Duduka Da Fonseca
Samba Jazz, From Rio To Manhattan

by Ken Micallef

Last spring, on a frigid night at the Sweet Rhythm jazz club in New York’s Greenwich Village, Duduka Da Fonseca brought 1,000 years of Brazilian culture to life on his five-piece Sonor drumset. Far beyond the typical samba ostinato pattern popularized by some American drummers, Fonseca embodied the pulse of a Brazilian samba school with a full-set reverie, a percussive wall of sound that seemed to come at you from all angles.
Not content to let any one part of his kit carry the rhythm, Fonseca melded samba, afoxe, baiao, chore, and bossa nova rhythms among the various drums and cymbals like an alchemist blending silver and gold. His drumming erupted in colorful waves, underpinning his quintet’s repertoire of original compositions and Brazilian standards with a rumbling effervescence.
Playing songs from his latest album, Samba Jazz In Black & White (Zoho), Fonseca and his band of Anat Cohen (sax), Helio Alves (piano), Leonardo Cioglia (acoustic bass), and Vic Juris (guitar) performed with a fearlessness, but always in service to the music. That same trait of self-sacrifice informs every note Duduka Da Fonseca plays.
The drummer’s previous solo album, Samba Jazz Fantasia, hinted at the breezy complexity of his current release, as does his Grammy-nominated work with Brazilian three-piece Trio De Paz. But Samba Jazz In Black & White is something new, music that draws from both Brazilian tradition and American jazz, Blue Note style.
Opening track “Mestre Bimba” could be a lost Blue Note Freddie Hubbard track, so scalding is its funky melody, hothouse percussive solos, and breakneck montuno middle section. Fonseca plays a slightly different rhythm for every track, with the focus on samba. “Janeiro” swirls in bluesy 3/4 time over Fonseca’s liquid percussion, “Palhaco” is an uptempo scorcher à la Coltrane’s “Impressions,” “Terra De Angara” adds funk flavor, and “O Grande Amor” combines spooky textural percussion with straight-ahead jazz.
Fonseca, who has recorded with everyone from John Scofield to Brazilian master Antonio Carlos Jobim, describes “samba jazz” simply as “jazz with Brazilian roots,” though this self-effacing definition obscures the magic in his music. Samba Jazz In Black & White breathes deeply of Brazilian culture, yet it’s informed by American improvisation and swing. Perhaps more importantly for drummers, the album connects the Brazilian lineage of which Fonseca is a grand element.
Heavily influenced by such Rio de Janeiro drummers as Edison Machado, Dom Um Romao, and Joao Palma, and enjoying contemporary status with Robertinho Silva, Fonseca meshes their native styles with American swing and ’60s inflection. His drumming is all jazz fire matched with the airy sounds of the Rio de Janeiro coastline.
Like strolling from Leblon to Ipanema to Copacabana, Fonseca’s drumming (and accompanying percussion) is sparkling, its pulse ever moving forward. His darkly beautiful ’60s K cymbals and warm drum tones are often lifted by lush brushwork. You can still hear the music of Fonseca’s Rio childhood in such local clubs as Centrol Cultural Carioca, Carioca De Gema, and Mistura Fina—or you can listen to Samba Jazz In Black & White.
    The roots of Fonseca’s style collision are diagramed in his book, Brazilian Rhythms For Drumset (co-written with Bob Weiner), which dissects the various forms of samba, bossa nova, baiao, maracatu, marca, and frevo both with sticks and with brushes. But as Fonseca is largely self-taught, his verbal descriptions of these rhythms are more personable than scientific, and he will grab a pair of brushes in a second to illustrate a beat or rhythmic approach.
    In addition to Jobim and Scofield, Duduka has performed and recorded with Astrud Gilberto, Herbie Mann, Claudio Roditi, Eddie Gomez, Joe Henderson, Gerry Mulligan, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Nana Vasconcelos, Wayne Shorter, and many others. His upcoming release with pianist Helio Alves, Songs From The Last Century, reveals even greater brushwork expression, while the Latin Grammy–winning DVD Jobim Sinfonica is a textbook lesson in bossa nova style.
    Duduka Da Fonseca’s Manhattan apartment is comfortably outfitted. A framed photo of 1940s-era Rio de Janeiro hangs on a wall. A gang of Brazilian percussion is jumbled near the couch. A dictionary of Brazilian musical terms grabs one’s immediate attention, defining nearly every samba style: samba a dois coros, samba patido, samba chulado, samba corrido, samba da verada, samba da chave, samba de embolada, samba de influenca, samba de morro, samba de palma, samba do motudo, samba do norte, partido alto, samba rumba, samba riado, samba francado, samba cuca.
But Fonseca prefers playing to describing, and his infectious personality comes alive in his love of family (wife/singer Maucha Adnet, daughters Isabella and Alana) and friends across the globe. Like Brazil itself, Duduka Da Fonseca is in love with life, and his drumming reveals the warmth of his homeland, mystery and magic intact.

MD: Your samba jazz drumming is very relaxed but also constantly pushing the pulse, which would seem to make the rhythm at odds with itself. How do you do this?
Duduka: I base my drumming in the percussion ensemble, the Brazilian samba school. To analyze this, the bass drum, or the surdo in the samba school, is always right on the downbeat. And if you analyze the sound of the tambourine and the metal repinique, the small hand drum of the samba school, that rhythm is always pushing forward. So you have that tension between the top and the bottom. The tambourine and the repinique are pushing the rhythm forward, the surdo or the bass drum is relaxed, dead center. So when I play drums I try to replicate that feeling.
MD: It’s hard to hear the bass drum on your recent albums. Do you play heel down?
Duduka: I play heel down and I don’t like the bass drum loud. It doesn’t sound good loud. The bass is already covering that rhythm. The bass drum playing da-doom, da-doom, da-doom is like hearing a jazz drummer playing quarter notes loudly on the bass drum all the time. I like Kenny Clarke, who started using the bass drum to play melodic accents in jazz.
MD: You don’t care for the pronounced ostinato pattern on the bass drum?
Duduka: No. Would you like someone to knock on your head: da-doom, da-doom, da-doom? No. That shit prevents you from liking the music. It’s too mechanical. It’s like water dripping from the ceiling, just terrible.
MD: How do you advise drummers to play the bass drum so it’s more felt than heard?
Duduka: Just play very softly. Or sometimes you don’t even need to play it. This past weekend at Sweet Rhythm my sciatic nerve made it hard for me to play the bass drum in some sambas. So I just played the melodic accents and compensated with the toms. That’s more samba jazz style, anyway.
MD: I’ve heard that you insist that your students understand the feel of the samba before writing out the rhythm.
Duduka: The best way to learn to play Brazilian music is to get the albums and play along with them. Listen to Robertinho Silva, Dom Um Romao, Airto Moriera, Milton Banana, and Edison Machado. And listen to me! [laughs] I am trying to carry on the legacy. Absorb the feeling by playing along with the albums. That’s one way to understand. The best way is to go to Brazil. Hear the music live. You can also buy my book! [laughs]

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