SOUNDTRACK: JOVINO SANTOS NETO-Tiny Desk Concert #904 (October 21, 2019).
Jovino Santos Neto plays piano–and then surprises by playing a lot more.
I have a come and go relationship with jazz. I like some of it. I like it sometimes.
But the blurb might explain why I liked this music right away:
Something happens for me when I hear jazz mixing it up with Brazilian rhythms. In the right hands it falls into the realm of magic. Pianist, multi-instrumentalist and composer Jovino Santos Neto certainly cast a spell over those who gathered for this joyful turn behind the Tiny Desk.
I loved everything about this performance.
The trio rushed right out of the gate with the samba-influenced “Pantopé” that introduces the concept of the trio: seamless interaction between the musicians that make the band sound like one big, melodic rhythm machine.
“Pontapé” opens with slow piano and woodblocks from drummer Jeff Busch. Then after about thirty seconds, the song takes off with some amazing piano playing and some great five-string bass from Tim Carey.
There’s a really impressive bass solo–Carey has got some really fast fingers. Then, midway through the song–and a huge surprise if you’re not watching–Santos Neto pulls out a very solid-looking melodica and plays a really impressively fast solo on it.
It’s a solo that’s interspersed with some fun drum fills–cowbell, snare, wooblocks and a little whistle at the end. It’s a wild and fun track for sure.
He explains that the name”Pontapé” means kick. People who can play soccer can do amazing things with their feet. But we do it with the notes instead.
Up next is “Sempre Sim.” The song
starts with percussionist Jeff Busch riffing on the traditional percussion instrument called berimbau.
It looks like a giant fishing rod. Santos Neto says, “don’t be afraid it isn’t a weapon… I mean in the right hands.” One plays the berimbau by hitting the instrument with a tiny drum stick (and also hits the cymbals with tiny stick).
its ethereal sound creating the perfect intro to the dreamy melody and solo from Santos Neto on piano, while bassist Tim Carey echoes the double beat on the bass drum that drives Brazilian music.
There’s some great piano and amazing bass. The middle solo is an astonishing amelodic feast. By then Busch has switched back to sticks and is playing drums.
They finish and Santos Neto seems to think they are done. There’s a long pause with everyone looking off at someone. Then he says Okay! We’re going to play one more to much chuckling.
The final song is “Festa de Erê.” He says that
Erê represents the spirits of children in the Brazilian Umbanda tradition, which makes “festa de Erê” an appropriate title for the intensely whimsical tune that weaves in and out of the different traditional rhythms performed by all three musicians.
The song starts bouncy and lively. But they settle down so Santos Neto can play the main piano melodies.
Then midway through the song he surprises once again by playing a lengthy, pretty flute solo–the end of which consists of him playing the flute one-handed while he plays the piano with his right hand.
All the while Carey is tapping out the notes with both hands, but that impressive feat is overshadowed by the incredible stuff going on behind the piano.
Like the sometimes frenetic energy of the music they play, Jovino Santos Neto and his trio are perfect examples of musicians who have so much music coming from within, sometimes one instrument is just not enough.
Perhaps I like jazz best when it’s mixed with Brazilian rhythms too.
[READ: November 16, 2018] “The Trip”
I’ve only read one other story by Weike–a story of a difficult romance.
This story is also of a difficult romance, but in a very different way.
The story begins
In Beijing, he boiled the water. It was August, so the hottest month of the year. He put the water into a thermos and carried the thermos on a sling. He called himself a cowboy because he thought he looked dumb. Other people in the group carried a thermos too, though he wife did not.
The opening is certainly confusing. It continues to be so. He and his wife go to the Great Wall. She sprints along it to show him a particular spot hat her cousin showed her as a teenager. Her cousin taught her the Chinese word for cool–imagine not knowing that word– shuang–until you were 13. Can you imagine how that felt? He says that she knew the word in English, though right? She made a face and then sprinted on.
The trip had been a gift from her parents who wanted “her first husband to see China and have good memories from there and sample its regional foods and see the warmth of its people and not hate us civilians should our two great nations ever partake in nuclear war.” At least that’s how she translated it.
He had not wanted to go, but all of her family was there and she told hi how important family was. They traveled to Xi’an and ate a ton of food. Then on to Chengdu (where they brought very spicy food and she translated the staff as saying “please enjoy and remember don’t be a pussy). By the time they got to Shanghai he could no longer remember hunger.
She enjoyed talking to the tour guides in Chinese.
There’s an amusing moment on one of their tours when a tourist, Karl, stopped to buy something and delayed them by two hours. “All Karl bought was a magnet. … Two hours’ wait for a magnet. Fuck that magnet.”
His mother had tried to contact him via email and text but he was silent to her. When he spoke to her on the phone he was short and evasive.
They visited her cousin and she told the man that his wife’s Chinese “was like that of a toddler.” Like talking to someone between the ages of three and five.
When his mother finally gets in touch with him, she talks about all kinds of things back at home Things he doesn’t care about, Listening, he thought, “I love you mom, but I don’t like you.”
When he first told his mother that they were going to China, she had asked him, “do the two of you have no interest in seeing the rest of America?” She told them that they started watching documentaries about China because of her…they even bought chopsticks!
In Hangzhou he might have been the only American they will ever see. His wife and her cousin began to argue. His wife had said something was shuan. Her cousin said the word meant refreshing not cool. Cool was ku as in ruthless or strong, the Chinese word for cruel. At one point in the argument, her cousin turned to him and said in English “Hey look, I’m arguing with a toddler,” after which his wife swung her hand across the cousin’s mouth.
Her cousin claimed that his wife was an ABC. Only ABCs “went on prepaid tours, spoke bad Chinese, married out, and thought everything was cool or great, when most things were just plain.”
The next day his wife stopped talking to him in English. She also stopped translating things for him. The started talking into Google translate to communicate
They spent most of their time now watching TV. He understood nothing.
When his mother called, he actually talked to her so as to avoid the TV. But she asked all kinds of mundane or insulting questions about what he was doing. How’s the air? Have you seen a hospital? Did you meet Chairman Mao? Do you feel less free?
The next day, she went out and did not invite him along. When she returned he asked her about the walk. Did you have a good time? Are you angry with me?
Her Google reply: “No harm, no foul. No Pain, no gain.”
His wife’s Chinese started to improve. The cousin said it was now like a first grader.
Then his wife asked him if he would mind if she stayed on and he went home alone. He was shocked. But she said she had been chatting with friends and relatives on WeChat, including Karl from the trip! She was even considering becoming a tour guide.
How much personal growth can a couple withstand?
I Just Read About That... 
Leave a comment