As happened so often in the past, Berkeley is ahead of the cultural curve.
Choro, an instrumental Brazilian tradition that was among the first musical styles of the new world to combine European instrumentation with African rhythms, has found new audiences in recent years far from South America. It is a playful and virtuoso idiom that is also shared in community JAM sessions through a repertoire of deep standards.
The East Bay has been a Choro home for decades, since the Mandolinist of Oakland, Mike Marshall, discovered the recordings of the 1940s of the revivalist Choro Jacob Do Bandolim and then created the Choro Famoso group.
Meanwhile, the most remarkable demonstration of this growing musical movement returns with the 10th Choro Berkeley Festival from April 17 to 20.
Produced by the flautist Jane Lenoir and the percussionist Brian Rice, half of the Berkeley Choro set, the festival focuses on the best musicians in Brazil in the Bay region. The list of this year presents some of the most accomplished women of the genre on April 18 at the Episcopal Church of St. Alban in Albany.
The concert includes a quartet with Clarice Cast in São Paulo, a percussionist nominated at Grammys, based in Los Angeles. Two other members, saxophonist / blurred Daniela Spielmann, an artist of Choro renamed since the late 1990s, and pianist Sheila Zagury, a leading Choro scholar, forged narrow creative links while performing together for two decades in a duo based in Rio de Janeiro. Coup-out The quartet is a good violin of Boston Catherine Bent, who has carved out a role for an instrument not associated with the Choro.
“It is always our main objective, to bring Brazilian choro musicians to the bay region and to have them play during our concerts, workshops and Rodas,” said Lenoir, pronouncing the term for a jam-session in a circle like “Ho-Da”, to the Brazilian Portuguese. Choro is pronounced with a soft CH, more like Shoro.
“Catherine is not Brazilian, but she is one of the great innovators, a world -class cellist who plays with everyone,” said Lenoir.
The festival starts on April 17 at Berkeley’s Hillside Club with a free concert featuring public students from Oakland, Berkeley and the Piedmont who study the Choro with the Reed Zack Pitt-Smith (a founding member of another Brazilian music combo of Excellent East Bay, Grupo Falso Baiano). After the youth concert, the guest artists of the festival join the circle for a Roda community in Choro open to local musicians.
In its first foray into South Bay, the festival ends on April 20 at Orange Music Studio in San José with a guest quartet concert and a Roda de Choro led by the artists.
“It tells us something about the popularity of the choro that we present the final in San Jose,” said Lenoir. “For years, all of our events were here, and I’m so happy that the scene has grown so much.”
In South Bay, Choro has friends in high places. The Orange Music Studio event is co-presented by San Jose Choro Club, which was launched by the flutist Kim Watesh, who embarked on musical activities since his retirement as deputy director of the city of San José, and Mark Dinan, recently elected vice-director of East Palo Alto.
Walesh turned to Brazilian music by playing Samba percussion with Bloco do Sol San José on Mexican Heritage Plaza. She fell in love with the powerful Afro-Brazilian rhythms, but lovely Brazilian melodies caught her ear while attending the Brazilian California camp in Cazadero when she came across a Roda.
By picking up her flute for the first time since high school, she waded in the world of Choro, a student with the foulutist and Brazilian condiction of music Rebecca Kleinmann and the guitarist born in Rio Ricardo Peixoto (the only Brazilian member of the bustle of Berkeley Choro).
Attending two of the summer music programs devoted to the style, Choro Camp New England at the Smith College and Centrum Choro Northwest Camp in Port Towsend, Washington, Watesh took the plunge, studied with the Israeli Clarnet and the famous Brazilophile Anat Cohen and Daniela Spielmann, the Fluist Brazilien and the saxophonist.
“The way you learn is to play in a Roda, a circle, seeing how the melody goes from one player to another,” said Plush. “You can understand the progress of the agreements and learn when it is an appropriate moment for improvisation.”
After several years of journey to the East Bay for Rodas, Watesh joined Mark Dinan at the end of 2023 to start a San Jose session. Bringing together the last Sunday of the month, the Rodas draw between 10 and 30 people, some of whom “come from Berkeley, San Francisco and Monterey to play,” she said.
“Some are jazz players who like structures and melodies. Others are like me, classic formed, used to reading notes. Everyone loves the air, these beautiful standards of Choro.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
Choro Festival
Roda student and community set: 7:30 p.m. on April 17 at the Hillside Club, Berkeley; free
Women in Brazilian music: 7:30 p.m. on April 18 at the Episcopal Church St. Albans, in Albany; $ 35; www.berkeleychoro.com
Grand finale: 3 p.m. April 20 at Orange Music Studio, San José; $ 25 – $ 35
Tickets and more information: www.berkeleychoro.com
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
