QUINTETO ARMORIAL

It starts with a festive tune and, yes, in the form of a march. After all, it's title is "Revelry March". Some phrasings on flute and violin (or rabeca, an instrument similar to the violin) complement each other very well, and are inspired.

Next track is also joyful, with vibrant strums on the acoustic guitar. On this occasion, the listener can feel a lack of variety on the percussive elements. For me, this is the biggest problem on this record.

Third track has a mysterious and incisive beginning. The central axis of the composition are the strong rythmic sections; however, they're a little poor.

The title of the next music can be "Improvise" or "Improvisation". It's the bands best song on all it's discography, IMO. The percussive executions are made almost only by the acoustic guitar, and are brilliant. Besides, the same acoustic guitar delivers some solos, with brief participations of flute and a background created by the violin. The music flows very well, and makes great changes on the key signatures. Besides, many fast passages on the acoustic guitar are particularly captivating.

Nice introduction on the fifth track, specially on the violin. The transition between the different musical ideas are firm, but the percussive performances once again are poor and repetitive.

On the next song, the only one with vocals, these are the main axis of the composition. The only instrument present is the viola (a kind of a brazilian acoustic guitar), which only contours the vocals, and doesn't bring any relevant musical ideas. It's one of the worst songs on the group's discography. Annoying and extremely simple.

7th track is sad, or maybe it would be better to define it as melancholic. It's centered on the viola, the violin and some flute. The picture I see on it's audition is the lament for the lost of the loved one. It's beatiful and transmits a lot of emotion.

Some certainly creative phrasings are made by the viola and violin on the next track. Along with the flute, they all fill spaces with talent. Like on "Improviso", the percussive part is made by the acoustic guitar, with some contributions by the violin.

The smooth start of the last track unfortunately soon gives place to monotonous rhytmic harmonies, that endures almost all of the composition. They don't commit errors, nor develop a carelessly play, but there's a lack of variety of arrangements, transitions between ideas or harmonies or excessively naif, and the absolute absence of cymbals or other percussive instruments, harms their musicality.

So, if you're willing to explore a little more this musical style or genre, I reccomend the work of Antônio Nóbrega, e former member of Quinteto Armorial. From the 90's until now, he brings a more fresh, rich and crafted combination between the traditional folclorical music of Brazil, along with some pop, jazz and even classical music influences.

This ensembles discography guaranteed an important position for them on the history of music in Brazil. Until then, no other group or artist on that time was able to bring traditional brazilian folclorical music to the appreciation of so many people. They were a lot far away from being as popular as some musicians of that time like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Jorge Ben Jor and others from MPB or the Tropicália movement. But if we consider the fact that these last artists musicality was much more closer to a soft-pop genre than was Quinteto Armorial, this is undoubtedly understandable. Because of this, they have a great respect from me. Undertake that kind of combination I already told about demands courage, if you have the intention for a good financial return. However, this site and my musical knowledge is much more about progressive rock, not other genres. Therefore, in order to analyze this record, my comparison will be made with groups with a similar proposal, like for instance Gryphon, that are (at least a bit) on the prog rock spectrum. And when making my assessment on these manners, I consider the combination of classical music with rock, or rock with jazz, far away much better than the combination of xote* with Bach, frevo* with Chopin, or xaxado* with Beethoven. So, with no further explanations or contextualization, my rating is 2.7. *some of the traditional musical styles of Brazil.

This is their sophomore release from 1976, and we get eight tracks worth under 35 minutes. It's that third song with the long title that stands out at over 7 1/2 minutes. It feels like they pieced this one together, but it works. I don't feel like the interplay is as impressive as on their debut, and the music here is more mature, but the debut is the one to get in my opinion. I'm not into all acoustic music but that debut left me so impressed that I later came back and bumped it up from 3.5 stars to 4 stars. This one is a step down in my opinion, but I could imagine folk fans pointing to this one as their favourite from this band.

According to one Bio I read, their music consisted of combing that Brazilian renaissance style with European medieval ones. There was an actual movement in Brazil back then called the Armorial Movement which was based in northeastern Brazil. Sort of a digging into Brazil's cultural past in an artistic manner, combined with folklore. And this band really represents well that ethos, but without lyrics. The front cover certainly shows that good versus evil reality.

Such a talented band, and I kept thinking of this band doing what I suggested earlier, playing on the street and imaging the crowd growing and growing. They won a prestigious critics award in San Paulo in 1974 after the release of their debut. Folk fans need to check this band out! I gave their debut 4 stars, but I feel this is a definite step down.

Released in1974 with traditional Brazilian cover art, this does impress me at times and there's some "wow" factors as well but there's no bass, drums or electricity. It just doesn't seem to matter here. Okay there's a snare drum, a marimbau drum and a zambumba drum and all used like percussion really. The rhythm is created usually by the violin and strummed guitar. I do like the way they layer the music and the way themes are repeated. I did write my usual review describing what I was hearing but there's too many unique sounds with these traditional instruments to know what I'm hearing at times.

Well worth investigating of course, and despite not being into folk, I do like most of this. These guys can play!

We have to beggin withthe beginning:

In the early seventies, a brazilian writter, Ariano Suassuna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariano_Suassuna) begun an artistic movement: Movimento Armorial. The proposal was, basically, link the northeastern brazilian popular culture, in all aspects, in a cultural movement of self valorization. The cordel literature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordel_literature), the xylography and the music of the popular "rabeca" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabeca) and fifes. What happened was, in this effort to bring the brazilian roots of popular culture to a solified movement, the musical expression must also be born. Then, several musical groups appear. Among them: QUINTETO ARMORIAL.

The interesting about ther music is that much of it came from europe. Obviously the music is not european anymore, but much of the chords and melodies date back from Portugal Medieval times. You should not be surprised when "Romance da Bela Infanta", remind you some moments of GENTLE GIANT. The title of the album already suggests this (because nothing is random, everything is picked up cautiously), "From romance to the northeastern scamper". Its the movement: from classic and medieval times, to our own cultural background and composition, re-thinking and re-composing music, figures and even the medieval imaginarium. "Repente" is a good reminder of this, "Toada e dobrada de cavalhada" even more. In tracks as "Bela Infanta" e "Excelência" not only the music is oriented in this concept as the title evoque medieval past. The high court in the brazilian "sertão".

I've tried to summarize everythin here, but this is not a easy effort. There are books and articles studying the movement and I probably will read them and came back here to improve this review.

For now, let the music alone speak.