Dudu Maia & Caraivana - Tico Tico

[Al Bergstein]

This apparently was recently posted, also from his upcoming DVD with Caraivana. This was shot in High Def as was the movie that will arrive, maybe next month. If you haven’t watched the other clips from this yet, check them out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rutYYuRS6c

[Linda Binder]

Love it!

[Bruce Clausen]

That is terrific, witty, playful playing! In D minor here. I notice Brazilian bands do the tonic major section second, and use the relative major part as the third section. I learned it the other way around decades back. I wonder if there was a North American hit record of it back in the forties that made that change. Neat tune either way. Thanks, Al.

BC

[Al Bergstein]

Bruce, the record that broke Tico Tico in the US was Carmen Miranda (her 100th birthday was celebrated this year!), the 'gold standard' of this tune. Any US 'cheat book' probably referenced this one or the Andrews Sisters version. I think that her 1947 movie, Copacabana put in on the map. The tune, according to IMDB did not appear on any earlier film of hers. So this was probably the version that US players first heard. I remember a vague memory of watching her on TV. Given her date of death, I had to be very young since there wasn't tape delay!

here she is with Groucho in Copacabana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7UgkjTKZks

And here she is with her band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFwNXoEzRgY

I only recently read the lyrics to it, and I think English audiences would appreciate it more to know them. It's apparently about the coo coo clock that told her that her date was coming for her. The Andrews Sisters apparently did the English version.

http://www.gugalyrics.com/ANDREWS-SI...LYRICS/274958/


According to Wiki: The song was also featured in the "Aquarela do Brasil" segment of the Walt Disney film Saludos Amigos (1942)

Tragically, Carmen died at 46 of a heart attack, after extensive drug abuse and what appears to have been a very abusive relationship...very sad state of affairs. My wife and I visited her first home in Rio, a national shrine. She started making hats as a young girl there,and designed all her hats herself. She apparently was the highest payed woman performer in the US in her day...an amazing woman, and a great tune...

I understand from Marilyn Marr's site that Tico Tico was originally about the hurkey jerky movements of folks on the dancefloor, which probably makes sense as the original tune was named for a bird scratching in the cornmeal...So who's got the scoop on Abreu who wrote it, in when, 1917? The original apparently didn't have words. It was just a dance tune.

[mandobsessive]

The English version is not a translation of the Portuguese lyrics, which are about the Tico Tico bird eating the corn flour. No mention of a Coo Coo Clock. I find trying to sing the English lyrics at full speed to be at least as hard as playing the tune on the mando. Jethro could do it all, of course.

[mandobsessive]

And leave it to Dudu to find a fresh take on a tune covered by so many, making it his own while honoring to the tune. Have already listened several times. Thanks for the links.

[Bruce Clausen]

Of course-- Carmen Miranda! Thanks, Al. I pulled out the Naxos CD of her US recordings, and it's there, recorded in 1945. (Great collection, with Garoto on the earlier cuts.) But she never does take the tonic major section, just alternates the other two. I seem to remember one of the singers in the film "Brasileirinho" saying that she herself had been the first to perform this as a vocal number-- till then it was an instrumental choro.

BC

[gonzograss]

Viva Dudu. It's a joy to see/hear that much fun combined w/ excellent arrangement.
Bruce, I also, many decades ago learned the tune in a different order than what I sometimes hear nowadays. It was the Am part, then the C maj. part, then the A maj. part. It's a wonderful tune, though, any way you play it (except too fast - which is how I hear it in some jams). The challenge for me is to play it cleanly.
~~Joe H~~