Nana Vasconcelos - Talvin Singh Interview 
Nana was born in Recife, Pernambuco state, but its history goes back centuries, a little further east, in a continent where the music slave still has ancestral characteristics. Nana lives in Recife, a city of several million people (ie millions in speaking of Brazil is so common that the accuracies are a luxury), but most believe that it does outside. Nana opens the carnival of Recife, one of the most important, but their music based on percussion, is increasingly close to silence. He has given concerts in many countries: Angola, Mozambique, India, China, Norway, Hungary, France, England, United States, but is so far from commercial formulas that their songs rarely come even to top 20 radio. He has worked alongside the likes of Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, Pat Matheny, BB King, Paul Simon, Don Cherry and Collin Walcott, but says that the best musical experience he lived last year, on a visit to Bahia, where a 103-year old will sung in African dialect.
At home, trapped by a tower of videos and hundreds of discs: Virginia Rodriguez, Charles Abrao, Trilok Gurtu, Chico Antonio, Pino Danielle, Camarón de la Isla, Los Beatlles, peered onomatopoeia to talk as friends and admired Ray Barreto, Mongo Santamaria and Charlie Palmieri, defeat at the hands of the music market and memory as the last glimmer of sanity. Nana is probably the closest thing to his favorite instrument, the berimbau. A weapon of war musical. A companion to the dance of capoeira. An argument that seeks equilibrium.
berimbau Why?
berimbau I arrived at many years ago because there was a theater in the Bay folk instruments that were played, where I learned, during a performance. After the first season I was practicing with that instrument, which is actually africasilero, came from Africa to Brazil. This is used for capoeira. Today I listen to everything that comes out from the rest of the instruments from the berimbau. Technically has it all, I found their own way, a way, because I always thought about doing to him what did Jimmy Hendrix guitar. Hendrix showed that the instruments are endless. You can get an organic sound for each one, so I also work with the body. In addition, for each instrument have a combination of sound that passes through the voice. You have to strike a balance, a natural balance. I have a record called Saudade, which is engraved with Stutgartt Symphony Orchestra in Germany, there are so far was an album I worked with Pat Metheny.
Where do your job is running now? Interpretations
instrumental what I did on my last album. I have a very young group with which we move toward something and suddenly change to another, encounters with all kinds of instruments, that's the beauty of this quartet, touching everything can turn into other sounds. And they are young musicians who do not yet believe in fame. Take the matter seriously, but with a lot of freedom. It is very difficult to have a concert percussionist becomes even here in Brazil, and that's what I've tried to do. The true musician percussion should not worry about playing faster or higher, what should matter is to make music and discover music in silence.
BRAZIL NOT KNOW To BRAZIL Nana is calm but his hands never stop moving. Shout, laugh, pose, looking for a beer and strongly attacked the simple story written comments. It ensures, for example, that the music of the Pink Panther is the work of Brazilian Moasier Santos, who wrote when he was assistant to Henry Mancini, New York, and that fame is just an excuse of luck. So Brazil will unravel a so full of contradictions and deceptions, and replacement every two minutes.
Many say that you do not live in Brazil I do not I leave most of Brazil. I'm here enjoying my stuff, I have a beach house, a daughter who is growing. I started very late, my girl is 6 years old and I have 62, people think I'm his grandfather (laughs).
How does the music of the streets?
is the best because it is the most festive and choice, because the people who do not have a contract with record labels and is trying to see things from the root. And that is something you can see in the same carnival in Recife. Check this out: pac pum pum pac pac, pa to stop, parapupara ... That is the Frevo, typical of carnaval music of Recife, Pernambuco here. That you're hearing is Spok Frevo, a musician who does something that no one is doing now. Is evolving to other types of music, I like that. This is her first album.
frevo Have you ever played?
I do the opening of the carnival here with a symphony orchestra and drums of carnival, but look at this, listen ... This really is a big band (laughs) ... It comes from tradition, break barriers, is changing the music . It is wonderful because it is different. It's like when in the fifties and sixties, with the incursion of jazz, people playing jazz, jazz, jazz, and the Americans say, oh yes, yes. It's happy, it's happy: tiquitá, tiquitá, tiquitá, piririripurururá tucutá tucutátucutá (laughs).
Recife's carnival in 2002, you got two rival neighborhoods forget their differences, or at least to set aside at that time, how was that experience?
I proposed to direct the opening as long as the leaders of neighboring favelas to agree for us to play together. It was not easy, their rivalry was great, but eventually agreed. We carry a symphony orchestra, the community and I thoroughly enjoyed because I could see that a concert is offered by anyone, but this type of work, ring fighting for the music or educating children, that is another thing.
Here the music, violence and football have a crush on the joys and depressions of the people, even from childhood. Is that something that ends up forming?
The problem here is that no social formation. There is no education. Few of us realize we care about comprehensive training, especially for children. I have an NGO called the ABC of music. There, teachers work with a symphony orchestra to show children the essence of Brazilian folk music. Learn to distinguish between the music of Minas Gerais, Maranao, Bahia, Pernambuco. That is culture. Because the music discipline, because the music makes the spirit, because the music goes from silence to cry, and vice versa. Otherwise, these children will never come close to a municipal theater, never come close to a symphony orchestra. Never would approach or its history that goes far beyond the African influence. The problem here is that Brazil does not know Brazil. Here secretariat secretariat of culture and education. But the uneducated culture and education has no culture.
But this country is known for its music and culture that has made a name virtually impenetrable for other exchanges.
course, because besides the language, the difference between the music of Brazil with the rest of this continent is the African. Colombia, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, they are indigenous. But here if you do not sound on the radio, if you have a theme in the novel, few will know who you are as a musician. This is fashion, I do not care because I know that when I die I'll be famous (laughs). I'll tell you something, after working with so many people go to so many countries to do what I like, put on a show with the symphony orchestra in Norway, go and play in a small theater in Sao Paulo, Brazil knows nothing but thereof. In 2005 I was in Africa in commemorating 10 years of liberation from apartheid, in an event called The essence of the berimbau. I was in Angola, in Mozambique, working with many people, was a great experience that I will not forget because it was they who invited me, in Brazil, to play an instrument that belongs to them. And there are still people who say I do not live here for over 20 years. What happens is that if you want to play in Brazil you have to be and play here. When Joao Gilberto was living in New York almost nobody wanted to work with him. The music here again mainly in the 70's. After that, bla bla bla: pasteurization. From the 70 Bay began to dominate the Brazilian culture, something that took advantage politically. The bossa nova, groups, everything. All the musicians were sounding Bahia. From there, pasteurization, if you were not navigated Bahiano not all, the culture secretary quickly understood that he settled in Brazil. They were good musicians, but ended up with what was the real carnival in Bahia, for example, and why? By pasteurization.
http://www.mijaragual.com/blog/entrevistas/
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