Monday night sick jams

Monday or Tuesday, I forget exactly, we had a very interesting lecture on the sociopolitical order and class sytem of Santigao, which I really enjoyed as someone interested in urban planning and social order. The guest lecturer, Sabatini, I believe, showed a very interesting series of slides with pictures of ghettos around various Latin American cities, highlighting differences and approaches. One particular interesting slide showed a rich Argentinean suburban home, complete with pool and all, contrasted against a wall behind which literally hundreds of tiny shacks shared their borders with. The most interesting part of this picture was a tiny ladder he highlighted, which could have signified various things but perhaps indicated a lack of fear on the side of the rich household at least.

There was a visit to a neighborhood in Santiago that Monday afternoon, but I begged off of it because I had made plans to jam with Gonzo again at his house. I bought some more white gas, ran a couple more small errands, and took a nap, only to wake up to a traffic nightmare at 7 oclock. I had told him I would be there at 7, but I ended up being around 50 minutes late, with the difficulty I had obtaining a free cab and dealing with traffic. My friend Selene from La Serena was there, as invited to observe the jams and take photos. The jam was even better this time, a mind blowing mix of styles and genres. We went from jazz to funk to blues to swing to latin jazz to drum and bass, of which I have never really jammed on. We were playing with a really talented high school drummer kid, one of Gonzos friends, and one of the few people I have ever seen with the endurance and timing to maintain drum and bass breaks. I was playing bass at the time, keeping up a consistent and moving, pulsing bass line to drive the psychedelic keyboard swirls that Gonzo was accenting the music with on top of two sets of hand drums being played and guitar. It was impossibly fun, one of the best jam sessions of my life possibly, and certainly one of the best times I had in Chile. We toned down a lil afterwards, throwing in a little slow rock jams and some piano solo jazz from Gonzo, before absconding for dinner. By this time it was 1130, so his parents had already eaten long ago. We had excellent cheese tortollini with a creamy white tomato sauce with a little mushrooms, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Afterwards, I gave a demonstation of fire poi for Gonzo and his one friend that had remained so late, which seemed to amuse and entertain them. Selene again assisted in taking a bunch of good photos, which I have to sort through and publish. Gonzo was even kind enough to drive me home, as it was after midnight, and I walked Selene back to the bus then passed out, quite content from such a satisfying evening.