I’ve had somewhat of a personal revelation this year— I really enjoy samba music. It’s not something I really ever actively sought out before, but after listening to the stellar Samba Esquema Novo by Jorge Ben Jor in January I’ve begun to actively seek out those sweet syncopated patterns, classical guitars, and pandeiros on a more consistent basis.
Luckily my dad was a foreign exchange student in Brazil at the age of 18, so has become my de facto subject matter expert when I’m looking for insights into Brazilian pop culture during the mid-70’s. He recommended this album due to its immense popularity in Brazil at the time, and the way he tells it Wando was somewhat of a big deal after the release of this album, especially with the ladies of São Paulo during the summer months.
Wando brought a bit of a different flavor to your classic Samba, incorporating 70’s soft rock romantic bonafides that sound like a perfect soundtrack to a Telenovela set in the universe of Netflix’s hit TV show Narcos. It’s all rather cheesy in an endearingly romantic kind of way way, the type of music you would imagine housewives were listening to with curlers in their hair as they sipped a glass of white wine with ice cubes in it, or the songs young men would request at a high school dance as they mustered up the courage to ask their crush to dance with them. It’s certainly not a mainstay in the rotation, delivered a pair of songs that I’ll be returning to in future years when I have the urge to hear something hopelessly romantic with a dash of that Samba spirit.
Standout Songs: “No Boca Do Povo”, “Chega Mais”
