
Rhythms of Resistance
African Musical Heritage in Brazil
Sales Date: 2000-06-01
281 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in
The first definitive history of the full range of African contributions to Brazilian music.
African rhythms are at the heart of contemporary black Brazilian music. Surveying a musical legacy that encompasses over 400 years, Peter Fryer traces the development of this rich cultural heritage. He describes how slaves, mariners, and merchants brought African music from Angola and the ports of east Africa to Latin America. In particular, they brought it to Brazil — today the country with the largest black population of any outside Africa.
Fryer examines how the rhythms and beats of Africa were combined with European popular music to create a unique sound and dance tradition. He focuses on the political nature of this musical crossover and the role of African heritage in the cultural identity of black Brazilians today. The result is an absorbing account of a theme in global music that is rich in fascinating historical detail.
Maps
List of Figures
Preface
Introduction: Challenge Singing and the Atlantic Cultural Triangle; The African Presence in Brazil; The African Cultural Heritage in Brazil; 'Neo-African' Music in Brazil; Acculturated Music in Brazil; The Sources of Brazil's 'Neo-African' Music
The Heritage of Nigeria and Benin: Music for Worship: African-Derived Religions in Brazil
African-Brazilian Religious Music; Candomble and Carnival
The Angolan Heritage: Capoeira and Berimbau: Training for Resistance; African Prototypes of the Berimbau; The Berimbau in Brazil
The 'Angola Warble': Street Cries and Worksongs: The Cities; The Countryside; The Songs of the Miners
Brazil's Dramatic Dances: Lay Brotherhoods and dances Processions; Coronation Ceremonies; Palmares and the Quilombo; The Cucumbi, The Mocambique, Bumba-meu-boi and the Power of Satire; Cambinda:A Festival of Liberation
Three Vanished Instruments: The Lamellophone (Marimba); The Pluriarc (Compound Bow-Lute); The Xylophone (Marimba)
The African Dance Heritage: The African Dance Heritage: African Dance in Brazil; Batuque and Rural Samba
Samba: The Word; Jongo and Caxambu; The Coco; The Calango
Brazil's Atlantic Dances: The Atlantic Dance Tradition; The Lundu: Brazil's First National Dance; The Fofai That Came from Bahia; The Fado in Brazil
The Emergence of Brazillian Popular Music: Brazil's Slave Orchestras; How Brazilian Popular Music Arose; The Modinha and the sung Lundu; The African Heritage in Brazilian Popular Music
Maxixe and modern Samba
Appendix A: Continuity and Change in the Music of the Kondo-Angola Culture Area
Appendix B: African Musical Instruments in Brazil
Appendix C: The Brazilian Musical Heritage in Nigeria and Benin
Appendix D: The Music and Dance of Cape Verde
Appendix E: Relacao de fofa que veya angora da Bahia: Extract
Discography
Notes
Index
Maps: Sketch-map of Brazil; Sketch-map of the Atlantic Cultural Triangle
List of Figures: A Xango dance in Pernambuco, c. 1634-41 as Seen by Zacharias Wagner; A Present-Day Candomble Ceremony in Brazil, with an Orchestra of Three Drums; Blocos Afro Bring their Assertive and Compelling Music on to the Salvador Streets at Carnival Time; Capoeira in the 1820's; "The Blind Singer"; Present-day Capoeira; Coffee-carriers in Rio de Janiero in the 1840's; 'Festival of Our Lady of the Rosary, Patron Saint of Blacks', c.1821-25; Black Dancers on a Pernambuco Sugar Plantation in the 1640s; The 'Baducca' as Dances in Sao Paulo, c. 1817-20; The 'Danse Batuca', c. 1821-25; The Lundu, Danced by a Black Couple, c. 1821-25; The Lundu, Danced by a White Couple, c.1821-1825; The Maxixe in Caricature
PETER FRYER is best known as the author of Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (1984).
"The greatest strength of Fryer's book is that it explains the African contribution to Brazilian popular music within a transatlantic framework involving multidirectional, triangular flows of cultural contact between Africa, Europe, and the Americas."
~Luso Brazilian Review