Egberto Gismonti

It is not so easy to find something like pure rock in Brazil, meaning Brazilian pure rock bands.  I spent a lot of time there between around 2001 - 2005 and lived there as well for a whole year, fortunately I also had a girlfriend who was Brazilian, she was a flight attendant so we travelled a lot on weekends since she had the flights taken care of, free to where ever she was going and I would tag along for free as she was allowed to take a family member on flights.  It was a win - win as I would take care of the rest.

Anyway digressing, but you do have to picture Brazil in your mind and beyond tourism.  Before you land in Sao Paulo you are flying for about 1/2 an hour across concrete buildings all squeezed next to each other, it feels like it would never stop before you finally land.  Mexico City is the same.  Population of the Sao Paulo region was 44+ Million in 2014.  Under bridges as you drive to your home you drive past Favellas (Ghettos), it's like a whole village that lives under a bridge, for electricity they all have jerry rigged connections to the power lines and as you drive past you hear noise of people, tv's blaring if there is a soccer game... banging and music and so on and on pretty much across all those places.  And, it's these areas that plan for their next Carnival as soon as the previous carnival finishes they plan for the next.  Carnival schools is what they call them.  These compete with each other in a sense that each year they have a vote after the Carnival of who came 1st, 2nd, 3rd and who finished bottom.  The bottom two get relegated to division 2 and someone gets promoted.  So for the vast majority of the Population it really is Samba that they listen to year round.  The same happens in Rio and across other large cities in Brazil.  You could say that probably 90+% of the population of Brazil live in about 10 large cities and the rest becomes sporadic small places throughout the Amazon and more and more tribal.

Income wise when I was there, if you worked at a large factory (european, american, japanese or korean) your average monthly income was around say $400/500 per month and that was your middle class.  If you worked in an office you start earning more up to say 2-3000 per month and higher as you go up the chain.  so that's your higher class.  The higher class office workers and so on also tend to have a live in housekeeper that cooks and cleans for them.  It's considered normal over there and it does pass some of the income downwards.

So now to music stores, MPB (Musica Populeira Brasileira) you could buy a cd for about 3-5 dollars and imports up to 30-40 dollars.  Now put that into perspective to income :)  And I think you can see who listens to what.   An Alberto Gismonti most likely was from a middle class or higher growing up and had more access to world music and hence his development and growth.   But it is more of an exception rather than a rule and I think it is why it is hard to find much what sounds like pure rock or progressive rock to our ears.  Just imagine the cost of an imported keyboard for someone that perhaps lives on $500 per month.  It's almost impossible for him to have access to it.

This most probably applies to the rest of South America as well.

Most of Brazilian music is street instruments and to me when I listen to their popular cd's I am amazed how an artist often can switch from a pop sounding song to the next one that sounds like jazz to the next one that rocks and the next one a ballad and the next one bit of samba mixed in.  It's like fusing everything they have heard into one album.  :)

I will see if I can find some in my collection to post as examples.

Best regards

All true but that makes it all the more interesting when you find some gems.  Your post is making me go through what I have and not listened to in years.  I forgot about Baden Powell, this is from Images on Guitar cd song Blues a Volonte.  I would consider his music very progressive considering this was 1971 and he had been playing music since 1961.  I am sure you know a lot more about Baden Powell than I do :)  He was another guitar virtuoso.

Here also Conversação Comigo Mesmo of the same cd.

You know we mentioned all the negatives about Brazil, but in all honesty it is still the most beautiful place in the world, the country is beautiful, a paradise and the people are also some of the most beautiful people I have ever met, very welcoming.  I mean the places are just out of this world.  Foz do Iguacu.  Fernando do Noronha feeding lizards the size of a squirrel who were begging at your feet for you to drop a scrap of food while you are eating outside on a restaurant table, swimming with dolphins, scuba diving to a sunken shipwreck and seeing hammerhead sharks around you lol and turtles on the beaches, Manaus and the Rio Negro merging with the Amazon river pure black tea water from Negro (from the fauna) merging with the light brown water of the Amazon and and being shocked when a big pink dolphin jumps out of the water while you are standing at the banks of the Rio Negro (yes folks Pink Dolphins exist!  )  I could go on and on, bullet ants the thickness of your little finger, having to stop at a sand road while a 20 ft green snake crawls across and disappears on the other side. Holding sloths that hug you like babies, Toucans in the wild, not forgetting blue and green parrots flying all around you.  Monkey trying to grab and open the girlfriends handbag to see what it could steal.  Catching Piranhas with a stick, a piece of rope, a hook and a piece of meat on the end of it.  Caymans... eating Cayman tail and snake in an amazon tribal village... Needless to say it truly is the most interesting and beautiful place in the world.  People can't starve there its almost impossible as you can just pick up fruits from trees like mangoes which grow all over the place.  I could go on and on...  If I were 30 years younger I would live there but then again I would have to be one of the more privileged to be able to see it all. 

Did I mention that when you wade in the Rio Negro to swim the water is so dark that you can't see your body below your stomach... eerie feeling as you don't know what is in the water.. lol especially after just seeing a pink dolphin a few feet away and knowing its probably full of piranhas.

BTW... typing all this while listening to "Conversação Comigo Mesmo"