"Um Olhar, Um Sorriso no Ar....."
I've been hooked on samba since 1988, when I stumbled upon the London School of Samba, playing in the Africa Centre in London's Covent Garden. Hearing batucada for the first time in my life was a truly life changing moment. I made a point of hunting down the LSS and signed up to play with them.
After moving to Paris in 1989, I met up with a group of samba enthusiasts that were beginning to play together in the early 90's. They were all ex-pupils of Tia Nicia, whose influence on the French samba scene is extensive. The group was known as "Aquarela" and although at that stage were mostly a formation of pagode players, around 1994 Aquarela began to grow in structure and play more and more bateria style gigs. The greatest thing about gigging with Aquarela was that at every chance possible, the guitar, pandeiro and cavaco came out and the pagode songs were cranked out for hours on end.
I've lived in Dublin, London, Paris, the USA and now am living in Dublin again. Whenever I can, I travel to Brazil for a fix of samba. I also love to travel in Europe for samba events, such as: Notting Hill Carnival, Fete de la Musique, Coburg and other festivals, etc.
Since returning to Dublin in 1999 I have hung up my tamborim sticks - well no, not really - as Simeon at maSamba has often invited me to join them for rehearsals as well as the Saint Patrick's Festival parade and occasional workshops.
My enduring passion has to be pagode however, and as I am a graduate of the Aquarela school of pagode, I have their repertoire (of that time) engraved in my vocal chords. For years, I really thought that I was in a pagode wilderness in Dublin until last year, when I had the good fortune to meet with a few other Dubliners who also wanted to sing and play samba. So we have started up a little pagode circle and hopefully it will ripple ever outwards.....
