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Carlinhos Brown
Bahia produced, in the 20th century, many musicians who conquered the world with their talent. In the middle of the 60’s, a new generation of Bahian artists gave form to the controversial musical movement entitled Tropicalismo, while in Candeal Pequeno, a small locality situated in the quarter of Brotas, Salvador, a young couple, Renato and Madalena, followed the first steps of its first-born. The expectations regarding this child were that he would be a good man and would learn a craft. The name given to the boy in its birth certificate was Antonio Carlos Santos de Freitas and his destination would be demarcated by music.
Later, already an adolescent, Antonio Carlos started to be called Carlinhos Brown, inspired by two great black leaders James Brown, the king of American soul music, and H. Rap. Brown, militant of the American movement Black Panther. Carlinhos Brown became a singer, composer and instrumentalist of international level.
Undoubtedly one of most creative of the new generation of Brazilian artists and connected with the world-wide movement of contemporary music, his biggest merit has been searching what was until recently an Afro-Brazilian rhythmic tradition, and restore it as the new pop music.
The retired driver Osvaldo Alves da Silva, known as Mestre Pintado do Bongô, was the guy who introduced Carlinhos Brown in the universe of music. Everything that Mestre knew, he transferred to his disciple. Carlinhos Brown started with the “tamborim”, passed to the tambour and later on to the “reco-reco”. From the “reco-reco” he soon had dominated all the instruments that Mestre Pintado knew how to play. Now more independent, Brown started to develop new musical experiences, starting thus to find his place in the world of music.
At the beginning of the 80’s, even before the samba-reggae became a success in Bahia, Carlinhos Brown tried two processes of learning that affected deeply its musical career. One of them was in the WR Studio in Salvador, where, through the creation of jingles, he accumulated information on instruments until then unknown for him. And learned techniques of recording and production. At the same time, along with the musicians Tony Mola, Ivan Huol and the band Rumbahiana, Carlinhos Brown worked codifying all the rhythms spread throughout Bahia. Each member of this group had had a different kind of experience and accumulated different musical information. Together they had developed rhythmic particles, a type of musical cell, a synthesis of the sounds spread by some instruments of percussion.
Carlinhos Brown welcame the 80’s or the 80’s welcame Carlinhos Brown. In 1985, when he was playing with the group Acordes Verdes, Luis Caldas, another Bahian musician and leader of the band, recorded Visão de Cíclope, Brown’s first composition that became a hit on the radio stations. Soon Remexer, O Côco, É Difícil, among other songs, played up to 50 times a day, interpreted by different artists. There were 26 compositions by Carlinhos on the radios. This phenomenon gave to Brown the Troféu Caymmi, the most important award of the Bahian music.
One year later, Caetano Veloso, one of the icons of the Brazilian music brought Carlinhos Brown to his band and transformed him into the “star” of his concerts. In Caetano’s forthcoming CD, Foreigner, he recorded a Carlinhos song titled Meia Lua Inteira.
From this moment on, Brazilian producers and artists started to discover Brown’s potentiality. He made international tours with João Gilbero, João Bosco, and Djavan. Carlinhos was already making music for the world.
Nowadays, Maria Bethânia, Gal Costa, Cássia Eller, Nando Reis, Arnaldo Antunes, Margareth Menezes, Daniela Mercury, Herbert Vianna, Marisa Monte, among others, have recorded Carlinhos compositions or sung with him. His most unusual partnership, however, was with the Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura.
In Bahia, the samba can be made with the feet, the hands, a dish or even with a spoon. In the first concerts that Carlinhos Brown made with Caetano Veloso, he, Brown, managed to take off rhythms from buckets, a demijohn of water and a dustbin. The music of the future is the music that comes from the streets, and this is what Carlinhos Brown represents very well.
In candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion, there are 3 types of sacred tambours: "Rum", "Pi" and "Lé" that are played for the Gods. Carlinhos decided to take to the streets a fourth instrument, the "timbau", which is a synthesis of those three instruments and that plays for the mere mortals. Since the Bahian Carnival of 1995, the "timbau" has been the most important instrument for the groups of percussion.
Carlinhos Brown also applies his creativity and daring to the collective musical projects. The "Timbalada", band of percussion formed by adolescent and adult instrumentalists, singers and composers from the Candeal Pequeno community and other quarters of Salvador, is the most notorious among those projects, and already recorded 8 CDs so far. In 1993, the CD of the Timbalada was indicated by the Billboard magazine as the best CD produced in Latin America. In 1995, the band played in the Montreux Jazz Festival and toured through many countries.
"Lactomia" is another band of percussion, formed by children and adolescents of the Candeal or the neighboring quarters, with age between 7 and 23 years, who play recycled instruments of all type of can, surprising bottles of water and other materials. The intention of the project is to develop the musical perception of these children and adolescents.
There is also the urbanization project "Tá Rebocado", already in progress created to improve the quality of life in the Candeal Pequeno, the cradle, in Salvador, of the music and the projects of Carlinhos.
Beyond that all, there is the "Pracatum School", with the purpose of professionalizing street musicians. The main idea is to take advantage from the experience of the children and adolescents to improve their musical sensitivity, contributing for the discovery of professionals direct or indirectly related to music.
Internationally, Carlinhos Brown left his mark in the CDs by Lee Ritenour, Bill Laswell and Wayne Shorter. He also earned, indirectly, a Grammy for the best world music CD in 1993: 5 out of 12 tracks of the Brazilian CD, produced by Sergio Mendes, are compositions by Carlinhos.
His most recent productions have been the CDs of Arnaldo Antunes Paradeiro and Margareth Menezes Maga-Afropopbrasileiro. He is also the author and producer of the “Pracatum” soundtrack choreography for the Ballet Theater Castro Alves, in Salvador.
Discography
2001 – “Bahia do Mundo - Mito e Verdade”
1998 – “Omelete Man”
1996 – “Alfagamabetizado”
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