Music That Makes You Happy: Nei Lopes and Dudu Nobre with "Fumo de Rolo"

One of the fun things about the new movie Guardians of the Galaxy is the central importance of a cassette entitled Awesome Mixtape #1. If you've seen the movie, the main hero carries this cassette around with him wherever he goes and plays it on a Sony Walkman. His mother gave it to him just before she died, and it's his one connection with her as he never knew his father. An article I read about the movie focused on this one prop, and the dying art of the mix tape. I remember doing mix tapes back in the 70s and 80s to give to people who were special to me so that I could share music that I found meaningful with them. The key to the mix tape was the order of the songs. Every song was specially chosen, sometimes around a central theme, and every song had its right place in the mix.

A nice website called 8tracks.com allows its members (it's free unless you want to buy bells and whistles) to make their own modern day versions of mix tapes. I created an account and since have had great fun putting together song mixes. You can upload songs from your own collection to the site, and then put together the mix which you can label as private so that you can keep it for yourself or for certain people, or you can label it as public and then other members of 8tracks.com can listen to it, mark it if they like it, or mark individual songs they like and create their own mixes. I've created about 20 mixes, some better than others - my most ambitious being a trip around the world through songs where the criteria is that the countries must either touch or have an unbroken connection over water. I start with the United States, and then head over to Europe and from there hit every continent. But, I've made two mixes of songs that make me happy - Happiness and Happiness Too - songs that bring a little light into my life, or make me smile, or make me want to dance or all of the above.

When I make a new mix for happiness, I think that samba will definitely have to be a part of it. When I posted today's song, a samba, to the Facebook version of this blog a person "liked" it and commented in Spanish that he was dancing with wild abandon in his office. Of the musics of many different countries, I find that at least for me, the happiest music seems to come from Brazil. This is funny to me, because Brazil also has some of the most melancholy music with their embrace of their "saudade." It's almost like there is no in between for Brazil. the music is either extremely happy or extremely melancholy, and they move effortlessly between the two. Of the happy musics, samba is certainly one of the happiest. I don't know Portuguese, so for all I know the lyrics could be about death and destruction or lost love and despair, but the music is so upbeat and lively I sincerely doubt it. I think that it there is a heaven, I'd like Brazilian happy music like samba to be on the speakers a lot of the time (sharing with big band swing and jump blues). A heavenly mix tape, if you will.

Today's song is Fumo de Rolo by Nei Lopes. Lopes is a 74 year old samba singer and composer who also happens to be a lawyer, writer and historian. Trained in the law by the University of Brazil, he abandoned his career in the 1970s to take up music. A partnership with prominent samba artist Wilson Moreira led to many compositions that are now recorded by almost all interpreters of traditional samba. In the 1980s, he was a leader of the "pagode" movement which brought traditional samba back to the radio airwaves after it had been briefly superseded by such new genres as bossa nova. Lopes has written extensively on Afro-Brazilian and samba themes and since 1995 has been working on his sweeping Brazilian Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora. Fumo de Rolo is from Lopes' 2001 CD De Letra & Musica and he is joined on the song by Brazilian singer and composer Dudu Nobre.

A Sense of Longing: Deolinda and "Uma Ilha"

Sometimes there is nothing better than to immerse oneself in melancholy.  The great Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, in his book Istanbul, has long descriptions of cultural melancholy as people in the modern Turkish state who are old enough to remember the splendor of the Ottoman Empire look back on glories of the past amid the uncertainties of the present and future.  Individual melancholy hits us from time to time as well, usually as we personally revisit the past and compare it with our own presents and and uncertainties, or even perhaps when we get the "grass is always greener" syndrome and think of what might have been or what could have been had we only did this or that previously.  I am as susceptible to this as any other.  I like wallowing in melancholy once in a while.  I even put together a melancholy song list that I can access to feed that particular feeling.

The Portuguese word that best describes this feeling is saudade, which is not directly translatable but connotes longing.  In Portuguese music, the fado has developed over centuries to capture this longing.  Fados are often slow, serious songs.  They are often about the sea or about the life of the poor, and are usually accompanied by Portuguese guitar.  They are an unique contribution to world culture, so much so that the UN has inscribed fado on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list to bring awareness to its significance and to protect it.  Famous Portuguese performers of fado include Amália Rodrigues, Carlos do Carmo, and Ana Moura among many others.

Deolinda is a band that formed in 2006 when the brothers Pedro da Silva Martins and Luis José Martins asked their cousin Ana Bacalhau to sing on a few songs they had written.  Realizing that her voice fit perfectly with their songs, they formed Deolinda and rounded out the band with her husband José Pedro Leitã.  Their first album, Canção Ao Lado (2008), reached number 3 on the Portuguese charts, and their followup album, Dois selos e um carimbo (2010), hit number 1.  During this period, the band performed a song called Parva que Sous at their concerts, which was a social criticism of Portugal and the lack of opportunities for young people.  Most of Europe was going through a financial crisis, and youth unemployment was enormous, especially in poorer EU countries.  The song became an anthem among economically hurt youth in Portugal and went viral on social media, with bootleg copies of concert performances shared in great numbers.  Deolinda released their third album, Mundo Pequenino, in 2013.

The band's style is inspired by fado, but they have made numerous departures from the form.  While fado utilizes Portuguese guitar, the band does not.  Deolinda's songs are often contain social criticism, and can be lively, upbeat, ironic and humorous which does not fit the usual melancholy style of fado either.  Fado performers often dress in black when performing, but Deolinda does not.  Perhaps they are defining a post-fado or neo-fado style?  However this song, Uma Ilha (An Island) from their 2010 release Dois Selos e um Carimbo, does fit the traditional fado style with references to the sea and hidden secrets from a lover, and a slow, almost mournful pace highlighting Ana Bacalhou's beautiful voice.