Where to buy cd's in Bahia

A quick note on where to buy Brazilian cd's in Bahia.

My favorite is Bahia Online in Pelourinho. (that's actually the name of their website - the store now goes by the name Cana Brava). It are almost at the end of Pelourinho, just before the very steep triangular plaza. It's owned by an American fellow who loves Brazilian music and who has a great collection of the best stuff of every genre - including old out-of-print LP's.

I had not been in that store five minutes before his charming wife, Ruth, had me seated by the cd player and was pouring piles of cd's into my hands for me to listen to.

Her sales technique was very savvy: She just had me play a bunch of cds on the cd player, and she watched me. She watched me lift an eyebrow at a pandeiro fill, smile at a particular vocal entrance...

After a few minutes of studying me as I listened to various songs, she'd clearly deduced "She likes pandeiro, samba de roda, choro, old-style recordings, recordings with prominent percussion, deep impressive voices, and recordings of ethnomusicological interest". From there on it was like the Netflix on steroids - in a few moments she'd handpicked 15 different cds from around the store and had piled them all in my lap, including: several magnificent choro recordings (including Tira Poeira's first cd, which I've been hunting for for a year!), two cd's of fantastic field recording of old-style samba-de-roda, a remastered recording of a wonderful samba guitarist of the 1970's, two or three small samba-choro bands that turned out to be absolute gems, some brilliant mandolin recordings, a masterful flute-and-guitar duo, and an overwhelmingly beautiful cd of ancient slave songs that had been recorded from the last elderly children-of-Brazilian-slaves in Rio just before they'd died.

I staggered out of the store laden with wonderful cd's. (ironic since I've just been trying to reduce the size of my cd collection. But I guess I was just making room for more good stuff, huh?)

Two days later I stopped by to inquire about a show I'd heard about. The second I poked my head in the door, not only did she recognize me instantly, but she called out, "Look what just arrived! A wonderful documentary dvd movie about samba-de-roda!" Of course I got it, how could I not? (And then she found out about the show for me, which turned out not to be happening after all; and instead she steered me toward a great choro group that was playing in Rio Vermelho that night. All of which culminated in an invitation from the guitar player to come sit in with them on pandeiro on Saturday. Thanks, Cana Brava!!!)

A second excellent music store in Pelourinho is Midia Louca. They are down on a different side street, on a corner just across the street from the Laranjeiras hostel. They've got two locations, one in Pelourinho and one in Rio Vermelho.

Cana Brava is probably better if you want just the very best stuff; I've never bought a bad cd from Cana Brava. But Midia Louca's got a broader cross-section of stuff, if you just want a wider selection, and also has books about music. The Midia Louca in Pelourinho is where I made my best music-book find: I'd been browsing in the store for almost an hour, was about to leave, and happened to turn my head to the side and my eye was caught by this:

"Play Along Choro - Pandeiro - by Celsinho Silva"

Celso Silva! My pandeiro teacher in Rio! The god of choro pandeiro!

It was a brand-new book. It turns out the choro masters at the Escola Portatil in Rio have just made a new series of books for learning choro, and I had stumbled across the pandeiro volume. Here's what it is. What they've done is recorded a set of classic choro tunes, with 1 instrument in one stereo track and all the other instruments in the other track. So you can hear your instrument in isolation, turn it up and play along with a master, and (later when you're up to it) turn it down and play by yourself with the rest of the band. They've also written out all the tunes. The best thing is, they've made different versions of the cd - one with the pandeiro isolated, one with the guitar isolated, etc. Then, each of the master players - the guitar player, the mandolin player, etc., and my teacher Celso for pandeiro - has written a full book to go along with it, with full scores, notes on how to approach each tune, lists of the best players for that instrument, a recommended discography for that instrument. So what I'd found in Midia Louca was the pandeiro volume.

I am so excited to have found this book! It's just what I need.

Also, the second half of the book has a full translation into English, for those who don't speak Portuguese.

GOLD MINE, for those of us who are into choro.

Later I chased down Midia Louca's other location in Rio Vermelho, bought another copy of the pandeiro volume & their sole copy of the guitar volume as well. Plus I found another cd that was on my search-list for choro pandeiro - Choro Rasgado.

PLUS, I found a Brazilian book that I decided would be perfect to be my First Book in Portuguese by a Real Brazilian Author (i.e. not counting the translations of Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter that I've been working my way through). I know I should be tackling Jorge Amado or somebody classic like that, but what I found just looked much more my style: It's a murder mystery set in Salvador, involving the murder of a Carnaval pop-star singer, who is mysteriously shot dead right on top of a trio electrico, during a lightning storm right in the middle of a Carnaval parade. How perfect is that for my first real Brazilian novel?