Brazil has a very deserving reputation for serving up good music. I think everyone has at least of vague conception of what Brazilian music is. What do you think of? The Girl from Ipanema? Big Carnival bands on the streets of Rio, women with huge feathered headdresses and skimpy clothes?
The Girl from Ipanema is Bossa Nova, a combination of samba and jazz. It’s basically a samba-like rhythm with jazz chord changes.
Samba is an important native Brazilian style, distinguished by a lot of percussion, like drums and the pandeiro, similar to a tambourine, and is usually led by guitar and cavaco, a little guitar-like instrument.
Samba is similar to pagode. From seeing both styles live in Brazil, I think pagode is basically samba with a more traditional band setup – including bass and drum kit – and more pop-like song arrangements. Some people said they didn’t like it because of cheesy love-song lyrics.
A mix of all these is MPB - Música Popular Brasileira. One of the greatest of these groups was Novos Bainanos. It’s mostly a mix of samba and rock.
I think Bela Fleck is a major figure in world music. Widely considered the best banjo player ever, he travels the world making all kinds of music and jamming with many diverse musicians.
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