Word: boomlay
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Listen to the Boomlay. The 38-piece orchestra included 16 native percussion instruments (with names like the pio, chocalho de metal, reco-reco and matraca) which thumped and clattered and clapped the rhythm. At times the music was full of melody, as melancholy as a native chant. Sometimes it bumped and blared like a carnival band. There were smatterings of dissonance and explosions of jungle jazz; and in one scene, Villa-Lobos had two different songs going at once, as skillfully laced together as a Bach fugue...
...lawyer, Villa-Lobos went to work at eleven after his father died, eked out a living playing in theater and cabaret orchestras. He wandered all over Brazil, listening to the boomlay music of the Indians, the songs of the Negroes, and the backroom jazz of cellar cafes. Then he began composing, combining all he had heard. In 1922 he descended on Paris. "I did not come to study," he announced, "but to show what I have done...