Why is this Country Dancing? ; A One-Man Samba to the Beat of Brazil

An in-depth study of how the country incorporates music into its daily life and into its rituals for mourning and celebration

Over the course of three years during the late 1980s, Krich ( El Beisbol ) traveled from Rio to Sao Paulo to Sao Luis to Bahia to Recife to tiny Exu to create this uneven travelogue. In keeping with Brazil's famed fertility, each town has its own sound: some, such as samba , bossa nova and lambada , are well known; others, like carimbo , forro and baiao , are not. Most are represented in mini-discographies after each chapter called "Music to Read By." Those three years translated into three carnivals as well, in Bahia, Recife/Olinda and Rio, though Krich participates in the latter, as most Brazilians do, only through the overwrought television coverage. But it is the musicians who steal the show, men mostly who have combined music from Brazil's European, aboriginal and, above all, African roots with lyrics from the country's experiences of poverty, segregation, dictatorship and torture. Brazil is colorful enough (witness Alma Guillermoprieto's straightforward but interesting book, Samba ) without Krich's hyper-tinted prose, a collection of the pleonastic ("decadent decay"), the scatological (" samba of the 'Turd World' ") or just simplistic ("Brazilian television, like Brazilian culture, is fixed somewhere around the third grade.").
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

To answer the question posed by the title, Krich offers a thoroughly captivating exploration of a nation's soul through an examination of its music. His encounters with such notable musicians as Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, and Gilberto Gil communicate the centrality of music in Brazilian culture. A unique offering is the discographies at the end of each chapter, which provide access to the rhythms described in the preceding pages. Why Is This Country Dancing? not only serves as a superb introduction to the sounds of samba, forro, and frevo but it initiates the reader to this vast nation's language, history, and socioeconomic conditions. This work is certain to appeal to a broad audience and is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
- Stephen Newcomer, Los Angeles P.L.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.