Just recycling ...the world and wordz of...

...BRAZIL POWER

(september 2006)

http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2006/09/brazilpower.html

...CHINA CALLING

(june 2006)

http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2006/06/china-calling.html

and if this is not enough baybee, try

...GREENLAND

(premiere here on DMG)

http://www.greenland.com/content/english/tourist/culture/greenlandic_music

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6759537/a/Inuit:+55+Historical+Recordings:+Traditional+Music+From+Greenland+(1905-1987)..htm

RECYCLING THROUGH RE-MASTERING

project Almeida Club 1998

Just before christmas I happily had the possibility to remaster some takes digitally. First of all I got up the output level, and besides that the dynamics appeared better. I heard directly that details and intensions in my own playing is more "visible".

Project "Bonnajazz"
1 My Baby Left Me
2 Georgia Railroad
3 Bloodhound Blues
4 Over the Waterfall
5 Bricks in my pillow
6 Two hundred meters (more)
7 Blues ain´t dry
8 I serve a worthy lady
9 Going to jail
10 Nine pound hammer
11 To Glastonbury (-96?)
12 Brainstormville
13 Rollin in my sweet baby´s arms
14 Reckless blues
15 Sugar foot blues
16 Which side are you on?
17 502-blues (-92)
18 502-blues (-84)
19 Utan slut (-84)
20 Något Afrikanskt? (-84)

Most recordings in this project were originally made around 2000-2001, except those with other years mentioned.
Routine of practical work at sessions: 35 % coffedrinking, and shit-talking, 20% rest, 1% hard exercise.
(Wages earned: Zero)

Staff:
Mikael Mallat
spanish nylon/or twelvestring accoustic guitars,
and arrangements, so far there were any
Lars Isebring
steelstring accoustic guitar
Stefan Isebring
maccaroni packet drums

Project

"ALMEIDA CLUB"
1 She´s a Woo-man
2 Autumn in Rio
3 Recado
4 La ultima noche
5 Aqua de beber
6 Samba dees days
7 Invitation
8 Desafinado
9 Manha do carneval
10 Brazil
11 Vem viver a meu lado
12 O´Cangaceiro
13 Quien sera
14 How insensitive

This is the Latinpot ...Originally recorded in june 1998, the last takes on the same day, which gave mig big headache. This is a low-budget miracle, the backgrounds (during the live recording session on usual cassette-tape!) work surprisingly well after digital re-mastering (dec. 2007).

Staff, (on picture, 1998);
Mikael Mallat
guitars, keyboard, rhythm programming,
arrangements
Anders Kovac
Fender bass
Mats Himmelvid
bongodrums

About these two particular projects, for me; it was worth it then, but even more today.

Summer´s Retroactive Digestives

(observe: in some cases ordered links appear below the catalogue)

Well, midsummer´s coming.

Same procedure as last year?

Opening of the LOKA.

http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=midsummer

Weather is good, at last. Keep some vacation. Read retroactive.

By the way, the guitar shaped beach sandals are from

http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11184480/Guitar_Shape_Beach_Sandal.html

Self Portrait. Do you wanna buy car from this man?
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=Junes+short+cut

Do you know the n e w Little Red Riding Hood?
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html

Is your guitar Made in China too?
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=china+calling

Once upon time I struggled with the EAST-WEST CASE
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=the+east+west+case

Why did they scream in the movies?
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html

Connections are better than isolation.
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html

OK Honey. Give me some of that Money.
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=bricks+in+my+pillow

Hey! They are Coming! Who? Women !! More links further from this:
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html

Dolls From Space !!
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html

Before touring (in a team)
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=before+touring

Before starting up The N e w B a n d.
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=before+starting+up

Why don´t get (keep)a nice natural haircut?

http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html

Brazil have it all.
ttp://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=brazilpower

Sound Effcts. Easy to learn.
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=sound+effects

New Hobby: Sing Along with a Picture !
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=new+hobby

Hearing The Pedagoqueing Lyrics!
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/search?q=hearing+the+lyrics

Who in the hell is John Renbourn?
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

Django Reinhardt, nearly know him.
http://drivemyguitar.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

and more is to be found in the archives!

Check "View my complete profile "

Unfortunately only http://hvemsida.blogspot.com

have it in English, excuse me in Swinglish.

BRAZILPOWER

" The Five Preludes of 1940. which vary in character, key, tempo and mode of playing, also show that the composer had not forgotten what he had learnt from the guitar-playing popular musicans" ( From the backcover of the LP "Julian Bream plays Villa-Lobos" - picture is part of the frontcover. It was realeased on RCA, recorded in England, I think in the early seventies. Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) is one of the world wide known composers of Brazilian music, and Julian Bream; one of the great inspired recording artist´s and messengers of our time in the field of classical guitar.
I have always felt that the recorded documents are of significant importance. More from the cover of this particular LP, about the composer Villa-Lobos; "Born in 1887 in Rio de Janeiro, he was only twelve years when he started playing in coffe-houses and, out of opposition to an academic type of tuition, gained his training on autodidactic basis. His actual "teachers" came from the ranks of popular musicians, who taught him guitar improvisations, melody and modulation of the "choro", a genre played in the open air by an instrumental ensemble". (Unfortunately I don´t have the name of the artist who did the frontcover picture, but I think it was extraordinary for the time, in the idiom of classical guitar. The text backside was written by Uwe Kraemer, in german, but also translated to english/ french.)
In my mind Brazil is one of the great music countries, and specially of course from the guitarists point of view. There is "everything"; the lyrical (some portugese...), black music (rhythm....),developed extended harmony, loved by jazz musicians. The three classical elements; "melody, rhythm and harmony". At least from geographical distance (I´ve never been outside Europe), it seems that all elements live happily together. The ethnic music is very vital, and influental, world known by it´s rhythmical chemistry. We even talk about brazilian footballplayers as artists of "samba-football".
Writer, guitarist and arrangeur Brian Hodel in an old article (Guitar - magazine, I think it was published in the late seventies) : "No account of Brazilian guitar music can omit Joao Gilberto. Though primarily a singer, it is his batida de samba (literally: "drumming on the guitar") which most Brazilian musicians consider the essence of the bossa-nova. Though many guitarists were working in the same direction, it was Joao with the 1958 succes of "Bim Bam" and "Desafinado" (A.C.Jobim), who popularized the style, and, along with Jobim, became the centre of a group of musicians inhabiting Rio´s Zona Sul who developed the bossa-nova into a definite form. (The Zona Sul is the southern part of Rio that includes the famed beach sections of Copacabana, Leblon and Ipanema.) Though the bossa-nova was never popular success in Brazil, it became so throughout most of the rest of the world beginning in the mid 60s. Why did the batida de vioalao revolutionize Brazilian guitar playing? As Baden Powell explains it: "Prior to this style of playing, samba was played with the entire right hand strumming up and down so that the guitarist had very little freedom to add a melody to the chords or a separate bass part. But the batida de violao allowed the guitarist to play like the classical performer with the right hand in position where it could function in more complex manner".
Fortunately I had the opportunity to experience Baden Powell in concert in Helsinki about thirty years ago. The headline in the newspaper the day after reported; "Happy Guitar (-ism or -playing; in finnish: "Onnellista Kitarointia") I agree, it was soft, cool, lyrical, rhythmical......, with amazing contact with the instrument and through that, with the audience. He didn´t talk too much, no jokes between the pieces..., he felt serious all the way. It was a full time solo performance, no group around him, which would make it easier to find the platforms of polyrhytmical grooves, when it´s needed. I´ll never know how much of his performance was improvised. (Good improvisers may sound like they play composed music all the way).

When studying the written music, for example arrangements of brazilian standards, it is important to remember; ..."what is written is not the whole truth". You must learn fundaments of the written idea properly,.. but then comes the question of of accents, understanding of the idiom, what freedom is possible to take and so on, like the more tutorial approach to jazz. You normally can´t play jazz themes like military music from southern Germany, and more less improvise over it that way, like Bobby the Robot (or "Raw Bath", from one Spike Jones record, it has nothing to do with my article)
Much of the modernism in the brazilian guitar, includes, beside the rhythmical essence, "mystical" chords ...., it´s part of it. Anyway, with some experience and finger playing conditions, it´s not so difficult "sound brazilian". It´s maybe compareable to, "it´s not diccult to sound "spanish". But then, from there, from the first humbug level........ Not so many decades ago it was not easy to find out, for example in northern Europe, how the stories go on. Thanks to the records of course, but also to the tutorial books, made by "insiders", much information is available.
In the case of studying brazilian guitar music, I occasionally some years ago found Nelson Faria´s book in music school library. It was very satisfying to read, and get some witness, and listening (CD included) to the small differencies involved in brazilian popular traditions. In Europe everything seemed to be just bossa-nova or samba...., sometimes even without that difference, "play some latin you idiot" (scene in restaurant ). For example; Nelson Faria gives examples of subivisions in the samba; Samba enredo, Samba cancao, Samba de breque, Partido alto, Batucada, Samba Funk. The Bossa Nova is of course something else. Beside that we have the Choro (many pieces are found in the older tradition and composition, sometimes also known by strictly classical guitarists). We also have other stylings as; Frevo and Baiao.
Nelson Faria also gives lot of names in selected discography and lists of important names in the different styles. One of the great brazilian guitar personalities mentioned is Laurindo (de) Almeida, highly important for the brazilian guitar links towards U.S. (since 1947). By occasion I happened to hear Laurindo Almeida with other (very) established musicians from the Los Angeles area, in 1970ies. This was in Malmoe (for swedish beer drinking readers; it´s in the same direction as your feet, if you lay down on the asphalt with your head in the direction of the north-pole). The performance was in a way, from the public point of view, very undramatic. My picture was that Laurindo Almeida&Co was meant to perform in Copenhagen, but by some positive reason also did it, with not flashingly much advertisement, in an small simple restaurant (with red-white chequered cloths and squeeking chairs) nearby.
I think that the written commercially available arrangements or compositions of Brazilian, at least influenced, have been important for the knowledge of Brazilian guitar over the world, not just the sounding records. In the european music and it´s educational traditions, the analyze, at least the possibility to do it, is often proof for establishment. It´s another story that classical music tradition (basically european) often offers more analyze than playing....
But the developed truth is, that brazilian guitar music have it all; rhythm..., harmony...., melody..... , in exciting combinations, on many levels. Music history is not only written in Europe. To understand polyrhythmic music, you must understand something (at least influences) of black music, if you understand less of this; you are more for the traditional european polyphonic room. I have nothing against it, but the polyrhythmic room gives one more dimension and greater freedom in voicing. It is also a matter of perspective, for example; are you playing in a group or not?

Carlos Barbosa Lima; " Jazz is the United State´s greatest contribution to the world music, a high mark in 20th century cultural life. Its African heritage has contributed significantly to its shape. The same heritage can be found in Caribbean and Brazilian music. The guitar is a part of many jazz ensembles and constantly featured as a solo instrument. The plectrum style was first developed for jazz and is still predominant, but since the 50´s, the more polyphonic "fingerstyle" has been widely absorbed into jazz an d other styles of American music, following the tradition established much earlier in Brazil. Inventive, artistic styles exist either way, with plectrum or fingers, so why not integrate all these styles at some point? " (from backcover, "MUSIC OF THE AMERICAS", Guitar Solo Publications/San Fransisco)


There are many reasons,.... later on,...to continue..... with..... BRAZILPOWER 2 !!!

AUGUST´s SHORT-CUT TICKET

Before I go blogging to Brazil…( hard times to get floating luggage on airplanes in Europe, ...by the way, anyway,... do it my way, ...this road is rocky but it want be rocky long, ... take me on a slow boat to China); it´s suitable to take up the question of style.

One common question, among young git-players; “what style should I prefer to get the opportunity to buy Pink Red Cadillac for Christmas”? The pro´s steady answer is, "try Bank Robbery." Use loose hair, masque and white gloves (from the bilberrypickin session).

But watch out, that can be the expensive method. As bars of fact show, it could be more expensive than the actual price at your favorite salesman in the backyard alley. The alternative way, choosing style, is to be natural. Show me one cat who need tattoos. Show me one cat who needs cowboy-hat, they already have nice hair-cut,... I mean hair-cat. They are already beautifully dressed up without shopping, ...have wonderful individual patterns, like finger prints (as Ginger, picture) and sleep when they want. ( And in no uncomfortable black rubber reptile dress!)

The key word is now PATTERN. Music is full of patterns, which leads in to styling. Each country or region have their patterns, in ethnic music it´s much about rhythm and accent in accompaniment. For example Brazil, motley as jungle.

picture from pingpad.blogspot.com

WHY NOT BLUE BERRY ?

I was surprised when the great book told me;… Bilberry! (”bil” is also the swedish word for ”car”).
We know also Chuck Berry and Halle Berry. And Blackberry; had for a while an role the psychic action, in my mind, last night, in the movie “Good Girl” (with Jennifer Aniston, among others), damped “drama-comedy”.

Room for good acting, about undercover tensions. Like fish in the water, but locked in. It could have been elsewhere than Texas. Maybe not…., I´m not sure it was, maybe it happened nearby. But there is something with Texas.

I´m gonna pick some blue bilberrys this year. How do guitarplayers do it without destroying themselves? The secret is the freestroke and the use of the thumb and the indexfinger. You can do sweeping arpeggios in the bush using white gloves. When they turned blue (or bloody red!) everybody knows that you´ve been working (surprise!). If you walk around with those gloves in Texas, the local sherif surely, wants to check the trunk of your car. Escape! Over the borderline! To Mexico! But that´s another story - anyway, I´m on my way to South America in this blog, even If you don´t believe it.......next stop BRAZIL !!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279113/

http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/thegoodgirl/

http://www.texasguitarshows.com/

http://www.texasguitarfestival.com/