ROARRRR!

I had this urgent need to get out of Seattle, and an unexpectedly free weekend since one of my classes' Sunday field trips got cancelled (the Aquarium is under construction, dang).

Suddenly I felt it - that TUG - that PULL - that "Hop in your car, drive to the next city down the coast and join a band!" So on Friday there I was tearing down to Portland, Oregon.

I don't know what it is about Portland. It's a little tiny city but it always seems to have so much going on, musically. It seems to attract a lot of artist refugees who can't afford the housing costs of the bigger cities in the West Coast. It's close enough to San Francisco to benefit from SF's amazing Brazilian talent, but Portland has a low enough cost-of-living that people can actually take time for a music hobby. And somehow it stays unified.

There was a choro performance Friday night followed by a pagode get-together at the pandeiro player's house. I missed the choro due to traffic, dang, but went along to the pagode and MAN it was fun! I thought I didn't like pagode maybe it's just that I don't like bad pagode, because I sure loved this Portland pagode. I ended up sitting between John on rebolo and Sue on a variety of shakers and bells. We weren't two songs into it when I realized what an extreme pleasure it was to be playing next to John; I'm rarely right next to him and, shit, he's SO clean and beautiful in his playing. He was on the bass drum, which is always the most critical part of any band. Holy smokes. Whenever he started playing it was like a wave of perfect confidence would flood through the room - suddenly everybody knew exactly what was happening and exactly where the beat was. I could have played pandeiro forever next to him.

This was a real pandeiro breakthrough for me, this pagode evening. The pandeiro felt so comfortable. I've finally gotten to that stage when I'm just not worried AT ALL any more about screwing up in front of people - the instrument just feels soooo comfortable, and sooooo familiar, like an extension of my hand. No worries. When I do screw up, it just seems funny instead of embarrassing. That's a stage of comfort that's been a long time coming.

There was another fantastic pandeiro player there - Amaro, who used to be a pro percussionist in Rio and then decided to come to the US to get a PhD in biology. We laughed about that since I've been doing exactly the opposite (I have a PhD in biology and then decided to become a percussionist). I was a little intimidated by his brilliant playing at first, but as soon as he saw me play he gave me the pandeiro and switched to tan-tan for the rest of the evening. So that was awfully cool for me.

What a cool bunch of people. They were so friendly. There were a bunch of Brazilians there & I finally got to talk Portuguese again!

That was all just a total bonus, 'cause I'd really come for the Lions show at Portland State's Carnival party Saturday night.
Woke up late on Saturday, ran around looking for white shoes for the gig, hauled my surdo & bag o' percussion toys over there. Walked in to an enormous party and INSTANTLY I'd been swept up into a completely other performance that I hadn't even known about. There was a great big maracatu group going on that needed another shekere. There's nothing like walking into a room and suddenly being flung on stage in a group you didn't even know existed 5 seconds before. Hey! PORTLAND HAS A MARACATU GROUP! I didn't know! AND THEY'RE GREAT! It was "just" a backup band for PSU's maracatu dance class but it was beautiful. Real alfaias and good players. Power and beauty. So I jumped on in on shekere, and we shekere'd away and I only screwed up 1 big break! (only one extra "shik!", though, it wasn't too bad.)

Then, boom, Lions. Got my surdo on and we got ready to parade in. Everybody dressed in white. Randy leading. He started in on repique -

ROAR.

Jeez. I haven't seen a full Lions show for a while. Tonight, WOW. They had about 30 drummers and 7 completely incredible dancers (including VamoLa dancer Lisette, who's been coming down for Lions shows!). The POWER. Randy called us in with a repique flourish - he is such a brilliant player that it immediately made me think "I need to practice repique for about 8 years before I can play it in this group" - and the band answered with "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!" that was so powerful that people in the audience started screaming.

We paraded in, blowing the ceiling off, got on stage and launched into full samba. God, it is such a pleasure to play third surdo flanked by such solid caixas & first & second surdos. I had a magnificently reliable first and second to my left and behind me, and a perfect caixa on my right, and those guys just carried me. We had 3 thirds in the band and we thirds all started just ripping it up. The POWER. I haven't felt anything like that since Rio.... it was like riding that lightning again.

The dancers came out, glittering and gleaming, lit up like angels....

They did a brilliant 6/8. A great samba-reggae. Two pro drummers from Ile Aiye (Marcio and Wagner, from San Francisco) had been flown up to join us and Marcio cued us through an on-the-fly samba-reggae that was just smoking. Wagner tearing it up on the timbal. Mocidade. Mangueira (It has a new spiffy end!).

I swear, the Lions are the best Brazilian-percussion band I've ever seen in North America. I might be wrong; I haven't been everywhere in the continent yet, but I've seen a lot. They're better than anything I saw in New York or San Francisco. Sure, there are glitches just like in any band, wobbles in the choreographies, sure, nobody's perfect. But they just have such a deep bench of experienced players; and each dancer is actually a good dancer and can samba her ass off. And every new member learns SO fast because they've got such a brilliantly clear sound surrounding them. I've never seen beginner sambistas learn faster than they do in the Lions.

It was an incredible show. Those dancers coming out, the caixas all around me powering me on, the surdos thundering away. It was an musical high like I haven't felt since playing in Rio. The whole hall seemed to expand; the air seemed to be glittering. Riding lightning again. I'm so damn proud to be a Lion.