Pe De Boi:
Power Samba Band
Pe De Boi, the Power Samba Band
whose pulsating rhythms have electrified the New York club scene since 1980, produced only
one memorable album during its nearly two decade-long existence. Born of the rich
Brazilian musical tradition and inflected with elements of American jazz, Rock and Salsa,
the songs on this album feature as many as 10 different percussionists. Band founder and
leader, Guilherme Franco — a native of Brazil, a veteran of the McCoy Tyner group and
one of the leading jazz percussionists in the world — named his group for a Brazilian
slang term whose literal translation is "foot of an ox," but whose
real meaning is a musician with a great sense of rhythm.
Material for the album includes some Brazilian standards and compositions written
specially for the album. From its beginning in the streets of New York, Pe De Boi has
gone on to perform at Giant Stadium, S.O.B.'s, The Byrne Arena, The Beacon Theatre, The
Bottom Line, The Mudd Club, as well as the historic Peppermint Lounge, Danceteria, Studio
54, and Jazz Forum.
Percussionist Franco explains:
"Essa Nega" is Brazilian slang for, well, for a foxy black lady. It
was a hit in 1960 in Sao Paulo. I took tracks off the original recording and added
percussive weight. It has a riff that sort of swings.
"Zazueira" is a composition by Jorge Ben. I worked for him for two
years in a night club. It was one of the songs he used to play when he showed up fresh at
the beginning of the evening. On this record we start it out with a thing from Rodgers
& Hammerstein, "Some Enchanted Evening" ("Once you have found
him, never let him go."). A dancer who performed with us suggested we use that phrase.
"Reza Forte" was composed by Mestre Andre and it means "strong
prey." I had a chance to play with Andre at the Rio Jazz Festival when I was in the
McCoy Tyner band. At the end of the show —there were 20,000 people there—100
drummers got on stage, with Mestre Andre in front.
"Samba Summer" was the inspiration of the same lyricist, Michelle
Zangara, who came up with the Rodgers & Hammerstein quote.
"Pabaruba" is my own composition, based on a kind of blues-swing type
of thing. When I composed this I did it only by scatting.
"Capoeira" is a composition of a friend of mine, the drummer Dirceu
Mediros. He was a very good drummer. On one of my trips back to Brazil he showed me this
song, which's named for a martial art that he was involved with at the time.
The great bass player Saheb Sarbib composed "Sequence Part I" and
"Sequence Part II" especially for this album. I was recording an album with
him when Pe de Boi was ready to go into the studio and I asked him if he would
write something for three horns and seven drums. We recorded the songs in one
afternoon…live, without any overdubs.
"Drums Evolution" is another one of my own compositions, which
expresses a kind of neat percussive samba and is played with the instruments that are used
in summer samba schools.
"Amazonia Jungle" is derived from a concept developed in Brazil in the
’60s. The style came from an experiment we made when we had 200 instruments on stage
and it was called "sound over sound." Someone plays one note with a percussive
instrument and someone else has to answer, and then the first player answers back. It's a
conversation between drums.
ARKADIA JAZZ