Chris McGowan

Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd's album Jazz Samba, which launched the bossa nova craze in the United States, celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. It was a phenomenal success after its release in April 1962 and has achieved an enduring popularity. Jazz Samba was a musical milestone and, alas, an...

Singer Gaby Amarantos and DJ João Brasil's tecnobrega version of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Águas de Março" (Waters of March) is either an innovative interpretation for the dance floor or a tasteless desecration of one of the greatest songs of the 20th century. Or both. The recording can be heard on...

Night falls and a fierce knocking assails your quiet home. Mischievous laughter resounds outside. You open the front door and are confronted by Osama bin Laden, Lady Gaga, Barack Obama and a green witch. They rustle bags and yell "trick or treat." You hand them candy and send them on...

At Brazil's ninth annual Festival Vale do Café, musical performances took place in the most unusual places, from baronial estates to cow barns, as well as in more traditional settings such as churches and city squares. The ten-day event ran from July 22-31 in a picturesque region two hours north...

In 2010, the well-known Brazilian television actress Drica Moraes was diagnosed with acute leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant in São Paulo. Today she is practicing her profession again and has given many interviews to the Brazilian press about her recovery. Living in Brazil, Drica had a better chance...

Joe Robinson is working to save America and he's not selling the rapture, a guru, or the dismantling of the federal government. He is an evangelical of "engaged experience" and his sermon has to do with our spare hours. We exist in a stressed out, burned out, multi-tasking world, and...

On Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, a 14-year-old Brazilian girl was sentenced to six months in prison for allegedly having had consensual sex with an adult Pakistani school bus driver, according to UPI and other news sources. The man ("MH") will receive a year in jail and both will be deported....

One of the best music festivals in Brazil, or the world for that matter, is one that few people know about. The Festival Vale do Café (the Coffee Valley Festival) is a ten-day celebration set in a picturesque valley two hours by car from Rio de Janeiro. This year's event...

Rio de Janeiro's Carnaval of 2010 was one to remember, with record-breaking temperatures, a claim to hosting the biggest street celebrations in Brazil, a parade victory by a samba school that hadn't won in 74 years, and controversy over a pint-size, under-age drum queen.

Revelers in Rio's Carnaval ("Carnival" in...

Rio de Janeiro's 2010 Carnaval celebration is in full swing amidst soaring temperatures and a wave of optimism as Brazil's economy thrives, its president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva enjoys remarkable popularity, and the city enjoys its status as the site of the 2016 Olympics. There is controversy over a...

Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro is bigger and better than ever in 2010, with the street celebrations having surged in popularity over the last ten years and grown to rival the city's famed escolas de samba ("samba schools") as a major tourist attraction. Unfortunately, during the last decade crime also...

By now, we all know that televangelist Pat Robertson proclaimed that the horrendous earthquake in Haiti was God's punishment of that nation because of a pact it made long ago with the Devil. What kind of contemporary "spiritual leader" would spew such heartless, mean-spirited, superstitious nonsense after a tragic event...

As a filmmaker, James Cameron is a thrill master, but not a deep thinker. The themes in his films, noble as they are, are nothing new, and his futuristic ideas are old hat compared to what's explored in the best science-fiction literature. His plots are sturdy and formulaic, designed to...

Everyone knows the vital importance of the Amazon rain forest for our planet, but few are aware that right next door is another endangered ecosystem of great size and considerable importance. The Cerrado is a vast savanna that stretches across two million square kilometers in central Brazil and is about...

Brazil's Big Blackout of 2009 hit us a little after 10pm last night in Rio de Janeiro. I was online, talking on Skype with my friend Barry in Florida, when the power went off and on, off and on, and then out completely. Our home was plunged into darkness, as...

Today, Brazilians partied on Copacabana beach like it was 2016. The cariocas (natives of Rio de Janeiro) samba-ed on the sand, Brazilians across the nation celebrated deliriously, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) was overcome with tears at a televised press conference. The International Olympic Committee awarded Rio...

As of Sunday, the Station Fire north of Los Angeles had caused two deaths, destroyed 76 homes, and scorched 157,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest, which is visited by millions of hikers, trail bikers, campers, picnickers, and skiers every year. It burned right through one of the most beautiful...

Bossa Nova has been celebrating its fiftieth birthday in grand style this year, with commemorations having taken place in Brazil, the U.S. and other countries. The Brazilian musical genre has demonstrated an enduring global appeal, and is the favorite type of music of millions of listeners around the world. Bossa...

Brazilian iconoclast Fernando Gabeira, who is running for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in the Sunday, October 5th election, may be the best hope for turning things around in the troubled city. The federal congressman, a revolutionary during Brazil's military dictatorship, is a member of the Green Party (Partido Verde...

On the night of August 11th, turn off your TV, log off your PC, forget the presidential election, and head for the hills! If the skies are dark and clear, you will be treated to a grand celestial display: the Perseid meteor shower. Take your family or friends to a...