"I fell dumb-struck in love with Brazil in 1963, at the age of eight in Philadelphia. I was just walking down a street minding my own business when I heard the Brazilian bossa nova lyrics "...quero a vida sempre assim, com você perto de mim, até o apagar da velha chama ..." through an open door".

"I immediately fell in love with bossa nova, and since that time I've been on a quest to learn all I can about Brazil and Brazilian music," he said, "and to use music as a way to generate interest in Brazil. I pursued a college degree at New York University".

By 1998, Ira (photo) was working in the airlines industry, which provided him with plentiful travel-to-Brazil opportunities. He eagerly took advantage. But after coming to Brazil for several years he lamented that there was no direct access to northern Brazil from the United States.

"Salvador, for example, was (and still is) only accessible to travelers from the U.S. through Rio or São Paulo& quot; he said. "You had (have) to lose a full day of flight time and vacation time to get there". His then current employer didn't seem to share Ira's enthusiasm for establishing direct air access to Bahia and northern Brazil.

Rerouting the thought process

"Clarence Smith called me in December of 2002," offered Moseley, "not long after his retirement (from Essence). He wanted to start up an air charter system focusing on the Caribbean, but I realized that the Caribbean market was already over-served. There was too much competition, and there were no differentiating advantages associated with serving that market relative to northern Brazil".

Ira already understood that there was at least one differentiating factor that made northern Brazil the more attractive market for African-Brazilian consumers, culture. A running dialogue with Smith ensued over time. "Then on January 1 ^st of 2003," he said, "I saw an article in the New York Times about a Shangri-la-like hotel complex in Sauípe, about 85 kilometers north of Salvador".

The hotel was having trouble filling rooms, in spite of its paradise-like atmosphere. "When I next spoke with Clarence I said `look, this is describing the opportunity that you and I know is there'. So I proposed the idea of offering flights originating in New York with Salvador, rather than the Caribbean, for a destination. I knew there was no competition. We had no direct access to the northern tier of Brazil from any city in North America".

Clarence Smith embraced the idea. "So that was the nexus that created the seed for this current project?" I asked, meaning Ira's conversation with Clarence Smith in early 2003. "Clarence realized that there was this great under-served, untapped market," he responded. "And, in particular, he realized that African-American have an insatiable need to find out who they are. Black Americans have all this disposable income and discretionary time, and this great curiosity about their heritage. It's a great mixture".

Generators of cultural flow

"African-Americans," Moseley asserted, "are really generators of cultural flow and movement in the United States. Many of our cultural innovations are picked up by the general population and become main-stream. African -American cultural influence has cascaded up and down society in the United States. p>´Just think about what has happened with jazz, soul, R&B and hip-hop. Every aspect of jazz has found its way upstream. It's about as mainstream now as a music form can be. We know that kind of ebb and flow can be created here, and one of our main goals is to light-up the north-south African cultural axis and to try to take advantage of that in terms of building business opportunities".

An energized Ira continued: "This place (Brazil) has so much to offer African-Americans. Much more than anyplace on the continent of Africa. The environment here is stable; there is no civil war here. There are no famines on the scale of what a visitor would encounter in Africa. Brazil offers access to state of the art telecommunications, reliable banking systems, good roads and health facilities".

And who, specifically, would the project appeal to within the African-American community? "Our target market," he said, "is African-American females between the ages of 25 and 55. They are the cultural generators in African-American society. It's a market that we (thanks largely to Clarence Smith) know and understand very well".

A supportive Benedita da Silva

Nascimento indicated that he and Moseley met back in 1997 while "trying to encourage BET (the premiere U.S. African-American television network) to invest in Brazil in association with D. Olandan Davenport" and others pursuing closer relations between African-American and African-Brazilian businesses.

"Since then," he added, "we've become good friends". Moseley said, "For many years we tried to identify a good Brazil related business opportunity. Our focus had been mainly in communications and entertainment, television, film and music. The two of us and Asfilófio de Oliveira Filho (Filó), an associate in Rio, constantly brainstormed to come up with something. One day when Clarence was in Brazil, and after he had embraced the idea of establishing direct flights to Salvador, we went to him and offered our services".

Smith was initially slow to respond to the offer acknowledged Moseley: "He already had an established working relationship with Benedita da Silva (photo at left with Clarence Smith and ... farther to the right ...Oliveira Filho) by virtue of his earlier activity involving the Essence Travel Club to generate African-American interest in tourism". Da Silva though was initially more encouraging. "She's been like a mother to me," said Ira, "She has been very supportive of the initiative from the outset, but has no direct and/or indirect connection with our project". No "trial run"

"Is all this sort of a trial run?" I asked. "Oh no," said Ira. "This is game-time and we're in it to win". "Exactly!" added Cesar "we're here for a lifetime of business, and our idea is to institutionalize that. The first (phase) of the program is to establish direct charter flights from New York, Washington and Chicago, all cities with large Black populations to Salvador.

"But, as Ira mentioned, we are not only looking at this constituency, we're looking beyond that. We know that the African-American community is one that makes new waves in lifestyles. Based on that, our strategy is to go further into the American market, the general market, using Salvador as a gateway. And (locally) from Salvador we intend to go into the countryside of Bahia and elsewhere in northeastern Brazil".

Assuming success, the venture plans to progressively initiate weekly direct flights to northeastern Brazil from other U.S. cities, like Detroit and Atlanta. "When people come from North America they generally stay seven to maybe nine days" replied Ira "regardless of race or ethnic origin. The few Black North Americans who have already discovered Brazil spend a lot of time and money here. By offering direct flights, we'll be providing travelers from the U.S. with an extra day here, and that's a day of leisure".

Something for the favelados?

Moseley made it clear that "Right now we need to focus on and develop the business itself". But Nascimento noted: "We're working with a local tourist agency that specializes in arranging tours for people of African ancestry, and otherwise serves their needs. They're considering possible agendas in Salvador, and we will be working very closely with Afro-centric community groups".

"Euzébio (photo), in fact," noted Moseley, "is a leader in the African community in Salvador, particularly with Olodum". "We suspect," said Nascimento, "that workshops with some of the African-Brazilian community groups are something that our customers will be interested in".

"Our strategic plan includes trying to find ways to involve the local community in all aspects of our operations," said Nascimento. "We want to leverage our business position in ways that will benefit the residents of Salvador. We are not looking just to make charity. It may be that some of our customers will be interested in making direct donations to worthy causes here, and we will reinforce that kind of motivation.

"But Avocet and You Entertainment will be focused on business opportunities for the underprivileged, because we believe that through business opportunities we can help them improve their own lives. That's what we're thinking to do".

Culture and entetainment

Moseley has produced a video, in association with You Entertainment and TV Bahia, based on an African- Brazilian community festival called "Zambiapunga". This documentary covers the festival from preparation through celebration, and its history. It also provides a look into some of the region's quilombos.

Quilombos are communities that were originally established by escaped African-slaves centuries ago and which have maintained many of their original African cultural influences. "Strategically" said Nascimento "our focus is the travel business. But around that we're looking at entertainment because we want to create an `experience' for our customers.

"Somehow we want to begin to educate our clientele about Brazil, about Bahia. We're considering TV content, special events that we might put together that would generate some of that content, and the full range of other media for getting it out to our target audience: DVD, CD, film, etc."

"And music?" I asked, "there has to be a special place for music, doesn't there?" "We're putting together a new record label," he responded, "You Records, with Clarence Smith as CEO. We want to create a new sound, a fusion of Brazilian and American styles, just as reggae-samba became a fusion of Caribbean and Brazilian music.

"We're already in the process of recording CDs with Brazilian and American artists and music producers. Our main office is in New York, but our creative genius Asfilófio de Oliveira Filho (Filó) will be working out of Rio, where he lives".

Photo - Phillip Wagner examines an elaborately hand-crafted "Pau de Chuva" ("wood of rain") African- Brazilian musical instrument near Mercado Modelo in historic Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in 2001.

Filó was a marketing strategist for Benedita da Silva and recently, according to Moseley and Nascimento, "he found an unpolished gem" in Bahia. "We were trying to put together a strategy for promoting talent from Bahia," said Nascimento, "when Filó found Fernanda Noronha and her partner Jair Luz. Keep them in mind because this Fernanda will become one of the new divas. We are finalizing a CD that will be released both in Brazil and in the United States".

The total package

"Eventually" said Nascimento "we're looking toward providing a total package. We want to offer our customers an opportunity to fully experience Brazil. Our expectation is that when he or she comes here, it won't be just for one time. We're not targeting the person that will want to come here just for the sun and the beach.

"Ok, we'll be happy to serve those individuals, but they aren't part of our market focus. Our intention is to serve the needs of the people who are seeking an experience somehow related to the discovery, or rediscovery, of African heritage in the Americas.

"We want to share with them the beauty that you see in this society. It's something that can only be appreciated through experience". "Right" Said Moseley "It's an integrated strategy involving travel, tourism, and entertainment content".

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