Manhattan Samba

Raced back to Manhattan Thurs night to check out the rehearsal of Manhattan Samba in the Meatpacking District. Eventually I found the samba leader, Ivo, unloading drums from his van in a parking lot right by the river, at the end of a warren of battered, graffiti'd warehouses peppered with incongruously hip, polished restaurants. He has rehearsals outside when it's not raining.

There are basically three ways to run a samba group: as a pay-as-you series of classes, as a dues-paying membership, or as a pro group. Like many of the groups in the bigger cities, Manhattan Samba takes the first path. Pay as you go, $20 per session. Samba groups with this kind of pay structure aren't always worth it for me. But this one was worth it; Ivo knows his shit. He appears to take special pains to be sure everyone circulates on all the instruments and learns all of them. Today he'd brought an enormous amount of quad bells and caixas in his van, and stepped us through first a half-hour quad bell lesson, then a half-hour caixa lesson. Then, eventually, he phased some people to surdo and switched to teaching repertoire for the upcoming parade.

I had a great time. Learned some new stuff on quad bell, some cool breaks, learned some good caixa patterns, got a helpful technique fix on surdo (Ivo wanted me to bring my mallet alllllll the way up and back - I used to be so good about that, but I've been getting lazy and playing with a lazy low soft stroke), and, at the end, some cool short breaks that lay against the song really nicely.

My caixa playing seemed inexplicably all wobbly again - I have GOT to find some way to get regular practice time in when I'm travelling, because I'm distressed at how quickly I lose speed, swing and stamina. It seems like, just one week off and suddenly I can barely play. (I should be carrying my sticks - and my pandeiro - with me around Manhattan, and practicing in parks. And not getting distracted by dinosaurs.) But eventually I got rolling again.

Ivo used a really helpful caixa drill that I want to remember for my own teaching: he played continuously, but the students played only every other clave. Play, then listen. Play, then listen. This solved that awful problem in group classes in which beginners can only hear each other, and cannot remember exactly what sound or what swing they are aiming for. During the caixa session, Ivo also played with two sticks in each hand (four sticks total), sometthing I've never seen anyone do before - I think it was to make him twice as loud so that we could hear him better. Whatever the reason, there was surprisingly rapid progress in the class.

And glory be, if he didn't teach EXACTLY the two caixa patterns I've been most interested in recently, but with new variations: Mangueira and Mocidade. Delightful for me. More drum geekery will follow in a separate post for those who are interested.

Then I was switched to third, and off we went in samba. Fun to be on third again. There was one other guy on third who felt like a nice match, a really clean, strong player. We locked well. We kept unconsciouly sync'ing up and doing the same variation at the same time, or finishing each other's variations. Eventually it was past 10pm (official rehearsal end time) and it had started to sprinkle, then drizzle, then it was definitely raining. My surdo head was started to get alarmingly wet. I had to catch the 10:39 train out of Penn Station - the next train after that would be over an hour later. I caught a glance at a neighbor's watch - 10:04. Ivo saw me do that and said sharply to me "YOU CAN'T LEAVE NOW." Someone else made some tiny intention-movement toward their bag and Ivo said emphatically, as we stood there getting wetter and wetter, "It is not raining! You can't leave! You must stay! IT IS NOT RAINING!" as the rain came pelting down. Made me laugh - but I was happy to stay, even happy to miss the train. We went through the samba several more times (and yes, it was fun.)

I said a heartfelt thanks to Ivo & everyone, hustled five blocks to the subway station, sprinted to an A line train that was magically waiting right there for me. Got to Penn Station, glanced up at the display board and saw it was 10:40 and the ALL ABOARD sign was blinking for my 10:39 train. Flat-out SPRINT time, across the full length of Penn Station, clear down to track 2, down the stairs two at a time, jumped into the train, doors closed and we were off! Nick. of. time. Whew! Back I went to Maplewood, caixa patterns ringing in my head.

Read Harry Potter in Portuguese the whole way to Maplewood. I learned the words for wizard, spell, wand, broom, cauldron, muggle, yell, owl, cage, chest, floorboard, pulverize, and scar.

I really like this city.