Ami Molinelli, Duo Violão Plus One: Raízes do Choro e Samba (Roots of Choro and Samba)

For the better part of two decades, Ami Molinelli has been a stalwart of the San Francisco Bay Area's Brazilian music scene. Her undergraduate work in Conservation and Resource Studies at University of California at Berkeley led her to spend nine months in Salvador da Bahia, learning about Afro-Brazilian culture and performing with a group of women drummers. "Seeing music used as a community-building tool and social justice mechanism resonated with my conservation studies," she explained. "I began to see the arts as 'endangered' and that trip changed my life." Molinelli has continued to build on this vision, creating a career as a percussionist and educator, digging into the roots of Brazilian music with groups like Duo Violão Plus One on projects like History of Choro (História do Choro) (Self Produced, 2019) and—now—Raízes do Choro e Samba (Roots of Choro and Samba), which, as they put it, "aim to preserve choro tradition while employing a freewheeling, genre-agnostic approach" in line with the choro novo style with which Rogério Souza, her Brazilian mentor (and bandmate), is associated. This is musical conservation of an evolving, non-dogmatic sort.

The core trio for Raízes do Choro e Samba is Souza and Edinho Gerber on guitars, with Molinelli on pandeiro. The project was recorded in 2021, across the Atlantic during the global pandemic, bouncing between the Bay Areas of San Francisco and Guanabara with a host of guest artists. On the SF side, these include Rio-born, Santa Cruz-based singer Claudia Villela, reedist Harvey Wainapel, and Brian Moran on cavaquinho. In Brazil, mandolinists Ronaldo do Bandolim (Souza's distinguished brother) and Tiago Souza (Ronaldo's son), clarinetist-producer Whatson Cardozo, singers Mayte Correa and Dill Costa, and percussionist Felipe Tauil contributed their time and talents.

"Nasci Para Sonhar" was the seed for the program, and you can feel it in Villela's honeyed alto voice and confessional delivery of the title line, "I was born to dream and sing." It is one of two pieces by Dona Ivone Lara, who had a 30-year career in nursing and social work before retiring to successfully pursue music composition and performance full time. In a second offering from Lara's songbook, Corrêa performs her "Acreditar" in an inviting pagode-like style, cueing the listener to sing along on the verse.

The project emphasizes the role of women and Afro-Brazilian culture in the development of the music with the inclusion of such pieces as "Gaúcho" (aka "Corta Jaca") by pianist, composer, and abolitionist Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935), composer of "Ó Abre Alas" (1899), the first published marchinha de carnaval. Gonzaga is recognized as the first woman conductor in Brazil and among the first to bring Afro-Brazilian dance rhythms like maxixi into her choro compositions. The set also includes "Pelo Telefone," the first samba to be recorded (1917). The piece was collectively conceived at the home of candomblé priestess Tia Ciata, whose backyard salon provided creative space for the likes of samba pioneer Heitor dos Prazeres and Pixinguinha, one of the greatest choro composers of all time, to convene and collaborate.

"Esquenta dos Pandeiros" (pandeiro warmup), the exquisite penultimate number, is a Molinelli original, a perfect miniature that has a little choir of (tambourine-like) pandeiros sounding like a full samba batteria. "Esquenta" serves as a prelude to Pixinguinha's "Mundo Melhor," the program's finale, with its inspiring lyric by Vinicius De Moraes (best known for his bossa nova work with Antonio Carlos Jobim). "Mundo Melhor" promises "uma aurora nascer num mundo em harmonia" (break of day in a world in harmony), reminding the listener that "com amor é melhor, ora se é!" (things are always better with love) and that the curation and creation of Raízes do Choro e Samba was, as Molinelli affirmed, a genuine "labor of love."

With a sterling set list and heartfelt, artful performances all around, plus informative and meticulous liner notes, this album will surely find its way into the libraries of many a fan of Brazilian music in the US, Brazil and elsewhere.