by David Juritz

I arrived in Rio later that morning and followed Bob Nadkarni’s instructions to The Maze, his guest house on the favela in Catece (the one obligatory destination in South America, this place, see http://jazzrio.info - ignore the fact that the website is sometimes out of date; Bob’s a busy man wheeler-dealing with top film companies on how they should compensate the favela for using it as a film location).

After a completely open schedule in Montevideo, Rio was pretty busy.  My first gig was a street in Carioca in downtown Rio where I set up amongst the card sharks. I really wasn’t sure how Bach was going to go down here so was really pleasantly surprised when a small circle formed around me.  I was joined after a while by Helen from the BBC, who lent a touch of glamour to the proceedings (it always helps to have someone holding a mike at you in the street – people stop just to work out what’s going on).

That night was jazz night at the Maze with a great band of Brazilian and German musicians who put up with my attempts to scrape along with them.  Bob, in his role as life and soul drifting by, Caipirinha in hand, repeating his mantra, “It’s got to be fun”. It’s a phrase that could sound a little hackneyed but, coming form a former BBC war correspondent who had witnessed the massacre at Shatila in Lebanon and, in his time, been on the wrong side of the occasional firing squad, it carried a certain ring to it.

Rio’s favelas are notorious hideouts for drug gangsters and generally pretty dangerous places to be around.  The Catete favela, accessed by motorbikes that carry you up the steep winding road, is perfectly safe.  A large SWAT headquarters stands at the top of the hill making life very difficult for anyone trying to get up to no good.  Houses that started out as corrugated iron shacks about 25 years ago are now piled on top of each other.  There is constant building going on here.  If you run out of room, the only way to go is up which is what everyone is doing.

Bob had arranged an informal concert on the one bit of land that was sacrosanct – the five-a-side football pitch.  I was joined by the local samba drum group, one of those organisations doing a great job by giving local kids the opportunity to join something other than a gang.

I’d been invited to do a concert at the Museo de Republica.  The organisers had done a fantastic job on publicity and, when twice as many people showed up as could be seated, we had to move outside to the museum’s gardens.

After that there was a chance to wind down a little.  Next day was a concert for a local international school and then a dash up to the Corcovado for the ultimate tourist photo overlooking Rio.  Sod’s law that the clouds closed in just as we got there.  You can see the results on the web page.