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From Roots Up
Alfredo Bello is not only a serious collector, archivist and record producer of Brazilian traditional music and culture, but as DJ Tudo he’s also taking it forward into the future. Russ Slater drops in for lunch in São Paulo.
greets like a Brazilian though, a kiss on the cheek and a good bearhug. He ushers me into his house in the relatively quiet São Paulo neighbourhood of Vila Mari- ana. We swing through his living room, lined with row after row of vinyl on the shelves, tables and floors, move through the kitchen and down the yard until we reach a room at the back of his house.
A Gigantic posters of Chico Cesar and
World Music Festivals line the walls. Spread across the floor are Alfredo’s group DJ Tudo E Gente De Todo Lugar (DJ Tudo is his alias). They’re practising ahead of a trip to Recife in the north-east of Brazil for the Porto Musical networking event where they’re hoping their new album Dos Quin- tais Do Mundo might find itself an interna- tional distributor. It’s certainly an interest- ing release; a mixture of rhythms, deep bass and horn blasts, fusing modern pro- duction with an old-school feel in a similar vein to artists like Quantic Y Su Combo Bárbaro and Novalima.
This wasn’t the reason I came to see Alfredo though. I was more interested in his record label. O Mundo Melhor (which translates as ‘A Better World’) specialise in releasing traditional Brazilian music. They currently have 22 albums in their catalogue, documenting genres of music including maracatu, afoxé and baiana, as well as spe- cific religious and traditional practices, con- gado being the most prominent.
The latest release of traditional music on O Mundo Melhor is Congado Em Mogi Das Cruzes. This is a collection of record- ings of congados in Mogi Das Cruzes, a
lfredo Bello is looking like a Cuban showman. He is wear- ing a thin cotton shirt and trousers that seem to dance whenever he moves. He
town in the state of São Paulo. Extensive liner notes tell the story of each group fea- tured as well as the complete history of congados in the town. Accompanying videos and photos can be found on the website. This level of detail is standard across all releases. It’s impossible to deny Alfredo’s enthusiasm. At the time of writ- ing he has 1,400 hours of audio, 800 hours of video and many pictures in his archive.
It’s this exhaustive cataloguing of Brazilian tradition, along with O Mundo Melhor’s use of a website as a learning tool, which makes this project stand out. It’s a labour of love for Alfredo who is its guiding force. He refers to himself as a pesquisador (researcher) of Brazilian music, putting himself in a group of men that includes Mario de Andrade, a promi- nent Brazilian writer and musicologist. In 1938, Andrade embarked on a Missão de Pesquisas Folclóricas (Mission for Folklore Research), visiting the states of Pernambu- co, Paraíba, Maranhão and Minas Gerais, capturing music that many people in São Paulo didn’t know existed. These record- ings, initially made for posterity, were made available to the public in 2006.
By documenting the communities and their traditions in addition to the music, O Mundo Melhor takes the work of Andrade a step further, more in tune with Brazilian folklorists like Théo Brandão and Alceu Maynard de Araujo than musicologists like Andrade or the more internationally- known Alan Lomax and Constantin
Brăiloiu. Alfredo will normally visit a com- munity two, three or more times to under- stand fully their traditions. It marks a clear ideological difference between the work of Alfredo and Andrade, whereby he seeks to help perpetuate the community as opposed to simply documenting it.
styles such as bumba meu boi in Maran- hão, catira in Goiás and also the music of Carnival in Pernambuco, and then through the music of Chico Science & Nacão Zumbi in the early ‘90s. A renewed interest in maracatu in Recife (capital of Pernambuco) in the late ‘80s had led Chico Science to form the band, mixing the maracatu rhythm with electric guitars, and in the process creating a new genre of music known as mangue bit. The move- ment encouraged many Brazilians to explore the country’s Afro-Brazilian routes and was a catalyst for many new bands to experiment. Os Cachorros Das Cachorras, featuring Alfredo on bass, was one of these, using a group with brass and horns to explore links between soul, funk and Afro-Brazilian rhythms.
A
It’s clear from talking to Alfredo that he has a strong connection to Brazilian music and traditions, stemming from his sheer love of multiple styles (evidenced quite clearly in his record collection), to his passion for candomblé, a religion which he practices. He started recording traditional culture in 2000 through his own curiosity as much as anything. A friend then lent him a DAT recorder in 2004 and this led to O Mundo Melhor and a place for him to begin releasing what is a growing archive.
Back to Alfredo’s back room/studio, and I watch DJ Tudo E Gente De Todo Lugar finish their rehearsal. Their recent- ly-released album is in fact the latest release on O Mundo Melhor, which also offers itself as a home to contemporary music with a strong traditional element.
lfredo was born in Minas Gerais before moving to Brasilia. It was here that his interest in traditional culture began, first through hearing
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