Performance by No Pinchita
PerformerPerformed by
No Pinchita
RecorderRecorded by
Jeremy Brecher
Date1985 November 16
Mediumreformatted audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (tape 1, side 1): 44 Minutes, 34 Seconds
Duration (tape 1, side 2): 47 Minutes, 46 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 1): 43 Minutes, 35 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 2): 47 Minutes, 33 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 3 Hours, 3 Minutes, 45 Seconds
Duration (tape 1, side 2): 47 Minutes, 46 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 1): 43 Minutes, 35 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 2): 47 Minutes, 33 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 3 Hours, 3 Minutes, 45 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
DescriptionDigitized audio cassette tape containing a recording of a performance by No Pinchita at the Cape Verdean Club in Waterbury, Connecticut on November 16, 1985. The performance was recorded by Jeremy Brecher.
Object number2015.196.569.1-.2
CopyrightIn Copyright
NotesSubject Note: Historian Jeremy Brecher, founder of the Brass Valley Workers History Project, also conducted the Waterbury Ethnic Music project in the 1980s. The project researched and presented many folk and traditional musicians from the cultural communities of Waterbury. Presentations included a radio series (tapes are in the CCHAP archive) and the Brass Valley Festival, a collaboration between the Mattatuck Museum and organizers including historian Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Sandy and Caroline Paton, among others as part of the Waterbury Ethnic Music Project. Featuring performances by ethnic, folk, and traditional musicians living in the Naugatuck Valley, the Festival was held annually from 1988 to 1990s at Library Park on Grand and Meadow Streets. The Brass Valley Project produced a radio series and educational curriculum for schools, highlighting the cultures and histories of communities and factory workers living in the Brass Valley. Jeremy recorded the Waterbury Cape Verdean band No Pinchita on November 16, 1985, at the Cape Verdean Social Club in Waterbury.Subject Note: No Pintcha is the name of a well-known football (soccer) club on the island of Brava, Cape Verde.
Subject Note for the Waterbury Cape Verdean Community: Waterbury has become a major center of Cape Verdean culture in Connecticut. Numbering around 200 families in the late 1990s, most Cape Verdeans in this area today came from the island of Sao Nicolau, with some from Fogo, Sao Vincente, and Sao Antao. Many more recent immigrants from Cape Verde have moved to Waterbury, making the cultural expressions here very traditional. Early immigrants settled here to work at the Scovill, Chase, and American Brass factories, especially after 1935, when the cranberry industry in Massachusetts diminished. New arrivals work in professional as well as blue collar trades.
Cape Verdeans settled in the Phoenix Street/Abbott Avenue area, very near the brass factories where they worked. More recently they have concentrated on Oak Street, which they joke should be named Sao Nicolau Street. Around 1935, a group of men founded the first social club on Abbott Avenue, moving to Vine Street as they grew. In 1993, officers of the Club purchased the present building at 1181 North Main Street. A full schedule of activities there includes musical Noite Caboverdiana (Cape Verdean nights) with popular bands from New England and Cape Verde; mazurca and funana dance contests; biska card game tournaments; and celebrations of saints' feast days with processions, repicar di tambor (intense drumming and movement) and Cape Verdean foods. These events often serve as fundraisers for families in need. Recently the Cape Verdean ambassador to the United States spent a full day at the club, taking part in a community discussion attended by representatives from Cape Verdean organizations in Bridgeport and Norwich as well.
Waterbury musicians, such as singer Johnny Spinola and bassist Tony Santos traveled and performed with Joe Silva's band throughout New England in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. When he arrived from Sao Antao in the late 1960s, keyboard player Armando Gomes formed a Cape Verdean band called Ultramarine, the name given by the Portuguese to all their colonies. After independence and an influx of new members from the islands the band became Cape Verde '75.
One of Connecticut's most accomplished Cape Verdean musicians, Jorge Job is a Cape Verdean guitar and cavaquinho player as well as a composer in Krioulu, the local language of Cape Verde. Jorge and his son Rui, a professional keyboard player and record producer, have arranged many of Jorge's compositions for their CD "Geracao," published in 2006. Bassist Djim Job (Jorginho), a professional bass player, has collaborated with his father on several musical ventures including composing mornas under the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2005-2006. Jorge has continued to play music at the Cape Verdean Social Club well into his 90s.
As in Bridgeport, young Waterbury Cape Verdeans participated in a dance group. In the late 1990s/early 2000s the group Warm Heart performed mazurca, funana, and tchabeta (a very fast rhythm-driven women's dance, part of a batuko performance) under the direction of Raquel Figueiredo. In addition to local performances, the group traveled to Providence, Rhode Island for the annual Cape Verdean Independence Day celebration on July 5. They worked with Rhode Island traditional musician Joao Cerilo Monteiro as part of the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program from 1999-2001.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Subject Terms
- Oral history
- Interviews
- Cape Verdean Americans
- Oral narratives
- Waterbury (Conn.)
- Cape Verdean Social Club (Waterbury, Conn.)
- Music
- Musicians
- Musical groups
- Musical performances
- Cape Verdean music
- Interviews and Oral Histories
- Audiocassettes
- CCHAP Archive IMLS Museums for America Grant
- Waterbury
- Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP)
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