“Orfeu Negro” and the origins of Samba + Wilson Batista’s “Kerchief around my neck” and Noel Rosa’s “Idle youth”

ZP_poster for Orfeu Negro

ZP_Breno Mello, 1931 – 2008, as Orpheus in the 1959 Marcel Camus film, Orfeu Negro_Mello was a soccer player whom Camus chanced to meet on the street in Rio de Janeiro. Camus decided to cast the non-actor as the lead in the film. Mello turned out to be exactly right for the role of the star-crossed Everyman enchanted by tricky Fate – his Love is stalked by Death.

ZP_Marpessa Dawn, American-born actress of Black and Filipino heritage who played Eurydice opposite Breno Mello as Orpheus in the 1959 film Orfeu Negro. She is seen here in a photograph taken at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival. Dawn would later have a bizarre role as Mama Communa in the often-censored or banned 1974 Canadian film by European director Dusan Makavejev – Sweet Movie. A long way from her role in Orfeu Negro…yet she brought something of her beautiful wholesomeness even to the disturbing scenarios of Sweet Movie. Marpessa Dawn died in 2008 at the age of 74 in Paris.

ZP_a 1956 record album by Agostinho Dos Santos who sang the now internationally famous songs from the 1959 film Orfeu Negro_ A Felicidade and Manhã de Carnaval

Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), a 1959 film in Portuguese with subtitles, was directed by Marcel Camus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  Set at Carnaval time, it featured a mainly Black cast and told a modern Brazilian version of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.  The Morro da Babilônia “favela” (Babylon Hill “slum”) was used for filming many scenes.  Orfeu Negro is a nearly perfect film.  Exuberant and pensive, charming and mysterious, it is an engrossing story of doomed Lovers accompanied by the exquisitely-intimate singing of Agostinho Dos Santos of Luiz Bonfá’s songs in the then-nascent bossa nova style.  And add to all that the “crazy Life force” pulse of Samba at night in the streets…

Samba – the word – is derived via Portuguese from the West-African Bantu word “semba”, which means “invoke the spirit of the ancestors”.   Originating in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, by the 1920s the Samba sound was emerging with usually a 2/4 tempo, the use of choruses with hand-claps plus declaratory verses, and much of it in batucada rhythm which included African-influenced percussion such as tamborim, repinique, cuica, pandeiro and reco-reco adding many layers to the music.  The “voice” of the cavaquinho (which is like a ukulele) provided a pleasing contrast and a non-stop little wooden whistle, the apito, made the urgent breath of human beings palpable.

In the late 1920s in the Rio favela of Mangueira – among others – there began one of the earliest “samba schools”, initiating the transformation of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval (which had existed on and off since the 18th century but which was neither a large city-wide event nor one with a strong Black Brazilian influence).   In the 21st century, of course, Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro has become the most massive festival in the world;  in 2011, for example, close to 5 million people took part, with more than 400,000 of them being foreign visitors.  But back in the 1920s…the original Mangueira cordões or cords (also known as blocos or blocks) consisted of groups of masked participants, all men, who were led down the street by a “teacher” blowing an apito whistle.  Following them was a mobile orchestra of percussion.  In the years that followed the Carnaval procession expanded to include  1. the participation of women   2. floats   3. a theme   4. a mestre-sala (master of ceremonies) and a porta-bandeira (flag-bearer).

Notable early composers and singers of Samba (sambistas) included Pixinguinha, Cartola, Ataulfo Alves and Jamelão among men and Clementina de Jesus, Carmelita Madriaga, Dona Ivone Lara and Jovelina Pérola Negra among women.  But this is just the beginning of a long list…

The “fathers” of Samba were Rio musicians but the “mothers” of Samba were the Tias Baianas or the Aunties from Salvador da Bahia (a smaller though culturally rich city further up the Atlantic Coast).  Hilária Batista de Almeida, also known as Tia Ciata (1854-1924), was born in Bahia but lived in Rio de Janeiro from the 1870s onward.  Involved in persecuted “roots” rituals, she became a Mãe Pequena or Little Mother – Iyakekerê in the Yoruba language – one type of venerated priestess in the Afro-Brazilian religion, Candomblé.  The Bahia African rhythms that were crucial to her ceremonies at Rua Visconde de Itaúna, number 177, were incorporated into their compositions by musicians such as Pixinguinha and Donga who were used to playing the maxixe (a 19th-century tango-like dance still popular in Rio in the early 20^th century).  That musical fusion was the birth of samba carioca – the early Samba sound of Rio.  Pelo Telefone (“Over the Telephone”), from 1917, the humorous lyrics of which concern a gambling house (casa de jogo do bicho) and someone waiting for a telephone call tipping him off that the police are about to carry out a raid, is considered the first true Samba song.

ZP_1917 sheet music for what is believed to be the earliest Samba carioca_Pelo Telefone

ZP_Os Oito Batutas_The Eight Batons or Eight Cool Guys_around 1920. These Rio musicians had played maxixes and choros for bourgeois theatre-goers in the lobby at intermissions. They began to add ragtime and foxtrot numbers, the latest American imports. But in their spare time, under the influence of the Afro-Brazilian Tias Baianas, they were already synthesizing a new music, the Samba carioca…

As in Trinidad with “rival” Calypsonians and in Mexico with musical “duels” between Cantantes de Ranchera, so in Brazil there were Samba compositions in which musicians responded to one another.  It was during the 1930s that White Brazilian composers began to absorb the Samba and alter its lyrical content…and gradually the special sound of Rio’s favelas (via Bahia) became the national music of Brazil…We are grateful to Bryan McCann for the following translations of two vintage Samba lyrics from Portuguese into English.

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Wilson Batista (Black sambista, 1913 – 1968)

“Kerchief around my neck” (1933)

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My hat tilted to the side
Wood-soled shoe dragging
Kerchief around my neck
Razor in my pocket
I swagger around
I provoke and challenge
I am proud
To be such a vagabond
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I know they talk
About this conduct of mine
I see those who work
Living in misery
I’m a vagabond
Because I had the inclination
I remember, as a child I wrote samba songs

(Don’t mess with me, I want to see who’s right… )

My hat tilted to the side
Wood-soled shoe dragging
Kerchief around my neck
Razor in my pocket
I swagger around
I provoke and challenge
I am proud
To be such a vagabond

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And they play
And you sing
And I don’t  give in!

.     .     .

Wilson Batista

“Lenço no pescoço”

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Meu chapéu do lado
Tamanco arrastando
Lenço no pescoço
Navalha no bolso
Eu passo gingando
Provoco e desafio
Eu tenho orgulho
Em ser tão vadio

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.     .     .

A  response-Samba to Batista’s…

Noel Rosa (White sambista, 1910 – 1937)

“Idle Youth” (1933)

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Stop dragging your wood-soled shoe

Because a wood-soled shoe was never a sandal
Take that kerchief off your neck
Buy dress shoes and a tie
Throw out that razor
It just gets in your way

With your hat cocked, you slipped up
I want you to escape from the police
Making a samba-song
I already gave you paper and a pencil

“Arrange”  a love and a guitar

Malandro is a defeatist word
What it does is take away
All the value of sambistas
I propose, to the civilized people,
To call you not a malandro
But rather an idle youth.

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Malandro in Brazil meant:  rogue, scoundrel, street-wise swindler

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Noel Rosa

“Rapaz folgado”

Deixa de arrastar o teu tamanco
Pois tamanco nunca foi sandália
E tira do pescoço o lenço branco
Compra sapato e gravata
Joga fora esta navalha que te atrapalha

ZP_Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro_a 1950s glamour photograph of professional revelers

ZP_Irmandade da Boa Morte_Sisterhood of the Good Death_women devotees of Candomblé in contemporary Bahia_photo by Jill Ann Siegel

ZP_Carnaval in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil_photo by David Turnley

For those who observe Lent…just a reminder:   next week, February 13th, is Ash Wednesday. 

–But up until then … … !

And so, tonight, Friday February 8^th, the mayor of Rio will hand over “the keys to the city” to Rei Momo, King Momo (from the Greek Momus – the god of satire and mockery) a.k.a. The Lord of Misrule and Revelry.  A symbolic act signifying that the largest party in the world is about to begin.  Enjoy!

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