Pandeiro de novo

Hey.... suddenly I'm playing pandeiro again! I didn't expect to, but I ended up sitting in a little bit with Adam Hunter, a Seattle Brazilian jazz guy. (i.e. he's not Brazilian but his take on jazz is.) It was a super low key gig, perfect to sit in, but even so I felt unexpectedly shy on pandeiro - because, let's see, it's been maybe 8 months since I've performed on pandeiro? And I've been hanging out with all the Rio big shots and have ended up completely intimidated about pandeiro.

But it felt fabulous. I had my new flat-rim Pizzott with me - I'd bought it at my very last pandeiro lesson with Scott Feiner in my very last day in Rio. It's a great little pandeiro, incredibly light and with exceptionally nice platinelas. It's much better for choro than my Bira and it really just seems to sing. (The Bira's super for funk, but not choro)

Ah, it was SO cool to be playing pandeiro again and have it feel so good. Like it suddenly came to life again. Adam's music is really sweet, beautiful tunes, some melty Jobim stuff that was just gorgeous, plus he has a great singing voice, plus a cool drummer and bassist. Really sweet to play with. I got home and the next day had the first really long stretch of pandeiro practice I've had in months. Dove deep into samba, then into coco, then into funk (those are the 3 I try to always hit) and tried to polish up a few little tricks - the drop-grab, the Celso two-finger fill, the fast 6/8 fill. My transition in and out of 6/8 is damn wobbly but I will work on it.

Adam invited me to come sit in with him some more and, of course, he suggested bringing a conga. Like I have found so many times: You ain't no percussionist until you are legit on conga. Damn. I gotta call Chris Stromquist and beg for another conga lesson quick! It's been six months since I've seen him anyway - about time for my semi-annual conga lesson.