Minnie the Moocher does Maracatu

Derek's maracatu group, Nacao Bate Livre ("Free Beat Nation", roughly), is swinging into gear. There's been a little corps of maracatu players here in Portland for a while, but mostly just assembling now and then, once or twice a year. But over the last month Derek seems to have decided to really kick it into gear. A "real" band, gigging actively, not just a once-a-year band. That means big awesome new repertoire, lots of late-night rehearsals, a bunch of gigs lined up, t-shirts (you know it's serious when the t-shirts appear!), little business cards, the email list, the works.

My first big mistake this week (well, about my 6th actually, but my first relating to the maracatu): Missing 2 of the the last 2 rehearsals. My second mistake: Forgetting my earplugs (even though I just bought 50) My third mistake: Thinking call was at 7pm, but no, call was at SIX-THIRTY pm, the SHOW was at 7pm.

So I'm casually checking email at 6:30 when I realize I'm LATE, LATE, LATE! GRAB the white pants (thank god I found them, thank god they still fit, it's been years....), GRAB the alfaia (thank god I tuned it earlier), FORGET the earplugs again, ZOOM to the car, CURSE myself for not having reviewed the Baladas 1, 2 and 3 or the mysterious new syncopated thingy, PRAY that John J will remember the Baladas, or that at least Derek will somehow visually cue me through it, and CHARGE down I-5.

Get there just in time. Tiny bar. Drizzling rain. Freezing cold. The band is huddling in a little patio in the back. All the girls are shivering. (The guys are fine, of course) Wow, I'm not late!!! Derek rounds us up and off we go.

This being a new band and all, I didn't quite know how it would go. For the record.... it went FANTASTIC. Derek has rounded up the craziest set of phenomenally talented people. His philosophy seems to be, if you are a brilliant musician, you WILL join our maracatu band, even if you weren't planning on it, and even if you've never heard of maracatu, and once you hear the alfaias it will just come to you, and we will MAKE whatever it is that you play become part of maracatu. Derek seems to know every good musician in town, and he's constantly pulling random people off of street corners who happen to be the world's expert on the theremin or something. "Hey! Come play theremin in our maracatu band!" - or whatever it is. And the thing is, Derek is the kind of guy who could actually pull this off. He has seriously put in his time on maracatu - he is no lightweight - plus he really understands the underlying relationships of quite a lot of other genres too - all the rhythmic nuances, all the historical background. He can see a way that they will fit together.

Anyway, so there we were with a set of West African drummers, a flute player, a tap-dancing saxophonist, and a full-on maracatu ensemble, and damn if it didn't work.

We started off with "Minnie the Moocher" played by the tap-dancing saxophone player who was also hollering the song through an old-fashioned bullhorn. OK, so maybe you were not thinking of a tap-dancing saxophone-based "Minnie the Moocher" as a maracatu song, were you? YOU WOULD BE WRONG. It turns out Minnie the Moocher *IS* MARACATU. You just didn't know it yet.

Derek stepped us into it gently at first, just marking downbeats, while the wonderful sax guy was singing.
BOOM bip bip bip
BOOM bip bip bip
real gentle, and then Derek whips off the caixa call and the alfaias came THUNDERING in, with the electrifying bells and the rockin' ganza taking off on an endless dancing groove. Immediately every single person who had been in the bar all piled outside to see us. The sax and the flute jamming along. Outrageous.

Just for the record the alfaias were doing this pattern that starts with a roll (I don't have a name for it):
RLRL R--R -L-R ---- R-L- R--R -L-R ----
(using my usual notation of, hits are shown in clumps of four 16th notes)
(maracatu's traditionally denoted with E's and D's, the Portuguese abbreviations for left and right, but never mind about that.)
... just such a cool pattern I thought I would write it down.

The swingin' bell-and-ganza section just kept on grooooooving, while the alfaias came in and out like enormous elephants having a very cool, very funky argument, and the caixa patterns buzzing around our heads like an insane flock of crows. The caixas started doing all kinds of crazy shit. Derek started calling each caixa in turn to do the funkiest rockingest solo they could possibly think of, one after the other, round and round and round. WHOA boy on those caixa solos. Hot. Passersby started running across the street (TOWARD us, mind you, not away from us). A huge pile of onlookers collected around. 'Cause the caixas guys were GOOD. Damn took my breath away.

This is the kind of night that makes me think ... why would I want to live anywhere else when there are players like this here in Portland? (which is especially ironic 'cause I'd just spent the first half of the day worrying over the fact that living in the Pacific Northwest is pretty isolated, musically. But the thing is, so what if it is isolated, if there's this quality of music happening? ) One more factor to add in to my Fall'08 life crisis about whether to move to Brazil, Europe, the East Coast, or just stay put.

Then - Balada Something! One of the ones I've spaced! And yes, of course John remembered it (he has a hell of a musical memory - whenever I've spaced something, I just look at John) and he jumped right in beautifully, and I copied him, *whew* (wipe brow in relief) and from there on Derek led us through everything with crystal-clear cues.

Hey, who needs rehearsals! Maybe I can miss ALL the rehearsals!

This is shaping up to be a fine band.