Life without music is like spaghetti without hot peppers

Tuesday, September 10, 2008

I feel the rentre breathing down my neck. It's an all-too-familiar melange of feelings, one which I have known and loved/hated since I was old enough to know better than to eat my own boogers. (Until I started attending school, my big brother Seth, an unabashed booger-eater, was my cheif role model and hence the arbiter of propriety--eek!)

It will be good to see my students again, and to try to accomplish something, but it is something of a daily grind, and the year is soooooooooo loooooong.

There are some new ideas on the drawing board and they involve--huge shock!--music. I am going to try to scrounge up some money, possibly through a grant, to buy three or four trumpets, maybe a trombone or two, and start working during what is my arch-nemisis in the Beninese education system, the three hour lunch break.

Kids often walk 30 min or even an hour each way before and after school, and to do so again in the middle of the day is, to use my fathers phrase, sheer lunacy. Granted, it is not for no reason--the only food they will find is what is being prepared at the house at midday, and many have chores to do--but still...it is the hugest waste of time (itself a concept all but lost on Beninese).

It is because of the three hour lunch that students finish school at 5pm or even 7 or 8, leaving little time for extracurriculars or even homework. I hope to be able to put together a group of enthusiastic young musicians who will work a couple times a week, and to leave the trumpets at school where they can sign them out to practice during lunch on other days.

I recently worked a week training new volunteers in Port Novo, and made some connections which has opened other opportunity to teach music. A man across the street from our house happened to be the drummer in a group which performs every saturday and sunday at an outdoor bar. They play interminable songs--mostly salsa and African dance hits and classics--and they feature a revolving cast of drummers, singers, percussionists, keyboardists, bassists and guitarists. They were quite happy to let me join them and fish around for a line or two I too could repeat indefinitely, and to solo a few times on each tune.

One thing I really appreciate about the group is their practice of praise-singing, at least that's what I imagine was going on. The singer would start dropping names, and was clearly singing for the benefit of some newly-arrived couple, or a group of dapper men around a table teeming with beer bottles. (Cultural note: At a Beninese buvette, bottles are left on the table until payed for, and it is a status symbol to have a table strewn with bottles. As a result, a group will often buy more than one beer each, letting the second get warm as they drink the first. They will often choose small bottles, too, instead of the more cost-effective large beers which are double the volume, but not double the price, a fact appreciated by most volunteers). After a minute or two, one of them would come up on stage, or approach the singer who was roving around the crowd, and place some money in his hand or against his forhead, the traditional way of honoring a performer.

Although the musicians could keep the songs going for impressive amounts of time, and the singing and drumming were not bad, on the whole I wasn't too impressed, although I was grateful for the chance to play. One young drummer stood out, though, and I made plans to go to his group's rehearsal at the Christian Celeste Church (which astute and dedicated readers will recognize as the Church with whom I went on a pilgrimage to the sea last Christmas).

The jam was awesome, a long-awaited chance to really stretch out and blow with no audience to make me self-conscious. The bassist, guitarist and drummer are all young and recent jazz converts, and it reminded me a bit of playing at the New School with new students. Playing on that level in New York, or the states is one thing, but to figure out how to play jazz in Benin with no real jazz mentors or learning aids is quite impressive. They invited me to come play in Cotonou where they have two weekly jams with some Cotonou based musicians.

The result is that I have a standing rehearsal (of which I have so far played about four) in Cotonou on Thursdays. I bring recordings, sheet music, and patterns and excercises for them to practice, and we play. (It existed before I showed up, but I aim to take over and run the show, which everybody seems to be cool with, and happy about). It is refreshing to teach music on a more advanced level than my piano or theory lessons in the village. Who knows, it could be a good chance to have some positive impact here.

Aside from these musicians, I also met others in the past two weeks, especially the many and very talented brothers of my friend who is himself maybe the best Beninese pianist. They are the pinnacle of the Beninese music scene, and I sat in on a rehearsal that shows why--they rehearse three hours straight every weekday, as if it were a job, albeit a fun one. Inspired by their playing, I spent the next two days serenading the Peace Corps bureau and neighborhood from the rooftop for hours a day. Through one brother, I also found out about another standing gig every Friday and Saturday in a new, swanky little bar. I played one time and aim to be semi-regular there.

So now, after a year, I am suddenly making a bunch of jazz contacts and finding new chances to play and teach. (And I didn't even mention the Dutch smooth-jazz guitarist I recently met). The only thing missing is to meet some musician with his head in the clouds and his feet firmly on the ground who wants help creating a music school.