As such, the 12-player version I’m presenting here today can be narrowed down to 10 players or expanded to 16 players. However, the ensembles that played this arrangement afterwards usually had fewer or more people.
I wrote the initial percussion ensemble arrangement for Samba De Janeiro for a 12-players orchestra. Get those Mexican hats out, and let the party begin! To make the effect of the opening bars bigger, we usually kept the song as an encore at the end of our concerts. However, in 2014, I finalised that version into what it is today. I finished the first percussion ensemble arrangement of Samba De Janeiro in 2012, making it one of the first Drum- & Percussionband Paal songs that I arranged. Samba De Janeiro for Percussion Ensemble had the audience going wild multiple times! In the years we played the song with our percussion ensemble, it grew into a real hit at our concerts. The melody became well-known during the 2008 European Football Championship as they played it after every goal! The German pop group Bellini released the song in 1997, becoming a massive hit throughout Europe and even winning the award for best dance single.
However, the original sample comes from Airto Moreira’s song, Tombo in 7/4, released in 1972. The percussion ensemble version of Samba De Janeiro is based on the popular Bellini disco version.
