The Musical Landscapes of Ricardo Bezerra
Ricardo Bezerra was my host father when I first came to Fortaleza as an exchange student to study Portuguese. Ricardo, a practicing landscape architect and professor, is also a composer. In 1978, he released his first album, Maraponga, featuring Brazilian musical heavyweights like jazz legend Hermeto Pascoal and singers Raimundo Fagner and Amelinha. His song “Cavalo Ferro” became a huge hit, one that musicians still record and perform today (there’s a recent version on iTunes if you’re curious). Fagner and Amelinha and a few other musicians from the state of Ceará came to be known as the Pesssoal do Ceará, the folks from Ceará, and they helped bring Ricardo’s music to a wider Brazilian audience.
In 2003, Ricardo released his second album, Notas de Viagens, and is now working on a new CD. His most recent music is instrumental, and much of it combines jazz with northeastern Brazilian traditional music. He and I met up to talk about his new project. We chatted about the search for the Cearense sound and the ways musicians can express regional identity through music. Check out the clip to hear him talk about the ways he’s given his music the sound of Ceará and to hear one of his new songs from his upcoming album.
Rain Prophets
It drizzled as I drove to the annual meeting of the “rain prophets.” Farmers from around the northeast of Brazil gathered in Quixadá, a town in the interior of the state of Ceará. The prophets, who learn from the time they’re young how to predict when and how much it will rain each year, make their forecasts by observing nature. Some listen to birdsong, others measure honey inside dissected bees. The stars, the leaves, and the behavior of ants all suggest how much rain will fall, and the prophets share their predictions so farmers will know when to plant their seeds. The organizer of the meeting, João Soares, is the president of the Instituto de Pesquisa de Violas e Poesia Cultural Popular do Sertão Central (the Institute of Research of Ten-String Guitars and Cultural Popular Poetry of the Central Sertão), and he sees the two-day event as a way of preserving regional culture and traditional ways of knowing.
Check Out Those Shoelaces
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Happy Holidays from Brazil!
This is the Coral Natal de Luz (the Christmas of Light Choir) singing a poppy version of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” in Portuguese. The kids are all in different windows of a building in downtown Fortaleza, and if you look closely, you can see Santa in the bottom center window.
Fieldwork 101
Lesson 1.Don’t always trust directions from the internet. I’ve gotten lost in Fortaleza twice now thanks to Google Maps. A few weeks ago, I arrived at a friend’s wedding an hour and a half late, and the place shouldn’t have been more than a five minute drive from my apartment. It wasn’t entirely the map’s fault. Most of the streets had no signs, so I had to guess where and when to turn. At one point, I glanced down at the map on the seat next to me while I was driving, and looked up to find a donkey standing in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes. My heart racing, I sped home and called a friend who gave me better directions and I made it in time for dinner.
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A Delayed Departure
I thought I was leaving for Brazil on October 10th. But I had trouble getting my visa—for reasons too complicated and too boring to explain— and I’ve been stuck in Los Angeles. After three long weeks, my passport finally came in the mail, and I’m hoping to be in Fortaleza by next week. So for my first blog entry, I figured I’d tell you a little bit about myself and my relationship with Brazil and the state of Ceará.
Each of my family members has deep connections to Brazil. If I wanted to, I could start the family history about forty years ago—when the Silvers’ love affair with the land of Pelé, Xuxa, and Lula began—but instead I’ll just clarify that my parents aren’t Brazilian. My brother, who is a Brazilian citizen by birth, married a woman from Ceará this past summer.
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