7. Maracatu de Baque Solto — Music & History

Introduction

Audio: Som da Massa, “Transcontinental Baião” 

JCV: I’m Juliana Cantarelli Vita

SW: And I’m Schuyler Whelden.

JCV: This is Massa, a podcast about Brazilian music and culture.

SW: Juliana and I are music professors and musicians. In each episode we dive into a specific genre, song, artist, or issue in Brazilian music to try to understand how it works and what it means. 

JCV: Schuyler, I’d like to start today’s episode with a song by Chico Science & Nação Zumbi.

SW: Wait, really? Didn’t we just do this? Is this Groundhog Day? Déjà vu all over again?

JCV: It’s a different song from last time, though...

Audio: Chico Science & Nação Zumbi, “Maracatu Atômico” (YouTube) (Spotify)

SW: Wait, so the topic is maracatu again?

JCV: Yes, today we are discussing maracatu, but not the same kind as last time. Today’s topic is maracatu de baque solto.

SW: Aha, that might explain why that didn’t really sound like the form of maracatu we discussed last time.

JCV: Right! This recording actually draws on a different form of maracatu, one called maracatu de baque solto. Here’s an even better example of a popular artist that draws on baque solto. This is the group Ticuqueiros, from the city of Nazaré da Mata in the state of Pernambuco.

Audio: Ticuqueiros, “Lá no Engenho” (YouTube) (Spotify)

SW: Okay, there is something in common with these two recordings having to do with that driving snare drum rhythm.

JCV: For sure. That’s a critical element to the instrumental ensemble in maracatu de baque solto. There are some other elements that recall baque solto, but maybe we’ll save those for a bit later in the episode.

SW: Okay, that sounds good. How do we want to start then?

JCV: Well, Schuyler, what would you say, from your perspective, is the most important holiday in Brazil?

SW: For a lot of people it would definitely be carnaval, which is a multi-day festival leading up to Ash Wednesday, during which there are street parades and music competitions, and general revelry. The scope and type of these festivities differs depending on where you are in the country. I’m most familiar with carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, which is famous for its nationally televised samba school competition and the street parades, some of which draw hundreds of thousands.

JCV: My home town is the city of Recife, the capital of the state of Pernambuco, in the Brazilian Northeast. And if you ever get to go to carnaval there…

SW: Never going to stop rubbing that in, huh?

JCV: Not until you go.

SW: Fair enough.

JCV: Well, the point is: when you attend carnaval in Recife—

SW: Thank you.

JCV: —you will encounter many different music forms in the parades. We have our samba schools. But we also have some very long standing local traditions, too, such as ciranda and frevo.

SW: We’ll get into those in other episodes.

JCV: And, of course, there is maracatu de baque virado, which we discussed in our last episode.

SW: Right, maracatu de baque virado comes out of the city’s candomblé houses as an expression of Afro-Brazilian religion and culture.

JCV: In addition to these, you’ll also hear groups playing maracatu de baque solto.

SW: Ah, so maracatu de baque solto is another category of maracatu that developed for carnaval?

JCV: Actually, not exactly. Maracatu de baque solto is very, very different from maracatu de baque virado. Despite the similarities in the name, the two traditions have almost nothing in common, musically. And although baque solto groups perform at carnaval, the focus tends to be less on the parade culture and more on the poetic features of the music.

SW: Oh wow, that is a big difference.

JCV: Yes, baque solto is characterized by a competition between two poet-singers, called mestres.

SW: Oh, wait! I feel like I’ve seen this kind of thing elsewhere. In Cuba, there is a tradition called punto, where singers use poetic forms to show their improvisational skills and lyrical prowess.

JCV: Yes!

SW: I happen to know that punto is a Caribbean expression of an Iberian art form connected to décima poetry, so I can imagine similar ancestry for maracatu de baque solto.

JCV: For sure. We’re actually going to devote the next episode of the podcast to the poetic elements of baque solto.

SW: Ooh, that sounds fun.

JCV: I think so. But today we are going to focus on the instruments, influences, and history of that tradition.

SW: Okay, so maracatu de baque solto happens at carnaval, but unlike baque virado, it’s not primarily parade music?

JCV: No. And unlike baque virado, baque solto is not associated with the cities of Recife and Olinda, but an area in Pernambuco called the zona da mata norte.

SW: The “northern forest zone”?

JCV: Yes, well, the coastal regions of Brazil used to be covered with forest or mata.

SW: Aha, hence the name “zona da mata.”

JCV: But the area was deforested to make room for sugarcane plantations.

SW: So, despite the name, this area is not forested, but characterized by the long history of sugarcane plantations?

JCV: Yes, including the changes in topography and land, the history of enslavement, and the impact of the engenhos de açúcar—

SW: —sugarcane mills—

JCV: —on the region’s economic and social structure.

SW: Okay, to recap: we have a form of music called maracatu de baque solto that developed in the sugarcane plantation region of the state of Pernambuco. It consists primarily of a competitive performance between two poet singers, called mestres. Do I have it?

JCV: Killed it! But there is a lot more to investigate, though.

SW: I feel like we might need some extra help on this one.

JCV: Agreed. Let’s invite in a couple of experts. The first is a maracatu mestre, Lezildo José dos Santos, known as Mestre Bi.

Mestre Bi: Desde de pequeno eu acompanhava as chamadas de caboclo no Engenho Cumbe, aquela paixão foi aumentando até que 2010 eu participei como folgazão do Cambinda Brasileira e depois eu fui vice-presidente do Cambinda Brasileira e no ano posterior eu fui Mestre do Estrela Brilhante, maracatu que faço parte até hoje, maracatu que eu gosto…

[Since I was little, I went to the meetings of the caboclos de lança … My passion grew until in 2010, I participated in the parade of the group Cambinda Brasileira and later I was vice president of Cambinda Brasileira. And the next year, I became mestre of Estrela Brilhante, the maracatu I belong to today, the maracatu that I was already a fan of.]

SW: And we’ll also hear from another expert:

Chris Estrada: I’m Chris Estrada. I’m an anthropologist and historian. And I did fieldwork on maracatu de baque solto in Pernambuco. I began going to Nazaré da Mata when I was still living in Recife around 2009, I became interested in the maracatus and started traveling there on the weekend, basically getting a new idea for the research that I wanted to focus on, and ended up relocating there. And I lived there for the better part of three years, from 2009 to 2012.

SW: Wonderful, we’ll be hearing from Chris and Mestre Bi throughout the episode to help us understand how this tradition works, as well as some of the historical and social circumstances that inform it.

Name

SW: Well, we might as well start by clearing up some of the confusion that people might be feeling about the fact that there are two different traditions called maracatu.

JCV: Actually, this is one of things that Mestre Bi explained:

MB: O maracatu de baque solto, ele é o oposto do maracatu de baque virado… começando pelo terno, é tambores que dá o ritmo da dança e o baque solto é gonguê, bombo, cuíca, mineiro e tarol. Esse é o que compõe o terno do baque solto, acompanhado também por orquestra de piston, trombone, sax, o que puder botar, né? E o baque virado não tem esse tipo de acompanhamento no terno. A dança também é diferente. A gente usa muito o caboclo de lança como o principal, o carro-chefe do baque solto acompanhado também de  outros folgazões tipo reiamar, baiana, mestre de apito… e o maracatu de baque solto é maracatu rural, é o maracatu do povo da cana, surgido nas senzalas do engenho e até hoje a gente preserva essa história.

[Maracatu de baque solto is the opposite of maracatu de baque virado. Beginning with the ensemble and drums that give it its dance rhythm, baque solto has gonguê, bombo, cuíca, mineiro and tarol. That’s what composes the ensemble, accompanied by a mini orchestra of trumpet, trombone, saxophone, whatever you can fit. Baque virado doesn’t have this kind of accompaniment. The dance is also different. We use the caboclo de lança as the primary protagonist of the parade, along with others.]

JCV: If you listened to our episodes about baque virado, you may be wondering what all of those instruments are that Mestre Bi listed.

SW: Right! They were nowhere to be heard in baque virado.

JCV: Don’t worry, we’re going to talk about all of those instruments in just a moment.

SW: Mestre Bi also mentioned some elements of the parade that folks might not recognize.

JCV: Okay, we can talk about those in a minute too.

SW: Great! About the name, though. I remember from last time that maracatu de baque virado is named for the virações or variations that the drums play during the parade. What does baque solto refer to?

JCV: As mestre Bi said, it’s exactly the opposite. Baque solto translates to “free beat.” It refers to the very steady beat that doesn’t change. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy to play or simplified or anything, but there is a consistency to the rhythm that the instruments play.

SW: I’ve noticed that some people, including Mestre Bi just now, call this music maracatu rural, or “rural maracatu.”

JCV: Yeah, Chris, talked about this:

CE: Going back to the earlier part of the 20th century, when maracatu de baque virado first became something that was celebrated in Recife, there was very little attention being paid to what was going on in the countryside. We don’t really know what baque solto might have sounded like and we just don’t get a lot of details about it at all. Even the fact that it’s also known as maracatu rural by many people: that designation of it being rural is something that was imposed by an American folklorist and anthropologist, who was carrying out research on behalf of the city of Recife to create this kind of catalog and inventory of all of the different carnival groups that are around in the area. She used that designation to describe what was being created by these groups that were formed from recent arrivals to the city of Recife who had migrated from the countryside. So they weren’t even really rural anymore; they were in Recife. But they brought their ways of making music and thinking about music with them. And what they did was visibly and aurally different enough from baque virado that it had to be distinguished somehow.

JCV: That American anthropologist was Katarina Real, whose work brought a lot of attention to this tradition. It seems that some people take the term maracatu rural as pejorative.

SW: We asked Chris about how people view this term.

CE: It depends who you talk to. … Hypothetical example, perhaps. So when I first started, I  spent a lot of time talking to people around the Association of Maracatuzeiros that was formed by Mestre Salustiano (Mestre Salu), who is very well known and involved in a variety of artistic production there. And they might point out that this was something imposed and we should just call it baque solto and make a point of that. Whereas, I would notice that a lot of poets will use it. Because, you know, it can make a nice rhyme with things like cultural. So, if that’s reclaiming it, then I guess that’s what they’re doing.

SW: It seems like we run into that tension between the ideological and pragmatic in a lot of popular and traditional music production.

JCV: Indeed.

Audio: Mestre Bi singing about his history in maracatu de baque solto

Sambada

SW: Unlike the last episode, we’re going to focus on a manifestation of this tradition outside of the carnaval performance.

JCV: Although baque solto groups organize their annual calendar around carnaval, the event that probably best represents how this tradition works happens in the months preceding carnaval.

SW: That event is called a sambada, which Chris Estrada described for us.

CE: Sambadas are competitions between the singer-poet, or mestre, of one maracatu against the singer-poet of another one. And they are events that are always held on Saturday evenings. They start rather late: nine or ten o’clock, and traditionally they don’t finish until the sun is coming up on Sunday morning.

JCV: Wow, that’s really intense. I imagine it takes a lot to pull off an event of that magnitude.

CE: It takes a lot of organization, because one group has to invite the other group. And there has to be a fair amount of planning that goes into that months ahead of time, about making that work. There is transportation to be figured out, often times, because they are in different towns, and in this area of the state that doesn’t have a ton of infrastructure in terms of transportation. And in Brazil, not everyone has their own vehicle, so typically people will have to arrange to get a bus to bring their entire maracatu from one town to another, as well as a driver who’s willing to just hang out all night long and wait until they're done to bring them back home. 

SW: Okay, so different towns in the zona da mata have their own maracatus. And one group hosts the other, like a football team plays home and away matches?

JCV: Yeah.

CE: That would mean one group inviting the other one. And when they arrive, they’ve got a performance space staked out on the street. So they typically happen in the public space and not on a stage or anything like that. Usually near a bar or some place that serves food and drink. Often the bar owners are fans of the neighborhood maracatu. So they might be sponsoring it to some extent. And electricity will usually have to be taken from the local utilities. That has to be cleared. There is always some guy climbing an electrical pole, doing stuff that does not seem entirely safe to me, and hooking up these sound cars.

SW: Okay, so there is this negotiation between the formal (getting permission to use the power) and the informal (climbing an electrical pole to actually get the power).

CE: Not to split hairs over a detail, but I think the electrical stuff is actually legit; it just doesn’t seem like it. It’s not like a contractor from the utility company climbing that poll; it’s just some guy. But the mayor told them he could, so let’s hope doesn’t electrocute himself.

JCV: Wow. Well, that sounds like Brazil. And I say that with pride. What do they do with this power then?

CE: The ever-present and ubiquitous sound cars of the Nordeste—which are technically illegal in the city of Recife now, but I don’t think that stops them—are these sedan-style cars mounted with a dozen or more bullhorn-style speakers on top and are used to advertise everything and anything. You might also see them doing campaigning for local politics. They’re just hired cars—the oral equivalent of the sandwich sign guy on the corner, or the sign spinner. So, that is the traditional amplification for sambadas. One of these cars will be parked over to the side and they’ll usually have a little mixer with a couple channels, and just a couple of microphones: one for each singer and maybe one for instruments, but usually just the singers. 

JCV: These sound cars are really important to the culture of this area. There is actually a wonderful film directed by Guel Arraes called Lisbela e o Prisioneiro that revolves around them. The protagonist drives one and is quite famous locally for being the sound car guy.

SW: Yeah, that is a great film! So, even though the sambada is not primarily a parade event, I understand that there is a processional element, right?

CE: There is a pretty ornate and extravagant entrance of each group to that performance space. When the night starts, the host group will usually leave their own headquarters with a procession similar to what they use during carnival. So they’re in a kind of formation that’s like a battalion formation, where they’ve got a group in the center, which is the band with the singer. And then the people who would be, either the baianas, or the caboclos de lança, around them.

SW: The term baiana means “woman from Bahia” 

JCV: In many Brazilian carnaval traditions—including the different maracatus and samba groups—there is a wing of baianas.

SW: This parade wing is meant to pay tribute to the importance of Bahian women in nurturing Brazil’s carnival musics. It’s mandatory in the Rio de Janeiro samba schools to have a wing of baianas.

JCV: In the maracatu traditions as well.

SW: What about the other thing Chris mentioned, the caboclos de lança?

JCV: The word caboclo historically referred to children of mixed Portuguese and indigenous parentage, and has persisted to reference indigeneity, more broadly. In baque solto, the caboclos de lança are afro-indigenous warriors who protect the parade group.

SW: Lança means “lance,” the spear-like weapon used on horseback, right?

JCV: Yes. In fact they carry six-foot long wooden lances draped with hundreds of cloth ribbons. In addition, they wear ornately sequined capes, massive headdresses made of shredded strips of colored cellophane, and, on their backs they have painted bells suspended from a fabric-covered wooden frame. 

SW: So as they walk, they create a particular sonic effect, I imagine?

JCV: Oh yes. When I was a kid, I remember people calling the caboclos de lança “tengo, tengo, tengo…” 

SW: Replicating the sound of the bells as the walk?

JCV: Yes!

JCV: Between the massive colorful costumes, the eerie sound of the bells, and the weaponry, I admit that I was terrified of them when I was younger. When I saw them walking in the streets, I would ask my mom to go the other way!

SW: To be fair, I would still do that. If you want see what the caboclos and other aspects of the maracatu look like—

JCV: —You do! Trust me.

SW: Yes. You can see all of this in a clip from the beautiful film Híbridos: Os Espíritos do Brasil, directed by Vincent Moon & Priscilla Temon. It shows footage of the caboclos from the group Cambinda Brasileira as they get ready and parade. And FYI: the clip has no dialogue.

JCV: Also, we don't have time to get into the ways the caboclos dance, but it's an important aspect of this tradition as well. You can see what it looks like and other aspects of baque solto in an episode of the series “Brazilian Dances” by Antônio Nóbrega e Rosane Almeida. You can see them learning the steps; it’s really interesting.

SW: This one’s in Portuguese, but the images speak for themselves. We’ll link to that as well.

JCV: So, back to the parade: the group forms into a battalion and goes parading through the streets.

CE: They would leave the headquarters, usually shooting off fireworks to announce that something momentous is about to begin, and do a kind of choreographed parade through the streets until they get the place where they are going to settle in for the night. They’ll go down the street and maybe stop at certain people’s homes and sing a few verses: perhaps an older person who has supported the maracatu in the past, but is no longer going out and spending all night out on the street to listen to them. They might stop and sing a few verses and dedicate it to them. Or they might stop at the church on the corner and ask for a blessing.

SW: The respect for elders and tradition and the emphasis on community is really striking.

JCV: Yes. This reminds me of baque virado, actually!

CE: Once they are set up in their performance area, there’s dancing and a kind of mock stick-fighting that goes on with rather large lengths of wood. But once the singing starts, those get put away. It’s usually the director of the maracatu—they’ll come around and collect all the wood so that nobody gets hurt.

JCV: Seems like a good idea.

SW: Especially once that neighborhood bar sponsoring the event starts selling beer and cachaça…

CE: Once they’ve been there for a little while, the other group will make their appearance in much the same way. But starting from another place nearby. It might be kind of arbitrary: wherever they’ve parked their bus with all their people. And they would come and make a similarly grand entrance with the choreographed manobra, or maneuver, into the central area. And set up somewhere that’s close enough, but not too close to the other group. So you’ve got two singer-poets being surrounded by their respective fans, who are then literally hanging on their every word and cheering them on as the night continues.

Instruments

JCV: That's awesome. I was thinking maybe we could talk a little bit about the instruments in the ensemble and what it sounds like.

SW: Great. Is the ensemble always the same? 

JCV: For the most part. There are three groups of instruments. The terno is the percussion section.

SW: “Terno” like a man’s suit?

JCV: Same word, but I don’t know if it has any relationship.

SW: Got it. What instruments are in the terno?

JCV: Well, gonguê.

SW: The large bell that we discussed that’s also present in maracatu de baque virado.

JCV: Yeah! It’s a little different; it’s usually not as big. But it’s the same idea.

SW: Got it. What’s next?

JCV: The mineiro, which is a shaker.

SW: It’s a metal cylinder filled with beans or seeds. In Rio, the same instrument is called ganzá.

JCV: Exactly. There is also a little friction drum called póica.

SW: Actually, when Mestre Bi listed the instruments in the ensemble he called this “cuíca.” Some of you might be familiar with the cuíca from samba. The samba instrument is larger, but is played in more or less the same way, by rubbing a stick with a leather strip.

JCV: Yeah! The name here comes from “porca” because the sound of the instrument is like a little pig.

SW: So póica is a regional pronunciation of porca?

JCV: Yes. My father is from the countryside and he says “póica.” It's widespread.

SW: Got it. Okay.

JCV: The next instrument is a tarol.

SW: So that's a kind of snare drum.

JCV: Just like the one in maracatu de baque virado.

SW: Great. Anything else in the terno?

JCV: There is a bombo, which is a double-headed drum, more or less the size of a tom-tom from a drum set.

JCV: The top drum head is played with a mallet and the bottom drum head is played with a stick, called bacalhau.

SW: Wait, the drumstick is called bacalhau, like codfish? 

JCV: Yes.

SDW: In my house, we use that term for chicken, not chicken of the sea!

JCV: But don’t ask me why we call it that.

SW: Why?

JCV: Because I don’t know!

SW: Fair enough. So, there are some parallels with maracatu de baque virado here, right? We have the bass drum-like instrument, or the tom-tom-like instrument, the snare drum, a shaker, and a bell.

JCV: Yes, of course, there are parallels. Some of the instrumental elements of maracatu de baque virado seem to have influenced this tradition.

SW: Got it. So, how many of each of these instruments are in a typical ensemble?

JCV: Usually, one of each.

SW: Oh, wait, that’s different. As we heard in our maracatu de baque virado episodes, there might be 100 people playing drums in that tradition.

JCV: Yep!

SW: What’s the next group of instruments?

JCV: The orquestra, which is the brass section. It’s made up of trumpets and trombones, sometimes saxophones.

SW: One of each?

JCV: Sometimes you might have a handful of each, but there are two parts: one for trumpets and one for trombones.

SW: Well, this is another difference from maracatu de baque virado, which like candomblé, is made up of just percussion and voices.

JCV: Yeah, and here we have this European brass tradition.

SW: And what’s the third section?

JCV: The singers.

SW: Oh, okay. How many singers are there?

JCV: Two mestres and a chorus of singers, the number of which can vary.

SW: Great. So can we talk about what the percussion and brass actually play?

JCV: Sure!

Rhythms

SW: In maracatu de baque virado, there is a base rhythm that undergirds pretty much all of the music. Is there something like that here, too?

JCV: Even more so, actually. The gonguê and póica play the pulse. This seems to be consistent from song to song and group to group.

JCV: The mineiro plays subdivisions of the pulse.

JCV: The tarol differs from song to song, but often links up with the mineiro.

JCV: The bombo is also different from song to song. Here’s one rhythm.

SW: Okay, so is it fair to say that the rhythm of baque solto doesn't change from beginning to end?

JCV: Yes, but this doesn’t mean it’s easy. Throughout the performance the terno alternates with the singers, who sing unaccompanied. The singers will perform a few lines and then the instruments will take over for a time. They go back and forth like this all night.

SW: Ah, so the instrumental ensemble has to stop and start frequently. They really have to be on their toes.

CE: A lot of young brass players—and it is typically trombone and trumpet—these are their opportunities to really hone their craft. There is often an older, or slightly older, person, who’s kind of like the musical director, who’s deciding what kind of what melody or countermelody they’re going to play, and calling it out. And then a couple of younger people who are using this as an opportunity to practice. 

JCV: Not to mention that with the sambada lasting all night, they have to have incredible stamina.

CE: And because of the fact that it’s an all night thing, you’ll see some people change off, particularly in the percussion. You’ll have musicians from other maracatus, so it’s not like there’s a set membership, necessarily, to the terno. There’s a core membership of people who they definitely want to be there and they make sure to organize with them that you’re going to be there on Saturday night and so on. But nobody can play continually for eight or nine hours. So you often see people showing up from other groups who just happen to have their instrument with them. Or can step in. In percussion, people just hand off their drum to somebody else and take a break for a while.

History

JCV: You probably noticed from that clip that all of those rhythms we just described don’t actually accompany the singers, but occur as interludes in between verses.

SW: I did notice that.

JCV: Well, that is the way that this music is actually organized. Because the poetry is so rich, we’re going to bracket our discussion of that for the next episode, which will go through all of the song forms and the improvisation that the mestres use in the sambadas. 

SW: Sounds good.

JCV: Let’s pivot now to a discussion of the history of maracatu de baque solto.

SW: There is a reason that we didn’t start with this.

JCV: Yes, as Chris mentioned, there is a lot we don’t know. Scholars didn’t really start to pay much attention to baque solto until the 1960s.

SW: But, of course, maracatu groups existed well before then. Mestre Bi told us a little bit about that:

MB: O primeiro maracatu, só lembrando, surgiu em Pernambuco, o registro em 1914 - o Cambinda de Araçoiaba. Em Nazaré tem o segundo mais velho, que é o Cambinda Brasileira de 1918. Todos eles centenários. Proporciona pra gente uma grande alegria aqui pra mata norte e outras regiões.

JPRV [translating MB]: The first maracatu, to remind you, emerged in Pernambuco in 1914: Cambinda de Araçoiaba. In Nazaré, there is the second oldest group, Cambinda Brasileira, from 1918. All of them have been around for more than 100 years. They give us a lot of joy here in the mata norte and other places.

SW: Oh wow. This is the third time that Cambinda Brasileira has come up!

JCV: Yeah! They are an important group.

SW: so, can I show you something related?

JCV: Uh… sure?

SW: So, I confess that I couldn’t wait to look up Ticuqueiros.

JCV: I thought you were going to stop googling while we record.

SW: I know, I know. But you’re going to like this:

Audio: Ticuqueiros, “Cambinda Brasileira” (YouTube) (Spotify)

JCV: Okay, I do like it.

SW: Right? It seems like Ticuqueiros is paying tribute to Cambinda Brasileira in this song.

JCV: Totally! And I promise that we have almost reached the part where we talk about their music, but there’s a little more background that will probably be useful... 

SW: Okay, you’re right. Let’s talk about some of baque solto’s identifiable influences.

JCV: Of course, first we would have maracatu de baque virado, whose influence we can hear primarily in the instrumental ensemble.

SW: Right, of course, the common name is not completely arbitrary.

JCV: Yeah, not at all.

SW: What’s else?

JCV: Next might be ciranda, which is a tradition from the coast of Pernambuco. It’s similar to baque solto in terms of the size of the percussion ensemble, as well as the all night events—ciranda has that too.

SW: Got it. What’s next?

JCV: One very important influence is from the performers called repentistas.

SW: That word repentista literally means “improviser,” right?

JCV: Chris told us:

CE: So, I mean the repentistas, I would say, are probably the most iconic symbol of the rural Nordeste, the rural Northeast, that is known throughout Brazil. Because they were itinerant, traveling duos of guitar players who would improvise sung poetry.

SW: So, the vocal part of maracatu de baque solto is improvised, much like repentista song. And even though this poetic tradition goes back hundreds of years, it’s not something that only influenced maracatu de baque solto generations ago.

JCV: No! The influence of the repentistas is ongoing. Again, I’ll let Chris Estrada tell us:

CE: But one thing I found was that, especially these poets of a certain generation, like over the age of 40, had been exposed to these duos, and they were really into it. They were very impressed by this kind of creation. In particular, I remember talking to Zé Joaquim, who is Mestre João Paulo’s brother. João Paulo is a very well known poet, has been at it for a really long time, since the 1980s. And they were both gracious enough to sit down with me many times and talk about things. And Zé Joaquim was describing how they both worked together cutting cane when they were younger. Zé Joaquim was telling me how much he and his brother were fans of this music. Barachinha as well is a huge fan of this type of music. If there was going to be a repentista duo in the next city over, they would make it a point to: “oh we’re going to go there, we’re going to see them.” And they would be paying attention. Then the following week, he and his brother would be out there cutting sugar cane and singing back the verses that they had heard that weekend because it impressed them that much.

SW: That’s fascinating! Like all living traditions, it seems that baque solto is ever in the process of being made and remade.

JCV: Many of these elements are almost certainly the product of what Chris describes as a pattern of circular migration between the zona da mata and the state capital of Recife.

CE: There is this circular migration. Most of the people coming from these small towns are coming to Recife looking for employment. And maybe they find it, maybe they find it temporarily, but they often end up going back to where they came from. Or they might spend part of their time in Recife and part of their time in the town that’s an hour or two away. It’s still common even today with people who practice maracatu because the opportunities, economically, are pretty limited in these towns. So I think it’s only logical that people would take what they are encountering in the capital city and incorporate that into their practice. So the fact that we know that maracatu didn’t have brass instruments at some point and that that came in later. Well, who introduced that? Most likely people who had been in this pattern of circular migration and had heard all of the wonderful frevo and other things that Recife is famous for. Likewise, these are cosmopolitan spaces where they’re going to meet people traveling from other parts of the state. And so the repentistas are more associated with the sertão and the agreste and these other regions that are not the zona da mata. So they might have encountered them in Recife.

JCV: It’s absolutely incredible that this is all happening so close to Recife and in conversation with the musical life of that city, but also somehow separate from it. I’m from there and it still can feel far away, even though I know it’s not.

CE: You know, when I was living in Nazaré, these places felt like they were really far apart. Just because of the tempo of life and the difficulty of getting from one place to another because of the way the land was split up since the colonial era basically, and the sugar plantations and engenhos that are still there. You often have to travel a long way to go a short distance.

SW: Like they say Down East in Maine, “you can’t get there from here!”

CE: Something like that! Going north from Limoeiro, you’d get to Nazaré and then Aliança, which is a very important place also for maracatu, to the town of Timbaúba. But really, if you’re looking at a map, in terms of square mileage—I wish I had an actual number that you could put in the podcast—considering that there are now upward of 100 maracatu groups in this region, it’s kind of astounding. And they’ve increased. I mean, they’ve multiplied exponentially over the years. Because Nazaré itself only had a handful back in the 1980s and now there are dozens.

SW: That’s amazing! 

JCV: And this region has also been important in influencing the popular music of Pernambuco, as we heard at the beginning of the episode.

SW: Wow, good segue!

JCV: Well, you wrote that! So, let’s discuss “Maracatu Atômico” by Chico Science & Nação Zumbi.

Baque Solto in Popular Music

Audio: Chico Science & Nação Zumbi, “Maracatu Atômico” (YouTube) (Spotify)

SW: Oh wow. Now that I have some context for it, I can really hear the reference to the terno in that—I guess we would call it a “refrain.”

JCV: The way the bells echo from channel to channel is also a subtle reference to the caboclos de lança, whose bells clang as the walk.

SW: Tengo, tengo, tengo...

JCV: Yes! It’s notable that Nação Zumbi were doing this back in the mid-1990s, before the massive proliferation of maracatus that Chris mentioned.

SW: But the song is actually older than that right?

JCV: Yeah! Here’s the first recording of the song:

Audio: Jorge Mautner, “Maracatu Atômico” (YouTube)

SW: I recognize that! That’s Jorge Mautner, right?

JCV: Exactly. Jorge Mautner is a violinist and songwriter—

SW: And poet, and actor, and director—

JCV: Yeah, he’s an artist of many talents and successes. He wrote this song with Nélson Jacobina and recorded it in 1974.

SW: To be honest, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with maracatu…

JCV: No, not at all. Mautner was connected to the tropicália movement of the late 1960s, as well as the counterculture of the1970s. Many of the artists of those movements juxtaposed lyrical and musical references to traditional cultures and lyrical and musical references associated with 20th century modernization.

SW: Aha. Hence “maracatu atômico” or “atomic maracatu.”

JCV: The lyrics are really interesting, but don’t directly connect to any specific form of maracatu.

SW: So Nação Zumbi added this musical connection to baque solto.

JCV: Yep! And they ended up inspiring and participating in a movement that drew on local music traditions, including maracatu de baque solto.

SW: Was Nação Zumbi from the zona da mata or from Recife?

JCV: From Recife. But remember, baque solto is present in carnaval there.

SW: Not to mention the migratory cycle that puts these musicians in contact with one another.

JCV: Yep. Ticuqueiros, on the other hand, is from Nazaré da Mata.

SW: Right!

JCV: Let’s talk about their song a bit.

Audio: Ticuqueiros, “Lá no Engenho” (YouTube) (Spotify)

SW: Okay, so now that I have some context for this one, I noticed that he said, “hoje eu vou sambar o maracatu lá no engenho”?

JCV: He did! That translates to “today I’m going to play maracatu out on the sugarcane plantation.”

SW: Wow, that really roots in this particular sociogeography.

JCV: Actually, the name of the band already does that. Ticuqueiros refer to workers on the sugarcane plantations who work on the plantations during the fallow periods.

SW: Aha!

JCV: As far as the music, we already mentioned the driving percussion. There is no póica, but the drums recall the bombo and tarol.

SW: And there is a prominent trombone.

JCV: It seems that they have taken the instrumental interludes from the maracatu de baque solto tradition and made them into a song by adding the vocals.

SW: And even that seems derived from the baque solto brass parts.

JCV: Yes! That melody is very reminiscent of the kinds of melodies that the trumpets and trombones play.

SW: This is fascinating. Mautner put the notion of maracatu into a popular song, but he took a great deal of poetic license in doing so. Then Chico Science & Nação Zumbi added musical referents to maracatu de baque solto, including the terno instruments and the sound of the caboclos de lança. Other groups take this a step further. Ticuqueiros adds all kinds of musical elements derived from baque solto to bring the sound even further toward the zona da mata.

JCV: Exactly! In addition to this song, and “Cambinda Brasileira,” Ticuqueiros’s album Dos Canavaias da Zona da Mata has a song called “Cantador Mestre,” which is an homage to the skills of the poets that improvise baque solto.

Audio: Ticuqueiros, “Cantador Mestre”  (YouTube) (Spotify)

SW: They also feature an actual performance by Mestre João Paulo, formerly of Cambinda Brasileira, on their disc.

JCV: Mestre João Paulo’s brother is the mestre that told Chris Estrada about his love of the repentistas.

SW: Yeah. Here talks about how he was educated not in universities, but by the popular culture that is maracatu.

Audio: Ticuqueiros, “Samba de Maracatu” (YouTube) (Spotify)

SW: That seems like a good place to stop for now, huh? Because we’ll be getting into the work that those mestres do in our next episode.

JCV: Which comes out just next week!

SW: I can’t wait! How about we let an actual mestre take us out for today.

JCV: Here’s what Mestre Bi had to say about the importance of maracatu in the zona da mata:

MB: Queria destacar que o maracatu é uma fonte de alegria aqui pra mata norte, né? O brilho da fantasia, o ritmo, o ritual, os ensaios, as sambadas e quando chega carnaval é uma festa de valor incalculável, sentimentalmente.  A gente se prepara o ano todo pra brincar três dias de carnaval, então é uma alegria que a gente sente que não tem preço que pague e queria destacar também que o brilho da fantasia é encantador, atrai pessoas de fora, o caboclo de lança simboliza o maior símbolo do maracatu rural, que é o maracatu de baque solto e a gente só tem a agradecer porque o maracatu nos proporciona esse tipo de alegria aqui na mata norte.

JPRV [translating MB]: I would like to highlight that maracatu is a source of joy here in the mata norte. The brilliance of the costumes, the ritual, the rehearsals, the sambadas. When carnaval comes, it’s a celebration of incalculable importance, emotionally. We prepare all year to play these three days of carnaval, so it is a feeling of happiness that is priceless. And I want to highlight also that the brilliance of the costumes is enchanting, attracts people from all over. The caboclo de lança is the greatest symbol of maracatu rural. And we only have to thank maracatu de baque solto because maracatu provides us this joy here in the mata norte.

JCV: That’s it for today. Thanks Schuyler!

SW: Thank you Juliana! Esse foi massa.

Audio: Sammy Bananas, “Transcontinental Baião (Carioca Remix)”

Credits

JCV: Massa is written, produced and edited by Schuyler Whelden and me, Juliana Cantarelli Vita. Very special thanks this week to Mestre Bi, Sidcléia Cavalcanti, João Paulo Rechi Vita, and Chris Estrada. You can find more of Chris’s work at baquesolto.org. For episode transcripts and other materials, please visit our website, essefoimassa.com. That’s E-S-S-E-F-O-I-M-A-S-S-A dot com. You can email us at essefoimassa@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Our intro music is by Som da Massa and our outro music is by Sammy Bananas. Please join us next week for our episode on the poetry of maracatu de baque solto. Until then, esse foi massa!

*Cover photo by Chris Estrada.

**English translations of Mestre Bi read by João Paulo Rechi Vita.