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  1. #1

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    ok everyone, isnt it time to start the brazilian samba guitar improvisation thread ?

    ive got lots to bring in , but, i want to start with this , danial santiago is just killing a difinitive aproach to samba on the guitar accompanying the fire bandolim of hamilton de holanda. that is the first thing, there is a heavy family of string instruments in brazil .

    danial santiago is doing the cutting edge rio de janeiro aproach to samba.

    you have to look at chorinho to get the depth of the string instruments in samba in brazil, but, ive heard there are 42 or so differant rhythmic strums in chorinho and it is the blue print for aproaches in samba

    but, danial is doing the aproach that was all over the streets of rio when i got there , with the anticipation thing happening

    there is a samba that comes in on the one , and, outside of brazil, this is the more popular aproach, but the anticipation was the cutting edge when i got to rio in 86, and many of the origins in candomble ( the hand drums of candodomble angola have a big inflence with some things in ketu too, but, candomble angola has many roots, and the folk origins of samba are in bahia.you have samba de caboclo from candomble, samba de roda from folkloric beats and dances and they evolved a samba that uses percusion in bloco afro that is really think and bottom heavy.

    but, rio is to samba what new york is to jazz, it started in new orleans ,went to chicago and then cutting edge new york, same with samba, starts in bahia and gets cutting edge in rio

    samba is enormous, has as many era innovations as jazz and the old styles clash with the new

    i can tell you, most people outside of brazil , are getting the equivalant of as if they only were hearing the cool school of jazz like that is what jazz is suposed to be. samba is afro brazilian culture and its most potent forms come from the favelas and hills , the afro descendant communities and the dance is as important as anything. you wont know samba if you dont know what the dance looks like and how it fits. bossa nova is samba...

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  3. #2

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    It's a bit frantic :-)

  4. #3
    Yes, it might be against the grain of what an impression of rio samba would be.

    But this is closer to the to the edge of what rio samba is. The bateria of the escolas are the most dominant force in rio. It's hard to ignore . It starts seeping into your consciousness , you go in a samba club and the bass is turned up on the recorded music and the surdo is like a black hole on the two , the cavaquinhos , the small string instrument , the size of a ukulele , driving the anticipation of the one...

    its not the " do, dado, dado , dado" they told us it was...

    and then the passistas come out, the most beautiful ballerinas anywhere. Doing the most incredibly impossible dance step in fast motion with so much grace and entwined to the beat, and it's fast and extremely frenetic.

    and these guys are capturing that without drum or percusion.

    remember, this isn't linear complicated lines , difficult chart, it's easy enough to see , I bet you could ride groove with just a little attention.

    then , look for your favorite bossa tune that has an anticipated one and try the chord progression with that concept.really using that groove , but bossa tempo....this a tip to anyone doing gigs you play bossas, the tune with an anticipated one in the melody, do this guys approach in the chords all the way through...a ghost of a tropical breeze might hit you for a second because you will be close to a rio feeling

  5. #4


    lets try this :

    the guitar starts at 3:00 . It's luizao Maia , who is the legendary innovating samba bass player. He over dubbed guitar.

    i peeped so much listening to him on bass about the deep real rio sound I wanted so much. This recording was an education for me. And he is rio, the quintessential rio musician , plays sete cordas in the escolas, he passed away a while back, I miss him , but, check his guitar thing, it's not Segovia , but it's all you need to see the fundimental guitar of rio samba.

    you will have to wade through the queen of samba , Elza Soares , and my recently deceased music partner , Paulo Russo , he is high legal accoustic bass samba from rio, and Gilson Peranzzetta in the final

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by bonsritmos


    lets try this :

    the guitar starts at 3:00 . It's luizao Maia , who is the legendary innovating samba bass player. He over dubbed guitar.

    i peeped so much listening to him on bass about the deep real rio sound I wanted so much. This recording was an education for me. And he is rio, the quintessential rio musician , plays sete cordas in the escolas, he passed away a while back, I miss him , but, check his guitar thing, it's not Segovia , but it's all you need to see the fundimental guitar of rio samba.

    you will have to wade through the queen of samba , Elza Soares , and my recently deceased music partner , Paulo Russo , he is high legal accoustic bass samba from rio, and Gilson Peranzzetta in the final
    Thanks for posting this! Just terrific. And you can hear all the parts you need. So, in this case, at around 3:20, you hear the guitar playing the basic tamborim pattern without creating a sound on every 16th (which the guitarist backing up Hamilton De Hollanda was doing, with a combination of the thumb and various fingers). The pandeiro and tamborim drum fill in the blanks. That's the Brazilian feel -- or, at least, one important one.

  7. #6

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  8. #7
    Nice kriss , Jim hall is good. I see it's airto on drums and percusion He certainly brings authenticity to that date. It is an older style, it's sounds like a samba coming in on the down beat.and it really swings. I wish I could go back in time and be in rio in the 50s and 60s, the music was progressing powerfully , airto represents that energy. Heck I wish I could be in New York in the 50s and 60s too

    thanks. Rpjazz, you are right the accent on that style is going for the tambourine , anticipating the one, and you are right it is one kind of style of samba guitar. The chorinhos show many different strum approaches and luizao is a definitive rio musician.

    this clip shows my deep rio influence , including how deep the dance affects me and how powerful the dance affects the beat. The artist with luizao is two time billboard wold music charting artist, edi Machado

  9. #8


    im continuing with a rio theme here, showing the heavy luizao influence on bass of Diogo brown , with phill fest on guitar, who is son of the late great manfredo fest. And showing the dance that influences this music. Phill kind of hits the rio thing but has other influences. Diogo is from Niterói/ rio so he is coming powerfully from that sound.

    i think the rio aproach for me means you hit that anticipated one thing like the tambourine, as rj noted, with surdo style bass and lay into that hard from beginning until end, like Diogo is doing.

    some people call that style " partido alto" , but it slips back and forth, the regular samba in rio also comes from that surdo feel too.

    im counting on you all to bring in other great Brazil style sambas, there are lots of approaches

  10. #9


    this is some really quality rio samba by paulino da viola , whos father played with jacob do bandolim so he has real samba pedigree

    this is a gentle beautiful song and they keep the groove perking underneath so it never gets too airy or fluffy. i like to push bossas into this feel

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by bonsritmos


    this is some really quality rio samba by paulino da viola , whos father played with jacob do bandolim so he has real samba pedigree

    this is a gentle beautiful song and they keep the groove perking underneath so it never gets too airy or fluffy. i like to push bossas into this feel
    That's nice. There's a style of samba where every bit of space is taken up, and it all meshes and grooves. Then there's another style where it seems like the players are barely touching their instruments -- and the groove is deep. This one is in between -- with the drum playing all the 16ths while the guitar and accordion are sparser. So, it doesn't sound that hard to do, until you try to do it with the same feel.

  12. #11


    before i start bringing in people i havent met or played with , which is quite a few , and there are more ive played with who i want to show but arnt known , id like to show something i think all guitar players around the world and outside of rio in brazil should listen to , if they are interested in playing authentic samba.

    as a guy who has been interested in samba pretty much all my life , since i saw black orpheus at 11 years old , was in the first airto flora copy band in chicago , was a staunch jazz samba player etc i never actualy dreamed i would get to brazil and live in rio for 6 years at first then other places, and the luck to fall in with some of their top players on my first gig there , i can say this is the predominant rio de janeiro samba feel that everyone should at least understand before they want to play variations . this isnt the rich chorinho history , which by all means needs to be checked out and ill bring something in eventualy, but , this is samba from the favela , the roots, where most of the people who live and breath samba year round come from.

    its on cavaclinho , but all guitars should check out the cadence and cop it on guitar...or at least that is exactly what i would do if i wanted to play samba /bossa guitar

    the phrasing of the vocal is where it is at for samba, what a delivery! and the call responce . i couldnt find my favorite bezzera da silva cut , but, you dont have to look far in his musics to find another one that has these fundimentals

    i love all kinds of samba , but , i know this is the roots, id like nothing more than to be in there with a repique de mao hitting with this

  13. #12


    i thought one of you would bring in yamandu costa

    have you heard this guy?

    he would be the high technique accoustic guitar aproach to samba with great knowledge of the history

  14. #13

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    Yamandu is an absolute monster player.

  15. #14
    rp , glad you like yamandu , did the bezzera da silva clip have anything that you could relate to?



    before i bring in anything about chorinho ,here is what anyone who has any interest in samba should check out. whether light airy bossa or jazz samba, its great to see what the inspiration we are all shooting for. at least this is what popular samba in rio looks like . that is samba of the people of rio



    lo and behold , here is a video class about how to play the cavaquinho ( i misspelled it before), to these escola de samba rhythms. looks like he is catching the anticipation with the up beat of the strum . sure,lots of sambas from chorinho have all kinds of strum , on the one, anticipating, the upbeat after the one etc, but, the rio streets seem to be anticipating the one more than not

    like i said, if i wanted to really learn samba guitar, i would be all up into what the cavaquinho is playing to the escola and translate it to guitar

    after i got this down, then i would go into how to air it out and get into the elite harmonic sambas and bossas that are around

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by bonsritmos
    rp , glad you like yamandu , did the bezzera da silva clip have anything that you could relate to?
    That style is what I think of as Pagode. Is that what you'd call it?

    I like Pagode, although most of what I've heard is Grupo Fundo De Quintal players.

    It's a good foundation to have to be able to play samba based jazz.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by bonsritmos
    rp , glad you like yamandu , did the bezzera da silva clip have anything that you could relate to?



    before i bring in anything about chorinho ,here is what anyone who has any interest in samba should check out. whether light airy bossa or jazz samba, its great to see what the inspiration we are all shooting for. at least this is what popular samba in rio looks like . that is samba of the people of rio



    lo and behold , here is a video class about how to play the cavaquinho ( i misspelled it before), to these escola de samba rhythms. looks like he is catching the anticipation with the up beat of the strum . sure,lots of sambas from chorinho have all kinds of strum , on the one, anticipating, the upbeat after the one etc, but, the rio streets seem to be anticipating the one more than not

    like i said, if i wanted to really learn samba guitar, i would be all up into what the cavaquinho is playing to the escola and translate it to guitar

    after i got this down, then i would go into how to air it out and get into the elite harmonic sambas and bossas that are around
    Cavaquinho’s a different technique to Brazilian guitar, as you use a pick, so my experience has been one doesn’t feed into the other as much as you’d think.

    So my rhythm when I play finger style Brazilian guitar is a lot better/less bad than my rhythm for cavaquinho. The instrument isn’t too bad from
    a notes POV- like top four strings with the top string down a tone.

    I think it would be handy to work on cavaquinho for playing ensemble parts with a pick (I often want to do that) and also for its own sake. It’s a cool instrument.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by bonsritmos
    rp , glad you like yamandu , did the bezzera da silva clip have anything that you could relate to?



    before i bring in anything about chorinho ,here is what anyone who has any interest in samba should check out. whether light airy bossa or jazz samba, its great to see what the inspiration we are all shooting for. at least this is what popular samba in rio looks like . that is samba of the people of rio



    lo and behold , here is a video class about how to play the cavaquinho ( i misspelled it before), to these escola de samba rhythms. looks like he is catching the anticipation with the up beat of the strum . sure,lots of sambas from chorinho have all kinds of strum , on the one, anticipating, the upbeat after the one etc, but, the rio streets seem to be anticipating the one more than not

    like i said, if i wanted to really learn samba guitar, i would be all up into what the cavaquinho is playing to the escola and translate it to guitar

    after i got this down, then i would go into how to air it out and get into the elite harmonic sambas and bossas that are around
    Nailing this would have to be good for your time. Like a lot of Samba technique, you can hear the 16th note pulse and all the accents in the same part. Add a rebolo or similar for a low drum part, and a singer, and it's a band.

  19. #18
    definitly , rp jazz, and , i have put up a lot of stuff leaning heavily towards that rio sound. like the tamborim patern you mentioned. by the way , that patern has a name , telecoteco , it is one of several cadences the tamborim has. and, i think the sao paulo drummers you played with, have a differant feel than rio, like you said they said, every city has its own aproach.

    you all have to forgive the fact im going to bring in a couple of youtubes in portuguese, one about some of the originators of chorinho, and the other a docu on tia ciata , who came to rio from bahia and had a condomble house and pixinghinho would play at the bar in this house. its no accident that there are candomble angola beats and codes all in samba , chorinho , bossa , pagode , etc ,all the movements samba has produced. candomble angola is played more with the hands than sticks as in ketu.


    there is narration in portuguese but you can see these artists in this lost film of them.


    this is long and in portuguese so this is only for people who really want to go deeper into the history .just check out the pictures on this docu of tia ciata to get the flavor of how samba was born . but, you dont have to see this to know that tia ciata had a house of candomble and it was a gathering place for various activities

    then , ill bring in one of the last posts ill do on jacob do bandolim. he is the great bandolim player who would have guitar do sete cordas and really evolved a lot on the aproach to string instrument family playing in the samba chorinho developement

  20. #19
    christian , i just saw your post , i totaly agree with what you are saying, but what about if someone uses a pick on electric guitar? its something they could go for

    on accoustic, or jazz finger style, i would just go for getting the syncopation. figuring how to do that syncopation with your technique on accoustic or electric

    rp jazz noticed luizao was catching that in a more simple way on accoustic. he is a bass player so his technique is simple but he is the rio feeling

  21. #20
    the other thing ,christian, if you see the danial santiago first clip i brought in first, that would be the aproach on accoustic guitar...

    so yes, the cavaquinho is doing it his way , and the accoustic guitar has his way, this rio sound aproaching hard on the anticipation ( but older styles come in on the one , from rio also) , they are implying this tamborim cadence against the surdo bass on the 2

    other surdos play an answering cadence but the biggest surdo is on the 2

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by bonsritmos
    the other thing ,christian, if you see the danial santiago first clip i brought in first, that would be the aproach on accoustic guitar...

    so yes, the cavaquinho is doing it his way , and the accoustic guitar has his way, this rio sound aproaching hard on the anticipation ( but older styles come in on the one , from rio also) , they are implying this tamborim cadence against the surdo bass on the 2

    other surdos play an answering cadence but the biggest surdo is on the 2
    I do have this basic knowledge having played a little surdo. And quickly applied it to my guitar playing. (Of course that's the reason we never play the 2nd beat on a higher bass note in brazilian guitar right?)

    Playing the 3rd surdo rhythm I think got my swing a little better.

    Sometimes I experiment with missing out the 1st beat bass note entirely.

    Anyway, there's something VERY intuitive about those upbeat guitar patterns, you just go T F F T F F and rushing is kind of natural to the guitar esp. if you are playing percussively, so it's kind of easy to actually overdo the 4th 1/16th push if anything lol.

    I find a lot harder to push a pick upstroke, I got accused of playing cavaquinho like a trad jazz banjo player (hey, I'm working on it!) but the same instructor complemented me on (or at least was very nice about) my feel on guitar, so there you go.
    Last edited by christianm77; 05-04-2019 at 03:51 PM.

  23. #22

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    No, the tricky thing for me is NOT playing the thumb when there's an irate bass player lol.

  24. #23
    haha christian, it sounds like you are definitly aplying your self to learning about brazilian aproach if you are playing surdo. and exporing these styles you talked about. i think my biggest thing about bringing in some of these clips from the favelas and the escola rehearsals all from rio , is to emphasise what i saw when i got to rio and how i saw more this anticipation aproach and the surdo on 2,than i realised when i was in the states , even as a big brazilian music lover and player. so i wanted to emphasise this on here so people know what i perceived as a dominiate contemporary rio samba aproach. even though rio birthed most of the other aproaches also except the beginning in salvador bahia. youger rio musicians are starting to forget this luizao aproach also , a pity , it is so hip

    but , i havent done this thread justice , i have to admit this, my brazilian guitar playing collegues would laugh at me for not including a bunch of great players, but, let me try to finish this thread with jacob bandolim



    this is the family of strings and jacob do bandolim was so good and had such a powerful influence that many people think the only way to play chorinho is with his aproach with just pandeiro and tamburim .but peixinginho came from developing chorinho at a house of candomble of tia ciata and he would use atabaques and other stuff.but there are chorinho purists who will jump all over you if you dont do it like jacob do bandolim, he had that great an indluence

    more jacob do bandolim

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by bonsritmos
    haha christian, it sounds like you are definitly aplying your self to learning about brazilian aproach if you are playing surdo. and exporing these styles you talked about. i think my biggest thing about bringing in some of these clips from the favelas and the escola rehearsals all from rio , is to emphasise what i saw when i got to rio and how i saw more this anticipation aproach and the surdo on 2,than i realised when i was in the states , even as a big brazilian music lover and player. so i wanted to emphasise this on here so people know what i perceived as a dominiate contemporary rio samba aproach. even though rio birthed most of the other aproaches also except the beginning in salvador bahia. youger rio musicians are starting to forget this luizao aproach also , a pity , it is so hip

    but , i havent done this thread justice , i have to admit this, my brazilian guitar playing collegues would laugh at me for not including a bunch of great players, but, let me try to finish this thread with jacob bandolim



    this is the family of strings and jacob do bandolim was so good and had such a powerful influence that many people think the only way to play chorinho is with his aproach with just pandeiro and tamburim .but peixinginho came from developing chorinho at a house of candomble of tia ciata and he would use atabaques and other stuff.but there are chorinho purists who will jump all over you if you dont do it like jacob do bandolim, he had that great an indluence

    more jacob do bandolim
    Nah total dabbler in this music. But playing in bateria however casually is for me a great help for understanding Samba and bossa guitar. I lucked out on having some great Brazilian teachers for these few sessions.

    I did try to play Choro, but seven string melts my brain and no one has any time for center guitar when the virtuosos can cover that too lol

    Hard music, man

  26. #25

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    I also feel in the UK playing in Samba groups is a rite of passage for jazz players for various reasons.

    I actually think most graduate jazz players have, as much, or more working knowledge about these styles as they do of North American stuff like Second Line, old school swing etc.

    (In UK jazz there was big rift with US jazz around the 1980s ... other influences became important)
    Last edited by christianm77; 05-04-2019 at 04:57 PM.