Latin Carnival Beats at The Sage

Last Wednesday I found myself drumming Latin/jazzy/carnival beats with the Silver programme for our 2 hour Carnival Explosion concert. We had a full house in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall and the audience appeared to be delighted by the performance. Samba drumming is great fun, energetic and noisy.

A samba band consists of large freestanding drums called surdos; snare drums; Timbale drums, which are a bit like African drums and are played with the hands; agogo bells; and tamborins, which are like tambourines, but played with a plastic stick. Can’t you almost hear the Brazilian beats from the description? The tunes consist of grooves (like the chorus of a song) and breaks (a bit like a verse). Drumming beats can be remembered by unlikely phrases such as ‘I like butter on my potato’. And how do we know what to play when? I’m not telling as that’s a secret code between us and our leaders, Phil and Nick. There’s lots of call and response between the leaders and the band, which gives the leader a chance to improvise on his snare drum.

We played 2 tunes, Samba Reggae and Samba Kala with the band and the concert also included us on steel pans, which is such a beautiful sound and the tunes have lovely Caribbean names such as ‘Coconut Woman’. So get out that old oil drum from your shed to make your own. Instructions telling you how to hammer out the drum to get the different notes are on the internet. I kid you not.

We also played large marching drums called Boomdang drums, which were invented by a man from Cumbria, and we ended the concert by playing tuned percussion such as marimbas and xylophones, in a tune with the delightful title of ‘Final Blessings’.

The concert also included 2 absolutely great bands of younger people. ‘Rhythm Nation’, a group of young boys and teenagers, played complex samba with one lad on the standard drum kit, obviously a jazz drummer in the making. The announcements were given by an efficient lad who looked about nine years old. The talent of these youngsters is frightening. The other guest band, whose name I didn’t catch, was a marching drum band of 7 players. I say marching but some of it was close to dancing, with heads bobbing alternately, a great sense of fun and lots of noise.

Catch our next performance, whenever it is. Not exactly jazz, but enough jazz-like elements for jazz fans to enjoy.

Ann Alex.