Mar 14, 2017

RhoDeo 1711 Roots

Hello,

The music of Brazil encompasses various regional music styles influenced by African, European and Amerindian forms. After 500 years of history, Brazilian music developed some unique and original styles such as samba, bossa nova, MPB, sertanejo, pagode, tropicalia, choro, maracatu, embolada (coco de repente), mangue bit, funk carioca (in Brazil simply known as Funk), frevo, forró, axé, brega, lambada, and Brazilian versions of foreign musical genres, such as Brazilian rock and rap.


Today's artist while many of the performers during the heyday of Tropicalia and the rise of MPB (música popular brasileira) opted for a more radical stance in their challenge to Brazil's political and cultural authorities, artists like Jorge Ben took a more understated approach. Rather than use overly theatrical performance to shock the audience or write songs loaded with political content, Ben became known as one of the country's great musical alchemists, a furiously eclectic songwriter who combined elements of indigenous Brazilian music with a groove from the west coast of Africa.  With that he became one of the most respected and resilient figures in Brazilian pop.  ...  N'Joy

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Born (March 22, 1945) Jorge Duilio Lima Menezes in Rio de Janeiro, he first took the stage name Jorge Ben after his mother's name (of Ethiopian origin) but in the 1980s changed it to Jorge Ben Jor (commonly written Benjor). Jorge Ben obtained his first pandeiro (Brazil's most popular type of tambourine) when he was thirteen, and two years later, was singing in a church choir. He also took part as a pandeiro player in the blocos of Carnaval, and from eighteen years of age, he began performing at parties and nightclubs with the guitar that his mother gifted him. He received the nickname "Babulina", after their enthusiastic pronunciation of Ronnie Self's song "Bop-A-Lena". Was presented to Tim Maia by Erasmo Carlos, soon discovered that Maia was also known for the same reason. It was at one of those clubs in which he performed that his musical career took off. In 1963, Jorge came on stage and sang "Mas Que Nada" to a small crowd that happened to include an executive from the recording company, Philips. One week later, Jorge Ben's first single was released.

The hybrid rhythms that Jorge employed brought him some problems at the start of his career, when Brazilian music was split between the rockier sounds of the Jovem Guarda and traditional samba with its complex lyrics. But as that phase in Brazilian pop music history passed, and bossa nova became better known throughout the world, Ben rose to prominence.
Holdings both television programs O Fino da Bossa and Jovem Guarda from Rede Record, after being reprimanded by the production of "O Fino da Bossa", chose to participate in the Jovem Guarda, soon after, joined the program Divino, Maravilhoso from TV Tupi, presented by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.

Jorge Ben's first public appearances were in small festivals organised by his friends, where bossa nova and rock and roll predominated. As with most musicians of the time, Ben was initially influenced by João Gilberto even though he was quite innovative in his own right. The aforementioned song, "Mas Que Nada", was his first big hit in Brazil, and remains to this day the most played song in the United States sung entirely in Portuguese.[citation needed] Outside of Brazil, the song is better known in cover versions by Sérgio Mendes and the Tamba Trio. The song has also been reinterpreted by jazz luminaries such as Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and Al Jarreau; as well as other samba artists of the time, such as Elza Soares. His musical work has been vastly sampled by music producers and DJ's, and covered by many bands in a variety of genres such as heavy metal, disco, rock, reggae, jazz, drum and bass, house music and more.

In 1969, Jorge Ben released his self-titled album amid the excitement of the cultural and musical Tropicália movement. The album featured Trio Mocotó as his backing band, who would go on to launch a successful career on the back of their association with Ben. The album was noted for "País Tropical," one of his most famous compositions, although it would be Wilson Simonal who would take his recording of the song to the top of the charts in Brazil that same year. Instead, the song "Charles, Anjo 45", also from the self-titled album, would become Ben's biggest self-performed chart hit of the year.

In the 1970s, Jorge Ben released his most esoteric and experimental albums, most notably A Tábua de Esmeralda in 1974 and Solta o Pavão in 1975. In 1976, he released one of his most popular albums: "África Brasil," a fusion of funk and samba which relied more on the electric guitar than previous efforts. This album also features a remake of his previously released song "Taj Mahal," from which Rod Stewart's 1979 hit "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? was plagiarized (a matter that he claimed was settled out of court in his favor).

In 1989, Jorge changed his recording label as well as his artistic name, becoming Jorge Benjor (or Jorge Ben Jor). At the time, it was said that there were numerological reasons for his change in name; other sources say it was in response to an incident where some of his royalties accidentally went to American guitarist George Benson. In 2002, Jorge Ben contributed to the critically acclaimed Red Hot + Riot, a compilation CD created by the Red Hot Organization in tribute to the music and work of Nigerian musician, Fela Kuti, that raised money for various charities devoted to raising AIDS awareness and fighting the disease. He collaborated with fellow hip-hop artists Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, and Bilal to remake the famous song by Fela Kuti, "Shuffering and Shmiling," for the CD.

In 2006, a remake of Ben's "Mas Que Nada" became an international chart hit for Sérgio Mendes with The Black Eyed Peas after being used by Nike in a global TV advertisement during the 2006 FIFA World Cup; this remake (the second time Mendes had covered the track) reached the Top 10 in several European countries, including the UK and Germany, in addition to reaching Number 1 in the Netherlands. Jorge Ben is also a big fan of Flamengo, a Brazilian football club, located in Rio de Janeiro, which counts Zico, Junior and Leandro among their former star players. Ben's interest in football carries over to his music, as many of his songs deal with the subject, such as "Flamengo," "Camisa 10 da Gávea," "Ponta De Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)," "Zagueiro," and "Filho Maravilha."

On July 7, 2007 he performed at the Brazilian leg of Live Earth in Rio de Janeiro. On March 20, 2011 his name was mentioned in President Barack Obama's speech in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the Theatro Municipal (Rio de Janeiro). President Barack Obama quoted: "You are, as Jorge Ben-Jor sang, “A tropical country, blessed by God, and beautiful by nature.”"



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1969 was a big year for Jorge Ben. While he was already an established veteran in Brazilian musical circles, he refused to align himself with either the Jovem Guarda or MPB movements because he found both camps willing to abandon samba in favor of popular styles from North America and England. That ambivalence hurt him professionally but not creatively -- until the release of this self-titled classic. When the new tropicalia crew heard the set, they were floored and they attempted to draft the brilliant singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist into their fold. If emulation is the best form of flattery, it happened immediately. Two tracks from this set, "Que Pena" and "País Tropical," were recorded immediately by Gal Costa and showed up on both her 1969 releases. Caetano Veloso recorded this set's final track "Charles, Anjo 45" for his own self-titled recording that same year. While the cover of this album is psychedelic enough to be folded into the emergent tropicalista brand, the music tells a different story. True to his feelings, Ben kept the samba as the central tenet of this recording. It's true that he drew great inspiration from American soul music, but rather than attempt to create a style of music that was merely derivative of it, he went out of his way to write songs and collaborated with his two great arrangers, José Briamonteand the great Rogerio Duprat to inspire that samba and soul flowed seamlessly together. Further, he and producer Manoel Barenbien used reverb and other sounds to great effect. The end result is a recording that sounds truly revolutionary even in the 21st century. Samba and Brazilian folk forms dominate the structures of these tunes. Rhythmically, it couldn't be further from soul. "Criola," that opens the album, is a perfect example. While horns and strings reflecting Motown's psychedelic soul sound of the era are heard prominently, the shifting time signature, the strong acoustic guitar flow in the forefront, whistles, berimbaus, hand drums, shakers, and chanted choruses behind Ben's breezy delivery bring out all the most infectious elements of samba. "Domingas," which follows, is the tune's mirror image; a ballad saturated in wispy flute, the constant presence of the backing voices, maracas, and the choppy, rhythmic acoustic guitar and a baritone sax solo emulating the lyric on the second chorus offer something emotionally riveting, and seductive, even if the tune is rather socially and politically charged with ambivalence. "País Tropical" marries soul and samba to Caribbean calypso with a beautiful call and response lyric and chorus. But it's not just the music. Ben is a poet as well as a songwriter. "Take It Easy My Brother Charles," reflects the tension between races and celebrates the black element in Brazilian and even world society, and the creative debt owed to Africa prefigures the Black Rio movement by three years. The shifting meters in "Descobri Que Eu Sou Um Anjo," where the strings hold true to one rhythm and harmonic structure and the rest of the instruments and voices follow another, is delirious and enchanting. This set stands out a bit because while it sums up all the places he'd been in the '60s, it also prefigures the funkier elements that he would embrace as the '70s emerged. Two periods of Brazilian culture are embraced here, held in an uneasy tension that nonetheless feels seamless in this brilliant recording.



Jorge Ben - Jorge Ben (flac  264mb)

01 Criola 3:30
02 Domingas 3:31
03 Cadê Tereza 3:22
04 Barbarella 3:14
05 País Tropical 4:10
06 Take It Easy My Brother Charles 2:36
07 Descobri Que Eu Sou Um Anjo 4:04
08 Bebete Vãobora 2:35
09 Quem Foi Que Roubou A Sopeira De Porcelana Chinesa Que A Vovó Ganhou Da Baronesa? 3:07
10 Que Pena 3:01
11 Charles Anjo 4:50

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The combination of Jorge Ben and Trio Mocotó had already produced great things when Força Bruta first appeared in 1970. Ben's self-titled album of the year before had reeled off a succession of Brazilian hits, including "País Tropical" and "Cadê Teresa," and made the four musicians very busy as a result. Força Bruta was a slightly different album, a slice of mellow samba soul that may perhaps have been the result of such a hectic schedule during 1969. One of the hidden gems in Jorge Ben's discography, it's a wonderful album because it kept everyone's plentiful musical skills intact while simply sailing along on a wonderful acoustic groove that may have varied little but was all the better for its agreeable evenness. The songs may have been more difficult to distinguish -- virtually every one began with acoustic guitar, similar instrumentation, and Ben's caressing vocals over the top -- but it made the record one of the best in Ben's hearty career.



Jorge Ben - Forca Bruta   (flac  275mb)

01 Oba Lá Vem Ela 4:12
02 Zé Canjica 3:50
03 Domenica Domingava Num Domingo Toda De Branco 3:47
04 Charles Junior 6:05
05 Pulo, Pulo 2:47
06 Apareceu Aparecida 3:14
07 O Telefone Tocou Novamente 3:48
08 Mulher Brasileira 4:23
09 Terezinha 3:11
10 Fôrça Bruta 5:08

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Negro E Lindo is a worthy successor for the great album he had released in the previous year - Forca Bruta. Jorge now takes his sound further toward a tropical Soul, a style that was his unique invention. But there are also still those hypnotic Samba grooves. Clearly, Negro E Lindo belongs to those master albums Jorge Ben bestowed to the world. with a good handful of records, Jorge Ben enriched Brazilian Pop and beyond, international Pop music.



Jorge Ben - Negro E Lindo (flac  233mb)

01 Rita Jeep 2:58
02 Porque É Proibido Pisar Na Grama 4:55
03 Cassius Marcelo Clay 3:33
04 Cigana 3:13
05 Zula 2:58
06 Negro É Lindo 3:30
07 Comanche 2:55
08 Que Maravilha 4:08
09 Maria Domingas 3:58
10 Palomaris 3:00

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This album is clearly the start of the samba rock fusion that Jorge Ben, a legend of Brazilian pop, is credited for. Acoustic nylon-string guitar, bass guitar, percussion trio. Basic, authentic elements of Brazilian pop and samba.
Jorge Ben's creativity is flowing freely here. He gets wise, playful (always), poetic, passionate, spacy and spaced out. The guitar riffs are spectacular and the percussion is authentic samba rock groove. The bass groove on "Take It Easy My Brother Charles" deserves special mention. It is groovy to the bone (try listening to "Criola", "Take It Easy My Brother Charles", "Bebete", "Pais Tropical" -- Brazil's unofficial national anthem). The album has a good, varied instrumental pallette. Some tracks have tasteful string arrangements with a slightly spacy feel ("Barbarella", "Sou Um Anjo"), some have piano ("Cadê Tereza", "Que Pena"), and even flute on "Quem Foi Que Roubou..."



Jorge Ben - Ben (flac 239mb)

01 Morre O Burro, Fica O Homem 2:06
02 O Circo Chegou 2:44
03 Paz E Arroz 2:04
04 Moça 4:59
05 Domingo 23 3:49
06 Fio Maravilha 2:11
07 Quem Cochicha O Rabo Espicha 3:28
08 Caramba!... Galileu Da Galiléia 2:29
09 Que Nega é Essa 3:33
10 As Rosas Eram Todas Amarelas 3:52
11 Taj Mahal 5:29

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2 comments:

Guitarradeplastico,scraping oddities said...

many thanks for the album Jorge Ben - Ben

Anonymous said...

Hey Rho

Hope you're well. Is it possible to re-up Jorge Ben's 'Ben' album?

Thank you