The Jazz Voyager

The Jazz Voyager is in Salvador do Bahia, Brazil for the largest annual street festival and celebration of Carnival that begins this year on Friday afternoon of the 9th, 51 days before Easter and the 14th, Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. The term carnival originated from the word carnelevare, which means to remove meat, as on certain days of Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians would traditionally abstain from the consumption of meat and poultry. Not a problem for this voyager as meat has been off my menu for more than thirty years.

The black population commemorated the days of Carnival highly marked by Yoruba characteristics, dancing in the streets and playing instruments. Thought primitive by the upper-class white elite, they banned the groups from participating in the official Bahia Carnival, but the groups defied the ban and continued to do their dances. This voyager will be among the millions to be enticed to dance to samba, samba-reggae and axé presented by the groups Afoxês, Trios Elétricos, Amerindian, and Blocos Afros. For those in the know, samba is the basis for the adaptive bossa nova that came to the jazz world via a host of jazz musicians such as Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz and Cannonball Adderley. #wannabewhereyouare

More Posts: adventure,club,genius,jazz,museum,music,preserving,restaurant,travel,voyager