Naná Vasconcelos’s Saudades

Description

The story of Afro-Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos stitches together histories of 1960s-1980s jazz, psychedelia, world music, experimentalism and post-punk. Based in Recife, Rio de Janeiro, New York City and Paris, Naná played with musicians as varied as Egberto Gismonti, Don Cherry, Pat Metheny, Ralph Towner, Arto Lindsay, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Paul Simon, Jon Hassell, Brian Eno, Os Mutantes, and Milton Nascimento. This book traces the 15 years (1964-1979) leading up to Naná’s Saudades (1979, ECM), an album evoking his sonic memories of Brazil that he recorded while in Germany. Saudades features berimbau, a one-stringed instrument that looks like a bow and arrow, alongside onomatopoetic vocals and the strings of the Radio Symphony Stuttgart. Daniel B. Sharp hears Naná’s playing as a counterargument against dishonest notions of the primitive just as world music emerged as a genre. With a gourd, a stick, a wire, a wicker basket, and a stone, Naná made music as complex and contemporary as the ARP synthesizers in vogue at the time. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Figures Acknowledgments Introduction A Chano Determined to be His Own Dizzy A Life Spent Bridging Artos and Pats He was Pretty Much Like His Music Sounded 1 From Bossa to Tropicália: Naná in Recife Naná’s Involvement in Grupo Construção and the Popular Culture Movement 2 Dictatorship and Counterculture: Naná in Rio de Janeiro Naná Survives the “Leaden Years” of the Military Dictatorship Naná and Milton Nascimento 3 The Enchanting and Revolutionary Berimbau: Naná and Glauber Rocha in New York City 4 Naná and Don Cherry “We Can be in Tune with Time. We Can be a Slave to Time.” Codona=Co(llin) Do(n) Na(ná) Interlude: Edition of Contemporary Music Records (ECM) Interlude: Creative Music Studio (CMS) 5 Naná and Egberto Gismonti Amazonian and Central African Flutes 6 Utopia, Caricature, Satire, and Therapy: Naná in France Pierre Barouh Africadeus A Chrysler Commercial Called “Jungle” Allowed Into the Center, and Relegated to the Side Naná’s Brazilians in Paris Naná Épate les Bourgeois Musical Participation as Therapeutic: Dr. Tony Lainé Interlude: Naná’s Place Within the Fourth World 7 Race, Primitivism, and Counterculture Listening to Unruly Voices Racial Animosity and Jogo de Cintura 8 Voice, Body, Rhythm, and Special Effects Vocalizing (not Singing) Wordlessness in Milton Nascimento’s Milagre dos Peixes The Sound Box and the Sound Stage Microphone Choreography Naná’s Time “Illuminates Everything Around It” Naná as Foley Artist Binaural Biriba Berimbaus 9 Saudades and Saudades Naná Undid the Orchestra (At Least for a Moment) Track 1: “O Berimbau” Track 2: “Vozes (Saudades)” Track 3: “Ondas (Na Óhlos de Petronila)” Track 4: “Cego Aderaldo” Track 5: “Dado” Saudades and Saudades Epilogue: After Saudades A Dialectics of Arto and Pat Selected Gigs and Recordings Em Recife, Saudades de Recife Notes List of Interviews Audio, Film, TV, and Video References Index