit a price we both liked. She wrapped it up. It was canvas secured to wooden stretchers, so I carefully packaged it to carry on the plane beside me. No way I was going to check that precious parcel. 

So, I finally have a Vitorino poster. It’s printed, and looks great. To preserve the integrity and vibrancy of the original colors, we chose to print it with two additional colors instead of the traditional simple cyan, magenta, yellow and black of four color offset. It has been worth the wait and the expense. The poster is amazing, and I’m happy to have another Brazilian represented in our collection, and certainly a true work of art. Thanks, Vitorino!