Rio Blog 6: September 3, 2007

I’m home, the semester has begun, and Rio is almost a week ago as I begin this blog. But I want to write down my last couple of days there while they are close. Because being back is so familiar that it displaces all the memories, and Rio somehow seems like a dream. And yet every morning when I wake up I still think for a moment that I am there.

Saturday, September 1st, was my last EPM (choro school) and I arrived early to chat w/ Marcia & other friends who I wouldn’t be seeing for awhile. As we were assembling in to courtyard for an all-school meeting, I found myself next to my rep teacher, Pedro Paes, and asked him about Joel’s comments on my assignment for his class (see the last blog). He was interested and said we’d go over it in class.

So after climbing the 5 flights of stairs (the elevator works about 1/3 of the time) my transcription of “Sensivel” was the class topic. I had to explain in portugues Joel’s concerns that his interpretation was very personal, quite different from the original, and so my transcription would be misleading, in a way, because it wouldn’t give a player reading it a basis to interpret the piece for himself. Pedro passed my version around so everyone could see it, and then we played it. He pointed out some of the notation that was very different than traditional choro (needed to capture Joel’s rubato) and asked me to change it to be a bit more like the original (which I’ll figure out by listening to other recordings of it, since this is not a piece that seems to have been published anywhere) and finish the second part. So, although I’m leaving, I still have homework that I’ll have to get Romulo to hand in for me next class.

Bandolim classes follow and added some new exercises to my Brazilian collection, and also some more work on chords. And as we were setting up for Bandao, there was Taxi-Paulo in the audience! He had said he might come, but I figured something else would come up, as it usually does. But, no, he was there to listen, and I introduced him to Agua no Feijao afterwards, since he’s the one I wrote “Siga em Frente” for. They convinced him to stay for practice after lunch – someone had a flute he could use (hmmm… maybe this was all pre-arranged by my delightful band) and we went off to lunch.

Agua practice was short, because there was a teacher-led roda for the whole school @ 3:00, but we played Siga and some of our other rep as well. I decided not to stay for the roda – still had packing to do – but met most of the band afterwards at the Garota da Urca for choppes (draft beer) and supper and a spontaneous planning session for our potential 1st CD. Very fun! I told them all that I’ve started writing a new choro for them – “Porque Nao?” (Why Not?) and sang the first part for them. Raphael & Marcusinho – the wonder-kids – were glad to note that it was fast.

Next morning, Sunday, was my last day. I set my bags up ready to go and Romulo picked me up for the roda @ Laranjaras. A good way to end my trip – playing choro outdoors on a beautiful morning. Raphael had decided to come too, and the 3 of us sat together in the circle and riffed off each other – so much fun, and, Romulo told me afterwards, our ensemble groove was noted by the other players. This whole band-as-community thing really does pay dividends. There were more soloists this week, so I played a lot of harmonies. And with Raphael & Romulo to my right and a really good 7-string player to my left, I was in a great spot. My friends Marcia & Jorge showed up too, toward the end, and the 3 of us said good-bye to R&R – who had other places to go – and the rest & went off to the Bar do Urca for my last lunch.

So I found myself sitting in the sun on a wall next to the beach drinking a glass of beer – boy, do Cariocas have a hard winter! & Marcia had brought me 3 books of choro as a present. We lingered, but finally strolled back to Roberto’s where Taxi-Paulo was waiting, helping Roberto – who had just arrived back from the mountains – move some stuff from his car up to the apartment. Roberto’s brother was there too. Roberto is renting out the whole apartment for a long time starting next week, so it’s moving days for him as well. & I won’t be able to return to my wonderful nest in Urca for the forseeable future.

The men had a cafezinho while I packed up the extra music & then I was off to the airport. Taxi-Paulo stood in line w/ me for about 2 hours. The Brazilians do that; there was a whole family in line w/ the woman ahead of me. And then the delays began. My plane was on the runway in Rio for 2 hours because the airport in Sao Paulo was closed because of rain. We finally took off for SP, they hustled us onto our flight – over an hour after it was supposed to have left–and then we sat on that runway for a couple of hours. We arrived in Newark 20 minutes before my flight to Providence was to leave which, with having to claim baggage, go through customs, and re-check baggage, was an impossible connection to make. So I settled in to wait for the next flight, arriving back in Providence about 24 hours after I left Roberto’s.

So I’m home for the rest of 2007. And I’m happier about being here this time than I was when I returned in May. Because I belong here, but now I know that I belong in Rio too. What could be better? Hope I’ll be seeing y’all while I’m here. And, for those of you who I left in Brasil, I’m planning to be on the Copacabana beach to throw rose petals in the ocean to celebrate the start of 2008.

bjs.
m

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