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."