Marcos Suzano's instructional DVD for pandeiristas

If you play the pandeiro, it's more than likely that you've heard of master percussionist Marcos Suzano. I learned yesterday that he has a pandeiro instruction DVD out, and bought it immediately. The catch is that the only source I know of is Amazon Japan and the audio is in Portuguese with Japanese subtitles. I ordered it yesterday, and with shipping to the US it came to about US$62. Should be here in about a week. If you're interested, here 'tis.

Oral history of early samba group in San Francisco

I recently met someone involved in SF's early days of samba, apparently the late '70s or early '80s:

"Samba do Sol"

sfmpb.com shut down

Here's one thing not linked to the economic meltdown of '08 -- I've closed www.sfmpb.com this week. For 9 years, I maintained a list of upcoming Brazilian music gigs in the San Francisco Bay Area. I don't get to spend much time in the area any more, and keeping the site useful has been more and more challenging. So that's all she wrote -- but I'm very appreciative of all the friends I made through this endeavor. You know who you are!

Choro Festival cancelled

Apparently, funding has dried up for a major choro festival that was fanning the flames of the choro revival of recent years. The February event in São Pedro is on indefinite hold, according to a message from an organizer:

Many thanks for your interest in the Choro Festival.
However, I'm afraid it won't happen in 2009 in the same way as the previous years. Despite all our efforts we did not find a sponsor to make the festival happen in February, in the city of São Pedro. So we will try to make it in July, in Rio, but even that is still not confirmed.

Welcome to Bossa Nova Park!

The government of Brazil has announced a new park "designed by the architect (and former Governor of the State of Paraná) Jaime Lerner, the park will be constructed in Leblon" -- a district in Rio's Zona Sul adjacent to Ipanema.

Full story

Make a bad caipirinha, go to jail. It's the law.

Big story in from Associated Press: the sacred symbol of Brazil, the sugar cane-based rocket fuel known as cachaça, real sugar, and only so much lime are now all requirements for a legal caipirninha.

Review: LEARN CAIXIXI by Robert Wallace

Psst, want to shake your seeds? No, wait, don't walk away! I'll bet you've tried a shaker once or twice, but never thought yourself capable of making complex music with such a simple instrument. A new DVD has caused me to rethink this silly assumption.

The caxixi is a type of shaker in the form of a small basket. Containing seeds, rice, or synthetic beads, it's origins are African. The instructor's approach seems targeted to world music fans, but most of the rhythms taught on this English-language DVD are specifically Brazilian: samba, baião, afoxé.

Thrown like a dart, a caxixi produces a sharp *chick*; turned on its side and played like any old shaker, in produces a contrasting shk-a-shk-a-shk. Once the basic moves are strung together, the playing seems magical. And no wonder, since caxixi are often played in both hands and so you make music like Leopold Stokowski or a wizard: arms and hands in constant motion. As your "magic spells" gain coherence and your individual motions become a confident blur, something amazing is conjured up. And kudos to Robert Wallace for all the encouragement he peppers into his explanations to keep you going until you get there.

Production quality on offer is closer to YouTube than MTV, and some technical limitations do inhibit the experience. For example, many guitar instructional videos feature two cameras to capture right and left hand playing. Here, we're asked to step in time as we play, but the single camera here mostly stays on the teacher's head and face. It would be great to see the steps we're to follow.

And following the hand motions might be much easier for the left-handed: he's right-handed, but faces the viewer. For a righty myself, this means I can't mirror the screen. My right hand has to imitate the left side of the screen, and vice-versa. I would have had an easier time if the video had been flipped. In future editions, perhaps right- and left-handed versions of the video could be available on one DVD.

Enough rhythms are offered to keep even veteran musicians busy for a session, and neophytes will probably need hours to master the patterns on offer. As a visual person, some notation of the patterns would have been appreciated.

A note about instruments: your intrepid reviewer owns a large caxixi that proved useless for the technique taught on this DVD. I bought a smaller caxixi and matched that with Remo fruit shakers. These funny little instruments in the shapes of apples, plums, and pears proved just as effective as a "real" caxixi and I suspect most small shakers would, too. (Perhaps Remo can sponsor the next installment with a farmer's market worth of their offerings?)

I imagine a great many novices will end up putting more music in their life after a few hours with Robert Wallace and their caxixi. Intermediate and advanced percussionists might pick up a trick or two, as well. This DVD, available from totalrhythm.com for US$24.95, won't turn novices into Airto Moreira, but exceeding your expectations is a safe bet.