Groove Transcription - Celso de Almeida, samba cruzado

Samba cruzado is one of, if not the, earliest forms of playing samba on the drumset, predating the use of cymbals as pioneered by Edison Machado.  You can hear this style in the playing of drummers like Walfrido Silva and Luciano Perrone.  

Cruzado, which means "crossed" in Portuguese, refers to the way one must cross their arms to play this style.  But, rather than crossing our dominant hand over our weaker hand as most of us do with our hi-hat, we cross our weaker hand over our dominant hand.  This is because the dominant hand plays telecoteco on the snare drum, while the weaker hand mimics the surdos on the toms.

I've had a more in-depth post on samba cruzado in the draft folder for ages, and I really am hoping to get to it soon, but in the meantime, I've been doing a lot of playing along to this loop I created of Celso de Almeida playing a more modern style of samba cruzado from his self-titled 2014 album.

Here Celso plays a steady stream of 16th notes on the snare drum in his right hand, and uses accents to present a typical bossa nova pattern:

 

In his left hand, Celso plays the toms to mimic surdos, including a third surdo-like turn of phrase:

And with his feet, he plays what is probably the most common bass drum/hi-hat combination:

 

 

Here it is all together, with a loop of Celso playing it to help capture the feel:

 

Brazil

Apologies for the light posting lately.  Since Covid "ended" this year has been delightfully busy, culminating in a 17 day trip to Brazil these last couple week for gigs, lessons, and general hanging out.

In those 17 days I managed to study with three of my favorite drummers....

Kiko Freitas

Edu Ribeiro

Celso de Almeida

....and meet quite a few more at the 21 gigs we went to.  I heard and was able to chat to a number of other musicians whose work I've listened to for many years but have never had the chance to meet or see live, and discovered some serious young musicians who should definitely be known outside of Brazil.  I also had a chance to sit in on some choro, samba, jazz, and even at Vila Isabel escola de samba with Andre Siqueira whose playing I've transcribed for the blog before.

There is, of course, always more to learn, but the trip also confirmed and reinforced much of my understanding of certain Brazil styles, especially samba and forró.  I've had a few pieces in the works the last couple months that I'll soon be publishing with renewed confidence.

I don't want to gush too much here on the blog as this is meant to be an educational resource, so if you'd like to see more pictures and videos from the trip head over to my Instagram page and see "Brazil trip '22" in my stories.