Global Notes: “Vocables” and the Global Influence of Brazil’s Rhythmic, Wordless Chants
The term “non-lexical vocables” was first defined by Christine Knox Chambers in her doctoral thesis “Non-lexical vocables in Scottish traditional music”. “Non-lexical vocables”, also known simply as “vocables”, are sounds that are sung, spoken or written, but have no semantic meaning. Vocables can be imitative: such as mimicking the sounds of animals (like onomatopoeia), instruments, or rhythms. In connection with music, it gains wider meaning and cultural contexts.
You can hear vocables in Gaelic Diddling, in Chassidic Jewish music, Indian Bols, Japanese Kakegoe, and Tuvan throat singing, among several other musical expressions from around the world.
We also hear vocables in Eartha Kitt’s purring, Ella Fitzgerald’s scatting, doo wop music, and in various kinds of yodelling. They’re in the experimental sounds of artists like Joan La Barbara, beatboxing, adlibs (like “skrrt”), and other mnemonic vocal sound effects. You get the point. They’re not real words, but it’s definitely singing.
Many times, vocables are used to represent the “other” — some sort of foreign sound. It’s not just folk music either. Operas depend on stereotypes, extravagant costumes, and vocables to represent cultures that audiences may be unfamiliar with. In Georges Bizet’s Carmen, the title character sings an entire piece with the vocables “la la la”.
Exotica Music
In 1950s post-war North America, exotica lounge music rose to popularity. Some of the most successful artists of that time included the incomparable coloratura soprano, Yma Sumac, and composer Les Baxter.
Other singers who arose with the growing popularity of exotica music in the 1950s and 1960s included Leda Annest, Elisabeth Waldo, Bas Sheva, Ethel Azama, Sondi Sodsai, and jazz pianist and arranger Phil Moore, among several others: all of whom used vocables in their music.
Vocables and Brazilian Music
Vocables are also very common in Brazilian music. Musicians like Milton Nascimento, Airto Moreira, Joyce, Marcos Valle, Azymuth, and many others, have all used vocables in their music.
The Brazilian vocable chants of these musicians have come to be a key marker of the signature Rio sound in Brazilian popular music.
The vocables in Brazilian music go back pretty far. Between 1930 and 1945, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos composed the nine Bachianas Brasileiras suites. The aria of Bachianas Brasileiras №5 includes vocables.
Interestingly enough, in a 2005 interview with NPR’s Liane Hansen, Milton Nascimento explained to Hansen that his album Pieta is “a collection of songs dedicated to his adoptive mother, Lilia. She used to sing in a choir under the direction of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was a profound influence on Nascimento’s long career as one of Brazil’s music heroes.” He also explains in this interview that he was heavily influenced by female singers like Yma Sumac and Ella Fitzgerald.
There have long been cultural exchanges between Brazil and the U.S. In Brazil, musicians blended samba and American jazz to make Bossa Nova. Bossa Nova musicians like Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá became wildly popular around the world.
“Água de Beber” is a bossa nova tune, originally composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim, with lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. Astrud Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim recorded a rendition of the popular tune together for Astrud Gilberto’s 1965 album, The Astrud Gilberto Album. “Água de Beber” uses vocables, which you hear at the beginning of the tune.
“Cristo Redentor”
Beginning around the 1960s, the influence of Brazilian music in American Jazz was huge. Jazz pianist and composer Duke Pearson originally arranged the song “Cristo Redentor” for the 1963 Donald Byrd album A New Perspective. In 1961, Pearson toured the world, including Brazil, as an accompanist and music director for Jazz singer, Nancy Wilson. In the liner notes of Byrd’s A New Perspective, Pearson wrote:
“Coming into Rio, you see Corcovado peak with its huge white statue of Christ. That sight led me to write this composition right away. I’d never felt that close to religion before.”
That huge white statue Pearson referenced is the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. It’s the namesake of “Cristo Redentor,” the song (“Cristo Redentor” is Portuguese for “Christ the Redeemer”).
In a 2013 NPR piece by Frannie Kelley, American trumpeter Nicholas Payton explains how in the 1960s Donald Byrd was worried that jazz was “losing touch with the Black community” and that it was “being co-opted by the mainstream”. The article delves into how Byrd’s album, A New Perspective, featured a gospel choir, and the song “Cristo Redentor”. In this NPR story, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave says of Donald Byrd’s A New Perspective:
“That album put him on the map…It spoke to the Black culture and the church, the home, and it spoke to the whole Black aesthetic and all those beautiful voices. … That became everybody’s favorite.’”
In the liner notes of A New Perspective (pictured above), Byrd also further explained the spirituality of the album, also mentioning the “absence of words”:
“Because of my own background, I’ve always wanted to write an entire album of spiritual-like pieces. The most accurate way I can describe what we were all trying to do is that this is a modern hymnal. In an earlier period, the New Orleans jazzmen would often play religious music for exactly what it was — but with their own jazz textures and techniques added. Now, as modern jazzmen, we’re also approaching this tradition with respect and great pleasure […] the music in this album is basically akin to the spirituals rather than to the later rocking gospel style. As for the absence of words […] I couldn’t think of the exactly proper words for each piece. Rather than compromise with inadequate images, I used syllables. Thereby, each listener can attach his own text — from whatever writings, religious or otherwise, seem to him to reflect the marrow of each piece.”
So, “Cristo Redentor” became a hit. The composition went on to be covered by guitarist Harvey Mandel in 1969 and by pianist Gene Harris in 1977, among other renditions. Pearson released his own rendition of “Cristo Redentor” on his 1969 album How Insensitive.
George Duke and Fusion Jazz
Later, in Fusion Jazz, the Brazilian influence was big too. In 1979, musician George Duke traveled to Rio de Janeiro to record his album A Brazilian Love Affair. Duke collaborated with several Brazilian musicians including singers Milton Nascimento and Flora Purim, as well as Purim’s husband, percussionist Airto Moreira.
Singer Flora Purim has performed and recorded with a wide variety of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Santana, Stan Getz, and the Grateful Dead, among several others. Her husband, Airto Moreira also has an extensive career himself, having performed and recorded with the likes of Miles Davis (including the legendary Bitches Brew Sessions), Weather Report, Eumir Deodato, Janis Joplin, and many others. Both Purim and Moreira were also original members of Chick Corea’s band, Return to Forever.
On George Duke’s 1975 album, The Aura Will Prevail, Duke released the song “Malibu”, which includes vocables. Airto Moreira is also percussionist on “Mailbu”.
The Global Reach of Brazil’s Vocables
But it wasn’t just the U.S.: French duo, Cortex (Alain Mion and Alain Gandolfi), were also influenced by Brazilian rhythms and sounds. In an interview with FrenchAttack.com Alain Mion says of the Brazilian influence in Cortex’s legendary 1975 album, Troupeau Bleu:
“…Alain start[ed] looking for another record in his collection…[from the band] Return To Forever by Chick Corea : Where Have I Known You Before — there is a track on this album with almost the same ‘Mary & Jeff’ rhythm. It’s Lenny White who’s the drummer, and a champion regarding this sort of beat, Alain Gandolfi listened to him a lot.”
Cortex’s Troupeau Bleu is considered a Bossa Nova album, by some.
It seems that Cortex took influence from American musicians who themselves were influenced by Brazilian music. The group Mion references above, Return to Forever, is the Latin-music-focused band founded by American jazz pianist/keyboardist, Chick Corea. As aforementioned, the band also originally consisted of Brazilian musicians Flora Purim and Airto Moreira.
In Poland, the Jazz vocal group, the Novi Singers (or NOVI), were also influenced by popular Brazilian music. In 1967 the group released their album Bossa Nova.
One way to mark the Brazilian influence in the music of both Cortex and the Novi Singers? The vocables.
Earth, Wind & Fire and Ramsey Lewis
Black popular music in the 1970’s continued this exchange with Brazil. The friendship between American musician Leon Ware and Brazilian musician Marcos Valle is one example. Chicago’s own Earth, Wind & Fire released their own 13-minute rendition of “Zanzibar”, which was originally written by Brazilian musician Edu Lobo. “Zanzibar” was also recorded by Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’77 for their 1971 album País Tropical.
In 1977, Maurice White, the lead singer and founder of Earth, Wind & Fire, went on a retreat to Brazil. During this time he met singer Milton Nascimento and composer/pianist Eumir Deodato.
In his book, My Life With Earth Wind & Fire, White writes of his time in Brazil:
“There’s a soundtrack to my memories of Brazil; every remembered picture has a melody or a groove. I had always loved Latin music, from those days down in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, but the deeper rhythms and the Afro-Cuban influence opened me up. This wasn’t Sergio mendes and Brasil ’66. This was a tribal, earthy, barefoot-in-the-dirt experience. Brazil’s music contained a heavy emphasis on drumming. I discovered there were little drum schools all over Brazil. I visited three of them and roamed around those rooms like I was a hall monitor in junior high. The talented young musicians had amazing flavor: I soaked it up. I hadn’t felt that way since I was a kid back in Memphis with Booker T. and Richard Shann, listening to the new jazz records of Monk and Coltrane […] I also met the one and only Milton Nascimento. Since Milton and I didn’t speak the same language, we would communicate through a funny sign language of sorts. Between those two incredible musicians [Milton and Deodato], the rhythm in the country’s very soil, the food, and the beautiful Brazilian people, I left there floating, fully inspired.”
Shortly after White’s trip to Brazil, Earth, Wind & Fire released their album All N’ All. The 1977 album included a version of “Ponta De Areia”, originally composed/written by Milton Nascimento for his 1975 album Minas, and most popularly recorded by Nascimento and jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter for Shorter’s 1975 album Native Dancer.
All N’ All also includes the wildly popular Earth, Wind & Fire interlude, “Beijo aka Brazilian Rhyme”, which was also written by Milton Nascimento. The “Beijo” version of the 3 “Brazilian Rhyme” interludes included in All N’ All, uses vocables similar to the wordless chants Nascimento uses in some of his own music. The short tune also features Brazilian drummer Paulinho Da Costa. Throughout Da Costa’s legendary career he performed and recorded with other world renowned artists, including Miles Davis, Michael Jackson, and Hugh Masekela, among several others.
“Beijo (Interlude) aka Brazilian Rhyme” was also sampled by legendary hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest for the track “Mr. Muhammad”, featured on their 1990 debut album People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. This sample exemplifies the timelessness of “Beijo” and its longstanding influence in Black popular music.
Before first visiting Brazil, Maurice White also worked with fellow Chicagoan, musician/composer Ramsey Lewis. Lewis had his own love for Brazil: in 1962 he released his album Bossa Nova.
Maurice White co-produced Ramsey Lewis’ 1974 album Sun Goddess. The album’s title track “Sun Goddess” features Earth, Wind & Fire. White also produced the tune “Brazilica” for Lewis’ 1976 album Salongo; the full album was also co-produced by the late Maurice White. Both songs use vocables.
Through vocables, a wordless melody can transport us to anywhere in the world, like Brazil. Vocables are everywhere in music. While we may expect to only understand a song through its lyrics, vocables show us that we can use our voices to communicate an emotion and a vibe without words. It’s an understanding beyond language. Vocables are not only an expression of emotion, but a tool of communicating across worlds.
To listen to the full radio segment, click here.
Want to hear more songs like these? Check out this playlist curated by Worldview’s Galilee Abdullah.
