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

Saudades de Portugal no Brasil

As I type, I am sitting in the living room of minha tia's posh Moema apartment.  The famous summer afternoon rains of São Paulo have decided I should tuck inside today instead of frolicking in the Parque do Ibirapuera.  This is my first visit back to Brasil since Fado Novato began.  Since arriving a few days back,  life has been a nonstop whirlwind of family and eating and shopping and feiras and Chico Buarque on the iPod.  Everything is so cheerful and lively; it seems strange to think that this place with its warm weather, bright colors and beautiful, tan garotas could ever have been part of the roots of something as melancholy as fado.

Yet, after finally settling in for a long stay, my mind drifts back to fado.  As I sit here in this gray light, listening to the chuva pound the windows while my relatives laugh and chat and bicker in the kitchen, I feel fado in this moment.  All that the Portuguese hold dear is alive right here an ocean away.  All at once, I miss it in my ears.  Estou com saudades do fado.

My família brasileira has been so positive in their feedback.  Many have been following us online, on both our Youtube channel and through this very blog.  Much like in Lisbon, fado is rising in popularity with younger intellectuals in the bigger cities.  I have plans to visit two different fado clubs in São Paulo this weekend alone.  My namorado brasileiro, Giuliano, asks why we don't instead go see some música brasileira.  We are, after, in Brasil.  I tell him we'll do that, too.  I would love to see some bossa nova or samba.  But I need to see fado.

Until this weekend, I'll have to tide myself over with this gorgeous tune I am learning, performed by the incomparable Kátia Guerreiro:

In addition, Giuliano found for me this awesome blog by a fadista brasileira, detailing the history of  fado in São Paulo. It's exciting the learn that fado has grown so much here, and this site is a wealth of information.  Enjoy!  (It's in Portuguese, so fire up your Google translators, if need be.)

- Shay Estes

Media blitz...

If you live in Kansas City maybe you heard about our little fado project last week. We performed live on KSHB channel 41 during a morning show entitled "Kansas City Live." Our sound check was at 7:30am. In my opinion fado is an artform best performed after 4pm. Check out this lovely work of sound and video editing by KSHB's excellent technical staff.

Os Búzios - Jorge Fernando






Suzanne Hogan produced a wonderful piece about our project for "KC Currents" on KCUR (89.3 FM) - Kansas City's local NRP affiliate. It's entitled "Fado Novato, Songs Of Heartache And Struggle." They worked on this piece for quite some time and really did their research.

You can listen to the audio here and enjoy the exceptional photography of Julie Denesha

Foreign Fadistas

One of the wonderful side effect of having fadonovato.com is the many wonderful fadistas around the world that reach out to us. Here are a handful of correspondences and some links to their work.


_________________________________________________

Ramana Vieirab (California)

"Loved your postings and what you are doing with Fado. Thank you for finding us on twitter.

We have been in California, doing a very similar path as yours we are down the road by ten years.

WE are so thrilled that we are not alone in our passion for Fado and being Americans!

I am luso-americana both my parents are from Madeira, Portugal. I would love to have you like our ensemble

Ramana Vieira and Ensemble----

much obrigada e abracos and Fado!"

http://www.ramanavieira.net/
http://www.facebook.com/RamanaVieiraAndEnsemble
http://www.twitter.com/ramanavieira

_________________________________________________

Karolina Narazińska (Katowice, Poland)


"...but at some point I fell in love with fado, and I am now at the stage of research notes Fadosongs."

_________________________________________________

Núria Piferrer (Barcelona, Spain)

"My stage name is Névoa and I am from Barcelona (Spain). Although I am not portuguese, I am devoted to fado for more than decade. My first album "Fados i fades" was released in 2000 and, until this day, I have four other albums and a DVD, all of them about fado. There are other non portuguese fadistas around the world. You should check.Maybe you are the first american fado formation. Congrats!"

facebook
myspace
spotify
youtube
soundcloud

_________________________________________________

Miguel Á. Fernández Fdez. (Oviedo, Spain)

"Great to know from a fado band from the states!

I do a radio program at National Radio of Spain about fado, and I would be very grateful if you send me any of your CDs or compositions. We will broadcast it and talk about the fado passion at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean."

"I've been running radio programs about world music and fado since 1996. Now I run a radio program at the National Radio of Spain. It'll be a pleasure to listen and broadcast your music.
Follow us at facebook and in twitter @ElFadoenRadio5 ."

_________________________________________________

Sorana Santos (London, England)

"Thank you so much for getting in touch with me via my blog. I love your resources page - I wish I had seen it when I was researching Fado!"

www.soranasantos.com

_________________________________________________

Marcela Ortiz (Mexico City, Mexico)

"Hi! Thanks for the following on Twitter. It's great to see how many of us - foreigners- love fado!"

Soundcloud

And check this out! A whole productions of "Fado by Foreigners" with singers from Mexico, Italy, Spain and Cyprus.

http://marcelaortizaznar.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/fado-by-foreigners/

_________________________________________________

Stephanie Huffman (Lisbon, Portugal from Kansas City, MO)

"My brother who lives in Kansas City sent me the link to your Fado Novato website. Great project! I admire your dedication! Lovely music."

The debut

photo: Charles Stonewall

It’s now two weeks after our debut at Grünaer. –Success! - everyone really stepped up and gave it their all. I was amazed at the efforts people made to help us with this project. Shay’s family and friends were unbelievable. They came into the bar like a bee swarm and transformed the venue into a very convincing casa de fado. I think there must have been over two hundred candles.

photo: Charles Stonewall

Musically I couldn’t ask for more -highly prepared, solid performances of all sixteen songs. I personally didn’t feel the nervous jitters of a debut performance. I was more like a giddy little kid all day before the event (a rare occurrence indeed). I suspected that performing this music would be a very intimate situation but one could hear a pin drop in the room. The acoustic qualities of the room are just fantastic and the European vibe suited the music perfectly. We had around fifty people in attendance which is about all that room can handle comfortably. Apparently they drank well judging from the many empty wine glasses on the tables after the show.

photo: Charles Stonewall

During and before the two sets we projected images of Lisbon and famous fadistas behind us on a large screen. We also projected English translations in real-time during the performance of the songs. My wife Zhanna was gracious enough to practice this aspect of the show in advance and operate the computer during the performance. All for the price of two glasses of Spanish Grenache! Many in the audience were grateful for this aspect of the show.

photo: Charles Stonewall

We received many compliments and honest feedback from the knowledgeable patrons in the audience. My good friend Mary Posses (fantastic flutist) brought along UMKC professor of conducting, Steven Davis. He is a dedicated aficionado of fado and lived in Portugal. Steven was seemingly enamored with our presentation and very encouraging.

Honoring guitar maker, Dave Bucher, photo: Charles Stonewall

KCUR (89.3 fm) was there to document and record the process for a future segment dedicated to our project. They sent out one of my favorite photographers Julie Denesha to photograph. Julie is a really brilliant artist and I’ve been following her work with the Roma for many years.  http://www.juliedenesha.com/

 photo: Charles Stonewall

Our good friend and amazing artist Charles Stonewall was also there to photograph. Charles is known for his work in the dance community and is participating in Artist INC II with Shay (The photographs in this post are his work). http://www.charlesstonewall.com/

The following Sunday we had a private performance at The Ship. Jori Sackin shot video and Giuliano Mingucci recorded the audio. Hopefully we’ll be posting these work samples in a few days. 

- Beau