Banda de Pifanos de caruaru

  I have been recently listening a lot to the Banda de Pífano de Caruaru, a traditional marching ensemble from Alagoas-BRA, with their fascinating and tuneless wooden flutes (pifano). The sonority of this group, founded in 1924 and still in action in Brazil, has so much devotion, so much energy and drive, so many interesting new colors and a completely new way to understand and interpret melodies. Such vigor reminds me of the sounds of the Arts Ensemble of Chicago, with their exotic improvisations and high "musical stamina". I really wish we as jazz musicians were more capable to understand and incorporate these sounds and especially this enthusiasm and reverence to our own music and our own improvisation. A music in which the tuning is far from a priority, where thirds don't necessarily need to be major or minor, where repetition is a form of worship, where acoustic roughness means aesthetic delicacy.