JWM Magazine - Fall 2015

DA N IE L S C H WAB E/ IM AGE BR I E F

rhythm, but it flirts with some melodies that are

European,” says Luiz Simas, a Rio-raised historian, newspaper columnist and musician who has written extensively on samba.

In 1916, the composer Donga wrote “Pelo Telefone” (“By Phone”) with journalist Mauro de Almeida at Ciata’s house. The song is often cited as the first recorded samba—though other musicians claimed to have co-written it, and other recordings in similar style predate it.

A CULTURAL INSTITUTION

Samba continues to be a vital and vibrant part of
Rio’s local culture. Ashe was drawn to Rio eight
years ago. The 35-year-old British expat grew
up in Doncaster, England, playing big-band jazz
in youth orchestras. Now in addition to playing
samba and jazz at joints all over Rio, he runs a
social project called Favela Brass from his house
in a Central Rio favela (slum), teaching music to
local children. “When I first saw a samba circle,
the way the rhythms fit together, and everyone
was dancing…” he says wistfully. “It was magic.”
It was at Rio Carnival in 2007 where I first felt
that magic—quite literally. Hundreds of drum-
mers in the corps, or bateria, were driving a cos-
tumed cast of thousands in the Mangueira school
down Rio’s avenue-shaped stadium in the official,
competitive parade. The rhythms were palpable.

A year later I followed an all-female squad behind a sound truck stuffed with musicians as it trailed the narrow streets of bohemian Lapa, in nearby Central Rio. This bloco, or free street party, known as Kizomba, was one of more than 500 that fill Rio’s streets during Carnival.

Thousands of fancy-dressed revelers were submerged in song, rhythm and movement.

What struck me on both occasions was the extraordinary unifying force Brazilians found in samba’s delicate yet forceful rhythms and frenzy of tightly organized beats—and how effortlessly people unleashed those swirling dance moves.

“This is part of every Brazilian,” says Ana
Costa, a Rio singer and musician who embraced
samba under her musical godfather, the composer
and performer Martinho da Vila. “Samba is more
than a job,” she says. “It is more than a musical
segment. Samba is our culture.”
Samba’s lyrics offer collective narratives on
everything from day-to-day dramas to love,
passion and betrayal. “The way you celebrate
life, the way you deal with death,” Simas notes.

“Samba has a diary aspect.”
This is evident in the affectionately barbed
observations on life and love found in the
lyrics of Noel Rosa, a troubled genius with
a deformed chin who trawled Rio’s decadent
nightlife and wrote hundreds of songs before
dying of tuberculosis in 1937, at just 26. Some
feature the malandro, a pleasure-seeking hustler
and evergreen cliché of samba lyrics and culture,
probably inspired, says Simas, by the trickery
Afro-Brazilians employed to survive in informal,
early-20th-century Rio.

Samba classics like “As Rosas Não Falam” (“The Roses Don’t Speak”), by the great Cartola, are written into Brazil’s collective consciousness. Born Angenor de Oliveira, Cartola lived much of his life in the Mangueira favela and helped found its samba school. In the mid-

1960s, a restaurant he and his wife, Eusébia, ran in Central Rio was a famous hangout for samba musicians. But he only released his first album in

1974, at the age of 66, and died six years later.

Both composers would have felt at home at tonight’s Pedra do Sal. Kaká Nomura, 32, smiles as he switches between guitar and cavaquinho, a smaller string instrument with a sound a bit like a banjo. Of Japanese ancestry, he grew up in the suburbs of São Paulo, but like most Brazilians, samba was etched into his upbringing. “In samba, you have to have the foundation, you have to know the story,” he says. “You have to have rhythm.” [

The fundamentals

Lucas Segovia, from Argentina, is a dancer with The Joffrey Ballet. He shares his tips for dancing the samba.

How hard is it to dance samba?

To me it came naturally. I took very few lessons. It’s a rhythm that comes very easily to me in my body.

How do you do it?

Relax your hips, listen very closely to the music and follow the beat. It is not about the melody; it is about the feeling. Samba is a very rhythmical dance style, and it feels very joyful and musical. If you have ever danced waltz or ballet, you will be familiar with this very airy feeling.

Does it feel different for different people?

Women are expected to move their hips much more than men, but that doesn’t mean men are exempt from moving their hips and feet fast.

Core strength helps, too. You should be very stable in your core and your back, so you can free your legs.

Samba and other forms of Latin rhythms are very grounded, and very rhythmically driven dance forms. So core strength and alignment are important for refining the movements of samba.

The experience

“Samba is free, loose, unprejudiced, colorful—it’s a form of prayer,” says Rosane Lucas, Chef Concierge at the JW Marriott Rio de Janeiro. Visit these venues for a lively look at samba: