Some of my Life in Music

Recife 2000, I meet Marco Cesar - mandolin player, educator and recording artist. This man is not only a leading instrumentalist in Brazil appearing on hundreds of recordings but a committed educator, who would travel a hundred miles to the interior of Pernambuco to teach poor communities choro music. I spent almost everyday playing talking, following him from school to restaurant to school. This is inspiration to actually enter the daily life of such a dynamic human being. The man is so overbooked, all his private students gather in a large room in the Conservatorio Pernambuco awaiting lessons. I ended up playing a lot with them while they waited and as well as giving instruction in Improvisation. Marco and Henrique Annes are well known for their direction of Orquestra das Cordas Dedilhadas de Pernambuco, a 12 piece group of plucked instruments (bandolim, various types of guitar, cavaquinho and pandeiro). Versions of this plucked-string orchestra continue to this day exploring choro and the multifold of Northeast music genres (frevo, baião and maracatu).


Henrique Annes is a guitarist with such a refined aesthetic expressed in innumerable short guitar pieces. At the time he had written little down and the man would be worthy of someone to notate his works and do further recording of his solo playing. There is a fine disc of him now available on Kuarup.


Also of note in this visit to Recife was going to the forro at the house of Arlindo de oito baixos, a blind button accordion player with an encyclopedic knowledge of choro and forro. We got a chance to jam with the musicians quite a bit on one occasion. Both Arlindo's sons are fine musicians. One a particularly talented bassist.