Djalma Correa - Baiafro LP 1978 Brazilian Import 1st Press MPBC Masterpiece Rare

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Djalma Correa - Baiafro LP 1978 Brazilian Import 1st Pressing MPBC Masterpiece Rare
Djalma Correa's masterpiece evoking connections between Brazil and Africa.  Powerful rhythmic section and ancestral instrumental songs. 
"Agility, creativity and rhythmic mastery make Djalma Corrêa one of the most vigorous percussionists of our time. As a good Minas Gerais native, he has been working slowly and steadily over the years to build a solid career as an instrumentalist, based on research, study and a lot of determination. Djalma owns instruments, including atabaques and drums of all types and sizes, snake charmers' flutes, pots and chamber pots. Not to mention the instruments that he himself invents and builds.
The most striking characteristic of Brazilian Popular Music has always been its rhythmic richness. Unjustly relegated to the status of "kitchen", percussion is here redeemed by the hands of Djalma who knows, like few others, how to discover the silences and pulses in the polyrhythm of life. He found balance in the green hills of Ouro Preto, his hometown, where he alternated mischief with processional songs and practiced his first notes. In Belo Horizonte, he learns to play the drums and brings joy the young people's parties with their bossa nova groups. At the age of 17, he went to study Percussion and Composition in the Music seminars of the Federal University of Bahia.
That's where the spice comes in. He mixed the baroque of Minas Gerais with the palm oil, pepper and leaves of the rich Bahian cuisine and deepened the Afro-Brazilian taste. He stayed in Salvador until 1976. During these 17 years, he developed intense research in the Candomblé temples, and, with a tape recorder in hand, he interviewed priests and saints, learned the ritual rhythms and was surprised by the rich cultural universe that surrounds black Bahia.
In 1964, together with Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia, among others, he performed the show "Nós, Por Exemplo", a starting point in the artistic and musical career of each. At the same time, he participated in several classical music festivals of the time with his electronic music compositions. He did photography and composed soundtracks for films and theater. In 1970, he created the music and dance group BAIAFRO, with which he recorded an LP released abroad - "Salomão - The Dave Pike Set and Grupo Baiafro in Bahia" and toured and performed throughout the country, sponsored by the Instituto Cultural Brasil-Alemanha. In 1975, Djalma participated as a special guest in the shows that the German guitarist Volker Kriegel and the Mild Maniac Orchestra performed in Brazil. In 1976, he met the four Bahians again in Rio and together they returned to the stage in the show "Os Doces Bárbaros". In November of the same year, he went to Italy with Maria Bethânia for the reopening show of the Teatro Sistina. In 1977, he produced the LP "Candomblé", on the PHILIPS label and participated with Gilberto Gil in the Festival of Black Art and Culture, in Lagos, Nigeria, also playing with him in the "show" and LP "Refavela". Djalma Corrêa was responsible for the execution of the PHONOGRAM Project for Research and Documentation of the Folklore of Brazil, held from 73 to 75, throughout the national territory and which brings together in tape, film and photography the most characteristic manifestations of our culture. To speak of Djalma is to speak of a multifaceted, sanguine musician, a Magician of Sound, a "wizard" of the creative and transforming polyrhythm of the Brazilian race."
"HOMAGE TO A KNOWN INDIAN" - highlights the musicality of the prose and song of a dialect of the Gê linguistic trunk. The recreation of the natural atmosphere is achieved through chirps, flutes and small native drums. This Indian was found a few years ago on the streets of Salvador.
"SAMBA DE RODA NA CAPOEIRA" - is a slightly more erudite way of singing samba de roda and capoeira, two of the most authentic popular manifestations of the good land. In the verses, an allusion to the police repression that capoeira suffered in the past, overcome thanks to the malice and cunning of our people.
"BAIAFRO" - transfuses African matrices into the Brazilian rhythmic universe.
"SAMBA DE OUSADIA" - a good-natured chat between the cuíca of the excellent instrumentalist Neném and the talking drum of Djalma. The dialogue evolves into a hot samba, the kind that in Bahia is usually called "daring", with all the ingredients of black sensuality.
"BANJILÓGRAFO" - is a small box containing keys (similar to a typewriter) on thin strings. The melodic line is provided by the country guitar of Sodré, a Bahian native of Santo Amaro da Purificação.
"OS 4 ELEMENTOS" - an experimental work that starts from the natural sound of Water/Earth/Air/Fire and adds it to the song and ritual touch of the corresponding Orixá. As is known, the deities of the Afro-Brazilian pantheon represent, for the most part, the elemental forces of nature.
"CUIA PIANO" (Kissange) - was widely used by slaves during the colonial period of Brazil. The piano used in this recording was built by Djalma who, in his research, found some remains of this instrument among African descendants.
"ALL WOODEN" - includes a wide variety of instruments made of this material, including the balafon, Moroccan flute, gourds, drums, blocks and bracelets.
Djalma Corrêa has a remarkable career as a percussionist. In the 1960s and 1970s, he lived in Bahia and there developed an important work of research and artistic creation strongly inspired by the percussive expressions of Bahian popular culture. I highlight the creation of the group Baiafro, in 1970, a pioneering work in the construction of an Afro-diasporic artistic language. In a recent conversation with Djalma Corrêa about the work of the group, he told me that he considers it one of the great works he did on black culture and says that the idea of ​​Baiafro always remained with him, even after the end of the Integrated Baiafro Movement. “I remained faithful to the principles of Baiafro. Baiafro is inside me. Inside my head to this day.” Below, I present the paths taken by Djalma and seek to situate the importance of his percussion in Brazilian phonography, especially in the so-called MPB