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Dendê Macêdo drove his silver Honda Pilot slowly and carefully around Germantown on trash night, eyes peeled for garbage.

“What is this? A chair?” he said inquisitively as he pulled up to the side of a house.

Macêdo hummed enthusiastically as he put on a pair of red gloves, and stepped out of his minivan. He wore a blue “Recycling Matters” T-shirt, and a silver chain of soda can pull tabs was draped around his neck.

Inspecting the metal furniture strewn across the curb, Macêdo picked up the bottom legs of an office chair. He banged and clanged on the different parts.

“Wow! My God, it’s in tune. It has four notes!” Macêdo said as his voice rose with excitement.

He then pulled aside a chipped white rusty chair that had seen better days. Staring down at the object, he moved his hands up, down and around like a conductor. Macêdo thought about the ways he could give the trash a second life.

“I like this chair,” he finally said, before lifting the junk into the back of his vehicle.

Recycled sounds

The Brazilian percussionist, composer and instrument maker transforms discarded objects into masterstroke instruments as part of his “Recycled Sounds” project, inspired by the musical cultures of Africa and Latin America.

“This project has a mystery, has a secret, has love, passion and is also about growing up without much,” he said.

Macêdo grew up in Salvador, the capital city of the state of Bahia in Brazil, an area rich in African culture. Surrounded by diverse music, dance, religion and cuisine, Macêdo yearned to become a musician. But he didn’t have the opportunity to take lessons or buy instruments after his father left the family when he was 10 years old.

Undeterred, Macêdo crafted drums out of buckets and cans taken from the trash in his mother’s kitchen.

“I always see the real drums, and always think about, ‘Wow someday,’” he said, holding back tears before composing himself, “I’m gonna have this drum someday.”

Macêdo’s dreams became a reality when, as a teenager, he played the timbao drums as part of the renowned Timbalada band, with whom he recorded eight albums. He later moved to the United States, where he currently leads a band and performs internationally.

“This guy never had an opportunity to learn music at school, but he’s the leader. It blows your mind,” said Flávio Oliveira, who met Macêdo more than 20 years ago.

Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Oliveira sought Macêdo to learn how to play rhythms from Bahia.

Macêdo, no longer a member of Timbalada, was struggling to make ends meet and didn’t own an instrument. Impressed by Macêdo’s raw talent and musicality, Oliveira raised money to help the percussionist move to the United States, and get on his feet.

“He can hear stuff that normal people would not be able to hear,” he said.

Today, Macêdo plays joyous Afro-Brazilian music and latin rhythms with Dendê & Band. The six-person group, influenced by samba de roda, Candomblé and other Bahia traditions, have performed all over the world. Macêdo also performs folkloric music with the group Ologundê.

Keeping trash out of the waste stream

Tapping into the curiosity he developed as a child, Macêdo transforms PVC pipes into hand drums, computer boxes into bass guitars and motorcycle tires into xylophones.

He said he wants to spread awareness about recycling, as the average American throws out almost 5 pounds of solid waste each day, which typically gets incinerated or hauled to a waste dump — some harms wildlife and habitats.

“The motorcycle tire is really dangerous for the environment. It takes so long to disappear in the world,” Macêdo said.

He creates his instruments inside his dimly lit studio behind his home in Germantown, where he’s lived for 11 years. Percussive instruments surround the two-floor converted garage, decorated with his artwork, figurines and band posters.

An empty wine glass sat upon a drum, a few steps away from the workstation inside his so-called “atelier.”

“I come here at night after I put my kids to bed, or after cooking dinner,” Macêdo said. “When I come here, I put some music on. Sometimes, I have a glass of wine, relax, meditate and focus. I love this place.”

The self-described “rhythm man” lives and breathes music and sounds, and often finds himself walking through Ross Dress for Less department store playing vases as if they were Udu drums.

Throughout his interview with WHYY News, Macêdo used his voice to mimic everything from the “steel drum” sounds of a kitchen sink, to the melodic drone of an airplane as it flew above his studio.

“I don’t need a machine because all these sounds are inside my brain. Even the silence is a sound,” he said. “It’s about paying attention to what’s around you, it’s about being curious.”

The magic chair

The sound of each object depends on its body, shape and materials, Macêdo said, but he also manipulates the items for tuning and to achieve various dynamics.

“I don’t play the chair, I transform the chair into an instrument. I don’t play the tire, I transform the tire into a xylophone,” he said, adding that his recycled instruments sound different from the traditional versions.

A couple days later, Macêdo made a plan for the rusty chair he found on trash night. The once-decrepit object deserved to be extraordinary in its second life, he decided.

Macêdo cut slits into half a propane tank to achieve different notes, before attaching it to the chair, along with two guitar strings, some bells from Ross and a spring. He spray-painted the new instrument green and blue, calling it a “magic chair.”

Tennis racket tambourines and water jug shekeres

Macêdo has composed a record using entirely recycled instruments, the likes of which have been incorporated into a line manufactured by instrument company Latin Percussion.

He performs and teaches for various schools and organizations about three times a month as part of his nonprofit, Mamadêlê Foundation. Macêdo also helps kids create simple instruments out of trash, such as pizza boxes, and educates them on the importance of recycling.

During an afternoon in October, he invited WHYY News to a performance at the St. Edmonds Home for Children in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The kids and staff anxiously waited to see what the special guest would do with an unusual mix of items on a fold up table — from a tennis racket to a 5-gallon water bottle.

The tennis racket became a jingling tambourine, known as a pandeiro in Brazil. The water jug transformed into a West African shekere.

“Do you recognize this one?” Macêdo asked the crowd as he picked up each item.

His microphone connected to a loop system, echoing the instruments in unison, and allowing him to become a one-man band.

Decorated with bottle caps, Macêdo grabbed the plastic shekere, shaking it as he walked on beat towards the children with his contagious smile.

The children, most of whom are nonverbal or use a wheelchair, smiled brightly and bobbed their heads to the beat. The staff danced and united in chanting and singing.

“It was just so interactive, so connective to young children with disabilities and really gave them a voice through music,” said Activities Coordinator Kevin Kramer following the performance.

After Macêdo grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off his forehead inside the stuffy, energetic room, he played the five playful notes of the xylophone motorcycle tire — built with discarded wind chimes.

He began the show hoping to make a difference, but the kids’ reactions impacted him deeply.

“I show my love, the real me. I was a bit emotional,” Macêdo said. “I forgot the world at that moment.”

Dendê & Band will perform at the City Winery in Philadelphia on Sunday, Nov. 16.