"There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, beating drums and luscious jazz harmonics -- there's no other place like it in the world. And while Rio, or its fame anyway, tends toward the elegant and sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia tends toward the other. Bahia is the land of the drum..."
Bahia (Bah-EE-ah)... The very sound of the word exhales poetry, but this a fortuitous accident of the Portuguese language. Nominal aspiration apart, what might it be that makes Bahia so special to the point of being unique?
Beaches? Tropical splendor? This state in Northeastern Brazil has these in abundance. But so do many other places. What really sets Bahia apart is cultural, something derived from its people. And these people, at Bahia's inception (speaking of the the entity as we understand it today), denied the concrete means to project their culture, manifested it with what means they had at their disposal at the time...their hands, voices and bodies (and the rustic instruments they were able to cobble together). The reaction of the larger part of Bahia's population to their circumstances (they were enslaved; these people had had everything taken from them but their lives) was not to despair, it was to hold tenaciously onto their culture and to use this to propel themselves through life. Music and dance went beyond idle pleasures...these were the means to surmount and supersede, to instill value into life, to instill life into life. It is this which is Bahia's gift and legacy to Brazil, and to the world. This is what makes Bahian and Brazilian music, when it truly draws upon these sources, so special. And it is this kind of indomitable spirit that so much of the world, in such a sad state in so many ways, could use right now. In the face of implacable adversity... Viva!
What a great culture!
ReplyDeleteI love music from here!
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