Music notes

I haven't heard any live music here, but I hear quite a bit of recorded music—every time one of the CD-monger carts goes down the street there's a snatch of something at high volume. I've purchased several CDs in bookstores that Angela has taken me to (she's had university-related errands to run and has taken me along). Two bookstores are in the huge shopping center called Shopping Recife and we went to another yesterday in a small shopping center that's been built in the old customs-house of the port in the old part of the city.

All the bookstores have a feature in the music areas that I've not seen in stores in the US. It's a set of headphones attached to a scanner that will read the barcode on the CD package and play 30-sec samples from each track on the CD for, apparently, any CD in the inventory that you pick up. They sell imported music from the US and Europe, but an important category is what they call MPB (Music Popular do Brasil). Here you find samba, choro, forró, bossa nova, and many other traditional and contemporary styles that I can't remember.

I've purchased a collection of choro, which is a "lament" with more Portuguese than African roots, played by guitars and other stringed instruments; a collection of samba standards performed by Beth Caravalho, apparently the best samba singer ever; a disk of music from the Pernambuco region by Antonio Nóbrega, a Recife native; a collection of the best of Caetano Veloso (the only Brazilian musician I'd really heard of before I came, except for Jobim); and some jazz by Alberto Rosenblit. I also have a collection of the best of Elis Regina, which Angela left for me when I moved into the apartment here.