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That's "us" in the royal sense, although "we" make no claim to royalty (much to the contrary rather). Here at Bahia-Online we -- okay, I -- seek to the best of my ability to give an outsider's inside view of Bahia (and more specifically Salvador), this particular inside/outsider having arrived from New York City in April of 1992 and having lived continuously in Bahia (that is, without having left Bahia) since May of 1992. I make no claims to be an expert on Bahia, or anything else for that matter, but I do write what I've seen with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, or have in some way experienced. If I'm not writing from first-hand knowledge then I'm generally presenting my own version of what has been imparted to me from knowledgable first-hand sources, or in the case of history going back more than one generation, gleaned from knowledgeable academic sources.
The impetus behind the website came of a desire to divulge what I believe is a beautiful (in its way) part of our planet (irrespective of myriad faults, failures, imperfections, and irritants) and its distinctive culture (that culture of which Bahia is palpably redolent, born of the struggle to in some essential sense prevail -- and not simply survive -- in the senzalas and quilombos of the region's past). From 2001 until 2005 Bahia-Online was run out of a back room in the central Salvador neighborhood of Barris (no space, but a great view out over the bay to the peninsula of Itapagipe and the islands of Maré and dos Frades beyond) . Then an epiphany: Pérola Negra (Black Pearl) -- a record store in Pelourinho -- was up for sale. Why not scrape and beg, borrow and buy the place and make it into something of a "headquarters" for Bahia-Online? With lots of great Bahian roots music... And great Brazilian music of all genres (or most anyway, no roqueiros)... Ergo Cana Brava Records! And paperwork and bills and accounting and taxes... Man, as much as I love the music, I miss the simplicity of life in that back room! Tougher rows to hoe there are, I know... I'm living in a society that has had and continues to have more than its fair share of them... Hence the point: If this particular Sparrow (which translates to "Pardal" in Portuguese, that's what I'm called here) or any of the content herein manages to get off the ground at all, that's because it's being hefted on the strong wings of innumerous unknown souls who've walked, worked, sung, suffered, danced, lived and died here in Bahia, people who in their own small but meaningful way have prevailed. P.S. Bahia-Online / Cana Brava's address is Rua João de Deus, 22. So who was João de Deus (John of God)? He -- João de Deus do Nascimento -- was a mulato and one of the leaders of Bahia's 1798 Tailor's Conspiracy (an uprising inspired by the French Revolution)...a man whose desire for justice, equality, and the abolition of slavery were to result in his hanging in 1799 in Salvador's Praça da Piedade.
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  Or there, as you like it... |
  Seaside & City |
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 The Bahian Ethos & Zeitgeist |
  Congresses & Seminars |
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 Stranger in a Strange Land |
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 In the Cradle of Samba |
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 Hottest Rhythms, Coolest Tunes! SAMBA! |
 And others seldom thought of |
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 Epicure for Gods & Mortals |
 Civilized discussion with respect to Bahia & Brazil |
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 From Surfside Partying to Idyllic Splendor |
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 Heaviest Hands |
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 Mobius-Strip Transit |
 More than Newton's 1st law makes the world go round |
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 Far Horizons |
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 Other People and Perspectives, in English & Português |
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 Compromised smile? |
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 By Daniel Bluementhal |
By Alain Zamrini |
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 Encanto de Itapoan, Seaside |
Hotel Redfish, Centro Histórico |
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Cana Brava Records in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
Brazilian music is deep, there's no question about that! And while musical depth is not unique to Brazil, Brazil's harnessing of depth and warmth to complex and sophisticated rhythms makes it a source of enormous richness to a people -- including many musicians -- who don't have such richness in a more material sense.
Cana Brava Records was founded as an outlet for the music of Bahia and Brazil's Nordeste (Northeast, an ethnographic entity unto its own, defined by hardship and spirited resilience), and as an outlet for hard-to-find music in Salvador (while making room for Brazil's consecrated artists, Cartola, Jobim, et al, and styles ranging from the sambas of Rio's morros - hills - to choro - "cry", a style which gave birth some of Brazil's most beautiful compositions and most extraordinary instrumentalists, per which, below, is the trailer to Finnish-born Salvador resident Mika Kaurismäki's 2005 choro documentary, Brasileirinho).
Hamlet said: "I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." The dreams of the composers, singers, and instrumentalists beneath our arches pulse and soar through space and time, extending our shop beyond its walls to the plantations beyond the bay, to the backlands, to the terreiros de candomblé, to the hills ringing Guanabara, to the gafieiras (dancehalls) of 1930s Lapa, the Ipanema of the 1950s and 60s... Our shop is small, but it encompasses a universe!
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Up from Slavery
Picaresque Opulence
The World's, Biggest, Party
Writer Bennet Paris
The Sacred and the Profana
Blood, Sweat, Prayers (and Sugar)
Cloves, Cachaça, & Stupidly Cold Beer
If the world is a stage, this is the bandstand.
Takin' it to the Streets
Dance like a Baryshnikov...hit like a Kalashnikov
Ubiquitous Deities: 1,165 sacred houses in Salvador alone
Salvador S.O.S.
Manorial, Shantified, Towering, Humbly Jumbled
Runaway Slave Villages and Relaxing Millionaires
Up the Underbelly!
A tongue like molten pewter
Zoom out
Hedge Caveat Emptor
'Round Back of Olodumaré's Universe
Accoutrements
Tropical Variance
Páginas Pessoais de Músicos Brasileiros
Personal Music Pages
