Today’s song is Marisa Monte’s rendering of ‘Balança Pema’, originally composed by Jorge Ben (Jor). ‘Balança’ here means ‘shake’ (in the imperative, as in ‘dance!’), and ‘pema’ – well, I have no idea! As far as I know, not a real word… (Otávio Bueno suggests it might be a proper name, but it is in any case not a common proper name.) The song was composed and recorded by Jorge Ben (who later changed his name to Jorge Ben Jor, it’s confusing) in 1963, and even though I loooooooove pretty much everything he does (he will be a regular in this column), in this particular case I like Marisa’s cover even better.
Marisa Monte appeared in the Brazilian music scene at the end of the 80s, initially with a refreshing proposal of recording covers of songs in several different styles (ranging from jazz standards like ‘Speak Low’ to traditional folk Brazilian songs). She immediately became a huge success, mostly with the cultural press and the ‘cool crowd’, but also with the public in general (one of the songs was featured in a soap-opera, which means guaranteed success). From her second album onwards, she revealed her talent as a composer as well, recording mostly her own songs. She has been a constant and influential presence in the Brazilian music scene of the last two decades, even though I have to admit I haven’t really followed her career much since her Tribalistas project with Carlinhos Brown and Arnaldo Antunes (it even had some success here in Europe, but to be frank I’m not much of a fan). Generally, I wouldn’t describe myself as a Marisa Monte fan, but I like some of her earlier work, and this song in particular is fantastic. (Mark Colyvan (Sydney) is a big Marisa Monte fan, to the frustration of his friend Otávio Bueno (Miami), who thinks that her music is not sufficiently sophisticated… UPDATE: Otávio clarifies that he likes Marisa Monte as a singer, but much less as a composer.)
She recorded ‘Balança Pema’ for her third album in 1994, ‘Verde, anil, amarelo, cor de rosa e carvão’. One of the reasons why this particular version of the song is so spectacular is that it features Gilberto Gil playing the guitar. As some of you may know, Gil has been another major presence in the Brazilian music scene since the 1960s, having also been the minister of culture under the Lula presidency (there will be quite a few of his songs in upcoming installments of this column). Anyway, Gil is a *fantastic* guitar player, with an amazing sense of rhythm, so if you can’t help yourself and start dancing while listening to his song, my explanation for the phenomenon is that it is at least 90% caused by his guitar playing (he does backing vocals too). Another thing that is perhaps worth mentioning for gringos is that the funny sound that you hear at the beginning, just before Marisa starts singing, is a traditional instrument called cuíca, widely used for samba.
So there you go, this is a song for people to get up and dance! We may now celebrate the improvement of the political situation in Egypt (^_^)
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