Live
Carlinhos Brown: BARBICAN 24/06/08
His press release stated ”surprise in the repertoire and the spectacular percussion are the highlights of the concert by this musician”. Boy, they certainly weren’t wrong there!
Expectations were at an all time high as I sat there with my girlfriend Sipping caprinia cocktails admiring the myriad of percussion and vast drums on stage. I had no idea what to expect, but if the stage set up was anything to go by, it was going to be thunderous volley of rhythm that even the Brazilian gods would hear high up in the heavens.
Unfortunately,save but for a grand entrance,the first quarter of the show was an utter disappointment.This wasn’t in the script surely? What we had was, to my mind, the worse excesses of sentimental brazilian pop dominated by synth sounds and loud drum programming. Schmaltz I wasn’t used to - the blood was draining from my face fast! Was this going to be a bad night of ”Carlihnos does Eurovision”? He’d come on looking like the singer from Boney M, it now seemed I was the only one bemused and deflated in a sea of upbeat, good looking Brasilians, deliriously happy and flailing there limbs everywhere.
However, thankfully, my prayers were eventually answered and once CB had dispensed with his pimp attire and now stripped to the waist wearing a magnificent Amerindian headdress. proceedings took a turn decidedly for the better! Dispensing with the pop, CB went about his business,down went the programming and up came the real drums with five percussionists, yes five! The groove set alight and the raw earthiness of what bahia music is really all about came to the fore. Here was a showman so obviously made for the stadium, in full stride,and finally living up to his massive reputation. Here’s the breakdown:
In the 1990s he became as the leader Timbalada, which had more than 100 percussionists and singers, called "Timbaleiros", most of them young kids from the Candeal neighborhood of Salvador, where Carlinhos was born. They recorded eight albums and toured around the world. In 1993 Billboard, named him the "best record producer in Latin America." On the back of his success with Timbalada, Brown released a solo album called Alfagamabetizado on Blue Note Records in 1996, writing singing, and playing all the instruments. He followed this up with his second album Omelete Man, and a third album, Bahia do Mundo, Mito e Verdade.
He is widely known as one of the most played composers in Brazil. He has over 400 works recorded by famous artists such as Maria Bethânia, Gal Costa, Cássia Eller, Nando Reis, Arnaldo Antunes, Daniela Mercury, Herbert Vianna, Marisa Monte, Bebel Gilberto, Sepultura, Rita Lee, Simone, Sandrade Sá, Ney Matogrosso, and Fernanda Abreu amongst many others.
He has forged partnerships with Brazilian composers like João Donato, Gilberto Gil, Erasmo Carlos, Michael Sullivan, Arnaldo Antunes and Marisa Monte. His international staus is high too, names such as Black Eyed Peas, Carlos Santana, Ricky Martin, Lee Ritenour, Bill Laswell, Wayne Shorter, Jovanotti, Sergio Mendes, Angelique Kidjo, Miyazawa Kazufumi, Omara Portuondo and Ornella Vanoni have all required his services, phew!
The Barbican witnessed a whirlwind Carnival and CB knew exactly how to command the crowd,he had us running up and down the aisles doing the Mexican wave etc- we had become an amoebic mass swaying helplessly to his orders.I don’t think the architechts would have ever envisaged the auditorium used in this fashion for one moment! (Bryn and Alex take note!)
Carlinhos Brown, no doubt has bone-deep Bahian sensibility and a peerless knowledge of Brazilian rhythms woven into his compositions and style. Here is an exceptional artist committed to social change, so totally at home with audiences far larger than the Barbican, with indefatigable energy abound and infectious to the last beat of the drum. A one man carnival with a huge heart and love of humanity respecting the generations and spreading regeneration. Saravá Carlihnos! And obrigado!
Words Emrys Baird
