Rio Blog 2: August 18, 2007

happyhappyhappyhappyhappy… can I just tell you how great it was to go back to choro school today? Everyone seemed radiantly pleased to see me- faculty   including a couple I hadn’t ever talked to-  students in my classes, and of course, my band, Agua no Feijao. It somehow seems that by coming back I’ve become part of the family, not just a guest. Romulo waved from the window when I arrived and immediately came loping out to be sure I figured out what classes to go to. Pedro Amorim’s face lit up as I walked into bandolim class, and even my often-stern repertory teacher remembered my name. Raphael, one of the Agua guitarists raced over before Bandao started to envelope me in a bear hug and blast his brilliant smile (the Rio smile is so breathtaking, like the sun. Why don’t we smile so entirely up north?) The awesome Jaime-  who arranges for everyone worthy in Rio & plays cavaquinho at Trapiche (but was missing last Tuesday)-   saw me while he was conducting during Bandao practice & came right over when the tune was finished to give me the kiss-on-each-cheek greeting & say how glad he was that I was back. The marvelous Marcilio was there in the bandolim section, although he couldn’t be my stand-partner because I forgot to bring a stand from the US.

I ate lunch at Praia Vermelha with Pablo- Agua’s other guitarist- in the warm winter sun (it’s about 70 here today, and it’s February for them) and at our regional practice in the afternoon the band played my new choro, “Siga em Frente,” for the first time, after going through some of our tunes. They have been working really hard while I was away and sound awesome! I wrote “Siga em Frente” for my taxista Paulo, at his request, and so far it is getting good reviews here. I played it with Luiz at our rehearsal yesterday, and with Joel at my lesson on Thursday and they both really liked it. The title translates to “Go Straight Ahead” and is a phrase often used when giving directions.

Since my first blog, a mere 3 days ago, I’ve had an incredible lesson with Joel, and a rehearsal with Luiz Simas, my Rio/NYC piano friend. My portugues is much better now, and so I am speaking more and understanding more that my friends say. Joel was great & we worked on interpretation as he’s finally decided that my technique is fine. He played me some tracks from the new CD he is recording with Hamilton de Hollande. It’s all classical & mostly just 2 bandolims. I really like it!

Luiz is in town for a concert at the huge and prestigious Sala Cecilia Mirelles. It’s part of a solo-piano jazz series there. When he found out I was going to be here he asked me to play with him  the piece he wrote for me, “Meu Bandolim”. It’s very exciting to get to play there. All my friends have immediately turned it into my concert, so I have to keep reminding them that I’m only playing one tune. But there’s an unlimited guest list, so they’re all coming. I’ve also had some great conversations with my landlord Roberto, resulting in improvement of my portugues and his English.

I went to hear Taxi-Paulo play at his church on Friday night- there’s a whole band and chorus, kindof like a gospel thing-  and got to hang out with his sons, Rodrigo, 18, who runs sound for the band, and Paulo Marcelo, 9, who became quite attached to my camera and ran around shooting pictures and movies of everything. But, for better or worse, he also discovered the “delete” button, so I only got to see a few in the end. We all went out for pizza afterwards in an outdoor cafe, and Rodrigo worked on speaking English, as he had his English class in the morning.

Other than that I’ve walked around, remembering. It seems like I never left, which is a good thing, because it means that I do really have two lives now, and I think I will be able to go back and forth between them. More later- it’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow for more adventures!

bjs.
m

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