Monday, August 31, 2009

Jorge calls in a samba

Since my last post I've finished up my Salvador trip and had a crazy summer in Grand Teton National Park chasing birds. Now it's the end of August, and I'm supposed to be at the University of Portland this week. I'm missing the mandatory all-campus faculty meeting, the mandatory biology faculty meeting, and the mandatory Opening Mass that All Faculty Are Expected To Attend. And where am I exactly, what's my wonderful excuse for blowing all this off? A death in the family? A serious injury? No, the death in the family was LAST week. THIS week I am at California Brazil Camp playing drums.

(Yes, there was a death in my family last week. I am not speaking of it lightly. Indirectly, it is part of the reason that I am here at California Brazil Camp instead of attending that mandatory faculty meeting. Because there's nothing like watching someone you love fight a terrible deathly disease for two years to make you realize that you've got only this one very short life. Blink and it's over... )

So here I am at California Brazil Camp.

Nevertheless, I was feeling pretty guilty about ditching out of all the faculty meetings. 'Cause those meetings are actually where we get a lot of work done, and my fellow faculty are good souls and they're my friends. But instead there I was in the redwood forest of northern California, in the Advanced Bateria class, strapping on my caixa. I was standing in a wooden outdoor amphitheater surrounded by a cathedral of gigantic redwood trees. The redwoods were positively regal; immense rugged columns eight feet in diameter, ringing our whole amphitheater and stretching up far out of sight overhead. Shafts of sunlight were streaming down through the forest... a ridiculously dramatic setting, really, ridiculously gorgeous. All around me a chattering horde of people walking to and fro, hauling huge drums around, practicing little drum patterns on their hands, leaping up to greet long-lost friends. There were... (counting them up...) ... nearly 100 samba players from all over the Americas, and half of Asia. A good chunk of the Lions were there from Portland; a sprinkling of the players from Washington State; a hefty contingent from the Bay Area bands; several free agents from LA and San Diego; a band from Salt Lake City that I'd never even known about (damn fine players, it turned out); another set of players from Calgary that I'd also never even known about (also damn fine); a charming girl from Quebec, all on her own, who was planning to start a new group in her town, all by herself, as soon as she got back from camp; some of the best jazz players of New York City; a pack of terrifyingly skilled drummers from the Sambasia group, all the way from Beijing, China; the leader of Casa Samba in New Orleans; the most knowledgeable conga teacher on the entire West Coast; the leader of my own dear Lions; and on and on and on.

Some serious talent all told. About 100 of some of the finest percussionists of North America and Asia. Everyone strapping on their caixas and surdos, and chattering with delight, and greeting old friends.

And there was Jorge Alabe up front, the Rio master himself. Curtis Pierre (that's the guy from Casa Samba in New Orleans) was, as usual, assistant mestre; rough and tough as the real Rio diretores, barking at people to get in line, pushing us into position and roaring like a grizzly to make us stop chatting and pay attention.

Seeing Jorge and Curtis here, I suddenly remembered wandering through a bus terminal in Rio de Janeiro one day years ago, and hearing an odd drumming sound. I'd looked up to see what it was, and I saw Jorge and Curtis in a bus that was about to pull out. They had spotted me and were pounding on the windows to get my attention. I hadn't even known they were in Brazil! (It was one of the freakier coincidences of my life.) I ran and jumped on the bus just as it was pulling out, and spent all evening with them at Beija-Flor. I slept on the floor of Jorge's apartment that night, along with Curtis' entire family.

So here were Jorge and Curtis again. And all my beloved Lions, and my Bay Area crew that I'd prowled the streets of Recife with, and my New York jazz friends, and the great gods of Sambasia, and all these other wonderful people that I had yet to meet.

The shadow of my other life, my university life, melted and disappeared.

Right then Jorge called: "CAIXAS!!! VAI!!!"

That means: Snare drums. Go.

That's my section, this year. (Last time at CBC, I played third surdo; this year I thought I'd try caixa. This would be my first time on caixa at CBC.)

I launched in without thinking - I started all by myself! There's typically one caixa player who starts in first; then on the next measure all the other caixas join in. It's not planned; it just happens. I used to think, watching this phenomenon years ago, that I would never be that first caixa player. I would never be bold enough, skilled enough, or even just alert enough, to be the first caixa player out of the gate at CBC's Advanced Bateria.

But I'd just automatically jumped right in. (I guess a year on caixa in the Lions will do that.) One ringing, completely startling measure all by myself. Four players near me all spun around and looked at me in surprise, and I was still in the middle of being surprised myself when I hit the second measure and all the other caixas came ROARING in around me.

The electric shock of the caixas shot through the whole forest.

Jorge let us run for a few measures. Then he held up three fingers.

That meant: THIRD SURDOS, START.

The third surdos, of course, are the bass drums that do the most difficult part, the improvisations of syncopated rolls. Just as with caixas, there is always one third player who jumps in before the others, and this time it was my Lions friend Mehmet, who was standing right next to me. Mehmet came thundering in with a stunning long three-measure roll of such power that I don't really understand why I , and everybody else nearby, weren't physically blown right over flat onto our backs. Jesus, what volume! I felt like a jet engine had started up about three inches from my left ear.

Then all the other thirds joined him, and they settled in on the classic third surdo part. That violently majestic, galloping third surdo groove. It is like some fabulous huge beast has started galloping right through the forest at you. That fantastic rumbling roar triggers some ancient instinct - something that says WAKE UP, MOVE, GET OUT OF THE WAY! The adrenalin just starts surging.

Third and caixa were flying along now. Stunning.

Jorge let us settle in together, settle in on the ride and find our groove.

He waved 1 finger; then he waved 2 fingers; then he pointed up; and he pointed to the repique players.

That meant: First and second surdos be ready. We're about to start. Listen for the repique call.

He gave one more graceful little wave, a lovely little dancing movement with one arm.
That meant: NOW.

The caixas and thirds hit a perfect "cut": One-ee-and-uh-Two And Three.

There was a breathless pause, a quarter-second of perfect silence. It is the moment when the river carries you over the edge of the waterfall. The caixas and thirds were the river that had carried us to the edge. Now this tiny moment of silence, poised right at the edge, just before the fall.

Into that perfect still moment, the repique players shot their startling, clattering call. That brittle, crazy, beautiful, stunning, split-second song... I wish I could describe what it does to me. How can a fraction of a second, of the sound of a single drum, be so beautiful? Every samba player in the world knows what I mean; every samba player in the world cannot help but answer that repique call. It is the most beautiful sound in the world.

The first surdo players answered BOOM and the entire bateria charged into an absolutely thunderous samba. (When the firsts and seconds enter - good god, if you'd thought the thirds were powerful, here come the mastodons! Get the HELL out of the way!!!)

I was standing in the front row of the main body of the bateria, just behind the tamborims. The wall of sound behind me felt like a gigantic wave of water that was crashing right over me. Even the giant redwood trees around us must have felt it. I saw the tamborim players in front of me leaping to hit their subida (entrance) triplets, then dancing as they surged into the chatter of their ride. We had 20 tamborim players right in front of us, and tamborims are one of the loudest drums in existence, and I couldn't hear them at all! I just saw them dancing. All around me, the amazing power of the thirds (I was sandwiched between Mehmet, and Bryant from Sambasia), a pulverizingly strong first surdo on my left (the formidable Marko, of Marko Percussion), an equally formidable second surdo just behind me (never got his name, dang) and the perfection of the repiques before me and on my right (Mike Spiro, Brian Davis, and Jake Pegg.) (was I in a good spot or what? I was the only caixa in that astonishing group of surdos and repiques. And that was my own little local section of the bateria, the far-left of rows 2 and 3.)

I got kind of choked up and wanted to cry; ok, so I did cry, just a bit. Because it was so beautiful. Because my caixa felt so good under my hands - strong and singing and swinging and steady. Because I hadn't felt this way since the Lions last spring, since Bloco X in Germany last year, and since Rio. Because there are so few places on the planet where this happens. Because I'd been gone all summer, for months and months, gone into the silence of the mountains, and now I was back; because I'd lost a dear family member and a friend who will never taste the beauty of this life again; because now I was here, and almost all my samba friends were here, everybody from New York to Beijing. Everybody had come all this way, and paid all the money and travelled so far, and studied and practiced for years and years and years, just to make this astonishing and fleeting creation together. So beautiful.