Re: who is Carlinhos Brown?/Bahia Black

Alexei Michailowsky (alexei@africanet.com.br)
Sat, 01 Nov 1997 01:16:25 -0200


>Carlinhos Brown is a fabulous Brazilian percussionist, probably most
>famous as being the founder of the Bahian bloco-afro Timbalada. He's
>simply incredible, and has also performed extensively with other
>Northern Brazilian (Bahian) artists like Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso,
>Gal Costa, etc.

Not only percussionist...he plays several instruments.

>He has one solo album out which would be almost guaranteed to appeal
>to the readers of this list: it's called Alfagamabetizado, came out
>in May of this year, and was recorded in France on the Metro Blue
>label. Top-shelf guests on the record include Gil, Veloso, Maria
>Bethania, Gal Costa, etc.
>It's a stupefying album. Brown is so multi-talented and adventurous,
>he's like the Brazilian version of Prince -- but jazzier.

Well, I don't know if Prince is a good term of comparing to Carlinhos. He's
unique and must be seen as only Carlinhos Brown. His CD is very good,
particularly some tracks that were not hits, at least in Brazil. Although
it has sold relatively well here (mostly because of pop hit "A namorada" -
cool videoclip high rotating on MTV Brasil) it's not a record to be
understood to the next 5 years...
Carlinhos is living (or married, I don't know) Chico Buarque's daughter,
and I really don't know if Chico (a modern trobadour, very cool, different
from his original funky style) will influence anything in Brown's music.

>There's another great album of this style of music featuring big-name
>Brazilian artists and using Brown on percussion called "Bahia Black",
>I think only available as an import.

But...I have never seen it in Brazil...something good to evaluate Brown's
skills are his appearances in Caetano's "Estrangeiro" (1987), and
Sepultura's "Roots" (1993) - ratamahata...hehehehe

Anyway, I think Chico Cesar, an artist more or less in the same style, is
even better than Carlinhos...

Cheers,
Alexei