London School of Samba

I visited the London School of Samba on Sunday. They've got kind of a clever weekly schedule, which is a "workshop" on Sunday that is open to beginners and where everybody can try new instruments; and then a closed, invitation-only rehearsal on Thursday. I didn't realize the way this schedule worked and am a little bummed that I'll have to miss the Thursday rehearsal, which sounds pretty cool. (I'd already arranged to go to Paraiso that night, and unfortunately my visit is so short that I've only got 1 Thursday.)

But I did get to see the Sunday workshop, and that was pretty cool too. I was intrigued by this sort of solution to the perpetual problem of how to get beginners started, and how to be inclusive to the community, while also protecting the standards of the performing group. They were very emphatic about "This is a workshop, where you try a drum you don't normally play. This is not the rehearsal. The rehearsal is Thursday." And the rehearsal is "invitation-only." Seems like an idea that VamoLa could try.

It all reminded me of VamoLa, except about THREE times bigger - and they kept telling me that it was unusually small because they'd just done a huge parade earlier that day. Apparently they have about 80 people for the Notting Hill Carnaval! They also run 2 dance classes right before - beginner and advanced, run simultaneously. Many of the beginner dancers stay and try the drumming too. Tonight's workshop was about: Eight tamborim. Four bell. Seven or so chocalho. Four repique, about five caixa, about 8 surdo. This is "small"?? Pretty amazing to me to see an open-community workshop that can muster that kind of numbers on a supposedly thin night a few hours after a parade. Later the bell leader told me that she's had up to 17 brand-new bell players show up at once.

A couple notable things that I want to file away for future reference:
- constant training up of 4 repique players. A large part of the rehearsal was simply rotating the simplest repique call among the 4 players, one of whom was so new I don't think he'd ever played repique before. Yet he was put right in the rotation anyway for learning the call. Seems like a good idea to take the mystique out of it & start people training on repique right from the very beginning.
- director is not playing repique. Separation of directing job from repique-playing job. This is the Rio system. (I really think the Lions ought to try this)
- some really beautiful bell patterns going on. I spotted them doing the maculele pattern earlier, then a pretty little partido alto variation.

I just played caixa the whole time. LSS uses Mocidade as their basic, so, I felt right at home. I accidentally stole somebody else's private caixa halfway through rehearsal (someone had walked off with mine, and another one was sitting right nearby, so I thought someone had accidentally taken mine and left theirs; so I started using that one.... but no, it was someone else's...oops...)

I also had the dubious pleasure of standing next to a third-surdo player who I think is the single most oblivious person I've ever met about physically crashing into people with his drum! I've played in lots of escolas and there is definitely a certain jostling for space, but generally people respect your space if you stand your ground. And especially if you let them get thrashed by your sticks if they are foolish enough to crowd you within range of your stick ends. Especially as a woman, you learn to hold your ground against the guys.

But this guy, I don't know what it was, but I saw him bash into people at least 10 times. Including tripping backwards over his own drum twice, and later mangling his own strap clip and then completely destroying it! He kept spinning around, his mallet hand flying around wildly and brushing my head on the 200mph upswing, and once he ripped my legs pretty badly with the lugs on his drum when he whipped it around unexpectedly. The other players had instinctively cleared away a bit till he was surrounded by a little radius of empty space. But my Mocidade reflexes kicked in and so I stood my ground, stayed standing where I'd been standing all along, turned to shield my legs with my caixa, let him get whacked hard a few hundred times my stick ends (I hadn't moved at all - he just moved within range of my sticks and I just kept playing) and finally jabbed him right in the back with a straight stick. Just holding my ground, is all, it's what I learned in Mocidade! He turned out to be Brazilian - of course!!! But even most Brazilians aren't like that. Funny guy!

The cool thing was, he could really play! I kind of wanted to grab a third surdo and trade stuff with him, 'cause he had some cool stuff. But I decided I was content just to stand there with my stolen caixa and whack him with my stick ends.

London School of Samba. They all piled over to a pub afterwards and I chatted with some of the players for a couple more hours. I also made the discovery that some of the LSS players had been reading my Rio blog last year, which was really cool to find out. (It's always sort of startling to find out that people have been reading it - since I really only write it for myself - but it's really nice too.)

I was sort of tormented to have to turn down a special invitation to the Thursday rehearsal. Next year!

I was sorry when everybody finally had to go home to work the next day. I had a great time with them.

A few nights later I had a really interesting talk with one of the long-time LSS players and learned a bit more about their system and their annual cycle. More on that later.

Maracatu in London

Trotted off to see Sam's maracatu and samba-reggae groups. Back-to-back rehearsals, four hours total.

I'd been considering dashing off to have a London evening instead of going to visit yet another group - aren't there other things I could be doing in London than running around to samba groups? And yet, it's been working out great because I have all my days free for sightseeing and then it's just so fun in the evenings to go play with people. (Then I stay up till 4am doing class prep for UP - that's not so ideal - but it's gotta get done. Hey, I'm all the way up to the first exam!)

I thought I wouldn't stay for very long, but when I got there, I just got immediately sucked in helplessly again. Stayed for 4 hours. Once again with the startling surprise of finding the richness and history and group-personality of, in this cause, not one but TWO wonderful groups that I'd never even know about.

And once again that fascinating mestre-personality phase-change. This rehearsal was some serious shit tonight. Sam was NOT fooling around. "When I do this, it means EVERYBODY FUCKING SHUT UP!!!! GOT IT??? IT MEANS STOP PLAYING AND STOP TALKING! WE ARE GOING TO GET THIS BREAK RIGHT BY CARNAVAL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO LEAVE TONIGHT TILL WE GET IT RIGHT. YOU! SHUT UP!!!!" Apparently there is a certain amount of tension regarding Notting Hill Carnival just two weeks away. It's not just Sam - every group I've been to is in this state. Notting Hill is looming like the end of the world. This is apparently a mother-effer of a parade; Ameena told me the parade used to be TWELVE HOURS LONG, no joking, "but now it's only six." And it's every group's major event of the year, and they are in real competition, and there is some serious competition between these groups because they have some long and complicated histories with each other.

I would so love to be able to jump on a certain US group that way without everybody bursting into tears and sending 55 hurt emails about it later. Instead, it was easy: mestre yelled, got everybody's attention, everybody shut up like they were supposed to, and we played the break and eventually we got it right and it all worked out.

And now I've reminded myself of one player's dead-on imitation of a certain leader that I saw a few weeks ago (different leader, different city) - walking into a room and yelling loudly "THAT'S WRONG! STOP PLAYING! Well, it's been nice seeing you; I gotta go now," turning around and walking back out, total time in room 5 seconds. har har har, maybe you had to be there, but I could not stop laughing.

I played mostly shekere and bell tonight. Shekere I always love. Everybody else always wants to play alfaia. I used to be an alfaia junkie too, but I had SO MUCH alfaia time in Recife & Rio, and now I own 3, and though I still love it I actually get a bit bored with it sometimes. So I'm more into shekere now, 'cause it's got some subtleties and some great dance moves that I'm still learning, and when it is played really well it really makes the whole band swing. Especially after seeing Derek's shekere solo with Pink Martini, I am all re-inspired about it! So I grabbed a shekere tonight & Sam immediately gave me a new challenge of not just throwing it high overhead but also CATCHING it on the beat, so that the little "shk" sound when you catch it is in time.

And bell was cool because Sam uses bells in samba-reggae, which is something I've been curious about. (Sam uses tamborim too! And timbal. And third surdo, but as far as I could see, no 4th. Repique with rods.) Samba-reggae tonight for me were characterized by a persisent is-that-the-1-or-the-3 bewilderment. "I think I know this bell pattern now... but is that the 1 or the 3? Is that the 3 or the 1?" The entire bell section was bewildered and for some reason they all kept looking at me for guidance. Hey, I'm new here! Muddled through ok. Lots of cool patterns; and a nice variety of grooves.

And they sing!
Why don't the US groups sing more???

Oh, and also there were the mestre of Camelao, and a Timbalada player and some other Olodum or Ile Aiye types, lots of Brazilians, lots of Portuguese spoken. And there was a guy who recognized me from the New York Halloween parade last year with Maracatu New York 'cause he'd been there playing too, and a bunch of friends that I've met at other things this week, and a new friend to walk home with, and a nice, all-too-short chat w/Sam afterwards (who had phase-shifted back to his usual gentle self instantly after rehearsal). This seems to be the standard London mix: great players, new friends, people I met on other continents showing up out the blue, and a few genuine Brazilian mestres tossed in. What was it that i was just saying it ain't even the music really, it's the people?

to finish, some music geekery:

Here's my favorite Estrela Brilhante maracatu break that I've now seen (& played) in Recife, New York, California, and London. I have seen it in so many places now that it seems to be public domain.

Caixas playing, mestre is calling the "Tu maraca" call and band is yelling "Tu MaracaTU!" back.

Tu maraca, tu maraca - TU and on that last "TU" the break starts:
D--D ED-D ED-D E-D-
D--- X---- !-D- D-D-
D-@- -DED D--- D---
immediately into groove or back to caixas & tu maraca call

X is a yell "HEY". (and throw the shekere).
! is me catching the shekere (or not). You have to catch it in time.
@ is an optional "HUH" yell that they do in New York.
Very last D is optional
End of first measure can vary too

Verde Vai at the Grosvenor Pub

Went to Verde Vai Monday night. Absolutely phenomenal. There are only 3 places outside of Rio where I have had that sensation of FLYING when the samba starts. California Brazil Camp (and then only for the last two days of the first week of advanced bateria); the Lions of Batucada; and now, Verde Vai.

(Verde Vai - get it? get it? Took me 2 months before I noticed!)

They take over the back room of a pub in south London every Monday night, and play for hours and hours. It was HOT.

Best of all was to find an unexpected assortment of friends there. Junior Teixeira, my tamborim teacher from Rio, came tiptoeing through the crowd toward me and grabbed me in a big bear hug. He's here on the Monobloco tour. Rob, my cheerful friend from Mocidade who has been so helpful arranging housing for me, was there; and his girlfriend Charlotte (who is going to take me horseback riding!). JP and Emily were there! I'd last seen them in Copacabana at the Monobloco parade, and before that in Olinda, and before that at Mocidade. Lauren, another girl I recognized from the Mocidade trip. Turns out the whole pack of them that I'd met in Rio are all Verde Vai players. It was that friendly Lions feeling (complete with people handing me free beer and weed - just like the Lions! Now THAT'S a real samba group.)

It was so sweet to be there playing with them.

and shit, they turn out to be incredible players, every one. Charlotte beside me, looking like such a sweet mild-mannered girl until she gets ripping on caixa. Rob turned out to be goddam brilliant on repique, and brilliant at directing (and he's also now the only gringo I've ever seen play frigideira). I was thrilled to see Rob play the exact same beautiful Mocidade entrada that I'd filmed Bruno doing months ago, at the quadra - currently my favorite entrada.

We got going way too fast once at a hyperspeed call-in and I couldn't believe how fun it was. I almost couldn't hang on to it for a second, but then I got hold of it, and ZOOM. The mestre (Joe) called us out - "That was too fast" - but JP and I glanced at each other and we were both grinning ear to ear. "That was great! That was great!" we hissed to each other.

Joe, who had seemed like a perfectly pleasant guy when I met him at a party a couple days ago, did one of those fascinating phase-changes into an alternate personality for leading, like a liquid turning to crystal. Formidable. A true alpha-wolf Rio mestre, and I do believe he could hold his own in an escola quadra. No messing around and if you fuck up, you sure know it right away; no hijinks, no talking back, pay attention and PLAY goddamit! But it's not intimidating because you know he is aimed at the music. And it works, the band plays like hell.

You can see a pic of the group at www.verdevai.com. Guess which one is Joe!

Best of all: they had singers and cavaquinho players! MELODY! oh man! I was soaring.

Verde Vai... only played with them once and I miss them already.

More to life

The friend here said to me seriously one night: "There is more to life than samba." She'd just completed a weekend of all-night costume construction, samba dance performance, partying and a grueling three-hour parade the next day; yet she was describing herself as "less addicted" to samba than others. She felt she had to defend her choice to not learn tamborim, and instead to stay with her other loves of piano and other dance forms.

A second friend said to me last night, when I was describing how nice it was to be in New York (where I'd been just biking around and spending time with friends, not doing Brazilian music) "So if you went to New York you could get your life back."

I knew immediately what they both meant. People often think of me as being addicted to samba: "I can't believe you'd travel to another city just to play samba! You're obsessed!" But the odd thing is, I'm actually not all that obsessed. I don't even listen to Brazilian music that much. (in fact, I'm kind of embarrassed by how little I listen to it.)

The thing that everybody misses is that there are NO anchors holding me in one place. If you have no job, home, possessions, family or friends, there is no reason NOT to move to the next city down the coast, or the next continent, just to join its samba band. If I didn't do that, I'd drift to San Diego to learn to surf, or head to Louisiana to join the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker. Whatever. If you are that light on the earth, a puff of wind can blow you three thousand miles. Samba is as good a reason to travel as any other.

(ok, "no family or friends" is not really true - I do have family & friends. It's just that they're scattered so evenly all over the planet that there's no one city that has more of them than any other city.)

But the surprising thing, the extra cool thing about samba, the thing that I never expected, is that I doubt there's any other way I could have met more people, or made better friends, or have more travel opportunities, or have as much impetus to improve my musicianship and my dance and my language skills. Where else can you go to any other city in the world and immediately be playing music with 80 of your new best friends? It's not samba itself, really, that has been so addictive. It's the things that it leads to, the people I have met, the doors that it has opened for me. In the end, I might keep on playing samba, but I probably won't; but at the end of it I'll be a better musician, I'll have learned stick and hand drum skills that I can put to use in a hundred other kinds of music. And I'll have travelled all over the world, I'll have learned at least one language if not more, and I'll have friends in dozens of major cities. Those are the lasting things.

As for the "you'll have your life back in New York" - No, I'll have a life for the first time. I never had one before.

hungry in London

Been in London four days now and am not remotely over my jet lag - I keep sleeping till 1 or 2pm accidentally, and staggering with fatigue other times. Also been sick and hungry a lot (can't afford much food here!!)

The weather is fantastically beautiful and the city is so fabulous I almost can't believe how beautiful it is. I've been here several times before, but it's been a while. Even the little far-off untouristy neighborhoods seem beautiful. Something about the winding little streets and the endless ant-warren-ness of it, the big red buses charging around tiny corners unexpectedly.

I really wish I were here with someone so I could share it. Instead I just walk around on my own.... walking endlessly. I've lost several pounds just in a couple days from all the walking and the small meals. I tried not to eat very much the first couple days and sank into that miserably hungry jet-lagged state where all you have eaten is the cheapest stuff you can find at the all-night shops: a big bag of Dorito's and a cup of instant soup. The take-away Chinese places are absolutely horrible, as are the scary KFC ripoffs ("Dallas Fried Chicken" "Tennessee Fried Chicken")

Musically it's a GREAT time to be here - lots of festivals and parades, escola mestres all over the place. It's all leading up to Notting Hill Carnival at the end of the month, which apparently is such a big deal that the London guidebooks have it listed as one of the top events of the year. File away for future reference: I've got to come here for a full August sometime.

Monobloco is here right now, running workshops. And the mestre of Estacio, Esteves, just arrived. He has a cool deal here where he has a permanent bateria here in London that he comes and visits every August, working them up to the Notting Hill Carnaval. His brothers run the group the rest of the year. He tests out all his new ideas for breaks on the London group, then uses the best ones for Estacio the next year. So the Londoners know all the new breaks before the Rio players do!

I also bumped into what seemed like several dozen other top players and maracatu mestres and Timbalada players and Afro-Reggae players.

It all made me start my usual slow burn of fury against the US govenrment's ridiculous visa policy, which makes it so difficult to bring Brazilian musicians to the US for workshops and tours. The more I travel, the more I see that the visa policy has crippled music and dance instruction in the US. So the US just gets even more isolated culturally. Just what we need.

My dream year would be:
July & August in London (working up to Notting Hill Carnaval)
Sept & Oct in New York (working up to the Halloween Parade)
then Brazil for another five months, of course. (working up to Carnaval)

New York reunion

Had a week in New York again. I'm trying to decide whether to spend next summer in New York or in London.

New York for me feels like a blend of Boston, and Rio, and old childhood memories. Boston in the essentially East Coast culture and brassy attitude, the small-town mentality, the rattly subway, the proud history mixed with the ramshackle air of a 17th-century colonial city that has far outgrown its tiny island infrastructure. Rio in the size and the roar of the traffic, and the international feel, the swarms of tourists, the racial mix, the overheard snatches of foreign languages. And childhood memories pop up from the oddest things. (I lived in New Jersey till I was 10.) Really good bagels! The cries of blue jays in the distance. Fireflies in the parks at dusk. The steaming humid heat of the East Coast August: Hot bright sweaty days, then banks of heavy clouds gathering low overhead and bursting into sudden, drenching rain.

Unique to New York are the simplicity of the street grid, the sight lines, the vanishing point of the vast straight avenues. It's very relaxing on the eyes. Walking down the avenues is like walking through an open-air cathedral. The buildings soar on either side like twin mountain ranges, and your eye is drawn to the far distant point where the avenue disappears over the horizon. You can never get lost. You always know where you are and how to get home.

This time I stayed with a musician/juggler friend in Union City, New Jersey, which turns out to be a far quicker trip to Manhattan than I would have believed possible. A zillion little mini-vans were constantly zipping past my place and through the Lincoln Tunnel to Manhattan - fifteen minutes away. (One of my best NY experiences so far was a motorcycle ride with Andy through the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour. Complete with getting pulled over by New York's finest)

My New Jersey friend actually had a soundproof room where I could practice, so I got some good repique time in, and a bit of pandeiro too. I have not been doing much pandeiro recently - I go off and on it, depending on whether it is making me happy or not. Over time I have realized that pandeiro, like dance, is something I only do for myself, not for performance; I just play pandeiro alone at home, or out in a park, never with other people. There's no market for it; usually there's just 1 or 2 gigs in town for a pandeiro player, and there's already 3 or 4 vastly skilled people competing for it. I could fight for a spot in the pack, but it hardly seems worth it. So now I only do it for myself, and only when it's fun.

For once I didn't seek out any samba on this trip. But I did track down some old samba friends. On Thursday night I had an unlikely reunion of 5 former VamoLa sambistas. Three live in New York now (Fernanda, Robyn & Tom), and two were coincidentally passing through in the same week (me & Kimberly). This was a group of people that I never thought I'd be with again, for a whole lot of reasons, so it was really something special for me. Especially since we didn't do anything in particular... we kept talking about going to see some music but ended up just walking around, had some dessert, walked some more, had some drinks, walked some more, just chatted and laughed. Took silly pictures of each other taking silly pictures of each other.

It made me so happy to be with a group of old friends. Something I have almost never been able to do in my life. It made me happy because I'd lost touch with some of them, and it was so nice to be back in touch again, and to have such a friendly happy time of it, too. And I LOVED having an evening out with friends that had NO SAMBA AT ALL. When is the last time that that has ever happened? Almost never. Why don't I do it more? Because there's usually nobody to go do it with.

At the end of the evening I realized I wouldn't see any of them again for a long time, and felt terrifically sad. Dreading the prospect of heading off alone again to another unknown foreign city tomorrow.

It is funny that I travel so much, because it actually makes me very lonely. That is why I write these blogs; it is what I do when I am feeling very lonely. It'll be ok though. It is always rough at times, but all these places start to seem like homes eventually. My casual Rio friends are slowly maturing into real friends; Rio is becoming a real home and not just a samba destination. The same is happening with New York, and with Portland. Eventually, if this keeps up, I will have dozens of homes all over the world, and maybe more of the short-term samba friends will slowly turn into real friends. I hope.