Roots Music in Brazil

There's just an absolutely wondereful article in the NY Times today on a project launched by Mario de Andrade to record every kind of traditional music (what we might call "roots music") in Brazil's Northeast in 1938, much like Alan Lomax's project in the U.S. The importance of this project and of the music itself can't be overstated, and not just for Brazil. Sure, the music of the Northeast is the basis for nearly all of the major popular song forms in Brazil now (Samba, Axé, Musica Popular Brasileira, Forro, and others), and the importance of Tropicalismo extends internationally (the NY Times mentions its influence, but neglects non-"world" musicians like Beck in that list). But the music extended beyond Brazil's borders in other ways (let us not forget Carmen Miranda, who, while a cheesy joke-figure now, did much to expose American audieneces to Brazilian styles of music, even while becoming a pariah in her own country).

If there is any small complaint, it is in the portrayal of the mind behind the project, Mario de Andrade. He was not simply a "municipal secretary of culture" in Northeastern Brazil (an area roughly equivalent to the U.S. between the Rockies and the Mississippi, north to south). He was one of the major Brazilian literary figures of the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, and beyond and, together with his brother Oswald, was one of the first Brazilian figure to not only suggest, but celebrate, the mixing of elemnts of European, African, and indigeneous cultures in Brazil, instead of lamenting the "worsening" effects of African and indigenous "blood" within Brazilian culture and society. Certainly, he emphasized the European components more sometimes, but he and Oswald have provided beacons of pride and alternate, non-European based forms of artistic expressions to musicians, artists, poets, novelissts, and others in Brazil up to the present day.

Please read the article, and just to draw you in, the NY Times has even included a link that lets you listen to all six discs and read about it in English. No word on when the discs will be released, but keep your eyes open, as this offers one of the most important musical (re)-discoveries in the last 30 years, not just in Brazil, but worldwide.