The street is their concert hall

If visitors notice one thing about Pelourinho, Salvador, it is usually the music. People gather day and night in this historic district to hear performances that reflect the rich heritage of Brazil's Northeast, a region that has been the source or inspiration for much of the country's best-known music.

In his youth, Heitor Villa-Lobos spent three years traveling around Bahia state, studying the traditional folk music that would profoundly influence his vast output of compositions. In the 1960s, composers and singers such as Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Tom Zé met as university students in Salvador. They would go on to become seminal figures in the avant-garde pop music movement known as Tropicália.

Today, visitors to Pelourinho can hear perennially popular samba and bossa nova numbers, all kinds of classical and jazz repertoires, and examples of several other uniquely Brazilian musical traditions. Among the most conspicuous are the olodum percussion bands, whose thundering rhythms frequently echo up and down Pelourinho's narrow streets and alleys. At night, sidewalk cafes draw fans of chorinhos, jaunty tunes usually played by five-piece instrumental bands that feature a bandolino soloist. Formed as a fusion of Brazilian folk tunes, native dance rhythms, and European styles during the last two decades of the 19th century, chorinhos reached their heyday in the middle of this century but continue to have a devoted and increasingly international following.

On special occasions, Pelourinho is also host to colorful filarmônica marching bands. These uniformed ensembles play only brass, wind and percussion instruments and have their roots in the military marching bands introduced by Portugal during the colonial era. Over the centuries, the original marching music was blended with Brazilian sambas and other local influences, and filarmônicas evolved into well-organized community bands that play at special events and religious festivities.

Fred Dantas, a trombonist, band leader, and owner of a music school in Pelourinho, says filarmônica music continues to be popular because it reminds many people "of their roots, of their personal history, particularly for those of us who grew up in small towns."

Date posted: June, 1999

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