SAMBA! THE HEARTBEAT OF A COMMUNITY

A salute to a Brazilian community’s spirit and music.

In the Mangueira neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, residents prepare for the annual Carnaval samba parades in the city’s huge Sambadrome by making bright costumes. The members of the competitive bateria, “the drum section and beating heart of the show,” practice their parts over and over into the night. Along with explaining the important role of local samba schools in Brazil as not just musical academies but social centers, too, Hoelzel focuses on the experiences of one musician, Ailton Nunes, who began drumming at age 5 and went on to help Mangueria’s bateria win a Carnaval award in 1990 before leaving to teach and perform; he was called back in 2011 to form and lead a new corps to another first prize. The biographical information is thin, and neither the narrative nor the pictures do much to evoke the music’s distinctive sound. Still, Ceolin does illustrate this invitation to think of samba as “a way to honor the past and dream for a better future” with scenes of smiling brasileiros with various shades of brown skin, dressed in ordinary or festive clothes, dancing enthusiastically or beating drums of diverse shapes and sizes on city streets and before huge stadium crowds. Backmatter offers more information on the music and Nunes, as well as a catalog of samba drum types.

A generic but celebratory introduction to a distinctive musical genre.