Up Beat

BraZil nuts: Nobody in Alô Brasil is Brazilian-born, but each has a convert's enthusiasm.

Alô Brasil offers dance therapy.

by Mary Armstrong

"About a month ago a psychologist came over and gave me his card," recalls Eugene Rausa, Alô Brasil's 74-year-old godfather. It was right after a gig at North by Northwest, where the band plays regularly, and the man was clearly moved. "I want to thank you," said the shrink. "You make me relax, your music makes me feel sexy. When I'm dancing to you I can't do anything wrong." A nice endorsement from a man in the business of making people feel better about themselves.

"That's the marvelous thing about samba," says Rausa. "It's a therapy for the soul, it's a healing process." He says the music is a part of us we don't know we've been missing until we experience it. Then that cosmic connection becomes crystal clear.

Ask the people who were wistfully gazing through NxNW's converted five-and-dime windows on New Year's Eve: They'll testify. The gig was sold out days in advance. Alô Brasil's music-and-dance ensemble has developed a dedicated following for its evocation of Rio's Carnaval samba schools and many other facets of Brazilian music and dance, like afoxé (pronounced ah fo SHAY) from Bahía.

For the lucky ones who did get in, Rausa says, "the audience participation was staggering." This from a man who admits to watching the crowd as intensely as they do him. "Onstage, I'm always looking for potential dancers. Some people I survey from the start of the evening till its end. By then some are completely changed, the tie is loosened, they are no longer sitting there legs crossed, tapping the tip of the toe."

Alex Shaw -- at 25, the youngest of AB's 10 musicians -- also insists the music will heal you if you let it. He studies Capoeira Angola, the Brazilian manifestation of African spiritual practices, music, martial arts and dance. He's the one in front, insisting, "This is not a spectator sport! You must dance or sing or clap!"

If you love drums or aspire to play them, Alô Brasil and its seven percussionists compete with Spoken Hand for this city's must-see percussion ensemble title. But the comparison is almost moot; half of AB also participates in Spoken Hand. A typical AB show will also include a visit from Trio Dourado, the showiest Carnaval-style dancers you'll see in these parts.

An evening with Alô Brasil introduces a bewildering array of authentic Brazilian styles, some old, some contemporary fusions, parading in from way offstage, building from acoustic to plugged in. Rausa chuckles when he notes that with all this devotion to the real thing, none of the players is Brazilian, "which I think is great!" There is nothing like a convert, after all, for enthusiasm. Rausa comes closest of any member to Brazilian, with a decade and a half in Rio behind him, and honorary citizenship to boot.

He went there as a bachelor civil engineer, with a lifelong love of music and an assignment to work on "The Bridge" -- a 9-mile monster connecting Rio to the suburbs. "I settled in Rio, as a bachelor, took my accordion, guitar, typewriter and suitcase." He knew not a word of Portuguese when he arrived, but he did have ears open to language and music. Before he returned to the States, Rausa had a wife and two daughters, a mastery of Portuguese, a new instrument -- the cuica -- and a lifelong devotion to the Brazilian way of life.

The cuica creates that remarkable, squeaky melody you hear darting in between the other drums. It is a spectacle. The cylinder is held horizontally with one arm, finger on the goatskin head, moving to change the pitch, with the other arm vigorously pumping in and out, manipulating a stick to create the friction that makes the sound.

Rausa took cuica lessons from one of Brazil's leading players. He apparently was a quick study, because he quickly landed a weekly gig on Rio da Samba, a popular TV show. This lasted for 12 years. During that time he also paraded with the Union of Governor's Island samba school, some 4,000-5,000 strong.

Shaw also spent some time in Brazil. Living there and soaking up the music was his aim since he first became captivated by the music while studying percussion in high school. As an undergrad at Swarthmore, he arranged to do a semester in Bahía, studying the Filhos de Gandhi. Shaw describes them as "one of the largest carnival entities in Brazil, 13,000 to 14,000 men all dressed in white, playing afoxé."

With Alô Brasil, Shaw sings in the pagode (pa go d'GEE) style. "Pagode is a descendant of the batucada style, played quietly enough to sing with it, using hands rather than sticks on the drums. Any night of the week you'll hear it in the bars [in Brazil] -- everybody will participate, everybody can sing. Pagode really conveys the tone of Brazil. They sing about everyday life -- the difficulty of paying the bills, the taste of eating rice and beans, beautiful girls. Maybe it's my age, but I love walking down the street in Brazil and always hearing music."

Alô Brasil is currently in the studio commencing work on its debut CD and plotting its biggest Carnaval celebration yet.