Mestre Sivuca

I despise the term world music. It evokes a watered down, bland amalgam of rhythms and instruments that amount to nothing with enough character to belong from somewhere or enough depth to hint at some universal human emotion in music. My cousin Sivuca, who died at midnight on December 15th was a world musician. His career spanned five continents that removed him from his native Brazil, but the spirit never left him and as he is known in Brazil so will he be remembered: Mestre (Master) Sivuca.

Sivuca was born on the 26th of May, 1930 in the town of Itabaiana, a desert town in the Northeastern state of Paraiba, Brazil. The son of a shoemaker, he was given the name Severino Dias de Oliveira, and soon picked up the accordion. He began playing at age 9, allowed to remain home and practice instead work around the house because he was an albino and didn't fare well in the hot sun. From age 9 to 15 he wandered the interior of the state of Paraiba playing in brothels and anywhere that needed music, to support his family after his father passed away. Soon after he moved to the city of Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, where he was given the nickname Sivuca while playing at the Radio Club of Pernambuco. He would move to Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Paris and in 1964, he moved to New York City to assume the role of musical director for Miriam Makeba. During this period, both Sivuca and my father are licking their wounds recovering from divorce and become intensely close. My father takes on the role of a trusted enthusiast, what today would be called an entourage, and helps Sivuca make it to his gigs and get paid. There are many stories from these times, intimate, most likely distorted and exaggerated, but relevant enough for who they came from and the glint in my father's eye telling them evokes. A story about when Sivuca came home drunk from a gig and brought over a few musicians to play late into the night; they were: Luis Bonfa, Milton Nascimento and Joao Gilberto. Or perhaps one of the 6 movie scores Sivuca did during this period, for my father's ex-wife, where he showed up at a recording studio alone and proceeded to record every instrument of an 8 piece score on his own. Closest to my heart is the story about Miles Davis hearing Sivuca play for the first time and the ensuing telegram in which Miles confessed his intense distaste for the accordion and then after hearing Sivuca, his new found appreciation. Sivuca played the music for my for two of my father's weddings, one with Dom Salvador and the second on his own.

After ten years with Miriam Makeba, he became bandleader for Harry Belafonte, before recording what is arguably his best album, Live at the Village Gate. I should note that on the first track of this album, just as the applause dies down and the band begins there is a drunken scream, undoubtedly my father's. The close ties to my family somewhat end there, we moved to Africa and it was difficult to keep touch. Sivuca got married and became immersed in a new life. He returned home briefly, recording one of my favorite songs of all time, Joao e Maria, with Chico Buarque. Soon after, Sivuca discovered a deep appreciation for the accordion and his music in Denmark and Sweden, spending several years there and recording with Toots Thielmans. His output slowed in the 90s, returning to Brazil and working locally to develop music in the Northeast of Brazil. He played with Baden Powell in 1994 in France and recorded several important works in Brazil, without much distribution behind them. Just recently he had completed an impressive DVD project and watching it with him, 2 months before he passed, I was amazed by the dexterity and fluidity with which he attacked his instrument. He was a consummate musician. We didn't talk much, he spoke in a very low tone, the result of his throat cancer, and was hard of hearing. When I told him I wanted to become a musician, he told me to go to Julliard and we left it at that. He was buried in his home state of Paraiba, by a full honor guard and he will forever be remembered there and by anyone who heard him. I hope I can add a few of you to that list.

Posted by pd3000 at 9:36 PM | Comments (0)

I Can't Write Left Handed

> Bill Withers – I can’t Write Left Handed

In the cannon of soul music, Bill Withers is often left out of the yolk that defines the genre and found in the white area that connects soul to folk or pop. Though his voice carries pre-requisite gospel drenched grit and his songs scream of lost love and brotherhood, the wide acceptance of his music, and his tendency towards accessible music serves to distil his hard earned cred. I held Withers in that category myself, a category that other artists with equally ubiquitous talent such as Richie Havens, until I watched an interview with Withers himself about how the song "Ain't No Sunshine" came to be. The story, in which Withers tells of heartbreak so deep that he had to admit to himself, getting past his male ego in the process, that the sun no longer shone when his woman left him, gave his songwriting a degree of authenticity that eludes some of the more recognized names in the cannon chiefly because they lack such a deep personal connection to their material. The interview, which sees Withers telling it like it is, at one exclaiming: "I am the goddamn blues," has it right; Bill Withers sang soul music with all the honesty of a Nina Simone and all the torment of a Bobby 'Blue' Bland.

"I can't Write Left Handed" which was originally recorded on October 6th, 1972, is a lilting, frank statement about the Vietnam War. The song imagines the thoughts of a veteran returning home without an arm: he has lost his right hand and he can't write left handed. The simplicity of the statement, typical of Withers' lyrics, belies the depth of the concept. This version, from his overlooked Live At Carnegie Hall album includes an Isaac Hayes like spoken word intro, a textbook "Story Tellers" vamp that leads into a minimalist and moving blues-drenched account of the horrors of war. Bill Withers was, after all, a story teller.

Posted by pd3000 at 5:40 PM | Comments (0)

Redneck in a Soul Band

> Latimore - There's a Red-Neck in the Soul Band

I have to admit to some difficulty in putting this post together. Let's face it, the title is corny, the lyrics are predictable, the vamps are canned and it's singer looks like a cross between Teen Wolf and Barry Gibb. But I try to be honest with myself, and I've been moved by movies on airplanes; you have too. Latimore emerged in the late 60s on the Miami soul circuit under the Glades label, making a name for himself nationally in the mid 70s with the #1 R&B charting "Let's Straighten It Out". Were it not for songs like it and "Keep the Home Fire Burning," in which Latimore exhibits a vocal depth and a grit that gives him a degree of credability, he might as well have been the Gibb brothers long lost black cousin.

"There's a Red-Neck in the Soul Band" which appeared on Latimore's creatively named third release in 1977, "Latimore II," is to me the palateable mid-point between soul and disco that Marvin Gaye's I Want You legitamized. I can't say what my reaction to the song would have been had it not been for Marvin, but the song has its moments of depth; 2:40 seconds into the song he starts rambling Isaac Hayes style about his family tree and by the end of the song you kind of get the sense that what you were just inadvertently tapping your foor to was a Red-neck soul band. Yah, that's right.

Posted by pd3000 at 5:58 PM | Comments (0)

It's a New Day

> James Brown - Blind Man Can See It

I could devote multiple posts to upbeat, start your day right horns and hand claps of the James Brown King (45-6292) original, but in this case I use it as a reference; the song I want to talk about, released as part of the re-issue of Brown's 1986 JBs compilation throwback album In The Jungle Groove on which the aforementioned single also finds a home, is a slow cooked crock pot cousin named “Blind Man Can See .“ The song, which saw its original birth on Brown's soundtrack to the 1973 Blacksploitation classic Black Ceasar, reappears on this collection as an extended and unreleased studio vamp. It proves as unfinished and dirty as Brown's hair in that notorious mugshot but, much like the photo it has an authenticity and a drawl that recasts its unintelligible moans and seemingly incoherent musical direction as a natural insight into the funk machine that was born when the Collins duo left The Pacemakers / New Dapps and brought their nascent talent under the direction of Bobby Byrd and Fred Wesley. My favorite moment in the track happens about 6 minutes into it when the bass and drums pause while the guitar and shaker create a canvas for what is one of the best examples of the type of Brown antics that inspired the classic joke: “What's James Saying?”, “I don't know, we getting paid?” Yes, yes you were and whether he feels the need to ramble about grits, pork and beans and paying his taxes, when the break kicks back in you might have to step back and kiss yourself because that smooth smooth Byrd organ eases your soul.

Posted by pd3000 at 4:42 PM | Comments (0)

Music for Disturbed Souls

> Mary Lou Williams - Dirge Blues

The church was a fundamental part of the American civil rights movement; music created by artists of faith during this time adopted an often militant and contemplative struggle that redefined the music as a movement: neither religious nor musical, but human. Take faith to mean what you will, but in this case I use it to highlight piously-inspired jazz that next to A Love Supreme, which is undoubtedly the greatest expression of faith in modern music, scratches at the burdensome task of explaining devotion.

In 1964, ten years after having a revelation at a concert in Paris in 1954 and leaving the stage armed with a list of people that she felt she needed to pray for, never to record again, Mary Lou Williams released “Mary Lou Williams Presents St. Martin de Porres.” The album, which is eclectic and often contradictory, sought to bridge the gap in Williams’ own torn soul between the Jazz movement she was very much a part of and her late blooming religious beliefs which had left her at odds with her livelihood. “Dirge Blues” stands out on the album as daunting and heavy-handed. Williams has been quoted as having said that she wrote "Dirge" days before John F. Kennedy was assassinated while afflicted with an inexplicable sadness. The piece itself is a blues without any irony; the melody is entrancing and pensive, pointed, premeditated but never old and the delivery is sparse enough to transport us to its convincingly somber place, but short enough not to keep us there.

Posted by pd3000 at 4:19 PM | Comments (0)

A Change is Gonna Come

> Brenton Wood - A Change is Gonna Come

On December 21, 1963, Sam Cooke recorded "A Change is Gonna Come," a song that like "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay" had for Otis Redding, would ring out posthumously as unforgettably moving and career defining, if only because it represented the beginning of another innovative chapter in music, tragically taken from us before it even began. The song, which was written in response to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," at a time when Sam was deeply affected by the loss of his son Vincent became an anthem of the nascent Civil Rights Movement. It is hauntingly, unclassifiably, beautiful.

Originally released by RCA a month after Sam’s death, "A Change is Gonna Come" reached 31 on the Pop Charts, and since then practically every soul artist of note has attempted to sing it smoother and with more self-assured soul than Sam Cooke; a fruitless exercise that has resulted in many beautiful renditions, but none that re-imagined the song more than Brenton Wood's version. Wood, best known for his late 60s danceable soul and borderline corny hits such as "Give Me Some Kind of Sign, Girl" and "I'm your Puppet" re-invents the classic with just enough heartbreak to convince us that he isn't blaspheming on the gospel of Cooke, rather he is merely taking as Cooke himself had with Gospel, music that touches people and modernizing it. "A Change Is Gonna Come" remains to this day the only song that I can remember start to finish.

Posted by pd3000 at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)