Samba Squad gets invited to play in public. A lot. The group has played at Caribana, Toronto’s Pride Parade, events for Pedestrian Sunday in Kensington Market and Blue Jays and Argonauts games. A large collective of drummers playing Afro-Brazilian music-meets-urban funk, etc., just seems to speak to people. Loudly.
The leader of the "seething cauldron" that is Samba Squad is percussionist Rick Shadrach Lazar. If you’ve never seen them in action, check this out. Then read on to find out about the band's weirdest experiences playing drums in public places, as told by Shadrach Lazar.
PLAYListen to three tracks from Samba Squad's new album, Que Beleza.
1. Drum as battering ram.
"One of our memorable moments was playing at the Governor General's Awards in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre as the special guest of Jesse Cook. We were to enter halfway through his performance, do a short feature and play along 'til the end of the song. At these events you’re at the beck and call of interns and producers who are ordering you around. We were told to wait in our holding area until called. We were then called to makeup, where staff leisurely did our makeup, wired us up with mics and got us ready to go onstage. Very high-end scene! Suddenly one of our members looked at the in-house monitor and screamed that Jesse was onstage performing already. After all the prep, the staff had failed to give us our cue!
"We were a long way from the stage and had to make our entrance from the furthest wing. We jumped up, began rushing to the stage, strapping our drums on as we ran. As we approached the stage, the coterie of flunkies tried to block our way. One of our surdo (big drum) players, Julie, said to the producer: 'Get out of my way,' then rammed her with the drum; we all ran behind the curtains along the side, back and up the other side of the stage and made our entrance exactly on cue.
"Jesse was surprised to see our intense energy as we burst out onto the stage, and the entire performance was great. Later he found out why. He told us later that he had kept looking over to the wings, saying to himself, 'Where are they, where are they?!'"
Watch Samba Squad perform with Jesse Cook in Montreal.
2. Drums as dinner music.
"One of our weirdest moments was being hired by a real estate company to play their function. We have done lots of these for 300 to 500 people, and assumed we would march through the banquet hall area as usual to excite the crowd. When we got there, we realized we were playing for three couples who were eating dinner in a tiny room, sectioned off from the banquet hall. The woman who hired us was truly enjoying it, while the others were grimacing and some had their hands over their ears. It was a surreal moment; we actually felt sorry for them, as it was thunderously loud and the thought of Samba Squad as 'dining music' is truly weird."
3. Drums as sexual magnet.
"We always end each night’s performance at the Salsa on St. Clair Festival with a parade. The crowd is young and excited and the drumming makes the passions higher. As we march, the crowd closes in around us and we have to constantly push our way forward as if we’re parting the seas. Some of our women players were being fondled by bystanders and this led to a fight almost breaking out between a bystander and a male member of the band who was protecting the women being touched. The police and volunteers finally helped make a path, but there were tense moments of bedlam ensuing."
Here is the band playing at Salsa on St. Clair — without the abuse.
4. Drums as rainmakers.
"[When we were] playing at Queen's Park for Muhtadi’s International Drumming Festival, rain threatened all day, but clouds opened as we started drumming. We continued playing; soon people were dancing in the mud, a true Woodstock moment. With every hit on the surdos (big drums), water bounced off the skins in a circle-splash that people still talk about. We kept playing; people kept dancing. It was wonderful. Later we had to take every piece of hardware off every drum, and wipe it down before it rusted!"
5. Drumming up dancers.
"One of the best moments was playing in Toronto on Queen Street at Soho Street. A car stopped, a Brazilian gal jumped out and ran to us and burst into a mad samba dance. Totally carried away! Her friends were forced to drive on, and after a few minutes she came out of her Samba Squad-induced trance and ran up the street waving back at us, laughing and blowing kisses, chasing her friends' car!"
6. Drums that set you on fire — literally.
"During our yearly Kensington Market Festival of Lights for winter solstice, the festivities always ended with a huge bonfire at the end of the parade in Bellevue Square Park. One year there was a very windy night and the wind was blowing embers in our faces as we were drumming up the finale. Suddenly a huge gust of wind sent a volley of sparks in our faces and one member was set on fire by an ember. She describes the experience in her own words: 'There were fire jugglers everywhere and a spark came flying through the air and landed on my unfortunately nylon and extremely flammable mitten, which burst into flame. The fire actually travelled impressively right up the arm of my coat, feeding off the lint maybe or just showing off. After my initial thoughts of 'hot!' and 'ow!' I bent down and stuck my arm in a conveniently situated snow bank to suffocate the flame. As I tried to soothe my poor hand, Rick looked over at me with a look of exasperation that said, 'What on Earth are you doing Jordan!? Stop playing in the snow!'”
Samba Squad is releasing its third album, Que Beleza, at Lula Lounge in Toronto on March 21.
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