Ceumar: Brazilian Sounds Live in Amsterdam

Ceumar: Braziliaanse klanken Live in Amsterdam (Nederlands) - Ceumar: Brazilian Sounds Live in Amsterdam ( English)

Brazilian singer / songwriters debut in Holland
CEUMAR: Brazilian sounds LIVE IN AMSTERDAM
Hans Koert

A few weeks ago I was pointed to the latest album of the Brazilian vocalist Ceumar, who lives and works in Amsterdam. Her fifth record, entitled Ceumar & trio - Live in Amsterdam was released early this year. It was recorded at the Theatre of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam February 2009 and Ceumar was accompanied by a Dutch jazz trio featuring Mike Del Ferro at the piano, Frans Van Der Hoeven double bass and Olaf Keus drums.

Ceumar Coelho, Ceu means heaven and Mar sea, was born early 1970s in the Brazilian city Itanhandu in the province of Minas Gerais.
She was raised in a musical family - Her father was a musician too and her mother loved to sing. She studied the violin, but her passion was singing, like her mother, who sung the music she heard on the radio. This popular music was called MPB, the Musica Popular Brasileira. A musical style born late 1960s - early 1970s, which contains a heterogeneous group of musicians, a generation of artists like Gilberto Gil, vocalist Elis Regina and Maria Bethania to list a few. This music style became popular at a political unpleasant period for a lot of Brazilians, who lived in a climate of growing fear and repression, and in the mid 1960s musical festivals became a vital cultural outlet for the Brazilians. During these festivals a jury of musicians, journalists, nominated artists to perform and the best were rewarded with trophies and prizes. Singer, guitarist and composer Caetano Veloso, singer-guitarist Milton Nascimento and artists like the 1966 winner Chico Buarque de Hollanda (1966), a singer-songwriter from Rio, were some artists Ceumar must have influenced her ...... This MPB can best described as a mix of Jazz and soul and the traditional samba-music.

Ceumar & Trio ( f.l.t.r.: Mike Del Ferro - Frans Van Der Hoeven - Ceumar - Olaf Keus ( photo courtesy: Ben Mendes (http://www.ceumar.net/)

She started to sing at bars in the province of Minas Garais, US and Brazilian pop songs, before she left, in 1995, for Sao Paulo. There she met Zeca Baleiro, which whom she recorded in 2000 her debut album entitled Dindinha and she became known at festivals all over South America. Thanks to this first album she was one of the artist to play at the Belgian Sfinks Festival 26th of July 2003. Between 2000 and 2009 she released three more albums: Sempre Viva, Achou! and Meu Nome, a live solo recording of a concert at the FECAP-theatre ( Sao Paulo ). In 2005 Mike Del Ferro and his Trio played at a festival in Brazil and there they met, which resulted in an European tour. In 2009 she moved to Amsterdam and started to perform again with the Mike Del Ferro Trio. Her latest album, entitled Live in Amsterdam was released earlier this year.

Ceumar is accompanied by three skilled jazz musicians. Mike Del Ferro studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory. He toured all around the world with an impressive list of jazz musicians. In 2000 he recorded a remarkable record I have in my collection, entitled Mike Del Ferro plays Belcanto, in which he plays classical Belcanto songs by classical composers like Verdi, Puccini and Nebucco, to list some, in the jazz idiom. Frans Van Der Hoeven is to be heard on numerous albums and played with Jesse Van Ruller, Bert Joris, Tineke Postma, Fay Claasen and Jeroen Van Vliet. I heard Frans once at a concert with the Jesse Van Ruller trio (+ Bert Joris) at a concert in Porgy en Bess Terneuzen (The Netherlands) (February 2005). Olaf Keus is a percussionists, who often played with South American musicians, like Ramon Valle, singer Deborah J. Carter and the Surinam flute player Ronald Snijder.

Ceumar. (photo courtesy: Hans Speekenbrink (http://www.ceumar.net/))
The album Ceumar & trio - Live in Amsterdam contains nine tracks - almost half are own compositions. One of those own compositions is Jabuticaba Madura about the Brazilian fruit named Jabuticaba. I found a fragment of it I love to share with you:

Two tracks, Dindinha and Pecadinhos, were composed by Zeca Baleiro, who was present on her first album Dindinha, and now released in a live version. The tune Girias do Norte, which I really appreciate, is originally from the north of Brazil. This rhythm is labelled as coco and was made popular by José Gomes Filho, aka Jackson do Pandeiro. I love to finish with this tune as recorded at the Dutch TV-program VPRO Vrije Geluiden.

Ceumar ( photo courtesy: Claudia Dorei (http://www.ceumar.net/ )
If you like Brazilian music you should have a copy of this great cantora - compositora brasileira, Ceumar, in your collection. You can obtain a copy at CDBaby .

Hans Koert
keepswinging@live.nl
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A few years ago the Brazilian singer / songwriter Ceumar moved from Sao Paulo to Amsterdam where she performed with the Dutch jazz trio of Mike Del Ferro - Frans Van Der Hoeven and Olaf Keus. One of these concerts was recorded at the Tropentheater in Amsterdam and is now available as her fifth album, her debut in Holland. Keep Swinging listened to this album and was impressed. If you like Brazilian music and you love to be informed about that mind that this is one of the regular subjects of the Keep Swinging blog or the Choro-Music blog about Brazilian music, so don't miss it. Follow it at Twitter or ask for its free newsletter.


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