Grupo Batuque is a constantly shifting samba collective of veteran Brazilian percussionists, drummers and musicians assembled by Joe Davis of Far Out Recordings
Members include; Ivan Conti, Wilson des Neves, Dom Chacal, Zezinho, Robertinho Silva, Aleuda, Aparacedinha, Leo Leobonz, Roc Hunter, Cidinho Moreira and many more.
The idea came about in Rio ’96 during three long hot days of Carnival. Far Out Recordings hired a studio and gathered some of the finest percussionist and musicians, with also artists from local samba schools based in favelas, to create this ‘percussion project.’ This resulted in ‘Samba de Rua’ the first album from Grupo Batuque, an album full of rural street batucadas and samba – encapsulating the music and atmosphere of the Carnival.
Grupo Batuque have gone on to release another four albums with Far Out Recordings, becoming one of the labels most successful projects. Their second album ‘Samba de Futebol’ was a percussion driven project. The idea for this album came from Brazil’s passion and love for football. This LP focuses on Brazil’s most successful team and favourite of the band, Flamengo. To convey the power of their batucadas additional percussive force is provided by members of Imperio Serrano, one of Rio’s most traditional samba schools, led by Wilson das Neves (musical director), ensuring a series of tough driving batucadas. In addition, the legendary and late Dom Um Romao provided us with two outstanding tracks dedicated to football.
Their third album ‘Africa Brazil’ was produced by Joe Davis and arranged by Ivan Conti; documenting how Brazilian music is influenced by African music. The African influences on the music and culture of Brazilian life cannot be overstated, with up to 5 million Africans from Ghana, Angola, Zaire and Nigeria, transplanted from their native lands to work as slaves in the plantations in Northeast Brazil in the 19th century. The immigrants brought with them their dance, language and religion which they integrated with the catholic and European culture brought by the colonial Portuguese. This music provided the soundtrack to the Orixia based religion Candomble and the acrobatic martial art Capoeira which both grew from the African culture newly arrived in Brazil. Grupo Batuque received a Grammy Nomination for this album.
After the success of ‘Africa Brazil’ Far Out Recordings decided to take the project further by releasing ‘Rhythmix’ which featured remixes of tracks from the previous two albums featuring the talents and concepts of 4 Hero, Big Bang, Fauna Flash, Viper Squad, Rock Hunter, Jamie Anderson, Osunlade, Zero dB, Masters At Work and Da Lata. They tried to keep the afro flavour in the album but also took it back to Brazil and samba.
Their fifth album was called ‘O Tempo Do Samba’ and was often described as a feel good, up-tempo hit. The core of the album was written by Ivan Conti and produced by Roc Hunter who were helped by infamous percussionist Cidinho Moreira. Moreira was backed up on percussion by Pirulito, who in the 70’s was a regular member of Jorge Ben’s legendary Banda Ze Pretinho. It also features Nico Rezende, a famous Brazilian pianist who had major success in the 80s as did composer, songwriter and saxophonist Leo Gandelman who worked on the searing horn arrangements that punctuate the album. The two lead vocalists are Fabiola and Claudemir De Silva. Fabiola was a popular Samba singers from in 70s to the 90s whilst newcomer Claudemir is both a poet and Sambista whose talent started getting recognised after appearing on this album.
The project has since been put on hold but there are plans to re ignite and record a further CD.
Discography
Olê Olá –Futebol Bonito – 1997 (Far Out Recordings)
O Tempo Do Samba – 2001 (Far Out Recordings)
Rhythmix – 2002 (Far Out Recordings)
Africa Brazil – 2004 (Far Out Recordings)
Samba de Futebol – 2005 (Far Out Recordings)
Samba de Rua – 2006 (Far Out Recordings)
