February 2023 Playlist: Samba by Carnaval Brasileiro
February means Carnaval, and Carnaval means samba. To celebrate Carnaval and our Samba Blend, we invited Mike Quinn, musician, music journalist, producer of Austin’s famed Carnaval Brasileiro, and lover of Brazilian music, to create a Samba-based playlist this month.
Carnaval music is first and foremost dance music. Party music. Festive music. Inspirational music—inspiring folks to get into the groove of the months-long Carnaval season. It is socio-political satire. Or historical documentary. It is the equivalent of the Christmas carol for the world’s largest party. It has evolved into theater music, show tunes for a stage a half-mile long, with a live audience of more than 100,000, untold millions following the spectacle on television in Brazil and, via satellite, other fans all around the globe.
No other festivity, not even Christmas, has such a large body of music associated with it. There are at least 2,000 different Carnaval songs on recordings stretching back to the early years of the 20th century. Probably more. And many of those have been covered dozens and dozens of times by performers representing every era of recorded Brazilian music. They have become a part of what it means to be Brazilian, almost part of the genetic code, ingrained so deeply that we non-Brazilians can’t really understand how music can become such an important part of a cultural identity.
How many Americans, or even Louisianans, know there are songs for Mardi Gras, albeit very few songs to be sure, much less know the words to any of them? Or how many can get up and sing chorus after chorus of some patriotic hymn in celebration of the Fourth of July? Ain’t much passion there, regardless of current political trends. All Brazilians, however, know the words to dozens of these songs, some can sing along flawlessly to hundreds.
This music is designed primarily to get people’s asses moving at street carnavals and Carnaval balls, to get them involved in the mass hysteria that is Carnaval, when Brazil unites in an extended period of revelry and all work slows to a snail’s pace as folks gear up for those final weeks of celebration. And it works. The rhythms, the lyrics, the intent, all combine to create an irresistible siren that brings people together in a fashion totally foreign to those of the cold countries...like ours. It’s a reflection of the passion and spirit of a people who are never afraid to let go and have a good time, even during periods of political nightmares—black periods once all too common in Brazil.
Choosing from those thousands of Carnaval tunes composed over the last hundred years was not an easy task. So we’ve tried to offer a capsule history, including some of the absolute standards dating back to the 20s and 30s that are de rigueur at any Brazilian Carnaval celebration—fancy ball or impromptu neighborhood eruption. We had to exclude so many gems; just scratching the surface would have required at least five times as many selections. But we’ve tried to offer a bit of the evolution of Carnaval music—sambas, marchinhas, and batucadas—that have grown out of Rio’s celebration. To give a tiny taste of carnavais from other cities, we’ve included a bit of music from the wild, less formally structured street manifestations of Salvador, Bahía, and Recife, Pernambuco in the more culturally African-skewed Northeast of Brazil. Much of this music wears that African influence on its sequined sleeve. So crank up this playlist, hop on your desk, and move your ass. It is allowed. No, it’s required. —Mike Quinn
About Mike Quinn
Mike Quinn, producer of Carnaval Brasileiro, has a 44-year love affair with things Brazilian. His background as a drummer, music lover, and journalist (he wrote the first ever published interview with rock legends ZZ Top in 1969) led him, in the mid-1970s, to the infectious rhythms of Brazil.
His obsession soon evolved into a passion and took a total immersion dive into the culture of Brazil: the language, the food, the music, and the literature. Through a fortuitous series of circumstances he produced his first Carnaval Brasileiro in Austin, Texas in 1978, the same year he began a 10-year stint hosting a Latin American music program on KUT-FM, Austin’s NPR station. Quinn has also been a music writer for local and national publications including JazzTimes, Austin Chronicle, Austin American Statesman, The East Bay Monthly, Hartford Courant, and others. Featured musical figures Quinn has covered in print and on radio include Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Toninho Horta, Egberto Gismonti, Rita Lee, Raimundo Fagner, Keith Jarrett, Ron Carter, Mercedes Sosa, King Sunny Ade, Ry Cooder, Flaco Jimenez, Peter Tosh, Dennis Brown, Jimmy Cliff, George Winston, Kip Hanrahan, Esteban Jordan—and that’s just to name a few. Quinn has nurtured Austin’s version of Carnaval Brasileiro into the largest such celebration in the United States. “To me, it’s still all about the music,” Quinn insists. “Yeah, everyone goes to have a good time at the hottest party in town. But what they may not know is that they are also getting an amazing concert of authentic Brazilian Carnaval music thrown in for free!”
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