Classy camp

Mention música caipira to a cultured company in Brazil and be prepared for the snickering. A collection of CDs released in Brazil, however, shows that backland music is much richer than it gets credit for.

Bruce Gilman

Those who appreciate country (backland) music will be pleased with the release in Brazil of a collection of historic CDs These discs bring to the masters of the viola a long overdue recognition. Many who have been forgotten by today's generation.

In the past the word sertaneja had been used as a type of umbrella category that included all country music originating in the interior regions of Brazil. Today however Sertaneja refers to music that has a slick studio sound, employs a rock ensemble format, and incorporates synthesizers instead of the viola (the ten string guitar-like instrument).

Its performers dress like Texas cowboys and sing without the regional accent. It is typified by the groups Chitãozinho and Xororó and Leandro and Leonardo. Sertaneja today is not the genuine Sertaneja music of earlier times. It may have gained a better sound quality but without the viola it loses much of its variety, integrity, and creativity.

Caipira on the other hand is the traditional backland music. It is performed by a trio using acoustic instruments and singing in the regional dialect of the backlands, which is very different from the dialect spoken in Rio. The sound of the viola is unique to the caipiras style. It serves as the harmonic base.

To abandon the viola, to leave it out of the accompaniment, is to lose not only the timbre (tonal color) of the instrument but also its rhythmic inventory. Rhythmically the viola marks the pulse of the music and accents it. It points out the style to which every song is affiliated. Without the viola it is difficult for a listener to tell whether the style heard is a cateretê, rasqueado, or a valseado.

This is the conclusion one comes to after listening to Som da Terra, the fourteen-CD collection that contains some of the best of country music. One of the great pleasures of Som da Terra (Sound of the Land) is discovering the rhythmic varieties employed in caipiras, many of which were inherited from the flamenco music of the Spanish colonies that neighbor Brazil.

The collection concentrates on duos such as Tonico and Tinoco and Tião Carreiro and Pardinho whose songs tell stories and carry the sertão tradition of bringing news and reporting events albeit with much elaboration to areas where there were few newspapers and where many people could not read. These musicians were not only story tellers; they were reporters and journalists. One of the best CDs from the series Rio de Lágrimas is from the duo Tião Carreiro and Pardinho. Tião Carreiro, one of the greatest violeiros, paints words with a rich lamenting tone, punctuates the rhythm in a style having no percussion instruments, and speaks with his soul through finely interwoven mixes of the recortado mineiro, toada, and rasqueado styles. The listener cannot imagine these lyrics isolated from his accompaniment. These two elements couldn't be separated. Carreiro's accompaniment exudes a passion that helps the listener to fully understand the lyrics.

Another disc in this collection of very rich material which should be heard is from the duo Tonico and Tinoco. This disc is full of the flavor of the traditional caipira. The track "Moda da Mula Preta" ("Song of the Black Mule") tells the tale of a mule seven palms high that is killed by the bite of a venomous snake.

"Moda da Mula Preta" employs the cateretê rhythm. Cateretê is probably the oldest rhythm found in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, and Goiás. It is derived from a dance that the Indians in those regions used to practice.

In his Dictionary of Brazilian Music, Mário de Andrade states that José de Anchieta, the famous fourteenth century Jesuit priest who came to Brazil with the first colonizers, utilized this rhythm of the cateretê to catholicize the Tupi Indians. Substituting catholic prayers in Portuguese for the original Tupi lyrics yet keeping the original melodies and rhythm, he employed a modern and extremely dynamic method of teaching Amerindians the Portuguese language and belief system.

The two extremes (the worst and the best) of the collection are from Cornélio Pires and the duo Pena Branca and Xavantinho. Cornélio (1884-1958), a journalist and writer who published 23 books and was the first to record (1929) caipira music, was neither a singer nor instrumentalist. His CD brings us a dozen spoken anecdotes about the ingenuity and quick-witted but elementary nature of caipireiros. It is a faithful representation but is without music.

At the other extreme, there is the disc by Pena Branca and Xavantinho, the modern kings of the genre. They show with their performance of "Cuitelinho", a folk tune from Minas Gerais, and the composition "O Cio da Terra" by Milton Nascimento and Chico Buarque that it is possible to update the tradition without losing its integrity. Pena Branca and Xavantinho are one of the few modern duos that preserve the variety and the surprise of genuine caipira.

It is often said today that when you hear one Sertaneja group you've heard them all, that one just does not hear new ideas. Som da Terra shows that this was not always the case. Aside from its historic value, the best in the collection will be enjoyed not only by those who love and reach out for this music but also by those who long for tuneful times past.

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