Around the block

Travels

This has been an eventful summer, and I appreciate the opportunity to share some of the stories with my followers and subscribers.

In the last few weeks we have been to Switzerland, the Amazon, Portugal and Spain, partly for music and partly for family gatherings. While the time zone changes certainly play with one’s internal clock, the reward is to be able to walk, play, breathe, eat and drink in all of those different places leave us enriched and with widened horizons.

A lot of the photos you can find in my Instagram feed, but I will share some more images here for you all.

I will also start to post unique audio tracks from my archives for my paying subscribers. You can always upgrade your subscription for full access to my post archive. See more below.

This is the kind of landscape you see near Manaus. A clearing in the forest with the Amazon in the distance. Photo by Jovino Santos Neto

Flying into Manaus in the middle of the night. Low clouds above and the deep Amazon below. Photo by Jovino Santos Neto

O Encontro das Águas - The Meeting of the Waters, The murky Solimões and the tea-colored Negro rivers meet and flow side by side for miles, forming the Rio-Mar, the Sea-River.

An igarapé is an area of flooded forest, a different world of shadows and much life in and around the water. Photo by Jovino Santos Neto

The interior of the Teatro Amazonas, built during the Amazonian rubber boom in 1897. This is where I played with the Amazonas Band, and where we recorded our latest live album, A Onça E O Pajé (The Jaguar and the Shaman). Here is the title track:

Here’s a little clip of us playing on my composition Crossfire during the Amazonas Green Festival one month ago, shot from the audience:

and this is the full band playing the world premiere of my new piece Na Umbigada da Vida:

On my last day in Manaus, I enjoyed a moqueca made with pirarucu with banana pacovã (plantain) and a caipirinha infused with jambú leaves:

The contrast happens when you fly from Manaus to Lisbon, and then suddenly you are in a different world:

Sunday breakfast in Lisbon. Photo by Luzia Grob dos Santos.

We loved hanging around the Alfama and Chiado neighborhoods, and after a couple of days we drove north to Santiago de Compostela in Galícia, Spain. The Cathedral and the old city are impressive. Pilgrims from all nationalities congregate there:

Our lodgings were in a monastery nearby. This is the open courtyard, with 12 chairs representing the Apostles around a tree:

After driving back to Lisbon and flying to Seattle, my Quinteto just played for two nights to a packed house at Dimitrious’ Jazz Alley in Seattle.

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