"What you are hearing is nothing more, and nothing less, than the unadulterated joy of simply being alive..."

What's on (and the intensity of what's on) in Salvador tends to ride a seasonal wave, with the wave cresting during Carnival and the trough coming during the (Brazilian) winter months of July, August, and September, after the June festivities have passed.  With the advent of October the wave -- of people seated outside at the simple streetside bars and moving on the dancefloors of places ranging from chic and sleek to rustic down home slapdash-- begins to build again.

One-off affairs are listed first below, followed by weekly or regularly scheduled happenings.  Please keep in mind both that cover charges may change and that things generally get going later than they are supposed to in Bahia.

And, my guide is not all-inclusive. Things are very scattershot here in Salvador, in the sense that there are few places where such-and-such type of music happens on a regular basis. Parties are scheduled, things come and go, and happenings that don't engage my interest at all happen (the kind of stuff I ran away from in downtown Manhattan, or maybe in the case of dancehall, Brooklyn) so I don't bother to acknowledge them here.

So...

In addition to the personal annotations below I'm including a link here to Helder Barbosa's site Aldeia Nagô ("Nagô Village"; the Nagôs were a subgroup of Yorubans whose culture remains profoundly influential here in Bahia). The "Música" link in the column on the left hand side will take one to a daily listing of musical events (this service depends on the musicians themselves putting up notices of their performances, so it is not all-inclusive, but it is nevertheless a good guide).

Below that link is online guide Agenda Pelourinho Cultural, courtesy of the state of Bahia.

Below both these links I'm including a link to the Google Translator. Non-Portuguese speaking users can copy and paste the relevant page's URL into the Google window and get a for-the-most-part understandable translation.

Aldeia Nagô's site is here: http://www.aldeianago.com.br/

Agenda Pelourinho Cultural is here: http://www.pelourinho.ba.gov.br/

Google's translation page is here: http://translate.google.com/translate_t

Nightly in Salvador, Monday Through Saturday

What: Balé Folclórico da Bahia
Where: Teatro Miguel Santana in Pelourinho, at Rua Gregôrio de Mattos (also and originally called Rua Maciel de Baixo), 49
When: Monday through Friday, with the exception of Tuesdays
What Time: 8 p.m., duration one hour
Entrance: 25 reais, half-price for students
Notes: This exuberant show should most definitely not be missed by anybody coming to Bahia!  It is an elegant, breathtakingly athletic exhibition of Afro-Bahian beauty and prowess, and in the small theater the audience almost melds into the space through which the dancers fly. 

Tickets at the door, but frequently the show sells out and so advance purchases of tickets may be made at the theater on show days, beginning at 2 p.m. during the week and 4:30 p.m on Saturdays.

Daily & Nightly in Salvador, Mondays Through Saturdays
A Plethora of Musical Richness at...

Where: Rua João de Deus, 22, in Pelourinho
What: Marvelous Brazilian music
What Time: From 10 a.m. 'til late, Monday through Saturday
Telephone: 3321-0536
Entrance: All you gotta do is blow through the door.

Notes: Well, this isn't a show or a dance or anything...it's Bahia-Online's record (CD) shop and budding production facility.  But there is much more than a mere measure of entertainment in here so I hope I won't be judged too harshly by its inclusion on a what-to-do page.  And between the sambas and the beaches, and whatever else you find to do here in Salvador, you may find it worth your while to spend an off-moment with us, and Cartola, and Ilê Aiyê, and Vinícius de Moraes, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Rosa Passos, and Raimundo Sodré, and Maria Bethânia, and Bule-Bule, and João Gilberto, and Carlinhos Brown, and Margareth Menezes,  and Dorival Caymmi, and Caetano Veloso, and Ramiro Musotto, and Gilberto Gil, and Gal Costa, and Ary Barroso, and Luiz Gonzaga, and Paulinho da Viola...and even Luciano Calazans (below)!

The shop in Salvador...

And in case you're wondering what the "Recôncavo" in the sign to the right is, it is the great concave-shaped region around the Bay of All Saints (Baia de Todos os Santos) where the majority of Bahia's sugarcane plantations were (and are) located. It was on these plantations that the Bantus brought unwillingly to Bahia would sing out, clap, and dance to their music -- a wonderful and uplifting music which would come to be called "samba-chula" or "samba-de-roda" and which would go on to become the national music of Brazil.

The location in Pelourinho...

Monday Nights

What: Choro
Where: In the Teatro Vila Velha, which is located in the Passeio Público on Avenida Sete de Setembro, close to Campo Grande. You go through the arch and straight back to the theater (blocky and unprepossessing)...the entrance is down an inclining walkway to the right as one is directly in front of the theater. Once inside one must wind around a bit to get to where the choro takes place, but that's where most of the activity in the theater is at that hour and so it's easy to find.
What Time: From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Entrance: 10 reais, 5 with student I.D.

Cacau do Pandeiro

Notes: Excellent choro played by a group of young musicians together with eighty-something year old pandeiro master Cacau do Pandeiro, and guest artists. The ambience of the room is kind of informal university theater, with a bar at the back where one can buy beer, soft drinks, snacks, etc. The crowd tends towards polite grey-haired heads (not rowdy grey-haired heads like mine and Cacau's).

What: Grupo Afro-Batá, Afro-Cuban-Candomblé-Samba music featuring Aloísio Menezes and Portela Açucar from Cortejo Afro.
Where: Pelourinho's Praça Tereza Batista
What Time: Begins at 9 p.m.
Entrance: Free
Notes: I haven't seen these guys yet, but their publicity says that their material includes songs by Nelson Cavaquinho and Geraldo Pereira, so as far as I'm concerned they get an automatic thumbs up!

What: Pimentinha
What Time: From 8 p.m.
Location: In Boca do Rio at Rua Dom Eugênio Sales, 11
How to Get There: By taxi.  From Barra or Pelourinho the fare should come to between 25 and 30 reais.
Notes: A very strange bar run by an androgynous pai/mãe de santo (Anísio Augusto Pimenta Filho, nicknamed and hence Pimentinha) who ritualistically blesses patrons as they enter with water cast from shaken leaves. Live music, a group called Tropikola nowadays, playing salsa, merengues, cumbias, etc. (the group consists of Spanish-speaking Latin American immigrants to Salvador). Monday night is the big night here, and the only night.  Bizarre and popular.

Mural in front of Pimentinha

Tuesday Nights

What: Benção ("Blessing")
Where: Pelourinho, of course!
What Time: Begins shortly after sunset
Entrance: None
Notes: The general Tuesday night madness in Pelourinho.  The first and last Tuesdays of the month are generally the biggest nights (that's when people get paid), and things also heat up as Salvador does in general moving into the Brazilian spring and summer.

Don't Miss Gerônimo and Banda Mont Serrat!...

Part of the above, beginning at 7 p.m. or so and running to sometime between 10 and 11 p.m., is the live music on the steps leading up to the Igreja (Church) do Passo from the Ladeira do Carmo (the sloping street connecting Pelourinho to the neighborhood of Santo Antônio).  Gerônimo (writer of É d'Oxum --a beautiful ijexá-based composition which has become Salvador's unofficial theme song -- along with a lot of other great material which has been recorded by a host of Brazilian greats) sets up a stage these nights at the bottom of the steps for a free show of music featuring his band Mont Serrat (top flight; great horn section, excellent rhythm section, killer jazz guitar!) and various friends who sit in, the steps serving as an amphitheater.  It's a really nice scene, and it's really nice that Gerônimo goes out of his way to do this -- the sound equipment is his own -- particularly in light of the fact that the coin he receives for his considerable efforts consists of nothing beyond the good will he and his compatriots garner.

The show opens with a padê to Exu -- the orixá responsible for opening the pathway allowing the other orixás to descend -- and closes with an homage to Oxossi (the hunter). It is extremely popular! (And being so, in addition to the very nice crowd it attracts, it also attracts pickpockets, so be suitably prepared!)

Gerônimo and Banda Mont Serrat

Two interesting points about the steps: They were built over the church's ossuary, and they were the locale of an important scene (below) in the film O Pagador de Promessas ( The Payer - or Keeper - of Promises), which won the 1962 Palm d'Or at Cannes.

click to watch

Protagonist Zé do Burro after carrying his cross up the stairway in front of the Igreja do Passo, endpoint of an odyssey from the Bahian hinterlands made in fulfillment of a promise sworn to Santa Bárbara (syncretized with Iansã) on a terreiro de candomblé. Clicking on the image will bring up an interesting segment of the film (the entire film is interesting!) taking place on this stairway on the day of the Festa de Santa Bárbara (to this day Pelourinho's biggest, taking place on the 4th of December).

And while you're there you might cast a glance a bit further up the hill to the yellow house at number 35.  A toddler by the name of Dorival Caymmi lived there before his family moved up to Itapoan.

Sankofa African Bar and Restaurant

DJ George in his club; owner, host, and just one of the Sankofa DJs

Sankofa is a West African word meaning "to take from the past and build on it", this being the impetus for Ghanian native and Bahian resident George's Pelourinho establishment of the same name. (George, being from Ghana, speaks fluent English, by the way, convenient for our Portuguese-impaired friends.)

Sankofa is open on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights, from 10 p.m. or so, and the multilevel club features hot dance music, African, Brazilian, and Latin, both live with crack bands and with DJs. There is a restaurant as well serving African dishes, with lunches (daily) of African and Bahian dishes priced at 10 reais.

The establishment is located right around the corner from Cana Brava Records, on Rua Frei Vicente 7, and the telephone there is 3321-7236.

The Friday night band is particularly hot...that would be Magary (the band's leader and singer) with his band Black Semba (semba is an Angolan musical style). Magary tore 'em up at the world's largest arts festival this year in Edinburgh, Scotland, (see below) and is now in Australia. But when the man is pack, he'll pack the place!

Magary (and Paloma!) at the Edinburgh Festival, 2008

More information on everything can be had on Sankofa's website:

Sankofa African Bar e Restaurante

Friday Nights

Viola de 7 (7-string guitar), bandolim (mandolin), and rebôlo...plus Paulinho on pandeiro...

If you're looking for something easy, very local flavor, very real, no pretentious b.s., the following may be in order:

What: Chorinho (describing it simply, I'd simply say "chamber samba"...this is a style which originated in Brazil around the same time that ragtime originated in the U.S.
Where: Boteco do Dy, on Rua Chile, close to Pelourinho, just up the street from the Praça da Sé bus stop, a bit beyond the Elevador Lacerda...
What Time: From 6 p.m. till 10 p.m.
Cover: Free
Notes: This is excellent music in a working-class bar/restaurant (with extremely accessible prices) opening onto Rua Chile, the music played by percussionists Paulinho and Jiló and a couple of their friends.  It really is a very nice, very local scene, and if you go you'll probably be the only non-local(s) there (other than perhaps myself and maybe a couple of other expats).

Pandeirista Paulinho presides at Boteco do Dy!

If you're in Pelourinho, just walk out from Praça da Sé, past the Elevador Lacerda, and up the street maybe another 100 meters...Boteco do Dy is there on the right (Dy is the owner, he's also a pandeiro (tambourine) player and a very nice guy).

What: Bossa Nova
Where: Aconchego da Zuzu, in the neighborhood of Garcia (fim de linha), at Rua Quintino Bocaiúva, 18
What Time: 9:30 p.m.
Telephones: 3331-5074 and 3331-8149
Cover: 5 reais

What: DJs, playing blues, soul, samba, acid jazz...
Where: The Borracharia (tire-fixing place), on Rua Cons. Pedro Luiz at101 A, in Rio Vermelho
What Time: late
Telephone: 9142-0456
Cover: 15 reais for men, 10 for the fairer sex

What: Samba to live music at Nego Fua's Bar Galícia.  Inside this bar there's a sign hanging on the wall, a photograph of which is reproduced below...

Tough (Nice) Guy and more...

For those of you who don't read Portuguese, the sign reads:

"The community of Maciel - Pelourinho reveres its hero, tough guy and big f***er, Black Fua, the "Rooster of Maciel". Fua (right), ex-professional boxer and a survivor of multiple street fights involving knives and guns (and with the scars to prove it) is actually a very agreeable fellow!

Where: At the corner of Rua João de Deus and Rua J. Castro Rabelo, in Pelourinho
What Time: From 10 p.m. until 2 a.m.
Entrance: Free
Notes: This bar gets a local (which is to say poor people) crowd and is highly animated, with excellent samba (provided by band Caxambu and its leader Gordinho; Note: As of late Gordinho and several other members of the band haven't been there, and their replacements aren't nearly as good...don't know if this is a permanent situation or not but I'll find out). It gets v-e-r-y packed later on, with people practically falling out the doors, and the ambience of the place always reminds me of (this is for Americans who weren't born yesterday) the painting that used to come up at the end of the Good Times TV show. Don't be offended if I say that it ain't for your average tourist! Fua's wife Morena sells churrascos (kebabs) on the corner.

Saturday Nights

What: Afro-Bahian Music and Drumming
Exactly What: Bloco afro Ilê Aiyé
Where: Ladeira do Curuzu, 197, in Liberdade
What Time: 10 p.m.
Telephones: 3256-1013 and 3388-4969
Entrance: 30 reais

What: Chorinho & MPB (Música Popular Brasileira)
Where: Aconchego da Zuzu, in the neighborhood of Garcia (fim de linha), at Rua Quintino Bocaiúva, 18
What Time: 9:30 p.m.
Telephones: 3331-5074 and 3331-8149
Cover: 5 reais

Sunday Afternoons

What: MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) and samba
Where: Aconchego da Zuzu, in the neighborhood of Garcia (fim de linha), at Rua Quintino Bocaiúva, 18
What Time: From 1 p.m.
Telephones: 3331-5074 and 3331-8149
Cover: 5 reais

Sunday Nights

What: Peu Meurray e os Pneumáticos
Where: O Galpão Cheio de Assunto, on Rua Djalma Dutra 40 (around the back), between the Dique de Tororó and Sete Portas...very close to Pelourinho.
What Time: From 6:30 p.m.
Entrance: 10 reais
Telephones: 3322-3056 / 9991-7740
Notes: Peu Meurray is a composer/percussionist of note who came up with a brilliant idea for disposed tires...he makes rolling drums out of them (I first ran across Peu's group during Carnival some years ago; man it was something to see!).

What: Afoxé-based dance music
Where: Filhos de Gandhy headquarters in Pelourinho on Rua Gregório de Mattos (more on the Filhos de Gandhy here...)
What Time: From 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Entrance: Free
Notes: Very cool and very cultural.  The Filhos de Gandhy headquarters has three floors...an entrance and administrative floor, a lower floor with table and access to food and drinks, and a still lower floor with a stage.  To see what the lower floor looks like on Sunday afternoons, go there, or go here...).

What: Olodum
Where: Pelourinho's Praça Pedro Arcanjo
What Time:
Entrance: 20 reais (this price is highly variable)

What: Afoxé
Where: Filhos de Korin Efan headquarters on Ladeira do Passo, 26, in Carmo
What Time: From 6:30 p.m. to midnight
Entrance: Free
Telephone: 3321-3210
Notes: Korin Efan is an afoxé, and their headquarters is in the leftover hulk of a building in the Centro Histórico, where they've been for years.  The effect is of authentic old Bahia, which stands to reason because that's exactly what it is!  The music is candomblé-style, and in keeping with the theme the inside walls (the ceiling is open air) are lined with large painted images of the orixás.  The dancing as well is right out of a house of candomblé.  The percussion is excellent and the singing unstudied but moving, the only downside being the volume of the voice amplification -- more overwhelming than necessary.  This is, nevertheless, a fascinating stop for people whose taste runs to the cultural and exotic.  Beer and drinks are sold on the premises.  Axé!