Informants for Lorenzo Dow Turner in Brazil

Presentation

Disclaimer.

I have compiled this list in HTML format from the index list of Accession 86-109-F, South-America, Brazil, Lorenzo D. Turner, Archive of Traditional Music at Indiana University, having listened only to a few recordings. I mean it as a complement to the abstract on the IUCAT website, with no guaranty of accuracy, though I took care, as did the anonymous listeners at the ATM who built the Index List, to avoid mistakes. Please signal errors and contribute additional information.

Distinguishing persons.

Some sixty names show on the Lorenzo D. Turner discs and sleeve. The list below has 61 different names, some of which taken from announcements on disc. People in Brazil are generally known by several names, depending on the context. Many informant names denote distinguished persons in the Afro-Bahian community, mostly religious leaders, about whom I easily found additional information. The local press yielded details about radio artists. Other individuals remain undocumented. I have sometimes identified different names on the records as refering to the same person, while at other occasions, I considered that the same name denoted two different people. Further investigation should test these choices.

My own interest.

I am interested in contributions about rythmic patterns in speech and music, non-verbal interaction, African contribution to non-verbal interaction, African methods of transmission.

I am particularily interested, in Brazil, in such impure cultural facts such as capoeira and candomblé de caboclo.

Publishing this general-use information, I hope that others might do the same and so help my research. Thanks to Ms Marilyn B. Graf at the Archive of Traditional Music for allowing me to do so sending me a copy of the Index List.

Ordering of informant names.

As Brazilians are generally known by two, three or more names, the alphabetic order would be no use. I split the list in four classes:

povo-de-santo.: Worshipers of Afro-brazilian cults (candomblé) speak and sing (often), sometimes with the percussion orchestra of the cult, in Portuguese, Yoruba, Zezi (br. Gegê), Angola, Congo, Tapa idioms. Mostly Call (varied) and Response (constant) singing. Play drumbeat samples with no singing.
capoeira.: Small groups. Sing lead+chorus response in portuguese, possibly mixed with isolated African or Arabic-African words. Rythm with berimbau (with or without caxixi) and pandeiro.
musicians.: excluding religious music and capoeira music. Most sing and play popular music. Part or all was recorded in the (one and only) radio studio / sound stage at Bahia by artists on contract with the broadcaster. Most music recording bear no date.
language informants.: People who speak, count and spell, mostly in Portuguese. This is the default class for people that have none of the previous qualifications.

Within these classes, I ordered the informants roughly by size of contribution. When I could, I complemented identification.

There is no neat split between classes. For instance, the most important religious Candomblé informants are also Yoruba language speakers, and a vast majority of people sing. The category titles above are hypertext links to the beginning of the relevant section, border cases included. I left the end of sections implicit, so as to let the reader drift into the loosely classified informants.

Format of entries

Name as in ATM list: Notes about the performer; My comment, quoting from ATM lists; ATM shelf number (recording date); ... . Note about recordings.

Related documents

List of informants

Recorded sources

Table columns report:

disc: numbers etched on the disc, probably related to the original.
ATM: The ATM shelf number.
A: number of strips on Side A copied to Pr. Turner's discs.
B: same for Side B.
Comment: Large Disc: one side does not fit into the 12 inches of Pr. Turner's discs. There were also 16 inch discs.

Pr. Turner's dubs of other collection.
disc	ATM	A	B	comment
110	12-3714, 12-3715	2	1	Singing, drums, percussions, A:"All Yoruba" B: "Um F. [one strip] The last half is Yoruba-Ogun iae" Large disc, one original strip per 12" side.
111	12-3715, 12-3716	1	2	Singing, drums, percussions, "All Yoruba"Large disc.
112	12-3717, 12-3718	2	2	Singing, drums, percussions "1st part is Yoruba" Large disc.
113	12-3719, 12-3720	2	2	Singing, drums, percussions "Ketu" Large disc.
114	12-3721, 12-3722	2	1	Singing, drums, percussions A: "Yoruba" B: "1. Yoruba, others Zezi"Large disc.
115	12-3723; 12-3724	1	1	Singing, drums, percussions "All Yoruba" B: [1st inch not Yoruba] Large disc.
116	12-3725, 12-3726	1	1	Singing, drums, percussions "All Yoruba" B: [1st inch not Yoruba] Large disc.
199	12-3727	3	4	Two men singing
200	12-3728	4	?	Two men singing
227	12-3729	3	3	Female singer, male singer, male group, drums, percussion.
228	12-3730	4	4	Male singer and male group singing, drums, percussion.
229	12-3731	4	4	Singer and male group drums, percussion "cabocla".
230	12-3435	3	3	Singing, drums, percussions, "cabocla".
231	12-3436	4	4	Singing, drums, percussions, "cabocla".
232	12-3437	5	5	Singing, drums, percussions, "Portuguese".
233	12-3438, 12-3732	4	4	Singing, drums, percussions, "Portuguese + cabocla" "zezi" "Yoruba" written on record sleeve. "Portuguese, has a few Yoruba words"
234	12-3733	4	4	Singing, drums, percussions, "Portuguese" "Yoruba" "cabocla"
237	12-3734	5	5	Female singer and female group singing, drums, percussion. A: "Portuguese" B: "cabocla"
238	12-3735	3	3	Female singer and female group singing, drums, percussion. A: "cabocla" B: "Portuguese"
239	12-3736	4	3	Singing, drums, percussion. "cabocla"
240	12-3728	3	-	Female singer and male group with orchestra.
262	12-3737	3	3	Female singer. "cabocla" Female singer and group "zezi" "cabocla" "ketu" "Yoruba".
263	12-3738	5	4	Male singer and female group with drums "cabocla", "Portuguese"
264	12-3739	4	3	Male singer and female group, drums. "cabocla", "ketu" B: "Portuguese - spurious noises at the beginning of this strip, sounds like a cylinder copy"
265	12-3740	4	4	Male singer and female group, drums. "Portuguese"
266	12-3741	4	6	Singer and female group, drums. A : Female lead, "Portuguese" B: Male lead, "cabocla+Portuguese".
267	12-3716, 12-3717, 12-3718, 12-3720	5	2	Singing, drums, percussions B: "Portuguese"
269	12-3724, 12-3725, 12-3726, 12-3742	4	6	Man singing. "All Zezi"
286	12-3723	?	?	Man speaks and sings; B: "Good Yoruba", "(4) Yoruba+Portuguese"

Notes

Federação

Morro da Federação (Federation Hill), 3 km (two miles) SSE of the city center, was a sparsely built suburban district in 1940, a convenient place for the terreiro de candomblé (cult grounds), which needed cheap space for their small houses, large cult gathering places and sacred trees, away from the eyes of the repressive police forces. Federação with Engenho Velho da Federação is large enough for several candomblé grounds, the foremost of which was that of Mãe Menininha on the lands of Mr. Gantois (pronounced Gantuá). Turner's fellow traveller, sociologist E. Franklin Frazier 1942:468-469 described accurately this terreiro and the small cluster of houses around it.

As high ground, Morro da Federação was a convenient location for the antenna of the radio station. In 1932, during works in its uptown seat, the radio set up temporary studios there. As they owned the land, they probably kept them afterwards, and may have let Turner use them. See below, Radio Studio.

Old-timer capoeirista Mestre Noronha listed Morro da Federação as one of the many capoeira points in Salvador in his time (Coutinho 1993:25).

Recordings. Turner recorded 24.5 discs in 11 sessions at the Federação Candomblé grounds, certainly Mãe Menininha's, and manifested his interest in duplicating most of them. Turner mainly recorded on Friday and Saturday sessions (plus a Thursday), then he recorded on three consecutive Tuesdays. The recordings feature songs with a drum and later with drums, for Ogun, Omolu, Oxossi, Xangô, Ossainh, Nãnã, Exú, Yemanjá, Oxumaré Oxalá as Oxalufã and Oxaguiá, Obá, Ioá and for the Gegê spirit Loku (Lokô). Recordings are out of ritual context, often preceded by an announcement. On the last, Tuesday sessions, Turner recorded also funeral songs in Ketu Yoruba and a story. We know from Landes 1947:222 that there was electrical power at the Gantois.

12-3484 to ~87 (Sat, 10/26/40); 12-3539, ~41, ~43 (Fri, 11/29/40); 12-3465 (Sat, 12/14/40); 12-3560 and ~61 (Thu, 12/19/40); 12-3569, ~71, ~73, ~75 (Fri, 12/27/40); 12-3579 (Sat, 12/28/40); 12-3581, ~83 (Tue, 12/31/40); 12-3590, ~94, ~95, ~97 (Tue, 1/7/41), 12-3609A, ~11, 12-3459 (Tue, 1/14/41), and 12-3711 A (Original of movie records Candomble-Federação. Nago, no date).

Radio Studio

Some recordings are noted radio studio. Radio Sociedade, established 1924, remained the only radio broadcast station in Bahia until 1942. In 1940, the founders sold it to a media group based in São Paulo. This organization may have have helped Turner, not only letting him record radio sessions and live shows, but granting him the use of one of the studios for his own sessions, either the temporary studio which they probably kept near the antenna at Federação, or the uptown auditorium at Passeio Público.

Pr. Lorenzo Turner's Informants in Brazil