Music Northeast

In Salvador, the most popular musical styles are Axe and Samba Reggae. Samba Reggae is a style originally popularized by Olodum, a group founded in 1979 that also doubles as a community organization. Samba-reggae arose in the context of the black pride movement and many of  Olodum's songs are Salvador Carnaval anthems performed by a large percentage of all the other many musical groups

Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) is Brazil’s version of urban pop and encompasses whatever is being played on the airwaves.

Batucada is basically samba for percussion. If you close your eyes and let the drums take over, you’ll be transported. You won’t need a partner. You won’t even need sustenance. You might find yourself in a crowded nightclub or in the middle of a street filled with Carnaval revelers.

• up to 3 berimbaus
• up to 2 pandeiros
• 1 agogô
• 1 reco-reco (notched wooden tube similar to a Guiro)
• 1 atabaque or conga

The berimbaus preside over the roda, and specifically the gunga, the lowest sounding of the three berimbaus.

Samba de Roda  A lively,rhythmical dance of Brazilian origin in 2/4 time danced under the Samba music. However, there are three steps to every bar, making the Samba feel like a 3/4 timed dance. Its origins include the Maxixe.

Samba de roda was brought to Rio de Janeiro by Bahian immigrants around 1900, where it was combined with harmonic and rhythmic elements from European influences (such as chorinho and military marches). By the 1930s, samba de roda had developed into the faster, more harmonically complex Rio-style samba that is now played in Rio's Carnival.

Samba Dance: The Samba music rhythm has been danced in Brazil since its inception in the late 19th century. There is actually a set of dances, rather than a single dance, that define the Samba dancing scene in Brazil; thus, no one dance can be claimed with certainty as the "original" Samba style. Another major stream of the Samba dance besides the Brazilian Samba dancing styles is Ballroom Samba which differs significantly.

Some call it the Mother of Samba... daughter of the semba carried to Bahia by Bantus and from there to Rio de Janeiro where it still reigns as Samba today

Trio Electrico: In 1950, Adolfo Dodô Nascimento and Osmar Álvares Macêdo, better known as Dodô and Osmar created the Fobica, an open float adapted for musical presentations, and the 'trio elétrico was born. By 1952, the term trio elétrico had become generic, in reference to a truck or bus carrying musicians around during Bahian carnival. In 1969, Caetano Veloso’s song, Atrás do trio-elétrico (Behind the trio-elétrico) popularized the Trio Elétrico sound nationwide. Today, the presence Trio Elétrico trucks is one of the main attractions of the Carnaval da Bahia.

Samba-reggae represents an effort by black Brazilians to develop a Carnival parade music that they could call their own. There are typical 3 or 4 surdo (bass drum) parts in samba-reggae. The surdos are 50cm deep, shorter drum than the classic Rio size of 60cm. Surdos in samba-reggae are usually worn quite low on the body with a waist strap; in Rio they are more likely to be worn higher and with a shoulder strap.

"We were going to call it Black Power," said President Antônio Carlos Vovô, "but the police advised us not to." As Brazil's military dictatorship [1964-85]  was had a tough reputation for dealing with opposition the leadership relented.

"Negritude" or Black Beauty: One of Ilê Aiyê's aims is to combat the general Brazilian (and world) notion that beauty and glamor are the realm of light-skinned women. They promote the idea of beleza negra, or "black beauty". Each year, they hold a beauty contest of dark-skinned, African-featured women. It is one of their biggest annual events.

Surdo as a lead instrument in Bahia, where their role extends into providing complex beats and leads. The participation of an all-black bloco in Salvador's Carnival was a watershed event. Many other afro blocos were founded shortly afterwards, and all played the same rhythmic pattern. Musically, Ilê Aiyê's major innovations to samba were the addition of a new 4th surdo playing rapid rolls with two mallets, the addition of a reggae backbeat played by the snare drums (caixas), and the creation of a new clave pattern that is a blend of samba-de-roda clave with a reggae backbeat. They retained many aspects of samba, such as samba's 3 surdos, and a repinique pattern that was played with hand and stick.

Candomble: The deities of Candomblé are called orixás (orishas), who protect and assist their human devotees. Candomblé ceremonies are dances to honor the orixás. During the ceremony, which can last all night, the dancers fall into a trance, and the axé, or spiritual life force, of an orixá possesses the dancer's body. The rhythms and dances of Candomblé are specific to each of the orixás. Most Candomblé music is centered on atabaque hand drums, which are similar to congas. The music and lyrical themes of the Salvador blocos have been heavily influenced by Candomblé, including the invocation of the orixás. Ilê Aiyê, in particular, incorporate Candomblé rhythms and themes into their music.

Meanwhile, the carnaval blocos began to evolve and branch out into various currents of aesthetic, musical, and even religious manifestations. While the afoxés, whose members brought their Afro-Brazilian religious cosmology to the Caranaval procession by maintaining their African roots with the puxada do ijexá (a rhythm played in honor of the orixás or Afro-Brazilian deities), the flourishing middle class blocos mostly relied on carnaval music styled on Rio de Janeiro’s samba-enrredos.

Then the Afro-blocos emerged with an aesthetical proposal extrapolated from the Indian blocos, introducing some fundamental innovations in the process: parades revolved around themes and music was tailored to fit the occasion. During this phase, Bahia’s street carnaval was infused with the glamour and elitism propagated by carnaval clubs, initiating a slight reversal of the egalitarian ideal.

With the emergence of new Bahian talent who continued to popularize regional rhythms, Carnaval became more of an organized affair though it somehow retained its informality and contagious spontaneity. The success of Luiz Caldas, Sara Jane, and Chiclete com Banana, along with the evolution of Ilê-Ayê and the emergence of Olodum played a part in transforming Salvador’s Carnaval into the biggest, longest, most itinerant open air show in the world. The upper and middle classes finally succumbed to the Carnaval –inspired ideal of racial harmony and by the end of the 80s the pre-lent celebration entered a process of irreversible debauchery. Street carnaval came to represent the collective identity of Bahian Carnaval.

During the carnival of 1986, this new style of music, known as samba-reggae, made its debut. Olodum had combined the traditional samba with sounds from a number of other Caribbean music genres, including: merengue, salsa, and reggae. The toques, or "drumming patterns", that categorized the samba-reggae beat was composed of "a pattern in which the surdo bass drums divided themselves into four or five interlocking parts. Against this, the high-pitched repiques and caixes filled out the pattern with fixed and repeated rhythms in a slow tempo, imitating the shuffle feel of reggae." In 1986, the phrase "samba-reggae" was used for the first time to describe the music of Olodum, and, by extension, of the other afro blocos as well. Olodum became progressively more well known, and recorded with Paul Simon, Michael Jackson, and many prominent Brazilian musicians. Over time, most afro blocos converted to Olodum's style of playing the repinique. In the 1990s, Ilê Aiyê finally converted to the Olodum two-rod style.

In Olodum, the mestre typically leads with hand cues only and no whistle; this was Neguinho's style of leading. Olodum only uses caixas, repiniques and surdos. Other groups may incorporate additional instruments, such as timbal, atabaque, and tamborim.

The root of axé is in guitarra baiana, a 1950s guitar style that used electric guitars to play the frevo from Pernambuco. This genre was purely instrumental, and remained so until the 1970s, when Moraes Moreira (of the band Novos Baianos) went solo. Axé  music also fuses different Afro-caribbean genres, such as Caribe's Marcha and Reggae, with its fusian genre that is known as Calypso. Then some add other Northeaster afro-brasilian music like Frevo, Forró and Carixada to thier Axe music.

Important creators of this music style were Alfredo Moura, Carlinhos Brown, Luiz Caldas, Sarajane and others. The word "axé" comes from a greeting ritual used in the Candomblé and Umbanda religions that means "good vibration" and has been used as a greeting that means "Peace be with you."

Ironically, Mercury’s huge success on a national scale transformed her into Bahian Carnaval’s main artist. She reached that distinction long after having conquered a niche in Bahia and having participated in many carnavals.

Carnival bands like Filhos de Gandhi, Olodum and Muzenza have fused the electric frevo with maracatu and Olodum rhythms, African ijexá and Caribbean merengue to create their own version of Axe.

The release of O Canto da Cidade set the stage for artist and bands like Ivete Sangalo, Banda Cheiro de Amor, Banda Eva, Bandamel, Asa de Águia and Chiclete com Banana.

The year of 1995 saw one of the biggest commercial successes to come out of Salvador, Gera Samba (renamed É o Tchan), who pioneered a sexy image and crossover appeal, and was very criticized because of this.

Currently, the biggest axé music stars are Ivete Sangalo and Cláudia Leitte.