A record from Bahia, a classical conductor and a choir of friends

01A record from Bahia

In the early 1960s the Bahian composer Carlos Coqueijo brought his friend Vinicius de Moraes a record from Bahia. It was a live recording, a mix of sambas de roda, songs from candomblé (the Afro-Brazilian religion) and berimbau, a musical bow with a single string. Researchers believe it was Sambas de Roda e Candomblés da Bahia, featuring the candomblé priestess Olga de Alaketu and Mestre Bimba.

At the time, Vinicius and Baden had started writing songs together in earnest. Vinicius said the two of them spent about three months barely leaving the house, absorbed by the music on that surprise record. Everything suggests it was one of the main inspirations for the album that came next.

02Baden in Salvador

Early in the partnership, Baden went to Salvador to see candomblé up close, and spent time with people who knew it from the inside. In a 1965 newspaper column, Vinicius wrote that his partner came back "completely taken over by the songs and rites of the orixás", the deities of candomblé. Like the other quotes in this story, that line is our translation from the Portuguese.

03The conductor: from the avant-garde to maracatu

For the arrangements and the conducting, the pair brought in César Guerra-Peixe, a conductor Baden was studying with. A classically trained violinist, Guerra-Peixe had started out in the avant-garde, writing twelve-tone music, before changing direction. From 1949 he spent about three years in Recife researching popular music, such as maracatu and xangô. Xangô is the Afro-Brazilian religion of that region, similar in some ways to candomblé.

04The choir of friends

Vinicius wanted a spontaneous record. On the back cover, he wrote that the idea was to record "with a maximum of creative freedom and a minimum of commercial interest".

To "deprofessionalise" the session, he put together what he called the "Coro da Amizade", the Friendship Choir, made of hand-picked friends. They included Tereza Drummond, Otto Gonçalves Filho, Vinicius's wife Nelita, and Eliana Sabino, daughter of Fernando Sabino. The actress Betty Faria sang too, with a solo answering Vinicius on "Canto de Ossanha".

Vinicius recalled arriving at the session one day to find a psychiatrist, César Augusto, conducting the choir. There was no ceremony about it: he was still in his white coat, just as he had come from his hospital shift.

05Recorded in the January heat

The recording took place in early 1966, in the January heat, as Vinicius noted on the back cover. Years later, Baden remembered that on one of those days a storm broke, water flooded the studio and the musicians played sitting on beer crates.

The album came out on Forma, a small, short-lived label. At the time, it sold little.

In 1990 Baden recorded the album again, this time singing himself. He called on the vocal group Quarteto em Cy and added three tracks. Vinicius had died in 1980.

06Words left behind

In the late 1990s, Baden became an evangelical Christian.

In 1999 he gave an interview to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo and was asked whether he would record the afro-sambas again. "I would. Only some I can't record, right?", he replied.

As an example he named "Samba da Bênção", which is not on the album, and the word "saravá", a greeting from Afro-Brazilian religions that is sung in it: "I can play 'Samba da Bênção', but I don't say saravá, because it is praise of Satan."

In the same conversation, Baden said the afro-sambas were not music made for candomblé: "It's a matter of culture." He also said he did not criticise those who sang the songs, and he praised the recent recordings by Paulo Bellinati and Mônica Salmaso.