Forms of Fado (Fado Cravo)

What a lovely melody this fado has. Here are three examples with different lyrics.

Ana Sofia Varela

the incomparable Alfredo Marceneiro. It seems that he is the originator of this fado?

and Shay's fav male fado singer - Camané

Forms of Fado (Fado Lopes)

I've been trying to wrap my head around the dizzying array of fado forms so I'm starting this "forms of fado" topic to investigates each one. Hopefully I'll know what most of them are before the big trip to Libson in June. I've been studying flamenco guitar since '93 and that tradition also have many forms called "palos" that one has to familiarize themselves with in order to even start to understand it. I've been learning a popular fado called "fado lopes" that is often played as a solo for the guitarra. It seems that many of the forms are named after their creators so I'm assuming there was a great guitarist by the name of José Lopes that first came up with this set of variations over E minor. That's what google has taught me anyway. As with flamenco, I'm sure there are many that would argue over who did what when but that's what makes it so fun. You need something to talk about over drinks. -Beau Bledsoe

Here's one version from a secondary school

Here's another from a fado house in Alfama (cell phone)

and another from brilliant guitarist Filipe De Sousa

Fado standards

Every year our wonderful hometown of Kansas City births a fresh new crop of jazz musicians that magically materialize around the various jam sessions in town. For these young lions, one of their first steps to becoming a competent jazz musician is to have the jazz “standards” under your belt - memorized and confident in multiple keys. The standards are the set of songs that every jazz musician needs to know. These of course change over time but there are a hundred or so that remain at the core of the repertoire.

It has become evident that there is a parallel set of fado “standards” and we really need to know what they are. We ask all the fado enthusiasts out there to please help us by submitting recommendations for our fado standards list by either commenting on this blog post or writing us an email.

I’ll start the list with the contents of our most important recourse, Fado Portugues: Songs From the Soul of Portugal by Donald Cohen

1. Lisboa Antigua
2. Coimbra
3. Ai, Mouraria
4. Por Morrer uma Andorinha
5. O Embuçado
6. A Rosinha dos Limões
7. Vinte Anos
8. E Foi-se a Mocidade
9. Meu Bairro Alto
10. Valeu a Pena
11. Rosa Enjeitada
12. Fado Hilário
13. Da Janela do Meu Quarto
14. A Moda das Tranças Pretas
15. Júlia Florista
16. O Pagem
17. Bons Tempos
18. Fado da Defesa
19. Lisboa Não Sejas Francesa
20. Há muito quem Cante o Fado
21. Lisboa É Sempre Lisboa
22. Fado Trinta e Um
23. Tamanquinhas
24. Ah, Qunata melancholia
25. Maria Madalena
26. Minha Má foi Cigarreira

Fado em Alfama - Lisboa - Part 2

Fado em Alfama

First off all, sorry for the delay for my second “Portugal Experience” post, but here is number 2 - Alfama!

In my all too short visit to Lisbon during the first week of 2013 I regret I did not have much time to explore many (most) of the great Fado houses, even within Lisbon, let alone any in Coimbra, O Porto, or elsewhere in Portugal and surrounding islands, each with their own important contributions to Fado. However I fell in love with the neighborhood I was most consistently pointed towards when asking Portuguese friends and others who had visited Lisbon before, Alfama. I was able to experience Fado Vadio (Neighborhood/directly translated bohemian, fado, to the best of my knowledge) to the professional and highly trained fadistas at Mario Pacheco’s Clube de Fado.

Here is one of my favorite performances I heard while in Portugal. Possibly “Fado da Heranca” (but not completely sure) performed by Cristina at Clube de Fado.  Was the last set of the night around 1:45am and really made an impact on me. Even after the surprise of walking in to hear Cuca Roseta singing the song she performed for the Carlos Saura "FADO" movie (which is what introduced me to fado in the first place, sometimes life comes full circle!). Cuca Roseta performing “A Rua do Capelao” can be found in my previous blog post.

Cristina @ Mario Pacheco’s Clube de Fado in Alfama

Cuca Roseta & Miguel Capucho @ Clube de Fado

Here are some more photos from wondering and getting lost around Alfama:

Inside of Clube de Fado during set break:

I started my first night of fado at Tasco de Chico in Barrio Alto before heading to Clube de Fado in Alfama. It was a very interesting experience. To be completely honesty I was not very impressed with the quality of the music and vocal performances at the venue in Barrio Alto, but the atmosphere was very unique in relation to any other small/dive bars I have ever visited anywhere in the world.

On another note, my experience at Tasco de Chico in Alfama my last night in Lisbon was a different experience. My girlfriend Leslie and I both had a great time being forced into meeting many other people at the bar because of the picnic style table seating, and even with the language barrier the set up of the bar got us talking and interacting with those around us. That night at Tasco de Chico also included several incredible performances by amateurs, in the best sense of the word! Once I get the audio files converted I will make my third post with the recorded examples I have from the fado vadio bars I visited!

Ate Logo!

Jordan

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