The butter can, genius and samba

In 2019, Brazil woke up with the sad news of the fire in National museum And there, with hands tied, we saw our story being taken by the flames. Ninety percent of the collection in ashes in a much shorter time than the institution’s 200th anniversary. The causes of the fire lead us to an even bigger problem in the country: we preserve our memory little, so too, we accessed it with great difficulty, when we succeeded.

Seeing this sad episode led me to a sad comparison, how things could get here in this country, similar to what did the National Museum of African American History and Culture (National Museum of African American History and Culture) By making an entire floor available to tell about the “musical crossroads” that marked the black music of the US, in the permanent exhibition titled Musical Crossroads. The collection has several objects that tell the story of music there and, before you question the national sovereignty of my column to Rolling Stone BrazilI guarantee that all this here is also about us. Among objects healed by Dra. Dwandalyn Reeceare the trombone of Fred Wesleyinventor with MACECE PARKER and James Brown of the Soul Metal Sauce Language, Funk; the periscope trumpet of DEAZY GILLESPIEBaluarte do Bebop Jazz; Rock and Roll’s guitar, Chuck Berryamong other articles not necessarily musical, such as the jacket of Victoryfrom Michael Jacksonand the iconic Adidas of RUN DMC.

While our story burned over fire, another story was preserved and praised. Today I also want to praise another music genius, who simply led us samba as we know today: Alcebíades Barcelosor simply Bidet.

For this, let’s go back there to 1924, with the recording of the carnival samba Pierced panin the singer’s interpretation Bahian. Hardly someone from the present time would consider her a samba. And I venture to say, if asked why, they will probably say that “rhythm”, a marking. The instrument responsible for marking in samba is the deaf, an invention of the shoemaker Bidetfrom a can of butter – a Latona, as it was at that time. Bidetwhich is also one of the founders of the samba school Estácio de Sácreated the deaf by the need to have an instrument that mark the samba pulse so that the block could parade. In the program recording Rehearsal 1991, by TV Cultura from São Paulo, Fernando Faro conducts an interview with one of the partners of Bidet, Master Marçalthe person responsible for orchestrating the celebrated quartet in samba: tambourine, deaf, tambourine and cuica, and that undoubtedly deserves a column, and also a space in museums just for him.

I want to invite your mind to imagine how Bidet made the first deaf in history, according to his own Marçal: “Bidet He was the inventor of the deaf in samba (…) he took a bag of cement, moistened the paper and put on that 20kg butter can, tied with a wire (…) gave a little warm to the fire just to give a sound. ”This work of Luthiaria was the first step for the creation of the drumming we understand and felt in the body when it plays a samba.

The milestone of this drumming is recorded in the 1929 samba, “In pavuna“. Recorded only four years after“Pierced pan“In it, we can notice a true musical revolution, thanks to the genius of Bidet, Marçal and the sambas of Stadium.

The deaf, the result of the inventiveness of a black man from the beginning of the last century, is this instrument that makes the samba arrive by his wrist, even before we see the samba wheel, hundreds of meters away; It is the instrument that reminds us of the telluric experience of samba, naturally dreamy for its poetry, melody and harmony. Deaf is floor.

In that same floor our ancestors stepped. On this floor, the world we enjoyed freely was freely created and continuity with creations. All of this is memory, the same one that is not properly preserved in our country, unfortunately.

That sad night of the fire National museumwe did not lose the first prototype of the deaf, created by Bidetfor it did not even figure in its collection. It is not in the annals, nor are there official means that may indicate their whereabouts. Her cement bag is probably torn, the wire that wrapped it, rusty, must have broken; The can of butter, also corroded by the action of time, if it has not found another domestic utility, sleeps in some landfill at an splendid crib, because the story that history, as an institution, chooses to tell is the other. Good thing against the fallacy of the unique history, we have a firm, pulsating and samba gift.

+++ Read more: memes, music and voice: older than the internet, older than music itself

• Alcebíades Barcelos

• Bidet

• butter can

• samba