Alberto Henschel: 19th-century Brazilian photographer: Tipos negros / Black Types
Posted: February 25, 2016 Filed under: English, IMAGES, Portuguese | Tags: Black History Month photographs Comments Off on Alberto Henschel: 19th-century Brazilian photographer: Tipos negros / Black Types
Alberto Henschel_from his series Tipos negros or Black Types_Recife, Pernambuco_around 1869
Alberto Henschel (1827-1882) was a German-born Brazilian photographer from Berlin. An energetic, enterprising businessman, he established photography studios in the cities of Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. While known as both a landscape photographer and, for some time Photographo da Casa Imperial (Photographer of the Royal House) during the reign of Pedro II, his main legacy has been his visual record of the social classes of Brazil. His portraits were often produced in the ‘carte de visite’ format, and included the nobility, wealthy tradesmen, the middle class and, most interestingly, Brazil’s black people – whether slaves or freemen/women. These portraits were taken during the decades before the Lei Áurea, the slavery-abolition law of 1888.
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Alberto Henschel (Berlim, 1827 – Rio de Janeiro, 1882) foi um fotógrafo teuto-brasileiro, considerado o mais diligente empresário da fotografia no Brasil do século XIX. Sua principal contribuição à história
da fotografia no Brasil foi o registro fotográfico de todos os extratos sociais do Brasil oitocentista: retratos, geralmente no padrão carte-de-visite, foram tirados da nobreza, dos ricos comerciantes, da classe média e, mas certamente, dos negros – tantos livres como escravos (em um período ainda anterior à Lei Áurea.
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Alberto Henschel_ portrait from his Black Types series_Bahia, Brazil_around 1869
Alberto Henschel_Moça cafusa (Girl of mixed Negro and Indian blood)_Pernambuco_1869
Alberto Henschel_Retrato cafusa_1869
Alberto Henschel_retrato da negra de Pernambuco_1869
Alberto Henschel_uma negra de Pernambuco_1869
Alberto Henschel_Negra com criança na Bahia_c. 1869_Salvador, Bahia
Alberto Henschel_portrait of a middle-aged man with hat_from the series Tipos negros_around 1869
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“Orfeu Negro” and the origins of Samba + Wilson Batista’s “Kerchief around my neck” and Noel Rosa’s “Idle youth”
Posted: February 8, 2013 Filed under: English, Noel Rosa, Orfeu Negro and the origins of Samba + Wilson Batista's “Kerchief around my neck” and Noel Rosa's “Idle youth”, Portuguese, Wilson Batista | Tags: Black History Month photographs Comments Off on “Orfeu Negro” and the origins of Samba + Wilson Batista’s “Kerchief around my neck” and Noel Rosa’s “Idle youth”
ZP_poster for Orfeu Negro
ZP_Breno Mello, 1931 – 2008, as Orpheus in the 1959 Marcel Camus film, Orfeu Negro_Mello was a soccer player whom Camus chanced to meet on the street in Rio de Janeiro. Camus decided to cast the non-actor as the lead in the film. Mello turned out to be exactly right for the role of the star-crossed Everyman enchanted by tricky Fate – his Love is stalked by Death.
- ZP_Marpessa Dawn, American-born actress of Black and Filipino heritage who played Eurydice opposite Breno Mello as Orpheus in the 1959 film Orfeu Negro. She is seen here in a photograph taken at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival. Dawn would later have a bizarre role as Mama Communa in the often-censored or banned 1974 Canadian film by European director Dusan Makavejev – Sweet Movie. A long way from her role in Orfeu Negro…yet she brought something of her beautiful wholesomeness even to the disturbing scenarios of Sweet Movie. Marpessa Dawn died in 2008 at the age of 74 in Paris.
ZP_a 1956 record album by Agostinho Dos Santos who sang the now internationally famous songs from the 1959 film Orfeu Negro_ A Felicidade and Manhã de Carnaval
Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), a 1959 film in Portuguese with subtitles, was directed by Marcel Camus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Set at Carnaval time, it featured a mainly Black cast and told a modern Brazilian version of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. The Morro da Babilônia “favela” (Babylon Hill “slum”) was used for filming many scenes. Orfeu Negro is a nearly perfect film. Exuberant and pensive, charming and mysterious, it is an engrossing story of doomed Lovers accompanied by the exquisitely-intimate singing of Agostinho Dos Santos of Luiz Bonfá’s songs in the then-nascent bossa nova style. And add to all that the “crazy Life force” pulse of Samba at night in the streets…
Samba – the word – is derived via Portuguese from the West-African Bantu word “semba”, which means “invoke the spirit of the ancestors”. Originating in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, by the 1920s the Samba sound was emerging with usually a 2/4 tempo, the use of choruses with hand-claps plus declaratory verses, and much of it in batucada rhythm which included African-influenced percussion such as tamborim, repinique, cuica, pandeiro and reco-reco adding many layers to the music. The “voice” of the cavaquinho (which is like a ukulele) provided a pleasing contrast and a non-stop little wooden whistle, the apito, made the urgent breath of human beings palpable.
In the late 1920s in the Rio favela of Mangueira – among others – there began one of the earliest “samba schools”, initiating the transformation of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval (which had existed on and off since the 18th century but which was neither a large city-wide event nor one with a strong Black Brazilian influence). In the 21st century, of course, Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro has become the most massive festival in the world; in 2011, for example, close to 5 million people took part, with more than 400,000 of them being foreign visitors. But back in the 1920s…the original Mangueira cordões or cords (also known as blocos or blocks) consisted of groups of masked participants, all men, who were led down the street by a “teacher” blowing an apito whistle. Following them was a mobile orchestra of percussion. In the years that followed the Carnaval procession expanded to include 1. the participation of women 2. floats 3. a theme 4. a mestre-sala (master of ceremonies) and a porta-bandeira (flag-bearer).
Notable early composers and singers of Samba (sambistas) included Pixinguinha, Cartola, Ataulfo Alves and Jamelão among men and Clementina de Jesus, Carmelita Madriaga, Dona Ivone Lara and Jovelina Pérola Negra among women. But this is just the beginning of a long list…
The “fathers” of Samba were Rio musicians but the “mothers” of Samba were the Tias Baianas or the Aunties from Salvador da Bahia (a smaller though culturally rich city further up the Atlantic Coast). Hilária Batista de Almeida, also known as Tia Ciata (1854-1924), was born in Bahia but lived in Rio de Janeiro from the 1870s onward. Involved in persecuted “roots” rituals, she became a Mãe Pequena or Little Mother – Iyakekerê in the Yoruba language – one type of venerated priestess in the Afro-Brazilian religion, Candomblé. The Bahia African rhythms that were crucial to her ceremonies at Rua Visconde de Itaúna, number 177, were incorporated into their compositions by musicians such as Pixinguinha and Donga who were used to playing the maxixe (a 19th-century tango-like dance still popular in Rio in the early 20th century). That musical fusion was the birth of samba carioca – the early Samba sound of Rio. Pelo Telefone (“Over the Telephone”), from 1917, the humorous lyrics of which concern a gambling house (casa de jogo do bicho) and someone waiting for a telephone call tipping him off that the police are about to carry out a raid, is considered the first true Samba song.
ZP_1917 sheet music for what is believed to be the earliest Samba carioca_Pelo Telefone
ZP_Os Oito Batutas_The Eight Batons or Eight Cool Guys_around 1920. These Rio musicians had played maxixes and choros for bourgeois theatre-goers in the lobby at intermissions. They began to add ragtime and foxtrot numbers, the latest American imports. But in their spare time, under the influence of the Afro-Brazilian Tias Baianas, they were already synthesizing a new music, the Samba carioca…
As in Trinidad with “rival” Calypsonians and in Mexico with musical “duels” between Cantantes de Ranchera, so in Brazil there were Samba compositions in which musicians responded to one another. It was during the 1930s that White Brazilian composers began to absorb the Samba and alter its lyrical content…and gradually the special sound of Rio’s favelas (via Bahia) became the national music of Brazil…We are grateful to Bryan McCann for the following translations of two vintage Samba lyrics from Portuguese into English.
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Wilson Batista (Black sambista, 1913 – 1968)
“Kerchief around my neck” (1933)
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My hat tilted to the side
Wood-soled shoe dragging
Kerchief around my neck
Razor in my pocket
I swagger around
I provoke and challenge
I am proud
To be such a vagabond
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I know they talk
About this conduct of mine
I see those who work
Living in misery
I’m a vagabond
Because I had the inclination
I remember, as a child I wrote samba songs
(Don’t mess with me, I want to see who’s right… )
My hat tilted to the side
Wood-soled shoe dragging
Kerchief around my neck
Razor in my pocket
I swagger around
I provoke and challenge
I am proud
To be such a vagabond
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And they play
And you sing
And I don’t give in!
. . .
Wilson Batista
“Lenço no pescoço”
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Meu chapéu do lado
Tamanco arrastando
Lenço no pescoço
Navalha no bolso
Eu passo gingando
Provoco e desafio
Eu tenho orgulho
Em ser tão vadio
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Sei que eles falam
Deste meu proceder
Eu vejo quem trabalha
Andar no miserê
Eu sou vadio
Porque tive inclinação
Eu me lembro, era criança
Tirava samba-canção
(Comigo não, eu quero ver quem tem razão…)
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E eles tocam
E você canta
E eu não dou!
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A response-Samba to Batista’s…
Noel Rosa (White sambista, 1910 – 1937)
“Idle Youth” (1933)
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Stop dragging your wood-soled shoe
Because a wood-soled shoe was never a sandal
Take that kerchief off your neck
Buy dress shoes and a tie
Throw out that razor
It just gets in your way
With your hat cocked, you slipped up
I want you to escape from the police
Making a samba-song
I already gave you paper and a pencil
“Arrange” a love and a guitar
Malandro is a defeatist word
What it does is take away
All the value of sambistas
I propose, to the civilized people,
To call you not a malandro
But rather an idle youth.
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Malandro in Brazil meant: rogue, scoundrel, street-wise swindler
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Noel Rosa
“Rapaz folgado”
Deixa de arrastar o teu tamanco
Pois tamanco nunca foi sandália
E tira do pescoço o lenço branco
Compra sapato e gravata
Joga fora esta navalha que te atrapalha
Com chapéu do lado deste rata
Da polícia quero que escapes
Fazendo um samba-canção
Já te dei papel e lápis
Arranja um amor e um violão
Malandro é palavra derrotista
Que só serve pra tirar
Todo o valor do sambista
Proponho ao povo civilizado
Não te chamar de malandro
E sim de rapaz folgado.
ZP_Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro_a 1950s glamour photograph of professional revelers
ZP_Irmandade da Boa Morte_Sisterhood of the Good Death_women devotees of Candomblé in contemporary Bahia_photo by Jill Ann Siegel
ZP_Carnaval in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil_photo by David Turnley
For those who observe Lent…just a reminder: next week, February 13th, is Ash Wednesday.
–But up until then … … !
And so, tonight, Friday February 8th, the mayor of Rio will hand over “the keys to the city” to Rei Momo, King Momo (from the Greek Momus – the god of satire and mockery) a.k.a. The Lord of Misrule and Revelry. A symbolic act signifying that the largest party in the world is about to begin. Enjoy!
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From Arturo Schomburg to Josephine Baker
Posted: February 1, 2013 Filed under: A FEW FAVOURITES / UNA MUESTRA DE FAVORITOS, Bessie Smith, Black History Month 2 | Tags: Black History Month photographs Comments Off on From Arturo Schomburg to Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker, née Freda Josephine McDonald, was born in St. Louis in 1906. In 1921 she ventured to New York City, danced at The Plantation Club in Harlem, and became a popular and well-paid chorus girl in Broadway revues. In 1925 she travelled to Paris where she wowed ’em with her athletic elegance and fresh humour. Parisians were mad for all things “Negro” and “Exotic” so Baker shrewdly “invented” herself for France – yet somehow remained sincere and real. She became a French citizen, spied on the Nazis for her government during WW2, raised a dozen adopted children – her rainbow tribe – and, from the 1950s onward, was a tireless campaigner for Civil Rights in the U.S.A. She died peacefully in 1975 after having given a performance at the Bobino music-hall theatre in Montparnasse.
ZP_Aaron Douglas’ 1929 dustjacket illustration for The Blacker the Berry – A Novel of Negro Life, by Wallace Thurman 1902-1934
ZP_Claude McKay, 1889-1948, Jamaican-born author of the frank and intense 1928 novel, Home to Harlem
ZP_Bessie Smith, 1894 to 1937, was the biggest Blues singer of the 1920s. Her sexual frankness through the use of metaphor is an absolute marvel – even in 2013. Poet Langston Hughes would’ve been familiar with her spicy lyrics.
Bessie Smith
“Empty Bed Blues” (recorded in 1928, lyrics by Smith)
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I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
My new man had left me, just a room and a empty bed
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Bought me a coffee grinder that’s the best one I could find
Bought me a coffee grinder that’s the best one I could find
Oh, he could grind my coffee, ’cause he had a brand new grind
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He’s a deep sea diver with a stroke that can’t go wrong
He’s a deep sea diver with a stroke that can’t go wrong
He can stay at the bottom and his wind holds out so long
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He knows how to thrill me and he thrills me night and day
Oh, he knows how to thrill me, he thrills me night and day
He’s got a new way of loving, almost takes my breath away
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Lord, he’s got that sweet somethin’ and I told my girlfriend Lou
He’s got that sweet somethin’ and I told my girlfriend Lou
From the way she’s raving, she must have gone and tried it too
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When my bed get empty make me feel awful mean and blue
When my bed get empty make me feel awful mean and blue
My springs are getting rusty, sleeping single like I do
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Bought him a blanket, pillow for his head at night
Bought him a blanket, pillow for his head at night
Then I bought him a mattress so he could lay just right
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He came home one evening with his spirit way up high
He came home one evening with his spirit way up high
What he had to give me, make me wring my hands and cry
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He give me a lesson that I never had before
He give me a lesson that I never had before
When he got to teachin’ me, from my elbow down was sore
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He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot
He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot
When he put in the bacon, it overflowed the pot
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When you git good lovin’, never go and spread the news
Yes, he’ll double-cross you, and leave you with them empty bed blues.
ZP_Gladys Bentley, 1907 – 1960, in a retouched and colourized 1920s photograph_Bentley was an openly lesbian Blues singer who often performed at Clam House, a gay speakeasy in Harlem.
ZP_Fire!, the 1926 one-issue-only Harlem literary journal that appalled and offended the Black middle-class
ZP_Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, 1874 – 1938_PuertoRican-born and mixed race, he settled in Harlem in the 1890s and was determined to untangle and reveal the African thread in the fabric of the Americas. Historian and activist, Schomburg was one of the intellectual backbones of The Harlem Renaissance.
ZP_The Crisis – A Record of the Darker Races, founded in 1910, was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s monthly journal. Edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, it featured, in a 1921 issue, the first published poem of a 19 year old Langston Hughes – The Negro Speaks of Rivers.
From The Black Patti to Mamie Smith
Posted: February 1, 2013 Filed under: A FEW FAVOURITES / UNA MUESTRA DE FAVORITOS, Black History Month 1 | Tags: Black History Month photographs Comments Off on From The Black Patti to Mamie Smith
ZP_Mamie Smith, 1883 to 1946, vaudevillian and Blues singer who was the first black woman to cut a Blues record. In 1920, in New York City, she recorded the first million-seller by a black singer – two songs by Perry Bradford – Crazy Blues and It’s Right Here For You – If You Don’t Get It, T’ain’t No Fault of Mine.
ZP_Gertrude Ma Rainey, 1886 to 1939, and a Suitor, in The Rabbit Foot’s Minstrels touring music and theatre company, around 1915_Rainey was one of the earliest Blues singers and among the first to record.
ZP_Buddy Bolden (top row, second from right) and his Orchestra, 1905. New Orleans native Bolden combined a looser form of Ragtime with Blues, and by adding brass instruments from marching bands to these rhythms and moods he helped to create Jazz.
ZP_Scott Joplin, 1867 to 1917, was one of a handful of ingenious musical synthesizers of the 1890s, blending John Philip Sousa style marches with African syncopation, thereby creating Ragtime music. His Maple Leaf Rag from 1899 was played on brothel and parlour pianos across the U.S.A._Sheet music for Pine Apple Rag, 1908.
ZP_Why Adam Sinned, sung by black vaudevillian and actress Aida Overton Walker, 1904
“Why Adam Sinned”
(words and music by Alex Rogers, 1876-1930)
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I heeard da ole folks talkin’ in our house da other night
‘Bout Adam in da scripchuh long ago.
Da lady folks all ‘bused him, sed he knowed it wus’n right
an’ ‘cose da men folks dey all sed “Dat’s so.”
I felt sorry fuh Mistuh Adam, an’ I felt like puttin’ in,
‘Cause I knows mo’ dan dey do all ’bout whut made Adam sin.
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Adam nevuh had no Mammy fuh to take him on her knee
An’ teach him right fum wrong an’ show him
Things he ought to see.
I knows down in my heart – he’d-a let dat apple be,
But Adam nevuh had no dear old Ma-am-my.
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He nevuh knowed no chilehood roun’ da ole log cabin do’,
He nevuh knowed no pickaninny life.
He started in a great big grown up man, an’ whut is mo’,
He nevuh had da right kind uf a wife.
Jes s’pose he’d had a Mammy when dat temptin’ did begin
An’ she’d-a come an’ tole him
“Son, don’ eat dat – dat’s a sin.”
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But Adam nevuh had no Mammy fuh to take him on her knee
An’ teach him right fum wrong an’ show him
Things he ought to see.
I knows down in my heart he’d-a let dat apple be,
But Adam nevuh had no dear old Ma-am-my.
ZP_Aida Overton Walker in the all-black Broadway musical, In Dahomey, with lyrics by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1903
ZP_The Voodoo Man_a song sung by Bert Williams and George Walker, 1901_This black vaudevillian duo had performed Cake-Walks wearing burnt-cork blackface during the 1890s.
ZP_Madame Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones a.k.a. The Black Patti, 1869 – 1933_Madame Jones was an opera singer who gave recitals of arias by Gounod and Verdi along with sentimental songs such as The Last Rose of Summer. She was the first black singer to perform at Carnegie Hall. Though she tried for leads at The Met, the institutional racism of the era prevented her from rising as she should’ve in the world of Opera. Finding herself barred from most concert halls she formed her own classical-music and variety-act touring company, The Black Patti Troubadours, which gave her a comfortable living until around 1915, when the concert-going public’s musical tastes shifted more toward Tin Pan Alley’s bluesy or jazzy pop-songs. Poster from 1899
Zócalo Poets 