The Scottish-Brazilian Samba/Choro Partnership
Carlos
comedia") and 1 baiao ("Kalu") with Roberto Inglez and his Orchestra
at IMS (some of the 17 tunes they recorded together), I was also
pleased to revive some of the melodies he launched here in Brazil,
and were big hits at the time, including "Coimbra", "Again" and
"My Foolish Heart" (the latter not available at IMS).
Now, can I notice he played foxes such as "Again" and "My Foolish
Heart" iin a samba-cançao tempo and cadence with a slight bolero
accent (which was normal in samba-cançoes at the time).
I did a Google search and found an interesting report explaining what
happened:
"Roberto Inglez
By Barry McCanna (1)
It is a fact that some bandleaders donned the mantle of a more
flamboyant personality by means of their music. Geraldo and Felix
Mendelssohn are obvious examples, but with Roberto Inglez what
began as a simple name embellishment went on to embrace the
South American lifestyle.
His real name was Robert Inglis, and he was born at Elgin, Morayshire
on 29th June 1913. He displayed early proficiency on the piano, and
by the age of 15 was leading his own dance band, reputedly earning
£10 a week in the process. It was hardly surprising therefore that
music won out over attempts to point him towards a career as a dental
technician. By the mid-thirties he was leading a semi-pro five piece
band which supplied the music for dancing at a roadhouse called The
Oakwood, two miles out of Elgin on the Inverness road. In 1935 they
won the Melody Maker Dance Band competition for the North East
of Scotland, and he took the prize for best musician. His band were
called the Melodymakers, which title may well have originated from
their triumph. It seems also to have encouraged him to head south,
leaving the band in the lurch - minus not only pianist but also
transport.
In 1937, studying at the Royal Academy of Music, he met Edmundo
Ros, then newly arrived in England. Subsequently Ros joined Don
Marino Barreto's Cuban Orchestra, and when he left to form his own
outfit he recruited Bertie (as he was then known) as the pianist.
Edmundo suggested that being the only British player in the group,
he should adopt a Spanish persona by the simple expedient of adding
one letter and altering two others. Ros opened on 8th August 1940
at the Cosmo Club in Wardour Street, but his music proved such a
draw that the audience outgrew those premises. He relocated to the
nearby St. Regis Club, but that was soon demolished by a German
bomb, so the band kept moving!
Roberto was ambitious, and within a relatively short space of time
he left to form his own small group, somewhat to Edmundo's
consternation. In early 1944 he was involved with Paul Adam (a well-
known society bandleader) in taking over at the Milroy Club while Harry
Roy took his own band off on an extended tour. According to the Radio
Times, in 1945 he was playing at the Berkeley Hotel, part of the Savoy
chain. The band began broadcasting regularly on the BBC, and in 1946
he secured a residency at the Savoy Hotel itself, which was the domain
of that doyen of the keyboard, Carroll Gibbons.
He began recording in late 1945, using an augmented line-up, and his
records were issued in England by Parlophone, and on the associated
Odeon label in Spain and South America. Overseas sales figures were
sensational (one release was said to have sold 10,000 per day) thereby
confirming the authenticity of his interpretation of the Latin-American
idiom. Not that he was confined to it, and in 1950 he accompanied
Steve Conway on six sides that were recorded for Columbia.
"The Melody Maker" was a composition written by Noel Gay, and
it was the natural sobriquet for Roberto Inglez, who subsequently
adopted it as his signature tune. In August 1952 the Melody Maker
magazine informed its readers that following repeated approaches from
a Brazilian impresario, Roberto Inglez had agreed to visit that country
and lead a 30-piece local orchestra. The fact that he would receive a
net fee of £1,000 per week net of Brazilian tax and expenses seems to
have clinched the deal. The tour began on September 11th, and they
played for four weeks in Rio at the Casablanca nightclub, followed by
two weeks at the Hotel Lord in São Paulo, with broadcasts from both
venues by the local radio stations.
That trip was a resounding success, and he returned to England in
triumph. Later that year one of Brazil's most popular female singers,
Dalva de Oliveira, came to London and undertook a two-week
engagement at the Savoy, backed by his band. They also recorded
seventeen titles together, thirteen of which were released in Brazil,
including the Christmas song "Noite de Natal" (Silent Night).
Given that he seemed at the peak of his career, there was something
of a mystery about his abrupt decision to sever his connection with
the Savoy Hotel in early 1954. Carroll Gibbons was ill at the time and
he died in May, added to which there were problems with the Musicians
Union. The deciding factor was probably rather more personal, because
he had met and married Patricia Palma, a Chilean who worked at the
American Embassy in London. In any case, it was to her home country
that they emigrated in March 1954.
There he styled himself as Roberto Inglez y sua Orchestra Romanza,
and featured a vocal sextette known as the Choro Brasileirinho. He
broadcast regularly and toured the sub-continent, but did very little
more in the way of recording. He also undertook a year-long tour
of the USA, which included an engagement at New York's Waldorf-
Astoria Hotel (whose resident for many years was Xavier Cugat)
and gave a concert at the Pasapoga Hall in Madrid in 1956.
Roberto Inglez believed that the Scots had a natural affinity with
Latin-American rhythms. That may well be because many of the
crews of the defeated Spanish Armada were shipwrecked on the
north-west coast of Scotland after Philip the Second's fleet was
scattered in the English Channel in 1588. Certainly his dark good
looks could well have attested to a Latin ancestry. If so, he found
his roots both in the music he produced and in his choice of
Santiago as his home, where he died on 4th September 1978."
_________________________
* no kidding :-))
http://www.memorylane.org.uk/previous_articles.htm#Roberto%20Inglez
Daniella Thompson
> While relistening Dalva de Oliveira singing 1 samba-cancao ("Fim de
> comedia") and 1 baiao ("Kalu") with Roberto Inglez and his Orchestra
> at IMS (some of the 17 tunes they recorded together)
Revivendo has a CD compilation of Dalva and the Roberto Inglez
Orchestra. Of the 21 tracks, half are with Dalva accompanied by the
orchestra, the other half with the orchestra alone.
I have this CD, and it's a nice one.
http://www.revivendomusicas.com.br/produto_detalhe.asp?id=515
--
Daniella
_______
Daniella Thompson on Brazil:
The Magazine of
Brazilian Music & Culture
http://daniv.blogspot.com
Musica Brasiliensis
http://daniellathompson.com
JMK
(or at least Celtic) and Brasilian fusion, both of which I highly
recommend: SalsaCeltica and MacUmba (my vote for funniest band name
ever). You haven't lived until you've heard "Asa Branca" performed on
bagpipes.
DVH
"JMK" <jeffrey_...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1143935228.3...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Not to mention Bloco Vômito, a Google search for which which brings up this
superb quote:
"O senhor conhece O Bloco Vômito? Saulo Lebre: não, e Nem quero conhecer
pelo que você descreveu aí."
http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/7296/74/
Ken Mathieson
Back in the 1960s I recall hearing a programme on BBC radio in the UK on
Roberto (Bob) Inglez (Inglis). In it they played some old 78 sides
(presumably on the Parlophone label) entitled "Scottish Sambas". These were
traditional Scottish Country Dance tunes played over chorinho/samba rhythms
and the fusion really worked. This isn't too surprising as Scottish Country
Dance Music is highly syncopated and generally very lively. Much of it is
also in duple time, like samba and chorinho, so melodies can transfer intact
into the other idiom with only minor phrasing alterations to put them in
context. For recordings, Inglez used to augment his regular band with
leading London-based Scottish jazz musicians like George Chisholm, Tommy
McQuater, then at height of their very considerable careers. They were great
readers as well as soloists, but more importantly, their early experiences
of playing traditional Scottish Country Dance music equipped them with a
rhythmic sure-footedness that enabled them to play samba and chorinho with
an authentic feel.
More recently, there was an entirely different programme about Inglez on BBC
Radio involving, from memory, an interview with a son. However, this
programme didn't make use of the Scottish Sambas. and I'm not aware that
they have ever been re-issued in any form. I tried to source them from the
BBC Record Library for a programme I used to present on BBC Radio Scotland,
but they had disappeared without trace.
There is no direct correlation between the rhythms of Scottish Country Dance
music and samba, but in both, the role of the drummers is to propel the
music horizontally over a strong vertical pulse. In samba, the vertical
pulse is much more heavily disguised by rhythms and melodies that are less
"bar-bound" than in Scottish traditional music. However, there is a much
greater affinity between the rhythms of Scottish traditional music, Country
Dance music in particular, and early jazz. Here the correlation is very
pronounced, with the drummers not just playing similar horizontally
propulsive roles, but also using very similar, sometimes identical
techniques and figures.
If anyone has unearthed the Scottish Sambas I'd love to know about them.
Regards,
Ken Mathieson
"Carlos" <bras...@terra.com.br> wrote in message
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