Last night in a nutshell...

As per requests for more written material, here is a quick recap of our activities last night.  Our soon to be teacher of Candomble, Gabi Guedes plays every saturday night at a jam session at the museum of modern art.  We walked to the jam in order to take in more of the city.  The route to the museum was reminiscent of Columbus Avenue in Philly, with the added bonus of a thick fish stench.  The route took us along the coast of Salvador which, big surprise, is strikingly beautiful.  It’s no surprise the Portuguese chose it as an ideal capital city, with its high coastline.  Unlike most jam sessions, this one was number one on the lists of many tourists we met as well as musicians.  We are used to jam sessions being insider affairs, mostly musicians who want to play and network with other musicians.  This jam session was totally different.  First of all, the museum is located on the beach by the ocean.  We’ve never been to a jam session at a more beautiful place.  The session takes place on a stage outside, right at the ocean.  As we arrived, the cello section from the Bahian youth orchestra, NEOJIBA was performing.   They played a few folk songs with the house band at the jam session accompanying.  Orchestral instruments seemed like somewhat of a novelty after spending a week here, where drums are totally ubiquitous.  After the cellos finished the jam started.  Rather than being an open jam, the session was invite only and the music was absolutely stellar.  It tended to have a Brazilian swing to it, but for a couple of tunes the musicians dove into some American jazz standards with total competence.  Obviously the highlight for us was hearing the amazing drum solos, of which there were many, played by many different drummers.  After the jam was over, our teacher Gabi Guedes gave us a lift back, but not before inviting us to a Candomble ceremony happening at his house tonight.  We are in luck, because the woman who is renting us the place here is going to help us get there.  Turns out she is a Candomble dancer and is initiated into the religion.  Maybe we can get her to help us get deeper into the dances we studied last week.   We are heading out now to go to our second Candomble ceremony and it’ll surely be worth blogging about so stay tuned for that.  Once again, if you have any requests for updates let us know!  Till tomorrow...