SOUNDTRACK: DANILO BRITO-Tiny Desk Concert #619 (May 12, 2017).
This is a pretty great introduction to the music of Danilo Brito:
After four chords, the notes start to fly — Danilo Brito and his four collaborators, three Brazilians and one American, are off like jackrabbits in front of a hound, having hustled their instruments to the Tiny Desk at the end of a North American tour.
Brito plays the mandolin, and boy how his finger fly.
Brito a 32-year-old mandolin player, made his first record when he was a teenager, plays a type of music called choro (pronounced “shore-oo”). It’s said that choro started in the streets and back yards and made its way to the concert hall. Brazilian musicians of all genres have drawn on choro, from popular composer Antonio Carlos Jobim to Heitor Villa Lobos, one of the giants of Latin American classical music. Its literal translation from the Portuguese is “to cry,” but in Brito’s dextrous hands a better translation may be “crying out to be heard.”
They play five songs. “Sussuarana” is just full of amazing finger work. The pace is breakneck and exhausting. How does he do it?. There are two guitars (Carlos Moura (7-string guitar) and Guilherme Girardi (guitar)) playing chords and the mandolin zipping all over the place. In the background, Lucas Arantes plays a small guitar called the cavaquinho and Brian Rice (the American) keeps the beat on the pandeiro.
Between songs he has a translator explain that they are playing “a little bit of Brazilian instrumental music.” He says this style of music started around 1860, mixing jazz and classical and African music.”
“Lamentos” is a much sadder song (as you might imagine), but it is gorgeous. For “Tica” Arantes and Rice step aside. “Tica” is his own composition. It is a waltz in two tempos. There’s some wonderful lead lines that run up and down the instrument. It’s fascinating that while his lines are still fast the rest of the musicians are at a slower pace. There’s a lovely middle section of delicate guitar, but once it ends they take off again.
The next song is “Melodia Sentimental” it sounds like the soundtrack of a weepy romance film–heart string tugging.
Brito and his colleagues play their arrangement of Villa Lobos’ “Melodia Sentimental,” originally written for voice and orchestra. What you’re actually hearing is a kind of formal Rodas de Choro, the circles of players who developed this music more than a century ago and have carried it on to the present.
Only — in the backyards, they don’t wear suits and ties.
The final song “Pega Ratão” is also an original piece. It is short and never stops. It is great watching his fingers fly.
[READ: June 12, 2016] One Dead Spy
How cool is this series? It is so cool that this is the official author bio:
The spy Nathan Hale was executed in 1776. The author Nathan Hale was born in 1976.
Nathan Hale is the author/illustrator’s real name and he uses the spy Nathan Hale as the narrator of his stories about history (or in this case the future–for the spy, that is).
This is the first book in the series so it begins with the historical Nathan being brought up to the gallows. The people are all there to watch a hanging, but they are disappointed that the guy to be hung is a spy, not the arsonist. And then Hale is brought up to the British soldier and the executioner (who looks at Hale and say “This is awkward”).
Hale mutters his famous last words: I regret that I have but one life to give for my country. And as that happens a The Big Huge Book of American History comes down and swallows Hale and then lets him back out because he just “made history.”
While Hale was in the book he was able to learn all about history–past and future–and he learned millions of stories. (The arsonist they are talking about is the man responsible for the (first) great fire of New York– he was never caught.
And so Hale begins his story with his education at Yale (and there’s a very cool picture/screen image that the executioner is particularly impressed with.
Hale was considered very unlucky at Yale, but he did well and eventually became a teacher. And he explains that the War of Independence was about freedom (although the British solider says it was about tea and taxes).
There were many battles during the war but Hale did not see much action. He met Henry Knox, ammunition aficionado. But as the war was raging, his men were ordered to Cambridge in anticipation of a another front opening.
He did not get to witness Bunker Hill, although the British soldier says he was there and he begins to tell the story. One of the great things about these books that Hale the author throws in a lot of humor. So the British soldier doesn’t tell the story well and that the executioner really wants Hale the spy to tell it (with pictures).
They talk about Bunker Hill with the British solider insisting that they won despite the thousands of British soldiers killed (true, the Americans retreated, but at what cost?).
We meet Ethan Allen who appears to have been fearless. And then we watch Henry Knox transport 60 cannons across the water and the ice (his ice bridge is genius).
We see the mission that Hale was on when he stole a supply ship right out from under British soldiers (much to the chagrin of the British solider on the gallows–who adds thievery to Hale’s charges).
And then we see the war begin in earnest when the British had 30 ships, 300 supply ships, 10,000 sailors, 30,000 soldiers and 8,000 Hessians (German soldiers for hire). The Americans had about 16,000 troops in total with no real ships to speak of.
We see the amazing strategy that George Washington had of building a fort on Dorchester Heights below the peak and then moving it up to the top very quickly to surprise the British. Couple that with Knox’s theory that their cannons couldn’t hit the height of the hill–a supreme team!
Another great moment was when the British had Washington’s men surrounded on Long Island and he was able to flee to Manhattan under cover of darkness and fog.
There was also a great strategy in which they would try to steal secrets from the British. Hale volunteered to be a spy. But his bad luck (remember, from Yale) stayed with him and he was captured and hung (no spoiler, it’s history),
Hale cuts to the chase that America won the war and gained independence. The British solider is furious–but that’s history for ya.
The end of the book has some real biographical information about Nathan Hale, Henry Knox, Thomas Knowleton, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold (well actually he is briefly mentioned in the book and his bio is blacked out because Hale has a book planned all about Arnold).
Hale also shows us how he did all the research–with babies! They read a ton of books for him. They even get to insult him: “you need a college degree to get into the original documents [at the library] Do you have one? ” “I did a year of art school.” “Wow, I’m sure the job offers just pour in.” “You are a mean baby.”
There’s even a blurb from correction baby who addresses some potential inaccuracies in the text.
As a postscript there’s a mini-comic about Crispus Attucks, called Crispus Attucks: First to Defy, First to Die! It tells the story of the Boston Massacre and what happened that led to Crispus being the first person shot there (he and Hale are both members of “The Brotherhood of American Martyrs”–not a real thing).
This book was a lot of fun and very informative. You can read them quickly or you can really get sucked into all of the details that Hale adds–between the pictures and the notes, it’s a full day’s history lesson in a comic book.
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