O ritmo Brasileiro
Philip Galinsky has been a musician as long as he can remember—he started to play guitar and drums as a child and by the age of 8, he had already formed a band called the Stingrays with his neighbors John and Andy Boose, Nik Elevitch, and Eric Morris. During a two and a half year stint at USC in Los Angeles, he was seriously into jazz guitar, but tendonitis forced his career in another direction. He transferred back to this area to study music at Columbia, and simultaneously began to feel the influence of global music from beyond our borders. Hearing a compilation disc of Brazilian artists O Samba, (produced by David Byrne, 1989) proved to be a turning point—Philip cherishes the moment he realized that the seductive rhythms of Brazilian music were what he had been searching for all along. He taught himself to play Brazilian instruments and began to study ethnomusicology in earnest. Since then, he has made nine trips to Brazil.
In 1993, he started by going down to Recife to pursue some serious academic research. Armed only with a letter of introduction to a family friend, he was accepted into the local scene so much so that he ended up writing the first in-depth academic treatment in English on a form of popular local music called mangue. (This dissertation was recently published in Routledge's Current Research in Ethnomusicology, Outstanding Dissertations series.) The word for mangrove tree in Portuguese, mangue also connotes disorder and squalid, doubtful surroundings—hence it’s an ideal term for this overtly subversive form of street music.
During his research, Galinsky’s street music chops were getting better and better; he has marched in four different Carnaval samba schools in Rio, including Imperatriz Leopoldinense, which was champion in 2001. He marched most recently in 2003 with top-rated Academicos do Salgueiro. That’s an amazing thing for a norte-americano gringo to achieve—the samba schools are based in Rio’s poverty stricken favelas, are extremely competitive, and are funded largely by jogo de bicho “gangsters”. It’s not Disneyland, it’s not ASCAP, no English is spoken, there’s no musician’s union...
Back in the USA, Galinsky currently performs as a percussionist all over the country, from the New Orleans Jazzfest to San Francisco’s Carnaval, and he is also an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. However, his long term dream is develop interest in samba and Brazilian music here in the States. To this end, he has founded and is the director of Samba New York! an authentic samba school that performs in the area, and he runs a weekly drumming workshop where samba aficionados can pick up the real rhythms of Brazil for themselves.
February is Carnaval, and this year his performance schedule was packed; Samba New York played at the Brooklyn Museum for 2,000 people who were totally into it, dancing etc., they played at several local clubs frequented by an enthusiastic Brazilian crowd, and, amazingly, they played at CUNY Grad Center for a science outreach program featuring chemist Roald Hoffmann (Nobel winner—and samba school consultant in Rio in 2003!) It’s all part of what Galinsky wants most, which is, in his words, to unite people of different backgrounds through the joyful art of samba, building community and providing understanding among cultures.
Info@SambaNewYork.com
www.sambanewyork.com
917.684.9447
Drummers Collective
541 Sixth Avenue
(between 14th & 15th Streets)
Fourth Floor
New York City