Raimundo Sodré

Raimundo Sodré

From: Salvador, Bahia, Brasil.
Style: samba chula, baião, xaxado, xote, ijexá
E-mail: raimundosodre@raimundosodre.com


In the manner that Machito and Mario Bauzá took the music of Cuba far beyond its "simple" origins, Raimundo Sodré has taken the music of his cradle (samba-de-roda, which brightens and leavens festas across the Bahian Recôncavo with its characteristic syncopated hand-clapping and hip-rattling dancing...) and woven it into something at once sophisticated, moving, African, Brazilian, and constantly evolving.

Moreover, interestingly, and in an essential and almost ironic way, Raimundo Sodré mirrors the history of Bahia. This is a man who has suffered at the hands of the influential (his career was kicked out from under him due to his criticism of the government during Brazil's dictatorship) and who is yet possessed of a soul which they haven't been able to grind into Bahia's dusty red clay and destroy (in "A Massa" -- a song which swept Brazil -- he sings in the voice of those who work the earth (as a challenge and not as a lament): "...no cabo da minha enxada não conheço coroné (...at the handle of my hoe, the powerful are unknown to me"). Raimundo Sodré is the very definition of a soul survivor. If Bahia has anything like greatness it is because it is such fertile ground for producing people capable of weaving poetry out of poverty.