Hollywood Bound
By
Offering American listeners a rarely heard perspective on contemporary
Brazilian music, Blue Jackel Entertainment has just released Babel by
Pau Brasil, a five-member jazzy ensemble known for their originality and
improvisational skills. The disc won past year’s Sharp Award (the Brazilian
Grammy) as best instrumental group. Led by bassist Rodolfo Stroeter, the
group counts also on keyboardist Lelo Nazário, saxophonist Teco
Cardoso, drummer Eduardo Nazário, and singer-guitarist Marlui Miranda.
New York-based Blue Jack, which recently released the four-CD boxed
set Brasil: A Century of Song, is also bringing north to
those who appreciate Brazilian-flavored jazz the sound of Banda Mantiqueira.
Mantiqueira’s album is called Aldeia and it includes Tom Jobim’s
"Insensatez", Pixinguinha’s "Carinhoso", and João
Bosco’s "Linha e Passe."
The Novela Siren
Brazil Update Weekly, the New York company that for years has allowed
people in the US to follow the novelas (soap operas) and everything
else that is being shown on Brazilian Globo TV via videotape has a new
muse. Patrícia Hernandes is the stunning beauty who from now on
will grace TV and printed ads, as well as all kind of publicity and every
box containing the Brazil Update programs
The 18-year old model, who is also a ballerina and dance teacher, is
just finishing high school. Daughter of a Brazilian mother and a Cuban
father, Patrícia was discovered by Brazil Update’s President, Carlos
Wattimo, when eating at a New Jersey coffee shop with her parents.
With the People
As part of a campaign to show that the consulate cares for more than
just promoting parties for their Yankee hosts and charging high fees for
documents, the Brazilian General Consulate in New York is offering group
health insurance to Brazilians. The benefit that cost around $120 a month
is offered to every Brazilian independently of his or her legal status
in the country.
Even though the New York office has jurisdiction over some 200,000 Brazilians
in the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania,
only 100 people have taken up the offer. Carioca (from Rio) Marcus
Camacho de Vincenzi, 50, the consul, has created the concept of "itinerant
consulate." In the past 18 months, he has exchanged his comfortable
offices at Manhattan’s 5th Ave. 22 times for a small room in
cities with a large concentration of Brazilians.
Hollywood Bound
To celebrate his 50th anniversary as an entertainer, veteran
TV comedian Chico Anísio is giving up Globo TV for Hollywood. When
everybody was betting on his retirement, Chico Anísio, who is very
mad at most Brazilian TV reviewers, decided to leave the country "to
prove to myself that our critics are wrong when they say that I am all
washed up." And this is no wishful thinking.
According to the comedian himself, he already has prepared 20 film scripts
and seven TV comedy shows. Four of the scripts are already being examined
by Roberto de Niro’s TriBeCa Production. Chico moves to New York with his
family in September "But I am sure that in one year I will be in Los
Angeles," he says. "The studios are all there."
In the US, Chico Anísio will also try to revert a face paralysis
after an operation at Ivo Pitanguy’s clinic. According to dr. Edgar Alves
Costa, the doctor who recently operated on him, the comedian had "a
severe respiratory problem during surgery" and spent two days in an
ICU (Intensive Care Unit).