About Brazil

[trator]

Thanks for sharing your place of living.

 

Some remaRKS ABOUT bRAZIL:

 

1 - Brazil´s capital is not Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, is Brasilia.

 

2 - We don´t speak spanish, like the other countries at South and Central America. We speak portuguese, cause we are colonized by Portugal (Brazil was found in 1500 by Pedro Álvares Cabral, from Portugal).

 

3 - We have some traditional music, which NOT include salsa, calipso, mambo or others styles from central america. Our traditional music is "bossa nova" (Jobim, João Gilberto, "girl from ipanema" etc.), "samba" (which is very diferent than the "samba" from most preset/patterns of keyboards, seqüencers etc.), "choro" (the instrumentists must be really good to play it), but you can hear everything here (we have great bluesmen).

 

4 - Our country is having several financial problems(third world, as you must know). You americans can change 1 dollar for almost 4 reais. That means you can do whatever you want here even with a low budget. For example: two people can have dinner in a five stars restaurant (plus bottle of wine and desert), for 60 or 70 dollars. Or: Big Mac + Large Fries + Large Coke = less than 2 dollars. Stay at Intercontinental Hotel (five stars, one of the bests, where Britney Spears, Foo Figthers, Quenns of The Stone Age etc. stayed when they came to play at Rock in Rio 3) = 100 OR 120 dollars, per night .

 

5 - Rio has beaches for every taste and a spirits. You can drink beer or caipirinha (cachaça, lemon, ice and sugar) or whiskie or everything you want anytime, anywhere, even in the middle of the street. (beer can price = US$0,50).

 

6 - Brazilian people are nice, warm and friendly, but only at hotels and specific place people speaks english. If you have problems, speak with your hands or signals, and everything is gonna be fine.

 

What else can I say? Come spend your dollars here (we need them! )

[Christopher]

I like the MPB artists: Marisa Monte, Daniela Mercury etc. There's some great bass playing on those albums.

[Mark Zeger]

I'm another MPB fan. Ivan Lins is one of my favorite singer/songwriters, and "Comecar de Novo" one of my favorite songs.

[trator]

Hey nice to hear you like those MPB artists! By the way, MPB is Música Popular Brasileira, which means, in english, brazilian popular music. Ivan Lins is really great. Every time big artists like Clapton, Sting, Mike Stern, Pat Matheny, Page and Plant and other music stars visit Brazil they ask to meet Ivan Lins, Milton Nascimento, Djavan, Caetano Veloso and others MPB stars. Once, I met John Mclaughin at Blue Note/NY to ask for autograph and when I said I was from Brazil he became very happy, talking about our music and his friends here.

I mean, brazilian music is mostly recognized for its rythim, but is very rich in terms os structure and melodies (and sometimes hard to understand for me, just and amateur).

[Brakka]

Some of my favorites:

 

Caetano Veloso: Livro

Carlinhos Brown: Omelete Man

Egberto Gismonti/Nana Vasconcelos: Duas voces

Gilberto Gil: Acoustic (live, Arthur Maia, bass)

(Ao Vivo is another good live Gil)

 

Also- Caetano has a great concert dvd out shot during the Livro tour. bass, nylon-string (Veloso also plays guitar), cello, horns, drum kit, and four percussionists.

 

é bom!

[g.]

As well as some of the others mentioned, someone I like: Jorge Degas . He lives in Denmark, as one might notice from the URL or the content. I think he plays Alembics and something with a graphite neck ; }