Search - Guilherme Franco :: Capoeira: Legendary Music of Brazil

Listening to this music without actually seeing the astounding acrobatics and physical movement of the capoeira martial art form is sort of like listening to a movie soundtrack without the movie: you miss the visual aspect, but it allows you to hear the music more fully. Guilherme Franco plays the Brazilian berimbau, a kind of bow with a metal string that is struck with a stick. The sound is like no other percussion instrument; it buzzes, it sustains, it alters pitch like a bent note on a steel-string guitar. Capoeira is a mix of solo pieces ("Juna," "Juna Verdadeira"), pieces accompanied by other instruments (drums on "Sao Bento Grande" and "My Beat," rattle on "Batida Nova Rapida," and flute on "Juna Ocarina"), and full-out songs. But this catalog only hints at the richness of this recording and of the sound the berimbau makes when Franco's stick strikes the string. --Genevieve Williams