a slightly busy weekend

first off, I've finally posted some escola movies & pictures at:
www.homepage.mac.com/sambakat

It was a really busy weekend... and I'm feeling it now. Woke up today with a really sore throat, feeling rundown and very wobbly, and had to stay in bed most of the day. (Only crawled out of bed today for Bangalafumenga rehearsal). Got only myself to blame, but it's so hard to take it easy on the weekends! Seems like every Friday and Saturday, and Sunday, and Thursday, there's at least one show, sometimes two or three, that in Seattle would be the best show of the year! It's hard to pace myself (and pace my wallet... These shows aren't cheap at all.) Friday night, I had the Rio Maracatu parade and then my big Portela odyssey, and was up all night. Saturday night, I was terrifically tempted by two other best-shows-of-the-year (Jorge Ben Jor vs. Estrela Brilhante), but in the end I went to two more escolas, Mangueira and then Unidos da Tijuca, and was up all night again. Sunday, a big Ipanema frevo parade and then a fourth escola, Imperatriz; up half the night. Monday, 4 hours solid rehearsing with Monobloco.

yeeesh... apparently I can only keep up that pace for 4 nights in a row.

Some impressions of the escolas:
Mangueira was terrifically crowded, even though it's only the middle of November. (The only time I've ever been there when it wasn't packed was the very first rehearsal of the season, the first Saturday in August.) It was almost as squished as if it were January. Ick. There's no room to dance, you can't really see anything, and there's not much of a show anyway because the crowd is simply too thick. Mangueira can barely squeeze 1 flag pair onto the main floor, and that's about it. And the bateria's way too high, up in a balcony where you can't anything other than the first row of tamborims. AND... it's 20 reais! ouch! (Unidos da Tijuca was 10; Portela is 5 for men, just 1 for women; and Imperatriz let me in free.)

This year for the first time, Mangueira broke their long-standing ban on women drummers, and they now have a woman in the bateria. On tamborim. I spoke to her during a break (when she came down on the floor) and she confirmed she is the first, and I shook her hand and said congratulations. But, turns out Mangueira STILL doesn't let other women (non-bateria-members) up into the stands to watch the bateria! The burly security guy was letting lots of guys up there, including some gringos, but when I asked, he actually cringed, and said "I'm so sorry, but we're not allowed to let women up. It's a rule of the escola." He looked rather embarrassed about it, clasping his hands in a prayerful "please don't get mad at me, I don't make the rules" kind of way. He brightened visibly when I asked about the technical rehearsals, and said: "Yes! Yes, you can watch the technical rehearsals! They're on Sundays at 7pm! Yes, come and watch those!" So I've got that on my calendar for next week.

Finally, at 2am, tired of being squished and being unable to see or hear anything, I hopped a cab to Unidos da Tijuca. What a contrast. It was practically deserted - they'd finished the main rehearsal and the bateria had gotten to that stage where people start swapping instruments around to learn other parts. They let me right up into the bateria to film. The tamborims were in a tight little circle rehearsing new ideas for choreographies and joking around with each other. A caixa guy got so involved in dancing a crazy dance for me that finally a second-surdo player (the guy in the red shirt in the photo on my other site) told him to knock it off and leave me in peace so I could film the third surdos. He could see I was transfixed by the third surdos. Like Imperio Serrano's thirds, Tijuca's thirds were doing an immensely long coordinated pattern, built to match the song and the tamborim desenhos, and synchronized among all the third surdos. (I posted a little movie to homepage.mac.com/sambakat) I love that approach to cutter playing - it's so musical. It just makes so much sense to coordinate the thirds and the tamborims: of course!!

Tijuca's caixas were all played em cima (held up high). They were doing a slightly different variant of the "Viradouro basic", this one missing the last upbeat before the 1:
RllR RlRl RlRl Rlrl
... though there were some variations.
It's amazing how much better I can perceive the caixa patterns now. Last year, it was the first time I'd seen caixas really played Rio style - so fast! And with such a stronger left hand, and stronger swing, than I'd ever heard before. It just seemed a rattly blur of confusion, so much so that I couldn't even perceive any recognizable samba pattern in it. But now I can just glance at them and know right away what they are doing (though maybe I can't do it quite that fast). yay, progress....

Sunday, I treated myself to a waffle-with-honey at my favorite breakfast place, Cafeina in Copacabana (right across the street from Modern Sound), then headed to Ipanema beach for a marvelous maracatu/frevo parade, including Monobloco and Pedro Luis. The crowd was deliriously happy - and drunk - bouncing like kangaroos, singing along to every song. The frevo dancers were INCREDIBLE. It really seemed like Carnaval - that same wild, joyful, half-drunk, good-hearted spirit.

Right after the parade, I unexpectedly ran into two European sambistas - Mick of London, and Simeone of Dublin! It was especially unexpected since I had never met them before - but Mick miraculously recognized me from a picture of me that was on my blog last year! It was cool to put faces to two of the names that I've seen so often on the international email lists. I had a drink with them at the Arpoador, and got to listen to the plans they're hatching for Monobloco's European tour next year, which started to sound so tempting that I was mentally rearranging my summer schedule next year to be a Monobloco groupie.

We arranged to meet at 8pm to head to Imperatriz. I had an hour to kill and walked through the Hippie Fair (Ipanema's best street market) and then strolled along the beach playing pandeiro. It was just past sunset, at the garbagemen were doing their evening rounds to pick up all the beach trash. They heard my pandeiro, and immediately one of them jumped off the garbage truck and started dancing a magnificent samba, in his bright orange garbageman coveralls, in the dusk along the beach.

Imperatriz was a blast. Full-on parade rehearsal, passistas, little kids & everything. Great bateria (they use two caixa patterns; a long line of cuicas; plus a cymbal and an air horn). And it was a pleasant change to visit an escola with friends instead of alone.

Four escolas in three nights. The next night I dragged myself through four hours of Monobloco rehearsal the next night, which was brilliant but left me shaky with exhaustion. Then got sick, like I said - I have no idea what I did Tuesday - oh yeah, now I remember, I slept till 2pm, ate cookies and read Portuguese comic books all day. Finally managed to crawl to Banga today. GREAT fun to play with Banga again. oh!! so fun to play third with Banga again tonight!! There was only 1 other cutter there, who was very glad to have company, and we were LOCKED tight as twins; powering away on the Funk 4 (my favorite ever cutter part), bouncing our way through the frevo, slamming the magnificent samba entradas. It felt GOOD and it felt like I was really contributing, which is a feeling that I love.

I stayed for almost an hour after rehearsal chatting with people, and even almost managed to understand them.

I am very tired now.