| Saturday, 9-Sep-2006 17:33 |
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If You Weren't There, You Probably Missed It
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Itacaré is showing signs of positive growth. Hosting "Girls Pro Itacaré," the international female surf championship was a major sporting event made bigger by a musical event staged at the peak of competition.
An organization called "Music Without Frontiers" brought some world-class musicians from Cuba and São Paulo here to create a music and dance performance with our local artists. What a spectacle! The result was worthy of any major stage in the world. I attended auditions, rehearsals and stage preparation so I got to see a lump of coal transformed into a glittering diamond for the whole town to see. It took hundreds of people to make this happen but once again Nelson Moraes of Txai Resort can take a bow for contributing his energy and financial support from concept through execution. On stage, let's hear a big round of applause for the great jazz pianist from Cuba, Yaniel Mattos who stepped up as "maestro" and Bahia's own Jorge Rasta who provided his rhythm on percussion, a rehearsal space, contact with local musicians and Itacaré's talented group of drummers and dancers known as "Casa do Boneco." I hope I'm forgiven if I can't name all the many participants and soloists on stage; hell I don't even know what to call this energetic musical mix. How about: Afro-Brazilian, Cuban jazz, Hip-hop & blues, samba-reggae with a touch of Brazilian folk music. And that's just the music! The drummers and dancers provided plenty of rich color and movement to the wildly diverse music. Let me invent a name; let's call it, "Moqueca Pimentada," a spicy Bahian stew made with fish or shrimp and African dendê palm oil.
El Maestro, my name for Yaniel Mattos, was a consumate pro and incredible diplomat from his first meeting with Jorge in São Paulo through the final encore. That rehearsal in SP created a spark which convinced the artist to bring his Cuban band and Brazilian studio musicians to Itacaré to work with Jorge and a number of amatuer musicians completely unknown to him. Let's call these musical partners "El Brujo" and "O Bruxo" because they really performed a bit of magic for the local public. To my "untrained ear" the rehearsals sounded pretty ragged but El Maestro could quickly identify each musician's strength and in collaboration with Jorge they each found a place in the show; only a few auditions failed "the test." Jorge is an incredible percussionist, so with his group combined with seasoned musical veterans there was never any doubt about the rhythm section; it was a talent search for soloists.
Meanwhile in another part of town a state-of-the-art stage had to be constructed on Ribeira Beach by Andre and Rodrigo Moraes, (yes, sons of Nelson), whose young production company was recording, filming and documenting the entire event. I arrived there early on the day of the show to find a stage, the quality of sound and light never seen before in Itacaré. The crew, the producers and promotors were all anxiously preparing the ultimate stage for the ultimate jam session. An army of people laying cables, adjusting spotlights and digital projectors, testing mics, PA and mixing boards all to make way for a battery of musical instruments and their owners. I talked to a number of Itacaré's young artists/participants hanging around nervously looking for some way to help out. As I left the site, I could imagine their stage jitters being amplified by the scale of the project, afterall they're just simple folk from a small fishing village in Brazil.
Well in typical fashion nothing was ready at the designated time that evening, but I was warned not to arrive until later anyway. Also in typical fashion, not one ounce of "alegria" was lost; the performers and their audience finally syncronized and we all felt that 'magic' I keep talking about. The first ones on stage were the senior devoteés of condomblé (African religion) who perormed a simple blessing to start things in a pure and sanctified way. (To them, music and dance are holy, not profane.) The band's intro and warm-up solos driven by Jorge and some extraordinary percussionists delighted the audience as well as El Maestro who graciously thanked everyone in Spanish before giving the spotlight to the evening's M.C., Jorge Rasta. Jorge had a lot of praise for his new-found colleagues, some words of musical inspiration and then he introduced with great esteem, Sr. Miguel, one of the oldest members of Itacaré's music community. He taught himself to play a hollow-body electric guitar by ear, in just about any style you can name. He sat in for a jazz-blues instrumental and when the accordian player joined with a mandolin player, they played a "chorinho," one of Brazil's varied forms of folk music. The evening continued to slide around the musical spectrum as a young local girl took the mic and rocked us with an original hip-hop number followed up with a straight ahead jazz tune composed by El Maestro. This gave way to the percussionists who moved the musical mood toward tribal Africa and the introduction of "Cabelo," a multi-talented mestre of capoeira, (an African martial art form), who plays and African stringed instrument called the berimbau. During Carnaval Cabelo also leads an energetic bloco de samba. His solo did not disappoint. He even played capoeira with his wife on stage. Cabelo provided a perfect segue for Jorge's group, "Casa do Boneco." These kids stepped up with a powerful drum battery as the dancers illustrated the "orixás," (African dieties) in costume and movement. The youngest girls wearing colorful Afro-Brazilian costumes took over the sandy beach "dance pit" to augment the extravagant performance. Of course the audience exploded with enthusiasm. If they didn't somebody would have to check their pulse, give CPR or something.
How do you top that? Bring back the band and call Val Laranjeira up to sing a hand-clapping, stomp-and-shout number so EVERYONE can participate. We did. The crowd was jumping like sand fleas on the beach, the stage was crowded with all that talent joining in and the show closed on a note of "magia pura," pure magic.
Like I said, if you weren't there............
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