The Music of Frevo
of the Carnival of Olinda and Recife,
Pernambuco, Brazil
- Hotel Pousada Peter
 - Art Gallery,
Olinda, Pernambuco, Brazil.




All the songs are in the formate MP3.
To hear the songs, click on the titles.

Três da Tarde

Elefante de Olinda

Banho de Conde

O Homem da Meia-noite

Bate-bate com Doce

Hino da Troça (ceroula)

Hino de Pernambuco (Frevo)


About the Frevo

Accelerated march makes Brazil jump

Frevo is dance-driven march played in a very fast, binary tempo. A derivation of martial polka, it used to be called "northeastern martial music" or "martial music from Pernambuco" in the early days, when capoeira (a type of dance-fight, early break dance, currently played as a game and accompanied by African drums and berimabau - a single string attached to a bamboo stick) dancers led their groups on parades. The bouncing dance steps, which bore a strong resemblance to Russian folk dances, imprinted the specific frevo steps. The colorful parasols carried by frevo dancers represent defense weapons. As lyrics and tune formats were added to frevo, the style took over the country. O Teu Cabelo Não Nega, from 1932, is regarded as the song that established the Carnival marchinhas (literally, "short, quick martial music") made in Rio, although the song was actually a Lamartine Babo adaptation of the frevo Mulata, by Irmãos Valença (from Pernambuco).

The first recording to carry the name of the style was Frevo Pernambucano (Luperce Miranda/Oswaldo Santiago), released by Francisco Alves by the end of 1930. A year later, Nelson Ferreira’s Vamo Se Acabá was recorded by the Orquestra Guanabara and labeled as frevo. Two years before, though, still known as "northeastern martial music", the pioneering Não Puxa Maroca (Nelson Ferreira) had been recorded by the Victor Brasileira orchestra, conducted by Pixinguinha.

On the first half of the decade, numerous radio stars included frevo in their repertoires. In 1950, inspired by the energy of the frevo from Pernambuco and playing on a block of wired wood (an extremely rustic version of the electric guitar), musicians Dodô & Osmar created the prototype of the trio elétrico (a stage built on top of a truck) from Bahia. The trio would only become known across the country in 1979, when Caetano Veloso documented the phenomenon in the song Atrás do Trio Elétrico.

Carnival invasion
In 1957, the frevo Evocação No.1, by Nelson Ferreira and recorded by Bloco Batutas de São José, would take over Rio’s Carnival, knocking down the usual marchinhas and sambas. Local label Mocambo was responsible for most releases from the two greatest frevo composers of all times: Nelson (Heráclito Alves) Ferreira (1902-1976) and Capiba (Lourenço da Fonseca Barbosa, 1904-1997).

The feverish style also made its way into the intimacy of bossa nova: the accelerated compass seduced Tom Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes (Frevo), Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle (Pelas Ruas do Recife) and Edu Lobo (No Cordão da Saideira). Frevo also stimulated Gilberto Gil to include electric guitars in his Frevo Rasgado, in the midst of the tropicalist eruption.

Gal Costa, the girl from Bahia, inserted frevo and funk shades in one of her greatest hits, Festa do Interior (Moraes Moreira/Abel Silva). Carlos Fernando (from Pernambuco) author of the smashing hit Banho de Cheiro, recorded by Elba Ramalho, organized a series of albums called Ases da América in the early 80s. His merit was to gather all-star casts to record frevo tunes: Chico Buarque, Alcione, Lulu Santos, Gilberto Gil, Jackson do Pandeiro, Elba and Zé Ramalho, Geraldo Azevedo, Fagner and Alceu Valença and others. Among those, Alceu, Zé Ramalho and Geraldo Azevedo plus Quinteto Violado, Lenine and Antônio Nóbrega are some of the artists that keep frevo rolling to this day.

Olinda
- The Description of the Town





The Description
of the twenty Churches
of Olinda, Pernambuco, Brazil