Fado question

Lango-Django

This is a question for everyone, but especially for our European and gypsy members...

Q: How closely is Portuguese fado music related to gypsy music?

For example, I noticed on Fapy Lafertin's website that he lists fado as one of the kinds of music that he plays: would Fapy be generally accepted by mainstream fado musicians as a fellow fado musician, or not?

I'm asking this because last night I saw a production of a new musical here in Niagara-On-The-Lake's Shaw Festival called "Maria Severa", a fictional treatment of the real woman who lived from 1820-1846 and is widely regarded as having invented fado music... Maria Severa Onofriana was a guitarist, as well as a gypsy and a prostitute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Severa-Onofriana

Maybe I'm just so much into gypsy jazz that I'm starting to lose my perspective, but it seemed to me that this musical went way over too far to the "Sondheim" sort of Broadway sound, when what it needed was a BIG helping of passionate minor-key gypsy music--- especially when the Maria character sang.

Also, maybe I'm biased here again, but what I was hoping to hear was an interplay between the vocalist and a hot Portuguese (12-string) lead guitarist, which I didn't hear too much of in this production.... am I wrong?

Comments, anyone?

noodlenot

well, sorry for reviving a thread from the dead, but i just found this while searching for Fapy´s fado guitarra and thought i might chime in. although i´m not an expert, i´m portuguese and work with a guy that builds fado guitarras (the same as Fapy likes to play).

Q: How closely is Portuguese fado music related to gypsy music?

not much. fado is a modern urban folk song form, stemming from the fien-de-siecle (XIX, that is) low-life of lisbon and its after-hours parties in the brodels and cafes. Severa was said to be its inventor but as all folklore it is more of a collective creation than individual musing. severa probably played a role there, but probably more as a charismatic face for a phenomenon that had been building up in the undercurrents. most of its innovators were rather vulgar portuguese blokes from then on.

fado does use the phrygian dominant scale/mode the over the V-I sequence sometimes and the occasional dimished run, which i guess could be seen as gypsy (or gypsy-like), but i guess it could also be seen as an arab reminiscence that pervaded the musical folklore in the southern iberian peninsula.

traditional fado is a limited music in the harmonic domain by definition. it doesn´t use many colours besides dominant seventh, major, minor and dimished. it has only 3 different basic "songs" (or forms, if you prefer) and almost infinite permutations on them, but improvised solos are not the focus and are normally very short and formulaic variations on the chord notes that tend to be commentaries on what´s being sang. people pay attention to the singer above all. of course exceptional musicians do come along, but they are exceptions.

at least this is my take on it.

thanks, and sorry for bumping an old thread.

Jeff Moore

Noodlenot answered way beyond what I could, and I concur.
Like the variants of 12 bar blues, its correct to say its limited, but those who are great at it are great period. We have to recognize the exquisite baby within the common bathwater before we throw it all out the window.
If you haven't yet check out Ana Moura, here's a link. She's as good a singer of Fado as any great singer in any genre. I don't hear anything "limited" when listening to her version of Oz Busios. As Noodlenot notes: It is much like GJ, but why should it be? Beethoven is also bit formulaic. Not much improvisation either. Gypsy music wasn't much like Swing come to think of it, till someone smushed them together.

Been listening to Fado for a couple years. Really enjoyed Noodlenots miniature history lesson and link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zreA3Ngi ... re=related