Dominguinhos: Final showings of Brazilian Tropical/Jazz/Forró/Baião Accordion Film, @VIFFest, win tickets!
The film Dominguinhos is showing twice more this week at the 2014 Vancouver International Film Festival and the accordionist in you wants to go. I got to the premier and it was splendid. The music throughout is amazing, following the titular artist’s career as he grew up, learned accordion, got taken under the wing of the very popular accordionist Luiz Gonzaga, and then became a major player himself.
This Brazilian site has a slideshow with 50-some photos of Dominguinhos (many from the movie.) Get Google-translate to try to read Portuguese!
Dominguinhos is showing twice more at the Vancouver Film Fest.
Showtimes
My favourite parts are where he played a beautiful black Giuliette accordion which just embraces the rich chords common in Brazilian music and jazz. So smooth and warm. Some of the best jazz accordionists in the world have played these instruments and it’s clear why from the sound. That MM clarinet reed setting just nails it so nicely.
Things I took away (that I’d like to know more about): They talked about a dance and music called baião which is from Dominguihos’ home region in Northeastern Brazil. I’m not quite sure how that relates with forró, the Brazilian accordion music I’ve heard of. Any Brazilian accordion experts out there want to fill me in, that’d be lovely.
Win some tickets for the closing show!
We gave away tickets to see the film on the Accordion Noir Radio show last week, and we have another set that we’ll be giving away to some lucky person at the Vancouver Squeezebox Circle this Thursday, from 8-10 PM at Spartacus Books, 3378 Findlay Street in Vancouver (off Commercial Drive at 18th). You don’t have to be an accordionist to attend, but you have to attend the Circle to win!
Again, Dominguinhos is showing twice more at the Vancouver Film Fest. Best squeezebox film of the year, go now.
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Accordion Uprising 
Baiao is a form of Forro genre http://www.drumdojo.com/j15/world/brasil/forro.htm “FORRÓ can mean a party, a group of people going to some one’s house or a ballroom
to dance different rhythms of the Northeast such as: coco, xaxado, baião, embolado, xote among others. So when we say forró we are talking about a genre of music and dance that
came from Northeast of Brazil and not a specific rhythm”.
“Developed in almost all states of the Northeast, the forró was played by “BANDAS DE PIFANOS” for private parties or ballroom and for many different celebrations. The band was composed of two pífanos ( small bamboo or tube(PVC) flute), zabumba ( bass drum played with two sticks-The top one giving the open bass tone and other stick giving the higher pitched sound ) and caixa ( snare drum ). These instruments can be traced back to instruments used on the Iberian peninsula and in Italy hundreds of years ago and that are still played to this day. In Italy and the Iberian peninsula they would play these instruments at many different events-religious festivals, etc. In Portugal and Spain there was a heavy Arabic influence. This was brought to Brazil where it blended with indigenous music giving us what is forró.
In the 40’s one young virtuoso accordion player Luis Gonzaga, known as “O Rei do Baião/ The Baião’s King”, started to perform on a radio program. He played the accordion accompanied by the radio’s orchestra using chorinho instrumentation-guitar, cavaquinho and other minor percussion instruments. The triangle was incorporated later on with a fast polyrhythmic pattern.
Playing this northeastern rhythm in Rio de Janeiro he caught the attention of people all over Brazil. After the song “BAIÃO” was released in 1946 it became a great hit-if there was a radio everybody was dancing and singing with it. Because of this Luis Gonzaga is credited with inventing modern baião. Artist like Trio Nordestino, Jackson do Pandeiro among others are also fundamental to the popularization of baião.
Today the baião and the whole forró family is coming back into fashion and is starting to be played on the radio again. Young artists are playing it incorporating other non-traditional instruments like drum set, bass, and guitar.”
Wow! Thanks Joan, please feel welcome to come back and educate us any time. That makes sense, in the film they talked about baião like it was a dance or a rhythm, so if forró is sort of a larger term that fits. Neat, thank you!