Portuguese Creole Yodling from Malacca

A few years back I was assigned a review of a gigantic box of CDs from Portugal's Tradisom label. The twelve discs, with fairly major booklets for each, each featured a different region from Portugal's once vast empire. The premise was to look for Portuguese influence in these various music cultures. Most of the discs were outstanding, some failed to do what they were supposed to do, but even then were interesting documents of little known music cultures.

You can read the full review here on the Rootsworld site.

Anyway, one of my favorite discs was number five: Kantiga Di Padri Sa Chang: Malaca, featuring some beautiful singing from Malacca. If you are like me, you had to look at a map of Southeast Asia to remember where exactly Malaca is. I found out that it was of vital importance in the days of seafaring. In fact, according to Tomé Pires back in 1512, "whoever is lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice." That was power indeed.

Anyway, for a period the Portuguese had control of this region, and their music left a lasting impression.

The song that really got me was the last track, called simply enough "O Amor." It starts as a wonderful tune that has a vaguely familiar style to it, although the language certainly throws off attempts at easy identification. But when the singer breaks into a full cowboy yodel, the whole thing suddenly comes into place. You see, the external influence on the music of the region did not stop with the Portuguese. Something in the American Country and Western tradition resonated with the people there, and they took the forms and styles and made them their own.

I know that Down Home Music in El Cerrito sells some of the individual discs from a viagem dos sons on the Tradisom label, and this disc is certainly worth it, for the good singing in general, but particularly for this great little cowboy yodel.

Something I might feel like writing on later is the connection between Portuguese music and Country music. Certainly the Portuguese had a lot to do with the sound of modern Hawaiian music, and we all know how that has influenced Country and Western (think of those weepy pedal steels). I also know that C and W is very popular among the Portuguese in California's Central Valley, and I think it has something to do with the fatalism, the brooding lyricism and the emphasis on string instruments.

Anyway, go check out this fantastic disc for one of the most unusual settings of cowboy yodeling. Next time I will talk about some Alpine Cowboy Yodling, sung in phonetic Englisch.