Playboys & Patricinhas samba too

Fresh back from Monobloco's last Friday show. Soooo fun. My caixa leader Fred was missing but Celso filled in some of the caixa cuing, and the caixa section managed to remember the rest on their own. Fred was apparently laid out with a nasty case of heat stroke while the Monobloco pros were playing in the Brahma camarote (the most celebrity-filled of the private boxes at the Sambodromo). The temperature in the Brahma camarote was over 104F and they just had to keep on playing! Yikes! I'm glad now that I didn't buy that Brahma camarote ticket from the scalper! Apparently Fred is ok, but, what with that and Andre getting clobbered in that Banga parade, jeez, my caixa teachers are dropping like flies.

Monobloco feels so much more relaxed and happy now, after these four Friday shows. Everybody is very secure now on all the repertoire, and it all feels confident and solid. It must be rewarding for the leaders when there are moments like tonight, with the caixa section on their own but doing fine; and there was another interesting moment when the lighting guy turned out all the lights for dramatic effect but accidentally turned off Celso's (the leader) spotlight too, so that we couldn't see his crucial cue to change patterns. But glory be, all the surdos came thundering in just when they were supposed to, in the pitch dark; they'd all unconsciously learned that particular song and knew it was time to come in, even without Celso's cue.

My favorite moment was actually.... well, to back up a bit, last summer (northern summer) in Seattle I got into an odd situation playing Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" on pandeiro with a jazz band. I was just innocently sitting in on a samba and next thing I knew they were playing Purple Haze. I thought "What are the chances that I'll ever play a samba-Purple Haze medley again? Certainly it'll never happen in Rio." Guess what: Monobloco had a wonderful guest visit from Os Paralamas do Sucesso's famous lead singer, and guess what he launched into, impromptu: Purple Haze! It was clearly unrehearsed and you could see Celso's mind racing through the possible choices for rhythm backup. Samba? Xote? Ciranda? He chose the Marcha 1, which turned out to be perfect. But then he couldn't figure out where to call the breaks! It was funny - all the gringos in the band (there are a handful of us) were automatically hitting a big break in the same place: "WHAM!, Scuse me, while I kiss the skyyyyy!" - but all the Brazilians were fumbling around doing the break a hair early or a hair late, or just playing straight through it. Really funny. The crowd didn't care at all about the break, though, of course, they were just completely thrilled anyway. It was really fun.

I'll close with a translation from one of O Globo's samba writers. As background: my blocos Monobloco and Bangalafumenga are a relatively new kind of bloco, what I call a "stage bloco" instead of a street bloco. They rehearse year-round, run lots of classes, and do lots of stage shows. Both aim for a very high standard of playing, and have a very diverse repertoire. They are also both white blocos from Zona Sul, which is kind of a new thing. Samba didn't used to be popular with white kids - not before about ten years ago. Both blocos have been huge hits with the younger carioca crowd, which has caused some resentment among the old-guard cariocas, because the old guard just don't trust white middle-class kids trying to play samba. (There is a pervasive, unspoken prejudice here that you have to be a poor black Brazilian to play really good samba; it's a reverse racism). I still get comments from the old-guard players along the lines of "Monobloco can't play samba."

But I've seen how hard those players work. Sure, a lot of them are new to drumming, "just students", and sure, they're white. But they REALLY work at it. And I've seen lots of their players travel dozens of hours per week to play with the distant escolas, too. They are not dilettantes; they really love samba, and they really love to play. I don't know how they were playing a few years ago when both blocos were fairly new, but they can sure play now.

Check out this recent article from last week from O Dia's main samba reporter Daniel Pereira:

"It's hard for me to write this, but I have to take off my hat for a set of people who've made me break one of my preconceived ideas. I confess that I've always distrusted Monobloco. For me, it was just something for "playboys and little Patricias" [spoiled rich white kids]. And that bateria... all white kids from Zona Sul. Until this Friday, when I decided to check it out for myself.

"The Fundicao was completely packed. Five thousand people. The guest was the great Jurandir da Mangueira, winner of 12 sambas from the escola of Cartola [Mangueira's brilliant songwriter]. For harmony, there was just one cavaquinho, which, God knows how, managed to fill the whole space. The cavaquinho player managed to solo and accompany at the same time. The sound was perfect. No fights. Everybody full of spirit, but everybody getting along. Sure, there were lots of those little blondes dressed in outfits from Fashion Mall, but they were singing like crazy, and many of them had kicked off their shoes so they could samba better. Literally, with "black feet". [African roots]

"And I was standing there with my arms crossed, not risking singing along with a single song. Until the bateria made me humble myself. I confess it: it was thrilling. My preconceptions about samba and carnaval changed that day. I follow samba all year long, and I can guarantee that this bateria is good enough to parade even in Sapucai [the street of the Sambodromo]. And, even more, I can state that Monobloco is an example of success and transformation of the Rio carnaval. I say, transformation for good.... in musical quality, in fun, in peace, in daring, in infra-structure... all this, allied with the grand old spirit of Carnaval festivity, and all for the good of "that panting epidemic that we call Carnaval." [quote from Chico Buarque's song Vai Passar]

"They taught me a lesson. They showed that the Carnaval spirit has nothing to do with preconceptions or stereotypes."

And from today's column, summing up the year's last parades, the same writer added:

"Without a doubt, writing about that bloco was the most complicated moment that I've had here writing this column. I'm so used to the rodas-de-samba of "malandragem" [old-style black samba with a street-tough attitude] that I had an enormous preconception against the new generation of Zona Sul sambistas. What foolishness! For the next Carnaval , we'll remember the lesson that the beauty of Carnaval comes from change, from mixing it up. In the end, if you've got a tamborim in your hand and a fantasia costume on, social classes make no difference. We're all Carnavalers."

BEIJA-FLOR DE NILOPOLIS... DEZ!

Spent the afternoon watching the Sambodromo results, from a great seat under the big-screen tv at Garota de Ipanema (the bar in Ipanema where the legendary Girl from Ipanema came walking in every day. Yes, she was a real girl and she caught the attention of a couple of soon-to-be-famous songwriters who hung out at the bar.) There was a little clump of Brazilians behind me who were rooting for Salgueiro and Viradouro "and Beija-Flor, a bit". They asked me who I was rooting for; I said I was hoping Mocidade didn't go down, and to win, I was rooting for Beija-Flor. "Which is the escola of your heart?' the guy asked. I said Mocidade. He reported to his friends, "She is Mocidade, and secondarily Beija-Flor."

It was awfully cool watching the announcements. It's broadcast live from the Sambodromo. Every single score from every single judge is announced, in every single category. The judges are shown by name and photo - no anonymity allowed! It's a very momentous event. For each category, the announcer goes down a list of a single judge's scores, sonorously announcing each escola's name and the score. The top score is 10 ("dez"). The announcer always uses the full, formal, grandiose name of each escola - none of this "Beija-Flor" or "Mangueira" shorthand, no, it's "BEIJA-FLOR DE NILOPOLIS... DEZ!" or "ESTACAO PRIMEIRA DE MANGUEIRA... DEZ!" or maybe "NOVE PONTO OITO" (9.8) or whatever. There were live camera feeds set up in every escola's quadra, all of which were completely packed with fans, and every time the announcer said "DEZ!" they'd cut to that quadra, which would be erupting in huge cheers.

Forty judges, thirteen escolas, and 520 grandiose score-announcing moments later, Beija-Flor's quadra had racked up so many "DEZ!"'s that they looked dizzy from all the cheering. The whole Beija-Flor quadra was going nuts, people jumping and waving the blue-and-white Beija-Flor flags ... and, of course, starting to samba as the bateria members grabbed instruments and started playing.

So, yes, Beija-Flor won! Grande Rio once again came in second. I was pleased. My whole Sambodromo adventure on Monday was just so I could see Beija-Flor and Grande Rio. They are two of my favorites. Beija-Flor was the escola that gave me chills during their last technical rehearsal, and they did it again during their parade. As I have said before, they are INTENSE. They were stunning from start to finish. I got those chills again at their life-size walking giraffes and elephants (full-size animal costumes hiding two stilt-walking people inside the legs). Loved their brilliant costumes, loved their floats - especially that huge African hummingbird - loved their song, loved the theme (Africa).

Next goal for me: trying to snag a couple of Beija-Flor's gorgeous lion costumes after the champions parade (for my Oregon band, the Lions of Batucada, of course!) and somehow ship them back home.

Poor Imperio Serrano went down! Not a surprise, with their tiny budget and float trouble this year. A historical moment, though, because Imperio is one of the original Great Four escolas of Grupo Especial (the other three are Portela, Mangueira and Salgueiro). Back in the old days, only the Great Four ever won titles. BUT... at least Imperio's bateria completely rocks. Perfect ten's across the board!!! They also won the Estandarte de Ouro award for Best Bateria. So the best bateria in Rio will be parading in Grupo A next year.

Mocidade just barely scraped by and hung on to Grupo Especial by their fingernails. Whew!

And my grupo A escola, Sao Clemente, won Grupo A and will parade in Grupo Especial next year! Rah!

Estacio de Sa is going right back down to Grupo A. Just like Rocinha's up-and-down bounce last year. It's so hard for the Grupo A escolas to scale things up to Especial level when they get their one chance. They have to ramp up everything, immediately, and they never have the financial resources of the long-time Especial escolas.

Here's the full list. I noticed a stunning correspondence with each escola's reported budget this year (numbers from O Globo, 18 february 2007), so I added the budget after each escola's name. Each escola was guaranteed 2.9 million reais this year (300,000 from the city of Rio, and the rest from Liesa's ticket sales and tv deals). Beyond that they're on their own.

2007 Grupo Especial results:
1. Beija-Flor (budget this year: 7 million reais!, more than half from their bicheiro Anisio)
2. Grande Rio (budget 4.9 million, including 2.5 from Duque de Caixas & some from their bicheiro Jaider Soares)
3. Mangueira (5 million)
4. Unidos da Tijuca (5 million)
5. Viradouro (6.5 million, including a small deal with the Brazilian Olympic Committee to include an Olympics float)
6. Vila Isabel (4 million, with several corporate sponsorships)
7. Salgueiro (4 million)
8. Portela (4.1 million; 1.8 from the Ministry of Sports for their Pan-Am Games theme this year)
9. Imperatriz (4 million; an undisclosed chunk from the Norwegian fishing ministry for the codfish theme this year)
10. Porto da Pedra (3.5 million)
11. Mocidade (3.25 million)
12. Imperio Serrano (demoted to Grupo A) (3.5 million)
13. Estacio de Sa (demoted to Grupo A) (3.8 million)

There's an almost perfect correspondence between budget and final placing. The outlier is Viradouro, which placed lower than its budget would predict. Viradouro's parade was simply fantastic, and until I saw the next day's parades, I was sure they'd win. But some judges didn't take to the unique design concepts of Viradouro's eccentric, brilliant float designer; and the bateria float, while a huge crowd-pleaser, caused a big bobble in parade flow.

Grupo A results:
1. Sao Clemente (promoted to Grupo Especial)
2. Caprichosos (which was knocked out of Grupo Especial last year)
3. Santa Cruz
4. Uniao de Ilha
5. Imperio de Tijuca
6. Renascer
7. Cubango
8. Rocinha
9. Tradicao
10. Arranco (demoted to Grupo B)

Waiting for Liesa

With Carnaval almost over my thoughts are automatically turning to packing up, heading home, starting my life back in the US. I still have a couple weeks here but need to plan my instrument purchases. A Fabiano pandeiro? A cavaquinho? Leave my caixa and repinique here, or ship them, or carry them? Buy a better repinique? I've gotta plan this out because travel home is going to be tricky, with my 2 alfaias, zabumba, suitcase of pandeiros, box of hammocks, backpack and laptop. Hmm. I better ship some stuff. I'll have a 9-hour layover in New York - lucky, because I also have a transfer from JFK to LaGuardia, which is going to be extra fun with the 2 alfaias and zabumba. I just put some feelers out to some old friends there; one who I hope can help me haul my drums across town; and one who I have lost touch with and would like to reconnect with. Hope it works out so that I can see them both, and get the drums across town too.

Strange to be thinking about New York. Time feels so short that I'm already getting nostalgic for Rio even though I am still here! Today, dancing in the wild, overheated Rio Maracatu parade along Ipanema beach, jumping in the surf afterwards with Pat with all my clothes on (Pat, intelligently, had worn a bikini under her clothes - I had not)... (oh, and, we didn't go in very far - the rip current was vicious, and just in the ten minutes while we were there, Rio's helicopter-rescue crew pulled 3 swimmers to safety right in front of us! - scooping them up in a giant net, like huge fish) Dancing more afterwards.... then a fantastic meal ... more time with friends... walking along the beach sidewalk in the lazy, happy end-of-Carnaval crowds... the warm air, the sound of the surf, all the street vendors, happy packs of Brazilians chattering all around us. I thought, I really do love this city. It's funny, a month ago I'd been feeling kind of Brazil'd out and restless. But now that I am in the last phase of my stay here, I don't want to leave.

I'm feeling a little disoriented at the realization that the escolas are DONE. It is done. It is over. Everything I've seen them working towards for the last four months... all those rehearsals, all the planning, the costume design, the months of float construction, the porta-bandeiras practicing their flag dance, the thousands of residents learning the lyrics, the bateria diligently going to three rehearsals every week. Jonas drilling the bateria over and over not to rush the 7-boom entrance. Nana making all those long bus rides out to Padre Miguel. Beija-Flor's diligent paraders working on their choreographies every Thursday; Mocidade's robot ala practicing their robot moves every Saturday. Mestre Gil of Sao Clemente working with that skeleton bateria back in December, trying to get the Friday rehearsals rolling. And the guy on my street who plays the samba-enredo cd every day all day at top volume, so that the whole neighborhood can learn all the songs (like it or not). It's all over. Till next year.

Now they are all just waiting for the results. My dear Imperio Serrano is hoping against hope not to go down; but they know it looks very bad. It's not that they did a bad parade; it's that everyone else did such a sensational parade. Every year the parades get better and better, and this year was spectacular. And poor Imperio had the float jinx this year - doubly dangerous since it costs points both in the float category and in parade flow. Last year it was Rocinha who had the float jinx, and they went down.

Beija-Flor, Mangueira, Vila, Viradouro, and Salgueiro are all hoping to win. Mocidade, the grand old escola fallen on hard times, is just trying to stay in Grupo Especial; Estacio, the new arrival from Grupo A, is hoping to prove it's a true Especial escola.

Liesa's formal results will not be in till tomorrow, but O Globo (the major tv/newspaper media network of Brazil) has announced the results for the Estandarte de Ouro awards. These are decided by O Globo's own team of judges. The Estandarte de Ouro awards have no formal effect on an escola's ranking but are quite prestigious.

Estandarte de Ouro 2007

Best Escola - Beija-Flor
Samba (song) - Beija-Flor
Bateria - Imperio Serrano (yay! despite the float jinx, the bateria still rocks.)
Enredo (theme) - Unidos da Tijuca (the theme was photography)
Puxador (singer) - Wantuir, Unidos da Tijuca
Mestre-Sala (flag-bearer's partner) - Rafael, Vila Isabel
Porta-bandeira (flag-bearer) - Lucinha Nobre, Unidos da Tijuca
Commissao de frente (opening dance act) - Mangueira
Personality - Sebastiao Molequinho, Imperio Serrano.
Revelation (best debut, basically) - Alessandra, Portela's new porta-bandeira
Male passista (dancer) - Ruanderson, Portela
Female passista - Danuza Regina, Salgueiro
Ala das baianas (baiana hoop-skirt dance wing) - Salgueiro
Ala (parade section) - Bacalhau do Batata (Imperatriz)

Best escola of Grupo A - Imperio da Tijuca
Best samba of Grupo A - Imperio da Tijuca

Tomorrow: Liesa's final results.

Grande Rio loses a float

The Salgueiro float crunch that I saw last night, and the hurried haphazard way the float handlers were dealing with it, knocking down phone lines without even noticing, was a sign of worse to come. Early this morning Grande Rio's first float was being hurriedly rolled down a side street when the top of the float hit some power lines. Onlookers yelled to the float handlers to stop, but they just kept on pushing. The power lines sparked and the float caught fire. Firefighters didn't arrive and the float was completely destroyed. It was a serious scare for the residents of the nearby buildings. (Nobody was hurt but several people would have been if rescuers hadn't raced in to pull people out.) Residents complain that "the street isn't getting any bigger, but the floats are".

It was after the parade, so it won't affect Grande Rio's score.

One resident said "The Carnaval show is just for gringos, and it's the poor who suffer."

Pictures from O Dia:

Outside the Sambodromo

whew.... been up every night past dawn for so many nights now.... Blocos all day, escolas all night.

The Sambodromo parades have been unforgettable. I couldn't even really afford tickets this year but went anyway.... blew the most of the rest of my budget on a setor 3 ticket for Sunday. (fabulous night, will post photos later) Monday night was tricky: I really wanted to see Beija-Flor and Grande Rio, but could only afford 200 reais. Tickets were going for 300 or higher. So I decided to go late, hoping the scalpers would drop their prices after the first couple escolas. I watched the first one, Porto da Pedra and the first bit of the second, Unidos da Tijuca, at home on my crappy tv - Tijuca's theme this year is photography, and I'd really wanted to see Tijuca's re-enactment of the famous photo of the poor girl in the Vietnam war running from a napalm attack. Spooky float. As soon as that float passed, I took off and jumped on the subway.

I LOVE riding the Rio subway on Carnaval night, because it is full of people in crazy escola fantasia outfits heading to the Sambodromo and everybody is buzzing with excitement and laughter. Whenever a crazy new costume came on board the whole subway car would applaud. Sometimes I wish I could just ride back and forth on the subway all night and just take pictures.

I rode in with some bodybuilders from Portela's sports parade, and some fire gods from Imperatriz's Norway-themed parade:




I exited the subway with a large crowd of happily drunk 7-foot-tall seahorses who were having some trouble walking up the steps to street level. First search point for scalped tickets: exit point of the Central metro station. There was somebody here selling Brahma camarote tickets! wow! But the prices were way above what I could pay. Turned out Unidos da Tijuca was still parading, only the second escola, and scalped tickets still full price... so I had to cool my heels.

I embarked on a huge, fascinating walk around the entire Sambodromo. The Sambodromo is mammoth, and surrounded by strange little alleys, and people always tell tourists to never, ever walk around outside the Sambodromo; so of course I wanted to do it. I walked....

.... past all the gorgeous floats lined up on the east side of the Sambodromo. They're so eerie when they're lined up here waiting, in the dark. (actually these pictures are from Mangueira's floats the night before, in the same spot - I didn't get my camera out here the second night - but you get the idea)



.... through hordes of people milling around in outrageous costumes and past literally hundreds of tiny little bars. People had set up full bars with little tent roofs, chairs and tables, and tiny battery-powered tv's to watch the parades. It's a whole street party outside the Sambodromo, all night long.

Fireworks started going off. That meant Salgueiro was starting.

I walked all the way to the start of the parade route at the very north end of the Sambodromo, where I found a whole row of little wooden bleachers set up facing the street that feeds the parade into the Sambodromo. The free seats! I'd always heard about the free seats! The free seats are for the locals (who can't afford full price tickets) to get a taste of the parades: the great floats scraping under the highway viaduct on their way into the Sambodromo, the huge parade sections of people in full costume walking slowly past. I squished my way up into free seats. I was the only tourist there and people gave me a few double-takes but let me squish right in. And I mean SQUISH. This is the tightest crowd I've ever been in! Absolutely jampacked like cordwood. Every now and then someone would need to leave, and it would get almost too tight to breathe as they painfully squished their way past. But despite the smush, everybody was in a good mood, happy and friendly, and the view was spectacular. We were right at street level with a super view of the floats and paraders. Almost as good as the real parade; the only thing missing was that the paraders weren't actually dancing yet and it was hard to hear the music. But I really enjoyed the free seats.

Until I felt the guy behind me try to lift my skirt up!!!! EW!!! I scooted out of there and to the next bleacher over and he actually followed me! I squeezed well into the crowd, thinking he wouldn't possibly be able to follow, but somehow he did, he got right behind me again, and he actually started groping me. I elbowed him and got out of there. He was kind of gross-looking, too - a grimy pot-bellied guy in a filthy t-shirt. Ick. He tried to follow me again but I just started walking, and there's almost nobody in the world who can keep up with me when I walk fast. I wasn't worried about him; I knew I could ditch him easily. So I left him in the dust, zipping my way through the endless fascinating foot traffic along the north side of the Sambodromo.

I was, of course, wearing a silver tiara. I'd bought it for 5 reais on the street the night before. It has a cheesy little battery-powered light in front that flashes different colors, and it looks just FABULOUS. I bought it for bloco parades, in theory (you really have to have a silly hat of some kind in a bloco parade), because I am always stumbling across a bloco parade. But in truth I have found that I just really like wearing a little tiara all the time, just because it's so nice to have to say every now and then "Wait a minute, I have to adjust my tiara."

So as I was zooming along the dark Avenida across the north end of the Sambodromo, I guess I must have stood out - certainly the only gringa there, pale and tall, flying along in the dark, and wearing a flashing tiara. Every beer vendor that I passed had something to say about it. "Rainha!" (queen) "Rainha, you must need a beer!" "Princesa, a fresh cold Skol for you!" "Look, it's Princess Di! She's still alive! Princess Di, don't you want a beer?"

The beer guys were fun. And the grimy guy had disappeared. Eventually I found a footbridge that took me up and over the assembling Portela parade to the Sambodromo's long west side. From the footbridge I had an incredible view of Portela's sports-themed parade - floats lined up on the left and alas on the right. The ala on the right is all dressed as soccer balls, basketballs, etc.:



Here was that same ala during the parade later:


Security guards shooed everybody along the walkway, so I couldn't stay there, and I headed on down the west side. It's another world going down the west side of the Sambodromo - a warren of tiny little dark alleys. You'd never know you were near the biggest show on earth, except you can distantly hear the music, and there's a faint glow in the sky from the lights; and every now and then there is a little gap in buildings, where the lights are suddenly brilliant white, and you can suddenly see glimpses of floats regally passing by like giant ships. At each of these gaps was a little clump of locals watching raptly.

I was walking through these little dark alleys when, very suddenly, I turned a corner and there right in front of me was a huge line of those enormous, amazing, impossible floats, right in front of me, all crammed up behind one another in a tiny little street by a gas station. I was at the exit point of the floats from the Sambodromo. There was a lot of shouting and commotion, and a team of guys running around. The float in front, some kind of enormous magical tree, was too wide to squeeze past the gas station, and all the guys were trying to break pieces off the sides to let it squeeze past. They had a little forklift that they were driving into the side of the float, trying to crack pieces off of it. (Escolas get fined heavily if they block the exit path from the Sambodromo, since that can cause the next escola to get stuck on the parade route and go over the time limit.)

While I was watching, a branch came tumbling off the other side, unnoticed by all the guys, and crashed down onto a set of phone lines. Another little clump of locals was watching the show from the safety of the gas station, as pieces of the float came flying down.

Here's what it had looked like during the parade:


Here's what I met in the dark alley:


Look on the right side - there's a folklife that is pushing up on one of the branches, trying to crack it off.



I darted through, along with some other people, to the relative safety of a small herd of elephants just behind. It is surreal beyond belief to be walking through the grimy back alleys of Rio and suddenly be walking through a herd of peaceful, regal elephants.


Kept walking. I had reached the south end of the Sambodromo. I walked past lines of people watching the floats exit. There were several bars here and people just hanging out watching the floats.


Past weary beer sellers and their sleeping kids.


Past piles of discarded costumes.


A pair of enterprising guys had figured out a way to sell beer over the fence to thirsty paraders coming off the parade route:



They spotted me!


Past a huge line of eager cabs that was scooping up tired paraders.


Eventually I worked my way around to the east side, to Setor 11, the sector with the best view of the bateria. (From Setor 11, you can look right down on them in the second recuo.) Salgueiro had just finished. Third escola of the night over. I found a scalper who let me bargain him down to 200 reais. Bingo! I was in. I'll write later about Setor 11.

Turns out Salgueiro was one of the very best parades of the weekend - the only parade I missed completely. But I'm not sorry I missed it, because the walk around the Sambodromo was one of the best things I've done here.

Sunday Carnaval: Banga and Sambodromo #1

wow.... just got in from a hell of a day.... I just staggered out of bed in time to dash to the Banga parade. So, so fun.... Played third-surdo again. We got a huge crowd again, so huge we couldn't really parade very much. An hour into the parade and we'd only moved about three blocks. And it was HOT today and we were in full sun... I was totally exhausting at the end. For some reason the first and second surdos were kind of obliviously pushing the tempo. A LOT. It got a little maddening - and definitely got hard to play! I guess people were just excited because it was Carnaval. So after four hours in the sun and crushing crowd, playing hard, carrying a surdo, and trying to hold tempo the whole time.... man... tired.

But it was great. My Banga. It was so great. Such a huge happy crowd.

No rest for the weary. Walked a mile down the road to the first bus route and hopped straight on a bus downtown to the Sambodromo.

And bang, there I was again in that mystical world, that great dark avenue outside the Sambodromo, thousands of people rushing in all directions carrying unbelievable costumes. People pouring out of the Central subway stop laden with tridents and enormous blue bubbles and hoop skirts. And ranked in a great column stretching away from me, all the floats of Mangueira, Mocidade, and Vila Isabel. Great huge unbelievable moveable sculptures all lined up, one after the other, stretching down the road as far as I could see. I knew that in the other direction, on the other side of the Sambodromo, must be the floats of the other three escolas. Once again I was stunned that they do this every year... they spend six months making these magnificent, million-dollar floats, just for one night. One hour and twenty minutes. One parade.

Well, okay, the floats aren't exactly a million dollars apiece. But the full set of six or seven floats for one parade is indeed about a million US dollars. I read a breakdown of escola finances yesterday, and the main lesson I'd drawn from that is: You need money to win Grupo Especial! The poorer escolas don't really have a chance; they are just fighting to stay IN Grupo Especial, but they don't have a realistic shot at winning. It takes money to built elaborate floats; to hire the best float designer (like Viradouro did this year), and to make the most elaborate costumes. The government provides a good pack of funding to all Grupo Especial escolas (and some to the lower groups as well), but standards have escalated, and now escolas need to come up with twice that amount to have a realistic shot of winning.

Well anyway - turns out that my two escolas, Imperio Serrano and Mocidade, are among the poorest! They have barely half the budget of the rich escolas. Neither has a bicheiro (like Beija-Flor, which has more than twice the budget of either Imperio or Mocidade) and neither has been able to arrange much corporate sponsorship (like Grande Rio, Vila Isabel, and Viradouro), which increasingly is the new way that escolas get their money. So I'm worried for both of them. Two escolas will "go down" this year - be knocked down to Grupo A, out of Grupo Especial. Could it be my two???

Well, no shame in "going down". Especially if you've got a great bateria, and a loyal community, and it's just for lack of money. No shame at all in being in the company of good escolas like Sao Clemente and Uniao da Ilha.

So off I went to the Sambodromo tonight.

A lot of people get their fill of the Sambodromo in one visit. As one friend put it, "Once you've seen eight hundred people dressed up as a pineapple, you don't really need to see it again." Well, I seem to be a Sambodromo junkie. I saw eight hundred people dressed up as a pineapple last year and I want to see it again! I want to see eight hundred people dressed up as a pineapple tonight, and tomorrow night, and next weekend too! It's just so unbelievable; I can't get my fill of it.

Well, some impressions:

Imperio Serrano: The bateria was absolutely fabulous. Still one of my very favorite baterias! But I've got to admit, the costumes seemed a little dull and repetitive. (I noticed the same thing last year - guess Imperio's costume designer is not to my taste. I like a little more variety.) And the floats, though really lovely, did indeed look a little smaller, a little less luxurious and outrageous than those of the rich escolas. But they were really lovely, they WERE!
I missed one detail that made the news: The sexy Queen of the Bateria, as part of her glitter-and-rhinestone-bikini outfit, had her genitalia covered by a video iPod that was showing videos related of Albert Einstein. Well, OF COURSE she had her genitalia covered by a video iPod showing Albert Einstein - what ELSE would she cover her genitalia with?? Obviously!
To my alarm, Imperio had a lot of problems with their floats. This is often the death blow for an escola that's on the edge, since they'll lose points both for floats and for parade flow. Float after float got stuck at the turn coming into the Sambodromo... one nicked a construction crane on the way in and a giant angel's arm fell off... a beautiful spinning gold globe lost power... and some huge seahorses got a bit unruly. Damn. I am worried for my Imperio.

Mocidade - Oh, it made me so happy to see the Mocidade bateria in action! I knew everyone there - knew all their faces. I saw all my favorite directors. There was Jonas at the front, dancing away. I couldn't see Bruno - he's too little - but he was mic'd, and every time I heard a repique call, I thought "That's Bruno!" It wasn't an anonymous repique any more; it was someone I know! It made me so happy to be able to see them play after watching them prepare for this for all these months.
Mocidade had some really beautiful floats and costumes this year. Not quite up the luxurious standards of the big boys (the Mangeira/Viradouro league) but really beautiful. I think they'll pull in safely ahead of Imperio and Estacio.

Viradouro - All right. They blew me away. They blew everyone away. A great theme - "Games" - allowed them to do a wonderful set of really clever, funny, outrageous ideas - giant dominos, sets of cards running around, mobile soccer fields, jigsaw puzzles forming and re-forming, a huge "Where's Wally" float (I never could find Wally). Every costume fascinating. Every float fantastic (except one that was supposed to look like it was upsidedown - I guess it was a joke - but it was just dull). Beautiful choreographies, fluid and magical. My favorite was a whole ala that was dressed as a soccer field, except the soccer field was on the tops of their heads. Most people had green grass on the tops of their heads, but a few people had soccer players on their heads, and one guy had the soccer ball on his head. And they'd all run around, the soccer players sort of bumping into the ball guy and the ball guy running around. It was just so cute!
Kickass bateria. And YES, the bateria marched right up onto a float, right in front of me, I saw the historic moment! And it worked!
Viradouro is clearly the one to beat. They were the odds-on favorite going on - hot bateria, the best float designer in Rio, formidable will and tradition, and a pile of money. They were the only one that had the crowd chanting "E Campeao! E Campeao!" (you're the champion, you're the champion). There's nothing like hearing the Sambodromo crowd start that chant.... they don't do it very often, and it means you're seeing something truly spectacular.

Mangueira was pretty hot too. But it's a mark of how great Viradouro was that I can remember every Viradouro float distinctly but am having trouble remembering Mangueira's, and Estacio's too, though I do remember Estacio had a really, really impressive giant lion that could turn its head and roar.

One news item about Mangueira: the great singer Beth Carvalho was refused access to a Mangueira float tonight. She'd requested to be able to ride on a float, and they'd turned her request down because she'd asked too late, and all the float positions had already been allocated. Tonight she apparently just tried to climb on up onto the float, and was turned back. She did not parade, and she says her decades-long relationship with Mangueira is over.

Saturday Carnaval: Basic beach-and-Lapa

Saturday Carnaval: Just your basic beach-and-Lapa day. I haven't had a beach day in months, so headed down to Ipanema. Dodged bloco parades all the way there and all the way back....

The beach was luxurious. I just love that sun, and jumping in the cool clear water after lying in the sun....

I've decided I'm a Posto 7 kind of person. There is a nice mix of families, little kids, and surfers there. (The surfers because Posto 7 is close to the Arpoador, where there is often a nice point break). I had to wade up to Posto 9 to meet a friend and was pretty turned off by the crowd there. It's supposed to be the posh place on the beach, but it is mostly a bunch of rich 22-year-old posers standing around showing off for each other, it's hopelessly crowded, no surfers, and no little kids digging holes in the sand. What's a beach without little kids digging in the sand? Posto 7's also a little lower-class and Brazilian, Posto 9 more upper class and gringo-tourist. Yeah, posto 7's more my style.

After the beach, that evening I spent a lot of time wandering around Lapa last night with a friend, which was fun but we both tuckered ourselves out milling around, unsuccessfully trying to find cheap tickets and then unsuccessfully trying to find good free music.... we had a good time just wandering through the noisy Lapa street party, but never did find any good music. At 2am we almost went to the Sambodromo to check out the Grupo A parades. We trekked all the way to the Cinelandia metro station - and stood there transfixed by the eerie lunar landscape of the Cinelandia plaza at 2am after a day of bloco parades. Cinelandia is usually a classy plaza, a long stretch of cobblestones facing the regal Teatro Municipal. But tonight it looked like it had snowed eight inches of Skol beer cans and bright yellow Skol sixpack wrappers. And here & there, amid the Skol snowdrifts, were dark huddles of people sleeping on the sidewalks. Rows of them, just lying around in the open, like dead people. (not just Rio's regular homeless, but also whatever travellers can't afford the outrageous Carnaval prices for beds this weekend.) But no, they were just sleeping. It was peaceful, spooky and alarming all at the same time.

We scuttled out of there down to the Cinelandia subway station, waited for a train north to the Sambodromo.... and then a southbound train pulled in first. South! Toward bed! BED.... Well, suddenly I jumped on the southbound train, and my friend followed me without even the slightest resistance. I felt like I'd let down Rio a bit, reneged on the "But it's Carnaval!" spirit, but I was still sick; and I knew I had to play surdo in a four-hour parade the next day, and would be up all night at the Sambodromo too, so, south it was.

Word is, though, that Sao Clemente did very well and might win Grupo A this year! Uniao da Ilha also had a good parade and the news reports say it's a tossup between the two of them. (Though of course you never know what the judges will think.) Whoever wins will be elevated to Grupo Especial next year.

My friend Olivia ended up parading with Imperio da Tijuca; she'd had a gut-level love for their song all along. I'd barely even heard of Imperio da Tijuca before but maybe she was on to something, because the news reporters have also said that Imperio da Tijuca surprised everybody. Nobody was considering them at all but they had a very nice parade too.

So it was a lazy low-key Carnaval Saturday. I'm not feeling much like chasing all over Rio looking for bloco parades this year.... I'm just taking things as they come.

Friday Carnaval: Monobloco de novo

I haven't written any entries the last couple days because I got sick again - the same vicious stomach cramps that laid me low (and knocked me unconscious, once) last year. I still managed to get out to see Imperio Serrano's last rehearsal (frustratingly boring - only a tiny part of the bateria and by 1am they'd still not gotten around to playing the samba! - just diddling their way through a bunch of old songs) and Estacio de Sa (more fun, bigger bateria, and they were actually playing the samba). A pretty early evening, home by 2:30, but I crashed in bed afterwards and spent most of Friday curled up in bed with a fever and more of those gnawing stomach cramps. It wasn't bad - any time I got too fevery I'd go take another shower and then lie under the ceiling fan for a while. But I couldn't seem to stand up and eventually I missed Xuxa's happy hour and bloco parade - dang! I'd really wanted to go see him play!

Tottered out of bed eventually to go to Monobloco. I was hoping that by having spent all day in bed, I'd have enough energy to play a four-hour show that starts at midnight, but in the elevator down to the street I wasn't so sure - I was doubled over from the cramps and had a clanging headache. But I'd started on antibiotics that day and dosed myself silly with a triple dose of ibuprofen, antihistamines and decongestents, and that all seemed to help. An hour later I had my caixa on at Monobloco good to go. It was a GREAT show. The first chords and my energy came rushing back.

This time around, two weeks after my last frustrating show with them, this time, it was GOOD. The caixa felt GREAT. Every pattern felt solid and steady and sure, I knew all the calls, all the new breaks they'd added, all the new esquentas (thank god I'd made such an effort not to miss rehearsals).

The Fundicao was completely packed, floor to ceiling, with a huge happy crowd. We played all my favorite songs, all the songs I've been listening to for years on the two Monobloco cd's. I was so happy to be there actually playing in the band whose cd's I'd been singing along with for so long. I was IN THE BAND playing Que Beleza and Rap do Real, with Pedro Luis singing right behind me! hey! I was really happy.

Boy, it really is Carnaval....something in the air, in the energy....I left the Fundicao at 4:30 am, floating with energy and good cheer, on the 50-meter walk between the Fundicao Progresso and my bus stop, I was propositioned by about 10 guys. "Can I kiss you?" "You are very pretty, can I kiss you?" "Do you want to kiss?" "Would you like to kiss?" To my complete surprise my answers were "No" "No" "No" "OK" - and there I was making out with a complete random stranger on the Lapa streets. I left him behind eventually (he wanted my address, but I said nah, thanks, just this one kiss), got to my bus stop and got in a little van that was headed south. But there was a thick traffic jam and we were only moving about ten feet at a time. The window was open and a cute guy stuck his head in the window and started talking to me. He knew a little English and was so charming, I ended up making out with him too. (Hoping that whatever stomach bug I have is not contagious! But my theory is, whatever it is, it's endemic to Rio and these guys are already immune to it.) Then his brother pushed him aside and wanted a kiss too, but I told him "I like to wait at least 5 minutes between men" and he said "Five minutes? Five minutes! OK! Where's a watch! Does someone have a watch? In five minutes you will kiss me!"

Unfortunately for him, the traffic jam cleared up four minutes later and I was headed south to Flamengo, wondering what sort of Carnaval spirit has gotten into me. I didn't used to be the sort of girl who would do that sort of thing. And certainly not one who would expose innocent strangers to a potential stomach bug. What's happened to me?

But - all together now - the universal rallying cry - the infinite excuse -

"BUT IT'S CARNAVAL!!!!"

What happened to Banga

I limited my Recifie trip to just 5 days specifically so I would not miss the last rehearsals of my blocos, Bangalafumenga and Monobloco. Especially Banga's Tuesday rehearsal. Though Monobloco has been great for my caixa playing, Banga is still my favorite group. Not just because I like their repertoire and musicality more (Banga now has a Grammy-winning songwriter, Imperio Serrano's best surdo players, and a growing contingent of pros who have left Monobloco in favor of Banga. Plus they just have a great repertoire!) But mostly because Banga has been so kind to me. Monobloco always feels a little tense; students there always seem a little bit nervous. But in Banga, even though it holds to just as high a standard as Monobloco, the players are happy. The leaders and my fellow surdo players always greet me with big smiles and hugs. It feels like a family.

I have been especially grateful to caixa leader Andre Moreno and his wife Ursula, who I have been renting studio space from for several months. They have been renovating a beautiful little studio in Botafogo, Casulo Artes Musicais, which has become my major hang-out spot. (26 Rua das Palmeiras, if you're looking for a nice little practice space) Andre always sets up the studio for me with a little assortment of the drums and baquetas that he knows I'll need, and Ursula always brings me glasses of water when I arrive at the studio after the long hot walk from my apartment. And I just started a series of private lessons with Andre that has been really wonderful. He's an amazing snare player. He also has a particularly beautiful samba ride that I've never seen anyone else play.

By the way, it is Andre who you can hear yelling "CALMA!" on my mp3 recording of the Banga esquenta. He is an excellent caixa leader, a softspoken guy, always calm and encouraging.

So anyway, I caught a flight early Tuesday morning from Recife back to Rio, just to catch Banga's last rehearsal. I'd been a little sad to find out that Banga had decided to do a parade in Sao Goncalo during my Recife weekend. This hadn't been on their schedule originally, so I missed the parade. Well, here's what happened at the parade. (translation from O Globo's online bloco blog) This is an eyewitness account by a bateria member.

"The Bloco of Bangalafumenga did a marvelous parade this Saturday in the streets of Sao Goncalo. Those on top of the sound car estimated the crowd at between 5 and 10,000 people. We even had the surprise visit from Vantuil, the singer for Unidos da Tijuca, who is from Sao Goncalo and spend much of his career in Porto da Pedra [Sao Goncalo's excellent escola de samba]. However, after about two hours of the parade, a barbaric incident occurred, started by more than 20 security guards who had been hired by the Espaco Cultural Porto da Pedra (where Bangalafumenga has been performing shows every week since November, for crowds averaging 3000 people).

[...] There were only about 200 meters left before the end of the parade, and the mestres were preparing the bateria and the musicians on the sound car to play "Sao Gonca", which was going to close the whole event with a bang, paying tribute to the Sao Goncalo community. Just then an incident occurred right in front of the bateria.

The security guards began beating a parader. I don't know exactly why. The mestre of the bateria [this would have been my friend Dudu - KH] immediately interrupted the samba. A woman, who we found out afterwards was 23 years old and had recently become a mother, tried to defend the man who was being attacked, and the security guards began attacking her as well.

Andre Moreno, mestre of the caixas [snare drums] of Bangalafumenga and one of the long-time members of the group, impulsively ran to the woman's defense. She was being attacked, in a shameful way, right in front of him. The same security guards who were attacking the young mother (who, afterwards, registered a complaint at the police station) turned against Moreno and began beating him.

Then an even more unbelievable thing happened: The bateria members who were in the front rows of the bateria all ran to protect Moreno, but all, ALL the security guards who were there, without exception, blocked the drummers in a very aggressive manner. At least two of them displayed their guns in a menacing manner. One even pointed his weapon in the face of one of the bateria members. Everyone began talking and screaming that Moreno was a member of the bateria, but the only response from the security men was of the type "Do you want a beating too? Do you want to die?"

At least three members of the bateria were attacked by security members during this attempt to reach Moreno. And what is worse: several security men were armed, and there was not a single policeman within view.

The Sao Goncalo fans of Banga who saw this scene, including several women, ran to defend Moreno and were similarly attacked. One girl in the bateria told me that she saw a well-known fan of ours, someone who is always present at our shows, being backed up against a wall and menaced in a threatening way by a security guard who was twice her size.

Another fan, a teenager, was dragged by force by the security guards inside a building where, we think, he was similarly beaten. The next moments were terrifying. Several women in the bateria, one of them pregnant, panicked and began to cry histerically, because Moreno had vanished.

Several members of the bateria (where Moreno is much beloved) became desperate,thinking that the security guards might have taken him to some place to "finish the job." But apparently, Moreno had tried to flee from the security men through the crowd, but was chased and beaten badly. One member of the bateria who finally succeeded in reaching him saw a security guard with Moreno in a choke hold, and when the bateria member finally reached him, Moreno was lying on the ground unconscious.

Ursula, Moreno's wife, who had tried to run after him to defend him, was thrown violently to the ground by a security guard.

In the end, Moreno broke his thumb and will not be able to play for 20 days, as well as having bruises all over his body, especially on the neck. At least half a dozen members of the bateria, including women, were attacked by security guards. Several fans were also attacked and threatened, including a 50-year-old mother of one fan. And Banga, which has always aimed at creating peace through music, has been traumatized by this event, as has the community of Sao Goncalo, which has a veritable legion of fans of Banga.

It's enough just to see their stories on Orkut [an online discussion forum very popular in Brazil], in the online communities of Bangalafumenga and Banga's shows in the Porto da Pedra hall. More than one fan has said that the arrival of Banga in Sao Goncalo was a landmark for the culture of that city. Sao Goncalo has been impoverished in cultural attractions, and now they fear that Banga will never return.

As for the cowardly "security", we know that most of them work regularly for Porto da Pedra's hall, but many of them were contracted especially [by Porto da Pedra staff] for this parade.

****** [end of blog transcription]

I didn't know any of this had happened. I just showed up at Banga rehearsal and noticed the atmosphere seemed a little weird, and then I saw Andre had a black eye and had a cast on his right arm. I almost went running up to ask him cheerfully what had happened, thinking it would be some American-type accident like "I fell off my bike", but then I remembered that I am in Rio, and that Rio-type accidents can be a different sort of thing. So I decided to wait till after rehearsal to talk to him.

At the mid-rehearsal break, Andre talked to the whole band. He had seemed fine throughout rehearsal, but his voice started to waver as he talked; he was obviously still shaken by the whole thing. And he seemed to feel that he was the one who needed to apologize! For having left the bateria and put himself in a dangerous situation that frightened everybody. He kept saying "I should never have left the bateria. I should have stayed with you all." He also said, "The thing that made me lose control was that I saw that they were beating up people who had Banga t-shirts on. Our fans. I saw that and I just lost my head." Over and over he promised to not leave the bateria if something like that happens again.

I talked to him a little bit afterwards - since I still had no idea what he'd been apologizing about or what had happened. He gave me a very quiet, halting summary of the whole thing (leaving out the part about how he'd been beaten unconscious by 15 security guards! He just said he'd gotten in a fight during the parade). He assured me his hand will be fine in a few weeks.

The next night I returned to Banga's Wednesday rehearsal, wanting to put in a little more time with them. This time they stopped rehearsal a half hour early to have an INTENSE group discussion about the whole thing. Apparently, they had also had a show on Sunday, the day after the parade, and at that show, the bateria members were so nervous that when one guy in the crowd started throwing beer cans at the group, one of the tamborim players lost his temper and did - something, I'm not sure what. Man, was this ever a challenge for my Portuguese, listening to this Banga discussion. People were REALLY upset and had ten thousand opinions and thoughts and comments, chattering rapidly and excitedly, sometimes shouting over each other, 5 or 6 people at once. My impression of the the whole discussion was along the lines of:

"I just really really want to apologize for - " (this was the tamborim kid)
"But the thing is, I don't know a SINGLE security guard, NOT ONE, who isn't a bandit - "
"We should stop the music whenever -"
"We should never stop the music. Unless for something really serious. Stopping makes things worse -"
"It's not your fault -"
"I feel like -"
" - gotta apologize -"
" - those crazy morons - "
" - throwing beer cans and not - "
" - you should have talked to us more -"
" - we can't EVER play any soccer songs, those'll always cause fights - "
" - and there I was tuning about 500 surdos all by myself and I couldn't also - "
" - needed to RUN like that, my god -"
" - we should have - "
" - we shouldn't have -"
" - those security guards, this is what is happening to Rio - "
" - calm down, CALM DOWN, people! Let him talk!"

Rodrigo Maranhao was getting visibly choked up over it, and he made a really sweet speech about how, with every bad thing that has ever happened to him in his life, no matter how bad, has always had some good thing that came out of it. ("Even if it is a little tiny good thing, there is always some good thing.") He insisted: we will find something good out of this, we will learn from it. His impassioned recommendation in the end was: if the bateria gets into trouble again "We have to close ranks." Everybody in the bateria has to close ranks and group together and stay together. "We are a family, we have to protect each other, we are a family," he kept saying.

There was lots of ranting about the security guards and about the level of violence in Rio today. "When the people who are supposed to protect you start attacking you, what can you do then?"

And everybody is virtually burning with determination now to have a FABULOUS parade on Carnaval Sunday.

Even though it was a very difficult discussion for me to follow, I was really glad I was there. I am not sure whether I'm glad or sorry that I missed the parade, but I'm glad I was there for the discussion. I could feel people's intense determination that Banga will continue to play, and continue to do parades, EXCELLENT parades, and that Banga will continue to be a family and will continue to grow and thrive. I told Rodrigo afterwards, clumsily, that thought I hadn't been able to understand the whole discussion, I was glad he had spoken up the way he did. As an afterthought I said "Banga really is my family here, you know. because I don't have anyone else here. Here in Brazil." He gave me an intense look - I don't think he has ever known why I am here, or that I am here alone - and kissed me on the top of my head. I gave him a hug goodbye, and Andre too, and Ursula, and Dudu. They all asked "Will you come to the parade on Sunday?" and I said "Claro", of course.

The parade will start at the Praca Sao Salvador, in Jardim Botanico, Carnaval Sunday, around 4pm. (I think this is the little plaza on Rua Pacheco Leao, on the north side of the Botanical Garden.) And it will be WONDERFUL.

Why I am not parading in the Sambodromo

People have started to ask me "Why aren't you parading in the Sambodromo?" as if any musician's sole desire when in Rio should be to parade in the Sambodromo. That's never been my goal - not for this year, anyway. It'll be fun someday, and someday I'll do it; maybe when I return 2 years from now. But right now, I am here to learn, and parading in the Sambodromo, turns out, is not the best way to learn. Parading in the Sambodromo requires you to do almost nothing else. You can't miss a single rehearsal if you want to parade in a Grupo Especial escola - if, like me, you are new here, don't have escola connections yet and are not from the community. It means, three or four evenings a week, plus travel time (up to 2.5 hours one way.). And all that time you are only playing 1 song on 1 instrument.

And even if you do make all the rehearsals, you're still not guaranteed a spot. It's very political. The president of one of my escolas, Sao Clemente, over-ruled the mestre last week and gave away most of the bateria spots to a set of his friends who have never been to any rehearsals. So I won't be parading with them, and neither will my friend Olivia, who's been playing with them for months. She just laughs about it. "This kind of thing happens all the time... I can't even tell you how many times, how many YEARS, my mother has worked all year in a bateria and then not gotten to parade and we always go through this whole trauma about it, but you know, playing in the rehearsals is actually the best part anyway. And you know what is funny, finally it has worked to her favor - Grande Rio just gave her a bateria costume for this year, because she has connections there, even though she's missed all the rehearsals! And she missed all the rehearsals because she was playing in Sao Clemente! But Sao Clemente wouldn't give her a costume because the president gave them all away to his friends! Isn't it funny? You just have to laugh."

She's right; the rehearsals are the best part. Just by attending a few rehearsals, semi-regularly, you learn a LOT. And those rehearsals are such intense, wonderful fun. I think of those marvelous times I had with Mocidade, leaping around in the dark street and on the ramshackle stage in the quadra hall. And of how much it changed my caixa playing! But I don't need to be in the parade with them... I made that decision long ago, in January, when I decided to go to Banga rehearsals instead. But you bet I will be cheering from the stands when they go by.

In the end, I chose the blocos instead of the escolas. Almost every time I had 2 rehearsals scheduled on the same night for a bloco and an escola, I'd go to the bloco. And this happened every single Friday (Monobloco vs Sao Clemente), Sunday (Mocidade vs Banga), Tuesday (Banga vs Sao Clemente) and Wednesday (Banga vs Monobloco vs Mocidade). Why blocos? Because the blocos (the good ones) are more challenging for me - much more creative, and with a much more diverse repertoire. I learn more with the blocos. Simple as that. For all that Mocidade did for my caixa playing, Monobloco has done more. In Monobloco, I play 5 different caixa patterns, including Mocidade's; in Mocidade, I only play the Mocidade pattern. And the reason I was able to play third surdo so easily in Mocidade was entirely because of what I'd learned from Banga.

So, I AM parading in Carnaval with my wonderful blocos Banga and Monobloco! They both have marvelous parades coming up - Banga this Sunday afternoon (4pm) starting at the north end of the Rua Jardim Botanico, and Monobloco the Sunday the week after Carnaval at 10am on Copacabana beach. Come see them!

Especially, please come see the Banga parade. The next post will be about what happened to Banga this last weekend. They had something nasty happen. Please come to the parade & show your support. (Plus, it'll be a really great parade. Last year most people said it was the best parade they'd been to, and, as an extra incentive, the newspaper reviews afterward commented on the "unusual profusion of beautiful women.")

Night of the Non-Silent Drums

The highlight of my whole Recife/Olinda stay was my very last night. My little group of San Francisco Bay Area friends, plus Derek of the Lions from Portland (we had two Dereks - Bay Area Derek, and Lions Derek) had been in Recife rehearsing with Jorge Martins' group. We came home past 10pm. It had already been a really fun evening and I thought that was the end of my lovely Recife trip, and was planning to go home and pack up my two beautiful alfaias, but we ran smack into the Olinda's festival of the Night of the Silent Drums.

Recife and Olinda are always competing for who has the best Carnaval. There's a traditional night-of-the-silent-drums event in Recife, involving a parade of several maracatu groups to a church, and then a silent ceremony, and then all the drums playing at midnight. Well, little Olinda decided to start a night-of-the-silent-drums parade of its own, and to have it a week earlier, the Monday before Carnaval. They've only been doing it for three years. A Recife native told us dismissively "Oh, the Olinda thing is just for tourists; it's not worth seeing." Well, It IS worth seeing, we discovered, because it turns out whenever you get 12 genuine maracatu groups together for a parade, free on the street and open to everybody, it immediately turns into something real! Never mind if it is only three years old; it was huge fun. Olinda had scheduled a ton of different maracatu groups for this parade, even hired a separate plush charter bus for each group. The groups varied from the classic, well-rehearsed and magnificent (Leao Coroado, Nacao Pernambuco, and several others) to the little local blocos. The whole range of the community.

They all paraded right through town, and each one stopped and did a show at the Four Corners (right outside the window of my pousada!!!):


and then one at a time they all marched up to the Olinda's famous church. Each group did a full classic maracatu parade - meaning, a royal procession, with soldiers and torch-bearers in front, the great flag of the group, priestesses with magical little doll deities, king and queen, a parasol-bearer protecting the king and queen, a bevy of dancers, and then the band. Each group then did a short show (their one or two best songs) at the church, then the flag was lovingly propped at the church doors, and each king and queen ceremonially positioned themselves on the church steps. Then the next group would come up.

By the end of the procession the whole front of the church was completely hidden behind flags and parasols, and there were a whole herd of glittering kings and queens clustered by the doors.






Priestess dancing with the magical little doll:


View of the little church. There is a maracatu group (Nacao Pernambuco) waiting in the foreground.


A king and queen, with swords:


I squeezed up to the front of the church. Oh, it was SO fun watching each little group come up the hill, flag flying, giant parasols bouncing, the king and queen strutting along, and doing their best show! You know how it is - a little local event might SEEM little, but then each group realizes the other groups are there, and realizes there is an audience watching, and starts feeling competitive, and wants to do its best, and the whole thing starts heating up.





Leao Coroado was its usual powerful, impressive self. But the big surprise for me was Nacao Pernambuco. They had powerful drummers, a radiant king and queen, the best abe dancers, and they took absolute top prize for the most hypnotic dancing parasols. They had two enormous parasols that seemed like giant dancing space-alien jellyfish. I was mesmerized. I could not take my eyes off those giant dancing space jellyfish. It suddenly became clear to me that my life will not be complete until I have a giant dancing parasol of my own, preferably following me around full-time, with ostrich plumes bobbing, and a complete maracatu band in its wake. (I am posting a movie) It was like a revelation. How have I never noticed before that my life has been ENTIRELY lacking a giant dancing parasol?




Nacao Pernambuco also had some amazing shekere girls. I'll try to post a movie of that too.

The "silent drums" were not silent at all for most of this event, but eventually, once all 12 groups were there, the drummers all stopped playing and some sort of little ceremony took place, which I couldn't see or hear at all. But, the drums didn't stay silent for long. As soon as the ceremony was over, every group immediately started playing again.

The post-parade part was almost as fun. The ceremony was abruptly over and the groups started parading in all different directions, back toward the buses that had brought them, or toward their home neighborhood, or who knows where - there were parasols and flags bouncing in all directions and groups playing completely different things, funk and maracatu and rural-maracatu, at all different tempos, marching in all different directions. Kings and queens and giant jellyfish everywhere. Each group was more or less together, but they were each careering around in each others' paths, like big sailing ships tacking this way and that in a tiny harbor, nearly colliding now and then, then veering slowly away from each other. Twelve separate parties full of glittering royalty and half-drunken drummers. "This is complete fucking chaos!" yelled Lions Derek to me, beaming happily. We were trapped in a slow stampede of TWELVE MARACATU GROUPS! It was like the running of the bulls (second night in a row!), but in slow motion, and much noisier. Heaven!

The crowd slowly dissipated as the groups slowly spread further and further apart. We ended up following Nininho's group down one street to a sort of open cobblestoned plaza. Every now and then a huge charter bus, packed full of one of the maracatu groups, would nose into the plaze and carefully inch its way around the tight corner. Nininho's drummers would just keep on playing, grudgingly stepping over one inch at a time for the enormous bus, which was practically nudging them out of the way like an incredibly patient elephant trying to get through a herd of puppies. A couple buses went by and then, as I listened to Nininho's group, a sensation of peculiar sonic discomfort began to develop. Something funny was happening to the beat. I couldn't pinpoint what it was till one of the other maracatu groups suddenly came tromping around the corner - they were playing at top volume at a totally different tempo than Nininho's group, and it was causing such immense sonic dissonance for me (I was standing equidistant between both groups) that I felt like I was going to tip over from dizziness. Lions Derek, several yards away and also caught between both groups, wheeled around with a wide-eyed look of disbelief on his face and mouthed "Complete CHAOS!"

Night of the Non-Silent Drums. This was my best night in weeks.

Recife update

I saw a lot of incredible frevo and maracatu during my brief stay in Olinda/Recife. It was a great weekend to be there because there were a ton of parades and performances - parades start the weekend before Carnaval. The best was Olinda's Night of the Silent Drums on the Monday before Carnaval - more about that later. But, since it wasn't quite Carnaval yet, I also got to play in some rehearsals with two really fun groups led by two great teachers: Jorge Martins in Recife, and Nininho in Olinda. I picked up a lot of great repertoire from both these guys, and was pleased to discover that most of it was familiar, related to maracatu motifs I'd already learned over the last two years of study. It's nice to reach that point where you have a mental framework that everything starts to fit into.

I spent a lot of time on abe (shekere). It is a simple gourd shaker that tends to be overlooked by the hotshot drummers. But is one of my very favorite instruments because, first, even though it plays a simple pattern, it really grooves and adds a LOT to the music! I really adore the sound of a shekere! And second, it's very physical and lends itself to some beautiful dancing. I had kind of an abe breakthrough in Jorge's group when I realized I'd been holding my upper arms still. I started letting my arms move more from the shoulder, instead of just from the elbow, and though it cost a little more effort, suddenly the abe was covering way more ground, moving through a much bigger arc in space. It sounded better, and it started to build up momentum and almost pull me around with it, and presto, suddenly the dancing started really happening!

On abe there is not much repertoire to learn, but my technique seems to constantly keep changing. Alfaia, though, the great bass drum of maracatu, is another thing. My technique never feels like it's changing much (maybe that's a bad sign!) but the repertoire is much more complex. All kinds of entradas and variations, three or four separate alfaia parts, lots of breaks. Every nacao (maracatu group) has a different alfaia repertoire. It seems to be endless.

Anyway it was awesome to be able to play maracatu in Recife and Olinda, at last. Even just for a few days. I didn't want to leave. I would love to return for a few months. Some year.

I also caught a lot of great shows. The 100th anniversary of frevo was that weekend and we kept running into frevo groups all over the city (it's a kind of frenetic brass band music, usually with a set of astonishingly acrobatic dancers leaping around with tiny colored umbrellas). And on Saturday we saw Nana Vasconcelos rehearsing 3 huge maracatu groups, including Estrela Brilhante and Elefante, two of the major groups I'd been hoping to see. It was actually an interesting demonstration in the maximum size of a maracatu group. Maracatu groups, like samba-reggae, are usually only about 70 people and do not face the particular problems that start happening in groups larger than 100. The Rio groups have lots of experience with this and have developed an elaborate infrastructure: multiple directors strung in chains through the bateria, elaborate visual hand cuing, columns of bass drums running down the outer flanks of the bateria, sub-directors for critical instruments, the instrument that does the call placed dead center, etc. Maracatu groups don't have any of this. So when you get 3 maracatu groups and have them all play together, they cross that maximum size limit and all hell breaks loose. Anyway - in the rehearsal with Nana, it kept crashing-and-burning! All kinds of tempo problems, time fractures, phase delays... left side getting ahead of the right side... bells drifting relative to the alfaias.... rushing like hell... and massive confusion whenever Nana's horn section started playing anything a little too jazzy. Who knew that such great, experienced maracatu players could actually lose track of the downbeat? But they did!

However, pull them down to three separate groups of 70 people again, have each of the 3 groups play separately, which they did at the end of the rehearsal, and they kicked ass. Estrela Brilhante in particular just blew me away. They are one of the very most famous maracatu groups. They make their alfaias out of sections of real palm trees, so, every alfaia is a different size. The ones made from the base of the palm tree are absolutely ENORMOUS. I could not believe the size - or the weight (I tried to pick one up) - and especially could not believe the way the guys were dancing with them! (I am posting a movie)

The next day, we caught Estrela Brilhante's last street rehearsal on Sunday night. It was damn intense. "It's like the running of the bulls!" said one of my friends as we went charging through the dark winding streets, dodging invisible potholes, crashing into bricks (I banged my feet bloody, 3 separate times), and leaping filthy canals in the dark, trying to keep up with the 50 full-speed-ahead alfaia players. It was so exciting. They only stopped playing whenever they passed a church.

And now some happier kids

Well, for a change of pace, how about let's focus on some happy kids! My 5 days in Recife/Olinda was terrific fun, and turned out to be perfect timing. More details later but I thought I would first post some of the photos I have of the maracatu kids, to help erase any mental images from the last sad story that I posted.

The maracatu groups, even more than the samba baterias of Rio, seem to incorporate kids of all ages right into the bateria. We saw lots and lots of excellent young teenage drummers, and almost every group had a clump of teeny-tiny kids in the very front row playing teeny-tiny alfaias. And they were really playing them, not just messing around. Lots of these little kids had learned the full repertoire and were doing the full parade.

The biggest alfaia I saw: (Estrela Brilhante)


And the two smallest: (also Estrela Brilhante)



... and look how the little kids are watching the mestre as attentively as any adult drummer! (more attentively than some adults, actually)

An assortment of other tiny drummers:



This kid was too small to hold his group's beautiful flag, but he really wanted to pose with it for me. I really like this picture.


Here he was later during the parade! He was a torch-bearer.


I took a lot of maracatu movies. Usually I'd start filming, and after a few minutes I'd realize there was a small cluster of kids behind me, on tiptoe or clambering up on some fence or tree trunk behind me, to get a better look at the tiny screen of my camera. They know about digital cameras and they love to watch the little screen and see what I'm filming. They always were thrilled if I turned around and took a couple pictures of them:






Here's Matt (one of my "Bay Area drummers") with a pack of Estrela Brilhante kids. Sorry, there was beer on the lens.


And another pack of kids nearby. (More Estrela Brilhante kids)


That group of boys with Matt, in Estrela Brilhante's home neighborhood, had seemed especially rambunctious till I started asking their names, and they immediately became so shyly polite that I think I could detect the mark of some careful parenting about how to greet strangers. They very politely introduced themselves separately, one at a time, all waiting their turn, and occasionally with hushed little consultations about who should introduce two younger kids who seemed too shy to talk ; then asked my name and where I was from. When I said "Estados Unidos" there was a shy little pause and then one boy very carefully announced "Muito prazer em conhece-la!" (I am very pleased to meet you, ma'am!) and held out his hand for me to shake it - a very formal thing for a young Brazilian kid to do. I shook his hand and said "Muito prazer em conhece-lo, tambem!" (I am very pleased to meet you too, sir!) and then they all seemed delighted that the formal greeting had actually worked, and then every one of them wanted to shake hands and go through the same exchange. They were so cute! I felt like a foreign dignitary.