Melgaço

to Pay in

the Brazilian

Musical Backland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

R e t r o s p e c t

​

- Brazilian Music -

 

Brazil's origins - the Indians with their reed flutes, the Portuguese with their singers and viola players, and the Africans with their many thrilling rhythms - make it a musical country. From the classical compositions of Villa-Lobos, to the soft sounds

of bossa nova, to the driving beat of samba,

Brazil has developed music of striking sophistication, quality and diversity.

When the Jesuit fathers first arrived in Brazil they found that the Indians performed ritual song and dances accompanied by rudimentary wind an percussion instruments. The Jesuits made use of the music to catechise the Indians by replacing th original words with religious ones using the Tupi language. They also introduced the Gregorian chant and taught the flute, bow instruments, and

the clavichord. Music accompanied the

sacramental ceremonies which were

performed in village and church plazas.

African music was introduced during the colony's first century and was enriched by its contact with Iberian music. One of the most importar types of music used by the Negro slaves was the comic song-dance called Lundu. For a long time it was one of the typical popular musical forms and it was even sung in the Portuguese Court during the 19th century. In the second half of the 18th century and during the 19th century the sentimental love song

called the modinha was popular and it was sung both in Brazil's salons and at the Portuguese

Court. No one knows if the modinha was

born in Brazil or in Portugal.

Schools of music existed in Bahia in the early 17th century and religious music was played in churches throughout the colony. As with other art forms, musical activity intensified with the arrival of the Royal Family in 1808. King João VI, a music lover, sent to Europe for the composer Marcos Portugal, and for Sigismund von Neukomm, an Austrian pianist, a pupil of Haydn. Local musicians also attracted the King's attention, such as José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) who was a notable improviser on the organ and clavichord. João VI appointed him Inspector

to the Royal Chapel, a body which had more

than 100 instrumentalists and singers,

many of whom were foreigners.

By the end of the century, Carlos Gomes (1836-1896), born in the town of Campinas in the state of São Paulo, produced a number of operas in the prevailing Italian style, especially il guarany, an opera based on a famous Brazilian novel by José de Alencar about a colonial villain who incites an Indian attack in order to gain a Portuguese nobleman's treasure and his daughter as a bride. Brasílio Itiberê (1848-1913) was the first Brazilian composer to use a popular national motif in erudite music. His 1869 composition, A Sertaneja (The Country Maiden) was played by Franz Liszt and has remained

active in piano repertoires.

As in literature and painting, the Week of Modern Art in 1922 revolutionized Brazilian music and brought acceptance to a crop of new composers. Led by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), they brought avant-garde techniques from Europe and undertook the challenge of transplanting Brazilian folkloric melodies and rhythms to symphonic compositions. Their music often incorporated many popular musical instruments into classical orchestras.

After a time, two principal trends in Brazilian music became identifiable. Writer Mário de Andrade had advocated that composers should seek inspiration in national life with special emphasis on Brazil's musical folklore. Composer Camargo Guarnieri, an adherent of Andrade, heads the musical school known as "Nationalist". Other composers in this group include: Luciano Gallet (1893-1931), Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez (1897-1948), Francisco Mignone (1897-1986), Radamés Gnatalli (1906-1988), and Guerra Peixe (1914-1993). In widely differing compositions, these composers searched for a national language which would not lose the universal character of musical language. After 1939, another musical school began to assert itself principally as a result of the work carried out by Hans Joachim Koellreutter, the creator of the Live Music Group. This group made up of Cláudio Santoro (1919-1990), Eunice Catunda (1926-1990), Edino Krieger (1928-), and others based their music on the universality of musical language. They defended the use of atonalism and dodecaphonism as

composition resources.

 

- Brazilian Popular Music -

 

Brazil's popular music developed parallel to its classical music and it also united traditional European instruments - guitar, piano, and flute - with a whole rhythm section of sounds produced by frying pans, small barrels with a membrane and a stick inside (cuícas) that make wheezing sounds, and tambourines. During the 1930's Brazilian popular music played on the radio became a powerful means of mass communication. Three of the best known composers of this period are Noel Rosa, Lamartine Babo, and Ary Barroso (1903-1963). Barroso's principal singer, Carmen Miranda, went on to achieve an international reputation when she appeared in a series of Hollywood films.

In the mid 1960's, the haunting, story-telling lyric of The Girl From Ipanema, carried by a rich melodic line, was the first big international hit to emerge from the bossa nova movement of Brazilian singers and composers. It put Brazilian popular music on the map and brought instant fame to composer Tom Jobim and lyricist-poet Vinicius de Moraes.

The bossa nova appeared in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950's. At first it was played as an intimate music in the apartments of Rio's middle and upper-middle classes. The music mingled the Brazilian samba beat with American jazz. Later on bossa nova became a trademark of a new concept of music - a little sad, sometimes sung off-key, and where the lyrics have great importance. For that reason, in Brazil, the association of modern poets with pop composers (Vinícius de Moraes, Chico Buarque,

Tom Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, and Baden Powell)

was an enormous success.

In 1968, in a period of dictatorship, urban guerrillas, and anxiety about how to change the political system, the Tropicalists appeared - Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Gal Costa. Tropicalism can be described as a blending of international music (such as Latin beats and rock'n'roll) with national rhythms. It is very much its own creation: lyrical, intelligent, with faster tempos and fuller

rhythms than bossa nova.

Popular regional music in Brazil includes the forró from the northeast where the accordion and the flute join guitars and percussion in a footstomping country dance; the frevo also from the northeast, which has an energetic, simple style; the chorinho (literally "little tears") from Rio which combines various types and sizes of guitars, flutes, percussions, and an occasional clarinet or saxophone in a tender form of instrumental music; and the internationally successful lambada. When danced, lambada is sensual and fast-paced; it got its name from the Portuguese verb to whip or flog referring to the smacking of thigh against thigh. But the most typical of Brazilian popular music is the seductive rhythm of the samba. No one is sure of the exact origin of samba. Some people believe that samba was born in the streets of Rio de Janeiro with contributions from three different cultures - Portuguese courtly songs, African rhythms and native Indian fast footwork. Others believe samba is simply African in origin and that it evolved from the batuque, a music based on percussion instruments and hand clapping. Today in Brazil, popular music continues to explore new rhythms and new melodies. Its interpreters and composers make use of all music's resources to compete for and please the world's many music audiences.

(Consulate General of Brazil - SF/US)

- Brazilian Popular Music II (& reretrospect) -

Brazil's populace is descended mainly from Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans. It was a colony of Portugal until 1822, and the vast majority of its citizens speak Portuguese, though large numbers of people whose origins lie in other European countries live there too. Portuguese, especially the Brazilian variety of it, is a gorgeous language, by the way. Sing in Brazilian Portuguese and you're ahead

of the game already.

The African-descended portion of the country's population has been able to preserve many of its cultural traits, a large number of Brazilian people continuing to practice African-influenced forms of religion, including candomble and umbanda. Excellent examples of the earliest types of Afro-Brazilian music surviving into the 20th century can be heard on field recordings cut in the Thirties and early Forties and available on Rykodisc's The Discoteca Collection Missao de Pesquisas Folclorias and L.H. Correa de Azevedo: Music of Ceara and

Minas Gerais. Both are brimming over with

congos, xangos, and maracatus.

Despite the fact that slavery wasn't abolished in Brazil until 1889, reports are that it's a racially harmonious nation. These reports may be exaggerated, but photographs dating back to the early part of this century show that musical aggregations were racially integrated, as they are today. This is consistent with knowledge that the African influence on Brazilian music was noted centuries ago; we have a reference to the Angolan "lundu" song and dance dating back to the 18th century. The tango, habanera, and polka have impacted indigenous Brazilian musical forms

as well. A lot went into the mix.

In the late 19th/early 20th century, distinctive popular genres of Brazilian music emerged as a result of synthesis: maxixe, choro, marcha, and that most well-known of Brazilian musical forms, the 2/4 syncopated samba. The samba originated in Rio de Janeiro, created by some of that capital city's most talented musicians, who shared their ideas at informal meetings and jam sessions, such as those that took place at the home of hostess Tia Ciata. Among these innovators were such legends as Pixinguinha, Donga, Sinha, and Ismael Silva.

Samba quickly caught on, becoming a significant part of the Brazilian pre-Lenten celebration called Carnaval. Like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Brazil's Carnavals attracted tourists and became an important source of income. As they grew larger and more elaborate, competitions among the participants attracted more and more attention, leading to the establishment and subsequent rise of "samba schools" -- social and fraternal organizations, often neighborhood based, that contributed floats, music, and dancing to the Carnavals. Samba schools grew important enough to gain official recognition, members working year round to prepare for Carnaval. They needed original music for their performances and thus provided a great deal

of support for Brazilian musicians,

among other artists.

Once established, the samba evolved rapidly and began to vary in form. The samba cancao composers of the Thirties emphasized melodic and harmonic development and sophisticated, poetic lyrics, anticipating the later bossa nova artists. Among samba pioneers were Noel Rosa, sometimes referred to as the Brazilian Cole Porter; Braguinha; Dorival Caymmi, the father of Dori, Nana, and Danilo Caymmi, important contemporary artists in their own right; and Ary Barroso, author of "Aquarela do Brazil" and "Bahia," heard respectively in Walt Disney cartoons, Alo, Amigo, and Three Caballeros. During the Forties, Brazilian music began having an international impact, partly due to the records and

films of Carmen Miranda.

But Brazilian popular music wasn't just evolving nationally and internationally; it was also changing and growing locally as well. Luis Gonzaga (1912-89) pioneered a type of music known as forro, or party music, which is native to Brazil's arid Northeast, where cattle and farm country are cultivated. When Gonzaga was a youngster, polkas were popular, so he became an accordion virtuoso. In the Forties, Gonzaga began playing Northeastern-flavored music in Rio, scoring a big hit in 1946 with "Baiao," which kicked off a new style of music and dance. His "Asa Branca" vividly describes in song a disastrous drought and has been called a Northeast anthem.

Another seminal Northeast artist was Jackson do Pandeiro, who popularized the ultra infectious coco and embolada forms. Northeast music, in which the accordion is prominent, is, roughly speaking, the equivalent of our country & western style, and also reminiscent of Tex-Mex music. A good introduction to this upbeat and festive music is Luaka Bop's CD Music of the Brazilian Northeast, which contains music by Gonzaga and do Pandeiro, as well as important later artists including Joao do Vale

and Dominguinhos, and was compiled by

label chief David Byrne.

During the Fifties, Brazil's most internationally popular music movement arose: the bossa nova. This involved young Brazilian musicians mixing elements from American jazz, standards by composers like George Gershwin, and classical work by, among others, Debussy, Ravel, and Villa Lobos. Among these innovators was one of Brazil's greatest composers, Antonio Carlos Jobim, who wrote such classics as "The Girl From Ipanema," "Corcovado," "Wave," "No More Blues," "One Note Samba," and "Dindi," which have become standards themselves. At one time, Jobim had written 12-tone classical music, but found that popular Brazilian forms were closer to his heart. His complex, sophisticated compositions with their interesting chord changes and lovely melodies attracted jazzmen in the States, who frequently improvised on them. Thus Jobim, who'd gotten ideas from American popular composers and jazz artists, was now marking their work.

Bossa nova lyrics by such writers as Vinicius de Moraes were as sensitive as they were lyrical, while performances by singers including Joao Gilberto were frequently understated. In fact, Gilberto's singing style has often been compared to the introverted vocals of Chet Baker. Another bossa nova pioneer was guitarist and composer Luiz Bonfa, whose music, along with Jobim's, was featured in the acclaimed Brazilian film Black Orpheus. Bonfa's musical theme for the film, "Manha de Carnaval," was a tremendous hit. (Bonfa later cut albums in the U.S. on a variety of labels, including jazz stalwarts such as Verve and Milestone.) In fact, the film did an excellent job of hipping the world to Brazilian music and other aspects of its culture.

The aesthetic concepts of American cool jazzmen like Baker, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, and Bud Shank had much in common with the founders of bossa nova, another "cool" form of music, so naturally there was an interchange of ideas between the two groups. In 1954, before the term bossa nova was even coined, alto saxophonist/flutist Shank cut an entire album of Brazilian tunes with Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida, who'd recorded with Stan Kenton for the Pacific label. Brazilian composers Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal established a music school in Rio in which they exposed students to the work of the American jazzmen who'd influenced them. When Brazilians absorbed some of their ideas and returned them in a bossa nova package, American jazz artists jumped on the genre. They started digging the work of Jobim, Bonfa, Gilberto, Oscar Castro Neves, pianist Joao Donato, and guitarists Bola Sete and Baden Powell, recording bossa nova compositions sometimes in collaboration with them.

Tenor saxman Getz especially got into bossa nova in a big way. His now-ubiquitous recording of "The Girl From Ipanema" with Astrud and Joao Gilberto, Jobim on piano, and percussionist Milton Banana, and "Desafinado," with guitarist Charlie Byrd, were huge hits that appealed not only to a hip inner circle but also a mass audience. In addition to this, Getz cut albums containing Brazilian material with arranger Gary McFarland, Bonfa, and Almeida. West Coast-based musicians Paul Desmond and Clare Fischer were others that became deeply involved with the bossa nova.

I spoke to Shank recently about the fate of West Coast cool jazz, which I thought had vanished when some Los Angeles-based cool musician gave up

jazz for studio work and others became

influenced by post boppers.

"Oh, no," said Shank, "it became bossa nova."

Soon all sorts of jazz musicians, not just cool jazzmen, were playing bossa nova compositions, including the funky Gene Ammons on Prestige and swing era great Coleman Hawkins on Impulse. Miles Davis did a great Columbia album, Quiet Nights, with Gil Evans charts. Herbie Mann, the great popularizer, deserted Afro-Cuban stuff for the bossa nova. Pop stars got into the game as well: Frank Sinatra cut a 1973 Reprise LP titled Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim, while Edie Gorme did "Blame It on the Bossa Nova." Sergio Mendes and Brazil '66 pleased all sorts of people with their versions of Brazilian music, as well as Beatles tunes. Eventually the novelty appeal of bossa nova wore off and some of its U.S. fans went elsewhere. Nevertheless, the music of that nation has influenced the whole world.

From 1964-1985, Brazil was ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that jailed or drove into exile a multitude of people who opposed them overtly, and even those who didn't but were viewed as a threat by virtue of their unconventional lifestyles. These included bohemians and artists of all kinds. Obviously, circumstances didn't favor creative expression in Brazil, yet music continued to flourish under the dictatorship, even as musicians were persecuted. As a matter of fact, the scope of Brazilian musicians during the Sixties and Seventies broadened, and new groups of players soon emerged, some classified as belonging to an MPB ("Musica Popular Brasileira") movement. Musicians with an MPB label varied so much in orientation that it may not have made much sense to group them together in a single category. Some were relatively traditional, others more experimental.

For a while, certain artists like Geraldo Vandre wrote songs that protested against the military dictatorship. Vandre's work was popular, winning prizes at music festivals, but soon his songs were banned and he was forced into exile. Upon returning, he was subjected to persecution, and ended up leaving the music scene altogether. Edu Lobo was another outstanding singer-songwriter affected by the military rule. Lobo's complex but melodically lovely and irresistibly buoyant pieces include numbers such as "Ponteio," "Arrastao," "Reza," "Sinhere," "Upa Neguinho," "Jogo de Roda," "Corrida de Jangadag," and "Boranda." He was a fine vocalist in the Gilberto tradition. When he began to get hassled, however, for writing what were considered protest songs, Lobo left the country. He lived in the States for a time, appearing on a Paul Desmond album containing some of his compositions, and cut one of his own on A&M. When he returned to Brazil, Lobo concentrated on writing for the stage and screen and seldom performed publicly.

A superb lyricist, Chico Buarque was called by Vinicius de Moraes "a phenomenon who accomplished the perfect union of both cultivated and popular culture." Initially, Buarque, who was from a socially prominent family, had a great deal of public support, although some on the left criticized him for his conservatism. In 1968, however, Buarque authored a play in which members of the cast offer pieces of the protagonist's liver to the audience. It caused a riot in São Paulo, and was banned by the government. Consequently, Buarque left for Italy. Returning in 1970, Buarque found his music, which now had a more radical qua1ity, banned repeatedly, which didn't help his music income, but brought him in line with antigovernment intellectuals.

Some of the other major singer-songwriters of this period were Luis Melodia and Djavan, whose work has a funky quality, and Martinho da Vila and Paulinho da Viola, gifted samba traditionalists. Da Vila is credited with pioneering a complex, narrative style, in addition to using colloquial lyrics, and Joao Bosco, an eccentrically creative performer with an irresistible sense of humor, overwhelmed listeners with his energy and machine gun-like delivery of lyrics. Ivan Lins, along with lyricist Vitor Martins, has created some gorgeous songs, some of which were recorded by jazz singer Mark Murphy on his album Night Mood (Milestone).

In terms of sheer talent, you'd have to go long way to find an artist more gifted than Milton Nascimento. His compositions range from "The Call," an elemental piece featuring his gorgeous falsetto, to "Cravo e Canela," a joyous, jazz-influenced tune demonstrating his considerable musical sophistication. Drawing ideas from everywhere, Nascimento can blend them together seamlessly, morphing vocal and instrumental combinations stimulatingly in the process. He's open to everything from working alone with his acoustic guitar to being backed by a large string-filled ensemble.

His initial appearance on an American LP, Wayne Shorter's Native Dancer, brought him to the attention of American jazz musicians, who flipped and have wanted to work with him ever since. Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Pat Metheny are among those who've appeared on his albums. Brazilian vocalists sing quietly just about all of the time and don't have much of a range, but with Nascimento you get much vocal richness; he's got

a full, plaintive voice, creates a variety

of timbral effects, and has a range

that's something to marvel at.

During the Seventies and Eighties, a number of female Brazilian vocalists with powerful, aggressive singing styles also emerged. One, Clara Nunes, was the first Brazilian female singer to sell hundreds of thousands of albums on a consistent basis. Beth Carvahlo, a strong human rights advocate, and Maria Bethania, Caetano Veloso's sister, have broad, rich contralto voices. Bethania's Alibi (1978) was the first album by a female Brazilian to sell over a million copies. Elis Regina wasn't known as a songwriter, but she had a knack for finding the good ones before they became famous and recording their songs. Regina gave a lift to the careers of Lobo, Nascimento, Lins, and Bosco.

Alcione not only does a fine job of singing sambas, but interprets romantic ballads convincingly. Some of the most important vocalists from the Northeast were Gal Costa, who once had a hippie queen image, Elba Ramalho, and Margareth Menezes. Flora Purim became prominent in the U.S. in the fusion groups of people like Chick Corea and George Duke. A sweet-voiced ballad singer, she also gained attention with her wordless improvisation. Check out her Moon Dreams album (Milestone).

Okay, let's backtrack to 1967. The military regime is still in power and it's time for the Second Annual Festival of Brazilian Popular Music, which involves a hotly contested songwriting competition. Among the contestants are two old buddies from Bahia, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. The former's song, "Alegria, Alegria," is booed by the audience, partly because a rock group backs him, which is viewed as a manifestation of American imperialism. Gil's "Domingo no Parque" also causes controversy when he employs electric instruments and an arrangement by modern classical musician Rogerio Duprat, who was influenced by the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper LP. Unfazed by their reception, Veloso, Gil, Gal Costa, Nara Leao, Os Mutantes, Tom Ze, Torquato Neto, Capinam, and Julio Medaglia put together Tropicalia, an album that gave a name to a Brazilian avant-garde movement.

Gil was jailed in 1969, then went into exile with Veloso. Thirty years later, they're doing quite well; Gil has picked up a Grammy, while Veloso, who used static and incidental noise on a 1973 album, has become accessible, though still challenging, as his latest release, Livro (Nonesuch), indicates. David Byrne at Luaka Bop has been doing a good job of resurrecting the career of Tom Ze, who at 62 has finally been getting some props from the likes of Tortoise, Sean Lennon, and the High Llamas. After reissuing some of Ze's stuff, Byrne put out a CD of new material, Fabrication Defect, and has just released a mini-album of remixes, Postmodern Platos. And just think, right before Byrne

contacted him, Ze was thinking about

working in his nephew's gas station.

A university trained musician familiar with experimentation in several genres, Ze's known for using the sounds of electric drills, a floor sander, and a bicycle pump in his music, frequently employing samples and other effects. Don't be afraid to check Ze's music out though. He writes pretty melodies, sings in a pleasant, subdued manner, and uses infectious Brazilian rhythms. Ze remains a politically and socially committed person. On Fabrication Defect, he employs humor to attack capitalistic exploitation of Third World peoples.

Similarly, Byrne has also revived interest in Os Mutantes, an avant-garde trio that issued some stunning albums in the late Sixites and early Seventies. Luaka Bop's new Everything Is Possible is a best-of introduction to Os Mutantes that contains some superb material. The group originally came from São Paulo, composed of Rita Lee, whose father was from Alabama, and Arnaldo Baptista and his brother Sergio, all of whom met in high school. Calling themselves Os Mutantes (the Mutants), which most people would consider an experimental rock band, the trio was among the first Brazilian groups to experiment with sampling, tape manipulation, and other effects. They used a variant of the wah-wah pedal called the whooh-whooh pedal. The band created sound collages, and in Sergio Baptista

had one of the best rock guitarists ever.  

Harvey Pekar Temporary memorandum. 

However the most important was really said, 

we could stop here and go to the...

 

W o r l d s  

W i t h o u t  W o r d s

 

- Brazilian Instrumental Music -

 

Brazil also has some wonderful instrumental music. The most common instrumental music is the choro that sounds kind of like ragtime with a samba rhythm. The instrumentation often includes a mandolin (listen to the wonderful re-mastered recordings of Jacob do Bandolim), flute or clarinet (Paulo Moura) , guitar and pandeiro (tambourine). Choro: Brazil's purely instrumental music hasn't had anything like the impact on international culture that its vocal music has, but many skilled instrumentalists have come from there. About 125 years ago, an instrumental form developed in Brazil called choro, in which European popular themes - polkas, waltzes, mazurkas - were improvised on by groups that featured a flute backed by plucked string instruments such as the guitar and the ukulele-like cavaquinho. Pixinguinha, in addition to his contributions to the samba, was a highly regarded choro flutist and leader, having added Brazilian percussion and later horns to his group. Shortly after that, large popular dance bands began appearing with greater frequency in Brazil.

There are also many musicians in Brazil who play predominately instrumental music which may have classical and jazz influences as well as any number of Brazilian styles. Probably the most well known of these are multi-instrumentalists/composers Egberto Gismonti & Hermeto Pascoal. Also, one cannot speak of instrumentalists without mentioning a few of Brazil's many fine guitarists like Baden Powell, Rafael Rabello, Duo Assad, etc.

who we list under guitar.

Ok, Brazil's purely instrumental music hasn't had anything like the impact on international culture that its vocal music has but now names as Gismonti, Pascoal, Naná Vasconcelos, Airto Moreira, Uaki and many others rewrite the brazilian ‘unword’ saga.

From Belo Horizonte city  

Minas Gerais state, 

 

O  t   a   c   í   l   i  o                    

          

M  e   l   g   a   ç   o 

 

too. Presently introduce this Musician (this contemporary brazilian Sphinx) is more appropriate if we think through analogy:  

 

"the master is not the one who teaches;

it's the one who suddenly learns.”

(J.G.R.)

 

M e l g a ç o ’ s  Sounds    

R o s a ’ s  Backlands

 

Understand the João Guimarães Rosa’s Universe and, after, hear Otacílio. That’s my proposition. 

My challenge to you.

One of the two towering figures of post-War Brazilian fiction (the other being

Clarice Lispector), 

João Guimarães Rosa 

is best known for his great novel Grande sertão: veredas (The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) (1956), in which he singlehandedly reinvented the mythical and cultural significance of the sertão or backlands — the perennial Other of Brazil’s coastal, urban civilisation. In the wake of Euclides da Cunha’s Rebellion in the Backlands (1902) and the Regionalist fiction of the 1930s, the sertão had become synonymous with grinding poverty, cultural and economic backwardness and social exclusion. With The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Guimarães Rosa added a metaphysical and psychological dimension to that world, whose inhabitants, the sertanejos, now grapple with eternal forces: love, violence, good and evil. The sertão has become boundless, coterminous only with the universe itself; as his protagonist Riobaldo says, ‘the sertão is everywhere... the sertão is moving the whole

time, you just don’t see it.’

Riobaldo, now an old man and a rancher in the valley of the São Francisco river, recites his ‘caso’, an infinitely extended campside tale, to an anonymous listener who stands both inside and outside the narrative (or inside and outside the sertão), for he might be an actual character, the author himself, or us, the readers. It is the story of his life’s journey as a jagunço, a gunman on the frontiers between northern Minas Gerais and southern Bahia, culminating in his leadership of a band of men and his confrontation with a rival gang leader, Hermogenes. Hermogenes has murdered Riobaldo’s predecessor and, in order to destroy him, Riobaldo must make a pact with the Devil, to whom

he offers his soul in exchange for successfully crossing the deadly hostile region

of Liso do Sussuarão.

As in the story ‘The Third Bank of the River’ translated in the collection The Jaguar, the idea of the ‘travessia’ or crossing takes on a complex symbolic significance at the heart of the narrative, incorporating a whole set of ethical, metaphysical and even psychoanalytical ramifications. One of the most fascinating of these is Riobaldo’s homoerotic attraction to a fellow gunman, Reinaldo, whom he addresses with feminine overtones as Diadorim. Diadorim’s transexual ambivalence is resolved only when, in his masculine guise, he dies confronting Hermogenes on his beloved’s behalf, a sacrifice that may well be the price exacted by the Devil for his pact. If you’re already intrigued by what sound like extraordinary Latin American variations on the mysticism of the chivalresque romances or the myth of Faust, then you’re well on the way to being hooked by some of the qualities (another is the daringly experimental language) that have made this one

of the most studied and written about

works of Brazilian fiction.

But Guimarães Rosa’s literary universe wasn’t only confined to the epic space of the sertão, with its cowhands, ranchers and feuding gunmen. In fact, as is clear from the short stories of The Jaguar, a brand-new collection, he was the master of an astonishing variety of narrative situations, registers and voices. These could range from a child’s bittersweet discovery of life’s beauty and transience, to the schizophrenic, stream-of-consciousness monologue of a half-Indian, convinced he is a blood relation of the wildcats he used to hunt; from a would-be scientist’s obsessive and ultimately insane pursuit of his own, elusive mirror-image, to poignant, disturbing and even grotesquely comical dramas of family conflict and disintegration, whether the anonymous folk of the rural interior or the oligarchic dynasties who rule over them. At the heart of all these stories, and of the extraordinary prose-poetry in which they are written, is a fundamental, unifying principle: the frontier, the borderland, the between-place — the ‘third bank of the river’ — where destinies, relationships, identities and words all exist in an endless state of flux.

Paradoxically, though, as well as symbolising the volatility of life, the ‘third bank’ also seems to hold out the possibility of a resting-place, a transcendant stillness within the maelstrom of existence. In one of many stories built around the theme of the journey — life’s journey of challenge and discovery, the existential journey into solitude, alienation and madness, or the journey towards the mystery of death — a small boy is taken to visit the enormous building-site that was the burgeoning new city of Brasília in the late 1950s. Nearly overwhelmed by this spectacle of inexorable change, which he cannot help associating with the prospect of his mother’s death, the boy nevertheless finds consolation in the belief that, like the doll he has mislaid, the things and people we lose do not therefore cease to be, but go on existing in

a transcendant eternity, a ‘somewhere’

in memory or in the imagination:

No, his Little Monkey playmate wasn’t lost, in the dark, fathomless deep of the world, not ever. For sure, he’d just be strolling, happening along hereafter, in the other-place, where people and things were always coming and going. The Little Boy smiled at what he’d smiled at, suddenly at one with what he felt: outside the pre-primordial chaos,

like the melting apart of a nebula.

Perhaps it is this between-place — ‘perpetually posing the possible’ — that the protagonist’s father is searching for in ‘The Third Bank of the River’ story of the collection, when he sets himself adrift in a canoe, never to come ashore again: a precarious still-point of equilibrium midway across the current, where real time is suspended, where he is gone but not departed, neither here nor there. Like Guimarães Rosa’s sertão, it lies at the threshold between mythical and historical time, between an ageless past and the encroaching, turbulent present. It resists the corrosive, dispersive forces of change yet equally refuses to be petrified within the inert, determinate confines of ordinary time and space. But to assume this condition of indeterminacy, of permanent flux, and seek to transcend the volatility of our existence by immersing oneself in it, is both a courageous and a perilous act, as the man’s son discovers when he offers to take his place in the boat. For one may be swept away and engulfed altogether or left suspended in a limbo of insanity, like the lost soul in ‘The Mirror’, drifting between his reflected self-image and an elusive essence, or the half-Indian Bacuriquirepa in ‘The Jaguar’, who cannot escape his dual identity: both the hunter and the hunted, both the wildcat and its human killer.

Only a special kind of narrative language could meet the challenge of this journey into indeterminacy, into the unceasing race of the river: a prose that constantly overflows into poetry, that wrestles with the task of objectifying human experience while remaining faithful to its irreducible mystery and fluidity, its ambiguities and contradictions. Analogous to its subject-matter, the substance of Guimarães Rosa’s fiction is language in a state of flux — and therefore essentially poetic —, strangely archaic, rustic and modern all at once, pushing insistently at the bounds of what is unsayable and meaningful. It is a challenge beautifully represented in the little girl Pixie’s endless efforts to tell, and re-tell, the improvised tale of ‘The Audacious Mariner’, in her playfully uninhibited experimentation with the magic of words.

The Aldacious Mariner, he did infirmly go off to discover the other places. He went in a ship, and skulduggery, too. He went on his own. The places were far-off, and the sea. The Aldacious Mariner at first missed his mother, his brothers and sisters, his father. He didn’t cry. He did duly have to go. He said: — ‘Will you forget me?’ His ship, the day came for it to leave. The Aldacious Mariner stood waving his white handkerchief, extrinsically, from inside the ship’s going away. The ship went from being near to being far off, but the Aldacious Mariner didn’t turn his back on the people, away from them. The people were actually waving white handkerchieves too. In the end, there was no more ship to be seen, there was only the sea that was left. Then one of them thought and said: — ‘He’s going to discover the places that we’re never going to discover...’ Then, so then, another person said: — ‘He’s going to discover the places, then he’s never going to come back...’ Then yet another one thought and thought, spherically, and said: — ‘So, he must be a bit angry with us, deep down, without knowing it...’ Then they all cried, ever so much, and went home sadly to have their dinner...

One more step. Shaun M. Tarves. Becoming the Third Bank: An Exploration of Crossing and Ambiguity in João Guimarães Rosa’s "The Third Bank of the

River". The Third Bank of the melgacian metaphysical metaphor.

Beginning shortly before the turn of the last century, there was a noticeable trend towards the ambiguous in modern Brazilian literature. Writers such as Machado de Assis and Jorge Amado have both explored the use of the unstated and the forced compromise between extremes that have grown to be so crucial to the modernist movement. No Brazilian author, however, has mastered the compromise quite like João Guimarães Rosa, a man who was once described as not only leading, but preceding the reader "to a place where there is discord and cacophony under which there is a strange harmony…the third bank of the river…the land every soul craves for." In his collection of short stories, Primeiras Estórias (1962), Rosa pays particularly close attention to ambiguity as a main theme in Brazilian backland writing. First translated to English in 1968 under the title First Stories, Primeiras Estórias, and in particular, "The Third Bank of the River," is in many ways the defining work of the Brazilian short story.

Carl Jung once said "the confrontation of the two positions [of opposites] generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing." In "The Third Bank of the River," João Guimarães Rosa does just that by first exploring these separate, symbolic opposites in the lives of members of the narrator’s family. He then crafts, out of the conflict, a third position which can be, at best, described as a compromise between the two extremes. Often times, these extremes are the very definitions of characterization we come to expect in a short story, and, by blurring these lines, Rosa is able to also blur "The Third Bank of the River" into a work of ambiguous and allegorical nature. By never exactly defining the third essence that is created, the author is able to explore this clearly important topic in greater depth. The importance of the crossing is that, in every case the author presents, it represents the journey from one position to its opposite, continuing until the characters reach their final destination: the third, intermediate situation. It is in this way that father’s crossing has a profound effect on the family (most notably the narrator) and the way they

conduct the rest of their lives.

The important thing to recognize immediately about "The Third Bank of the River" is that it can either be read as a literal retelling of the events or as a metaphor concerning the death of a loved one. The story begins with the description of the canoe father has made for himself. This canoe is the crucial element in the story because the literality of "The Third Bank of the River" hinges on exactly what this canoe is. There is a proposed likeness between the canoe and a coffin; "small…with a narrow board…only enough room for the oarsman"(189). Mother was terribly upset by the idea of father "buying a canoe" which could hint at the fact that he committed suicide or simply died if the canoe is to be read as being a coffin. There is, however, something strange about the making of this canoe. Father has it handmade from the finest available wood, and it is built to last twenty or thirty years. For a man who never called the shots in his own household, father’s purchase would have come as a shocking surprise because the canoe was presumably expensive and he continued with the project even after mother voiced her opinions, but this indicates he intended the crossing to be a permanent one – a journey from which he would never return.

There is much speculation that father was simply taking a journey of discovery and the crossing symbolized the necessary cutting of the familial ties that had held him down in the past. Not only did he have an overbearing wife, but also the responsibilities of caring for three children. For a weak man such as father, it would have been easy to lose oneself in the shuffle of other duties. The separation for the journey symbolized father’s ways; "neither happy nor excited nor downcast" is how he left his family, and with one simple goodbye (190). Even as father is leaving, there is a sense of disbelief and bitterness at the presumptuousness of father. Mother forcefully declares "if you go, don’t you ever come back" (190), and that’s exactly what father did. This sets up later episodes in the story about emotions the family has when they determine that father never is coming back and that they will have to live without him. For the family, however, it was only after father’s crossing that they realize just how much they do need him. According to Frank O’Connor, this is how we are supposed to feel. He claims "there is in the short story, at its most characteristic, something we do not find in the novel – an intense awareness of human loneliness." All characters involved are completely transformed after father crosses into his new existence, a result of their sense of pity towards father’s perceived loneliness.

This is our first example of the antithetical nature of "The Third Bank of the River." Father originally has two options – staying with the family or abandoning them. However, by the end of the story, he has achieved a position somewhere in the middle of this loneliness/togetherness paradox. Ultimately, the family was never really alone, for father remained in the recesses of their minds, constantly affecting the way in which they lived their lives. For example, the son remained at home his entire life in order to not be lonely. He always had his father floating along the river so long as he never forgot him. For father, on the other hand, he was more towards the lonely nature because he never even acknowledged his family as existing after his departure, but the reader must obviously discern his staying in the river (which was close to the family’s house) as his way of maintaining togetherness. Gary Vessels attests to this intermediary position, even referring to it as torture, noting how "his semi-presence ruined their lives."

It is in seemingly insignificant events like these that we can interpret the exact meaning of the crossing that is occurring in "The Third Bank of the River." The family in the story does not appear to be strikingly well off, as we are told that she sent for her brother to help with money matters after father’s departure (192). However, she allows the boy to take food from the family every night and leave it for father, presumably to be eaten by wild animals. In one sense, she is simply aiding the son in getting over the loss of his father, but in another sense, she is finally acknowledging her own pain. The narrator tells us "mother almost never showed what she was thinking" (192), and it would not be inconsistent for her to hide her emotions in a time of loss. She had always led the family until father’s crossing, now she simply had to provide the sense of strength to her children for them to deal with

the presumed passing of their father.

This is shown later in the progression of the story when she goes to great lengths to try to get father to return. Not only does she try an exorcism, but she also brings soldiers to the riverbank to haul him back. Naturally, father is nowhere to be seen when they come, another subtle allusion to the interpretation of his crossing as death. It is only the family that can see him, and even they have no ability to interact with him. Even the reporters come to try to take his picture, but he simply slinks himself to the other – the second – bank of the river. As mentioned before, the crossing is the utmost representation of this very ambiguity

Rosa works to hard to establish.

Another series of conflicts Rosa creates is that between mourning and memory. Certainly, there is a fine line between when one feels negative effects from emotions after a tragic event (mourning) and the memory of that event that is forged in the minds of those whom it affects. For example, the son, our narrator, is clearly trapped in a period of mourning his entire life. He lives solely for keeping his father alive, the result being a great detriment to himself. On the other hand, the rest of the family is able to eventually separate themselves from father and proceed with their lives. The other two children marry, leave the town and begin families of their own. Mother also leaves and goes to live with her daughter because she requires care as a result of her deteriorating health. Because we are never given father’s perspective, we do not know whether he mourns the separation from his family, but judging that this decision was his alone, we can assume he does not. Therefore, we are given the son as an example of the unhealthy position of extreme mourning and the father as the apathetic representative of simply having a memory. The family then becomes the intermediate position and is symbolic of the crossing from either mourning or ignoring to a third position of memoriam.

As the time begins to pass, it becomes more apparent to the reader that father has actually died from what the narrator tells us. He claims that father never stepped on solid grass, never built a fire on land, and never even lit a match (193). These are all very basic connections someone who is alive must have and Rosa uses these examples to show that even simple human actions were out of father’s realm. He certainly could not have lived on the small amounts of food his son was leaving for him at the river’s edge, even if he was picking them up in secret. By giving this information, Rosa indicates that father has been away for far too long to be "alive" within the family. For all intents and purposes, to his family, father was dead but yet they proceed as if he were still with them.

What is meant by father’s crossing having a grave effect on the family is that they end up suffering infinite amounts because they can never escape the memory of their father. The river clearly plays an important part in this remembrance, so it is safe to assume that his death was indubitably tied to the river. This becomes more apparent later in the story, but even early on it is apparent. Not only do they consider the river to be the place of his residence since he left them and leave food for him there, but they also attach a mystical quality to the river and, in one scene, turn it into a demi-god.

While father is very much physically dead at this point, he is alive in the sense that they refuse to let go of him. Our narrator tells us "we only thought of him. Father could never be forgotten." (193) In this way, the family keeps him with them as if he had never crossed that fateful river and left them only to be "roused by his memory." (193) For a long time, they completely alter their own lives so as to keep the memory of father alive. This will play an important role later in the story, as we

look further into the effects of the

crossing on the narrator.

Upon the wedding of the daughter, we are told that there are no festivities. (193) This is mentioned in passing; right before the narrator describes how they remember father’s suffering when they eat a nice meal. The family is clearly still in a period of mourning and could not imagine a celebration in the wake of father’s crossing even though it seems ample time has passed. When the grandchild is born, they take him to the river and hold him up in the air, calling father to come and see. This act creates the image of a sacrifice to a god, whereby the offering is held towards the heaven. In this case, like so many before it, father never comes. This is just further proof that father has passed physically, even though he is still alive in the minds of the family. The crossing has not completely taken him away. They have made the river such an integral part of their life and, because of this, are unable to appropriately deal with father’s death. This is the most important aspect of the crossing and the one to which Rosa devotes the most exploration: the effect that such an event has on those

who are left at either side.

This element of the crossing becomes the main focus of "The Third Bank of the River" for the rest of the narrative. We are quickly shifted to the son, now living alone in the house by the river. "Times changed" (194), he tells us, and by this he means everyone else has put the memory of father behind them. The son, however, remained there with justification that father "needed" him. He’s still wandering up and down the river, if only in the son’s mind, a constant reminder of a man whom he idolized. He suffers from sorrow and guilt on account of the father who has left. Perhaps it’s sorrow for always failing to appreciate his father while he was around; perhaps it’s guilt for not ensuring father’s memory stayed with the family until they died. One thing is for certain though; he has been so conditioned by the forced acceptance of his father’s crossing that he has never fully been able to put it behind him. For example, the last part of the story is the narrator’s somewhat coherent ramblings and there is even dialogue with himself where he tries

to tell himself he is not crazy.

It is at this point in the story that we have father’s first interaction since his crossing. The son sets himself on the bank and tells his father "you’ve done your part…I’ll take your place in the canoe." (196) All of a sudden, he imagines father is gesturing to him and his heart swells with fear. He runs away, pleading for forgiveness. This scene is difficult to analyze because it seems that his inability to escape the pain of his father’s death has prescribed his own suicide – following in the same path his father has laid. Then, for absolutely no reason at all, he decides against it. Immediately, he asks

"can I be a man, after having thus failed him?"

He has become the unspeakable.

Two additional antithetical aspects become very important towards the end of the story. As we see, there are separate situations, that of the narrator’s "obligation" to his father, and that of his own sanity, which Rosa sets up both as extremely ambiguous and frighteningly ironical. It is in this way that the reader is better able to explore

the crossing – no longer that of

the father, but of the son.

The first of these conflicts is that of freedom versus bondage. This is highlighted in how our narrator describes his father in terms which relegate him as a slave to the river and the life which he has chosen. "Father was stuck to the river" (191), he tells us, and was victim of a "sad obsession" (192). Not only that, but the inability or unwillingness of father to come to land has made him a slave in the sense that he is no longer a part of civilization for he cannot light a match or touch solid ground as we have highlighted earlier. These distinctions between the father’s existence outside of society has indeed made him bound in

a sense according to the narrator.

However, as the story progresses, we become aware of the actual freedom of the father and the relative servitude of the family. The family cannot even enjoy a nice meal or the marriage of the first child, let alone escape thinking about the father. In a more accurate depiction of the condition of the characters in the story, it is they who cannot escape the very idea of this enigma who was once their father. This is especially true for the son who declares himself "burdened down with life’s cumbrous baggage" (193). In explaining why he never married, he offers the excuse that "father needed [me]" (194), but in reality, he is saying

that he needed his father.

Contrary to the son’s description, father has become free, but it is a unique, compromised freedom. While he has no earthly bounds as evidenced by never setting foot on solid ground after he left, he has a deeper tie to himself and, inherently, to the river. James Romano describes this as father’s "inner conviction" and his commitment to whatever made him go to the river in the first place. Ironically enough, he must fulfill his new responsibility that he acquired while leaving his old responsibilities behind. This fusion of bondage and freedom is the necessary outcome of commitment to any conviction. No longer responsible for anything earthly, he becomes even more so responsible for himself – freedom in the truest sense.

The final element of ambiguity caps an already intentionally ambiguous story and the reader is left pondering what "unspeakable thing" the son has become. Earlier in the story, he tells us that they "never talked about him" (193) but he has also said "the word crazy was not spoken" (195). He certainly seems to have become crazy in the final years, but he has also in a sense become his father. He has determined himself ready to take his place in the canoe – whatever place that may be – ready to make his crossing. However, he envisions a far different ending for his story. He importantly uses the phrase "to the body" when talking of his own death, indicating that ever important distinction between the dual natures of death that were so crucial in his own life. He hopes to be pushed "down the river, away from the river, into the river" after he makes his crossing, past the banks – both the two physical ones and the third, "unending" bank (196) which his father has created for him as a constant reminder.

The last, and perhaps most well developed crossing, is that between sanity and insanity. With this comes the distinction between reality and fiction, and the new reality father has forged for himself and the narrator. The son repeatedly denies that his father was mad, and in fact, the family never even considered it a viable option to explain his disappearance. That made his action all the more inexplicable. He went from being introduced as a rather ordinary man to being the mystical figure we see at the end of the story. The canoe was planned specifically, he deterministically left the family on his own terms, and in a sense, he made himself what he wanted to be after he left. What this means is that he directly engineered the memories his family had of him and his "interactions" with them by the way he acted. Surely, these are not the actions of an insane man.

​