Leva-me aos Fados (Lisboa part 1)

I was fortunate enough to be in Europe for a few weeks visiting my girlfriend Leslie in December and January and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to hop over to Portugal to immerse myself in Portuguese culture and Fado for the first week of the new year. After a long day of travel, and the largest NYE gathering I have ever been a part of later, I got to experience Fado from the source, Lisbon, Portugal. It was a great research opportunity and cultural experience to get to witness this music I have come to cherish. I feel lucky that even in my short visit I was able to witness Fado in several different settings in many of the historic neighborhoods of Lisbon; Alfama, Bairio Alto, and Mouraria. The experience acutely impacted how I perceive and perform Fado.

I have planned to write a few posts about my experience so I can focus on the many exciting experiences I had while in Lisbon. I feel that my experience even outside of the Fado houses is important to my Fado education and understanding of the people and culture behind the music. For this first post I figured I should share some visuals and recordings from my trip to give you a taste of the sights and sounds of Lisbon. Next week I will share more about my experience hearing live Fado for the first time and what I learned speaking with the musicians, bartenders, and even cab drivers during my nights out at Fado houses.

Cristo Rei (inspired by the Cristo Redentor statue in Rio) - This represents to me the most obvious symbol of similarities that I personally felt between the two cities, having spent a little time in Rio de Janeiro a few years ago. Obvious I know, because of the colonial history, but I felt a strong indescribable similarity between the two great cities. Reaching beyond the obvious visual similarities such as the Calçada Portuguesa (Portuguese pavement).

View from a nice park during my first walk around Lisbon. In the bottom corner you can see a tiny bit of the Calçada mentioned above.

The Museo do Fado in Alfama. More from inside next week!

The streets of Alfama - oldest district of Lisbon and home to many Fado houses.

Quite a beautiful city...our very inexpensive room near Bica.

To finish this post here is the first song I heard at Mario Pacheco's Clube de Fado in Alfama. He has a great line up of professional fadististas and musicians who perform there throughout the week.

More pictures from other parts of Lisbon to come next week!

 - Jordan.

New Fados

For our January 27th show (sold out) we're learning a couple of new fados as we always do. Joining us is Kansas City's latest addition to the Jazz Community, Karl McComas-Reichl. Karl is a brilliant player with much to offer and I'm sure he'll be booked solid soon as the word gets out. Below are two rehearsal videos shot and recorded by Giuliano Mingucci, a great percussionist that often joins us on cajon. Although not polished performances, I think these videos capture something very important. Process. Both tunes are classic fados - Estranha Forma da Vida and Saudades do Brasil em Portugal. It's a real joy to regularly get together with these great musicians. We seem to always have great Brazilian Coffee and if we're lucky Shay makes us something nice to eat. This week we had lovely tuna melts from heaven.

Enjoy!- Beau

translation:

It was the will of God
That I live in this anxiety.
Where all sighs are mine alone,
Where all longing belongs to me.
It was the will of God.
Such a strange manner of being
Does my heart possess;
It exists in a lost form;
Who gave it this magic?
Such a strange manner of being.
Independent heart,
A heart I do not control:
It finds itself lost among us,
Stubbornly bleeding,
Oh, independent heart.
I will accompany you no more:
Stop, cease your beating.
If you know not your destination,
Why must you insist on running?
I will accompany you no longer.

___________________

translation:

The salt of my tears of love

Created the sea that exists between us

To unite and separate us.

I could tell you

The pain that hurts inside of me,

That grinds my heart in this passion,

That is endless.

Absence that is so cruel

Longing that is fatal

Longing for Brazil in Portugal

My friend, whenever you hear a lament

A growing heartbreaking voice in the wind

It is me, alone, thinking of you

Crying all the time, lost

Guitarras Guitarras...

A few weeks a ago we were honored to be featured on KCUR's cross currents. Suzanne Hogan produced a wonderful piece entitled "Fado Novato, Songs Of Heartache And Struggle." They worked on this piece for quite some time and really did their research. I had assumed when looking for a Portuguese guitar that there would certainly not be any of these strange instruments in Kansas City. Wrong. I had two people contact me because they heard the story on the radio. One person just needed to know how to string and tune their own guitarra and the other kind soul (Kerry Stanley of Kansas City) donated his instrument which had been hanging on a wall for some 20 years. Below are photos of the restoration done by Dave Bucher. Dave is the brilliant luthier that constructed my Portuguese guitarra using drawings, photos and famous Dave Bucher ingenuity. The guitarra, in the Coimbra style, is very bright sounding even though she hasn't been played is a very long time and surprisingly light in weight. Almost as light as my Turkish ouds. I read that the guitarra portuguese was once called the guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar). Which i assume is referring to the Arabic style oud.

She comes from a music shop in Lisbon called Santos Beirão, Lda that seems to do a little bit of everything judging from the many topics covered on the label. She is sparsely decorated with no position markers on the fingerboard and simple banded circles for a rosette much like an old flamenco guitar.











Picking her up from Dave. KC jazz drummer Sam Wiseman in background with boy Jack.



Ready for the action.

Redressed brass frets and happy new strings

Polished brass Preston tuners

Thank you Kerry. Come out and hear how she sounds! - Beau