Jimmy, founder of SambAsia and SambAsia Beijing, visited Vancouver as a traveling teacher in 2010 and offered a weeklong workshop. Emphasizing inclusion, technique, style, and show, he infused the community with energy and inspiration, and it is with great pleasure that we announce his next visit in September 2011.
Paul Bray had the opportunity to meet Jimmy at Brazil Camp in Cazadero, California, a musician’s camp that provides a unique access to a host of world masters in a workshop setting during the last week of August, 2009. Paul was stunned by his gentle yet powerful approach to teaching. In the beginner’s bateria class, early in the misty morning, Paul witnessed a group of sleepy sambistas transform into a smiling, laughing, and dancing Samba band with a wink from Jimmy.
“Samba is a great gift from Brazil,” explains Jimmy, “It is a tradition that is so beautiful and is so strong in building relationships with people and positive life forces. I have been very fortunate to discover how to respectfully teach and share all that my teachers have shared with me.”
It’s an important point: The first lesson Jimmy offers when you arrive at his class is a gesture of respect to his teachers. When it comes to learning traditional music, honouring the mother culture is a crucial first step. “I was lucky to have great supportive teachers all the way through,” he explains.
As a lifelong percussion student in the San Francisco Bay area, Jimmy spent years refining a feathered jazz finesse until a magical experience with Cuban, Ghanaian, and Brazilian music changed his focus completely: “The door opened up for me… My whole view of myself and music changed after I attended my first tambor ceremony in Matanzas, Cuba. I had no idea music could be so powerful.” He began a dedicated apprenticeship with some world renowned teachers, such as C.K. Ladzekpo, Royal Hartigan, and most notably, Michael Spiro and Jorge Alabe, whose seminal recording Bata Ketu also inspired the vision that led to the creation of Vancouver’s Sambatá. He started formally teaching these styles of traditional music worldwide in 1997, but a cornerstone of his international work started with SambAsia San Francisco in 2002.
“I was teaching Cuban percussion classes in the Japanese Cultural Center and would often watch the Taiko drumming classes. The power and energy of the Taiko drums reminded me a lot of the great surdo drums of Brazil. Eventually, with the help and encouragement of dancer Lenora Lee and the folks at the Japanese Cultural Center, Asian Improv Arts and the California Arts Council, SambAsia was started in the fall of 2002. We made our big debut at the 25th Anniversary of the San Francisco Carnaval… [combining] Rio style Samba with Japanese Taiko drumming in the 2003 Grand Parade. In the following years, SambAsia SF would combine different forms of Brazilian drumming with Folk arts of Asia. One year we did Maracatu and Korean Pung-mul drumming and dance. Another year was Pilipino Folk dance and Kulintang gong music with Samba Bahia drumming.”
With the foundations laid for such powerful cultural fusions, Jimmys’ teaching demands outgrew the Bay. He moved to Taiwan and spent two years instructing Brazilian percussion to the aboriginal youth and adults in over 15 different villages, an experience that opened up a myriad of new possibilities. With a simple suggestion from SambAsia, he decided to take the project to Beijing in 2006, forming “the only group in China solely dedicated to the study of Samba drumming.” After much hard work in a short time, the Beijing Olympics had a full-powered Brazilian-inspired Samba group, complete with dancers, singers, and drummers. Jimmy is humble about his own role in this accomplishment and honours the dedication and talents of his students who developed strong enough foundations to stand without his direction. After four years he moved back the California, but future international projects are in the works. His fingers are now tapping for the Philippines, his ethnic heritage.
Jimmy is active on another fusion project, KUL-X, “which is a creative music ensemble that performs traditional Folk music and dance from the Philippines with a jazz influenced rhythm section – Kulintang gongs with electric bass, electric guitar, drum set, Cuban and Brazilian percussion.” He also performs in the Grupo Samba Rio, the bateria of his mentor Jorge Alabe, a percussion master in the Brazilian traditions. He is also playing the drum kit in the wildly talented acoustic rock group Blue House, while accompanying “the wonderful jazz pianist/composer Christophe Lier” during the southern France Summer Jazz Festival. “I’m [also] teaching myself Hank Williams songs on the Ukulele – so much fun!”
“Samba is a great gift from Brazil,” explains Jimmy, “It is a tradition that is so beautiful and is so strong in building relationships with people and positive life forces. I have been very fortunate to discover how to respectfully teach and share all that my teachers have shared with me.”
Sambatá is proud to present this rare opportunity to meet and learn from Jimmy Biala. Don’t miss it.
All rights reserved.