In the heart of Grande Rio

Went to Grande Rio on Friday with a friend who plays chocalho in the bateria there. Fantastic evening. Grande Rio has one of my very favorite baterias and I got into the dead center where I could FINALLY see all the third surdos AND lead repiques, AND, I got to play caixa too! (after 2am when they don't really care who plays) That's actually my first time ever playing in an escola bateria. (I was surprised how comfortable it felt; it was just like playing caixa with Jorge Alabe!)

The lead repique player is usually impossible to see. This was my first good view (ever). Grande Rio had a tightly arranged core, with almost a little aisle down the middle of the bateria running from front to back. The aisle included the mestre (up front), 3 section directors all in a line, and then broadened out toward the back with 4 third surdos in a little square - all facing each other so they could remind each other of their long patterns - and a tight clump of at least 2, sometimes 3, lead repiques. (There are lots of other repique players scattered with all the caixas on both sides. But they only play the basic ride - they don't do the calls.)

One lead repique only would do the paradinhas and any other isolated little calls that did not lead into a full samba. But whenever it came time to lead into samba, the 2 (or 3) lead guys always did the call together, and they were practically glued together for that. They'd turn and face each other, repiques almost touching, and watching each other's hands, to be sure they were perfectly synchronized. There are always at least 2 lead repiques because the call is so critical that there has to be back-up in case of a problem (a dropped stick, whatever). (For the same reason there are also always a back-up flag pair, cavaquinho player, and several back-up singers, in every parade. )

I'll post a couple movies (at homepage.mac.com/sambakat). In one you'll see the lead guy in the blue shirt turn away from me - no, he's not camera-shy, he's turning to face the other lead repique in the white shirt. Why is it so critical that the repique players coordinate with each other? I think it's because sometimes they change the tempo at the call. Samba-enredos always start with just the singer, cavaquinho player, and one surdo - without the bateria. Then the repique does a call and the bateria enters. But I've noticed that very often the repique deliberately slows the tempo down. (At Carnaval last year when, Imperio Serrano's small band started off at a horrifying 165bpm - we were all terrified in Ala 9 - but then the Imperio lead repiques came smoothly in at 140.) I don't know if the little bands start off so fast on purpose, or just because they're excited!

Anyway I loved it at Grande Rio. I spent a long time watching the bateria core, and then watching all the caixas and their ten million different ways of holding a snare drum (including several that seemed dependent on the size of the beer belly). And just enjoying being there, in the huge flurry of movement, all the brilliant players all around me all playing full-strength and bouncing around, grinning at their friends. The floor was littered with broken sticks - I can't believe how hard those guys play! Grande Rio went through about 8 famous recent sambas from other escolas, then into their own samba for 2007; then, later, I got to play (yay!). And then, late at night, while trying to leave the stage unobtrusively through the back door, I almost blundered into an extremely tense-looking discussion among the singer, the mestre, the director, and all the other burly alpha-dogs of the escola. Turned out to be about tempo! "Differences of opinion" as to how far behind the beat a singer can be, before it starts to pull the bateria back. Serious, and furious, differences of opinion. Tempo is no joke in a top-ranked Grupo Especial escola. I turned around and crept down the side of the stage instead.