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Revista Do Samba: "Outras Bossas"
What clichés has samba not had to suffer? There are those hot rhythms for the gymnastic gyrations of scantily clad mulatto girls, then the melancholic favela singer intoning love songs and the pain of life to the guitar, and finally, the diva Carmen Miranda who brought a distorted picture of Rio to California with her booming big band and mightily affected show. But what is samba really?
You only have to have three musicians to get back to the real essence of this genre. A lady and two gentlemen from São Paulo are the ones music critics and audiences alike tipped their hats to already in 2002 namely the year their debut album was released. Like the first spring breeze after a long winter (Nürnberger Nachtrichten), Enthusiasm without pomp and circumstance (www.novacultura.de), the smile of nostalgia (Jazz thing), was the talk around this band. A clear and sensuous overview of four decades of samba classics was what their first release had to offer, poetic ease instead of the bombast of carnival or the heavy lament of the favelas.
Whos behind this root treatment for Brazils most honourable genre? There would be the charismatic singer, actress and composer Leticia Coura with her international stage experience of more than 15 years. Her artistic portfolio includes tours through quite a few European countries, an adaptation of Boris Vian songs, and a prize-winning soundtrack. Guitarist/composer Beto Bianchi works at home and in Europe as a stage musician and producer for ambient- and multimedia-projects - he has also proven himself as a profound expert of Brazilian folk music styles. And finally Vitor da Trindade, through his initiation in Brazils Candomblé religion, brings in a strong spiritual background. He studied music pedagogy, guitar and percussion, and today teaches Afro-Brazilian dance and percussion at numerous festivals and workshops. He feels right at home in theatre as well.
Now the three well-versed musicians have dared another crafty step onto the newly designed samba parquet. The title, Outras Bossas doesnt even sound like samba at first but more like its competitor, bossa nova. But what the Revistas are actually doing here is dipping deep into sambas history. It was in 1932 that the nutty poet Noel Rosa, highly regarded for his brilliant gift of observation and sharp social criticism, penned the following lines in the title Coisas Nossas: The samba, empty pockets and other bumps, these are our specialties. What inspired Rosa to this vocabulary was his brief study of medicine. Thats where he learned that in the old days, doctors used to ascribe artistic talent in a person to a certain bump-like spot on the skull (in Portuguese bossa, or the musical bone as a German colloquialism so nicely put it). It was with these famous lines that Rosa started off the tradition of using the term bossa for the moods of creative artists when they thought up unorthodox ways of singing and playing or had novel, ingenious inspirations.
There couldnt be a more suitable title for Revista Do Sambas second CD. They present their unusual and fiery new ideas with the same saucy wit of the old Noel Rosa epoch in a show-jump over 13 greats of Brazilian music history. The spectrum stretches across 8 decades, showing samba from its venerable traditional side as well as its highly modern one. The lyrical finesse of this band rises up like a kite away from the oh- so-usual commercial samba of today. We meet the rebelliously biting poetry of the 1930s from Rosa and his contemporaries, the vivacious Chôro "Tico Tico" from pre-samba days, and real melancholy from the favelas with Cartola. A lovely rain forest is awakened in Samba Dos Animais by Jorge Mautner and the one-time rock avant-gardist and word artist Arnaldo Antunes contributes a word-playing dedication to a dancer. Last but not least, Leticia Coura can outbid her own composing talent in two Neo-Sambas. All the songs are marked by sensitively refined guitar and cavaquinho playing as well as an arsenal of drums and percussion; affable and mischievous vocals set off the lyrics, now and then the arrangements are enriched with a witty burst of horns or a xylophone. In the percussion department, prominence like Dudu Tucci makes a shining appearance the album was produced by Wolfgang Loos from Traumton Studio Berlin, with him playing the cello himself on the wonderful Cartola track.
Samba requires casualness and informality. And you must understand that it is the prayer of the little man on the street, it says in a song by the classic Laurindo De Almeida. This lovely line could be emblazoned on their brows as Revista Do Sambas musical motto.
- Com origem em São Paulo, o r e v i s t a do samba formou-se em 1999.
- Este trabalho surgiu da constatação de que os sambas clássicos da “era do rádio”, do teatro de revista e da época dos grandes concursos musicais de carnaval, são canções que fazem parte da alma brasileira, e precisam ser tocados sempre. Isso tudo junto com canções contemporâneas, de autores conhecidos e desconhecidos, além de composições próprias.
- No Brasil, entre outros espaços, tem se apresentado em várias unidades do SESC, destacando o Projeto Prata da Casa no SESC Pompéia, tendo sido logo após selecionado para a 6a Mostra Prata da Casa – que reúne os melhores do semestre. Fez temporadas no Bar Brahma, Café São Paulo Antigo, no Garimpo - Embu das Artes. Em 2000 foi pré-selecionado no Projeto Rumos do Instituto Cultural Itaú.
- Desde 2001, após convite para se apresentar em Berlim, tem feito regularmente turnês na Europa.
- Gravou e lançou também na Europa seu primeiro Cd, em Berlim, Alemanha, nos estúdios da gravadora Traumton Records; este cd, que tem o nome do trio, r e v i s t a do samba, está sendo distribuído na Alemanha e em outros países da Europa, Estados Unidos e Japão desde setembro de 2002.
- No ano 2002 foi o único grupo brasileiro selecionado entre mais de 500 bandas do mundo inteiro para se apresentar no Strictly Mundial 2003, que ocorreu em Marselha - França, fechando contratos com agentes da América do Norte e da Europa para turnês em vários países nos anos seguintes.
- Além da gravação do Cd, na temporada européia de 2002, o r e v i s t a do samba se apresentou no Karneval der Kulturen 2002 cuja organização incluiu uma faixa do Cd do “revista”, O Samba e o Tango, na compilação dos melhores de 2002. Apresentou-se também no Carnaval BerlimBrasil, no encerramento da Volvo Ocean Race em Kiel, também na Alemanha, e ainda no badalado Favela Chic em Paris, França, onde se reapresentou com grande sucesso no seu Carnaval Indoor de 2003, além de apresentações em Andorra.
- Em 2003 a Rob Digital lançou a edição brasileira do Cd, possibilitando assim a divulgação e distribuição no Brasil.
- Iniciou o ano de 2004 nos Estados Unidos em turnê que incluiu Nova York, Boston e cidades da Nova Inglaterra. Nesse ano apresentou-se também em grandes festivais na Europa, abrindo shows de grandes artistas brasileiros como Gilberto Gil e Chico César.
- Lançou seu segundo cd, “Outras Bossas” (Traumton Records), em tournée européia em junho/julho de 2005, apresentando-se em festivais na Itália, França, Holanda, Áustria, Alemanha e Israel. Inédito no Brasil, este cd traz no repertório canções próprias, clássicos do samba, e também canções de compositores contemporâneos como Arnaldo Antunes e Jorge Mautner, entre outros.
- Em 2005/2006 trabalhou no projeto “Revista Bixiga Oficina do Samba”, patrocinado pela Petrobras, que culminou com a gravação do cd de mesmo nome, com a participação de convidados ligados à Escola de Samba Vai Vai, ao Teatro Oficina, e ao Teatro Popular Solano Trindade, do Embu das Artes (SP).
Some events and venues :
Festival Village Tropical– Geneve – Switzerland - 2007
Festival Latino – Turin – Italy – august 2007
Festival du Désert – Oasis de Merzouga _ Morroco – may 2007
Festival Mawazine – Rabat – Morroco – may 2007
World of Performing Arts Festival - Pakistan - november 2006
Teatro Rival Petrobras – Rio de Janeiro – october – 2006
Førde Folk Music Festival – Norway – julho 2006
Teatro Oficina – São Paulo - april/ may 2006
Lakasa – Point-a-Pitre – Guadeloupe – French Isles – Caribean – november 2005
SambaSyndrom (show & workshop) – Berlin – Germany – september 2005
Parc La Villete – Paris – july 2005
Jazz à Vienne – França – july 2005
MINTA -Tel Aviv World Music Festival - Israel – june 2005
Favela Chic – Paris – 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007
Showcases APAP – New York – USA – 2004
Plaça dels Coprinceps – Escaldes-Engordagny – Andorra – 2003
Showcase - Strictly Mundial 2003 – France - 2003
Karneval der Kulturen – Germany – 2002
Volvo Ocean Race – Germany - 2002
Bar Brahma - São Paulo - fev/abril 2001
Café São Paulo Antigo– out 99/june 2000
SESCs – São Paulo
CD Outras Bossas on  or
CD Revista do Samba on or
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