Meet the Band. The Turmalina Fab 4!
Oscar, Amalier, Becket and Robinson.
- Becket - guitar and vocals
- Oscar - charango
- Amalier - pan flute & bongo
- Robinson - box drum
Beckett, named for Irish poet/playwright Samuel Beckett. The children of the Amazon have wonderfully eclectic and varied names - a combination of traditional tribal names, Spanish and English historical references and pop culture influences. Deep in the jungle west of Iquitos in a tiny village we met a girl named Dora. They lived miles from electricity and even further from television but she could sing the song from which she was named! "Dora the Explorer" had apparently explored the Amazon, too. :)
Back to Becket. Becket is a jewel in the Triple Crown of the Turmalina - he has a fast smile, a coy grin, a gleam in his eye and a great voice. He is the lead singer and guitar player in the boat band but he also plays the pan flute and a few other instruments as well. Beckett has been on the boat for 9 yrs now -- flashing his smile and charm and being a great ambassador of the Amazon.
It's a good job to have but these guys work many hours for very little by our standards. 6.5 days per week (only Saturday afternoons off) and then one week off in late May. Becket has a dream to one day have his own band and not work on the boat. We have so much and need so little -- they have so little and ask for nothing. The imbalance in this equation bothers me.
I discovered that my camera could take full length videos (the perils of buying new equipment 2 days before leaving on vacation!) so we set up a recording session onboard for the last evening of our Amazon portion of the trip. I borrowed a tripod from Bill, we moved the water cooler, obscured the firehose and attempted to move the beer fridge (to no avail!). We built the playlist and we were ready to go ...
We recorded 11 of their songs with various mishaps and hiccups along the way ... Raoul, our fabulous bartender and Maitre'd was obvious in the background as he tended to our libacious needs; the playlist was caught in a sudden wind gust and blew onto the stage, a boat went by and caused a rolling cross wake, and Oscar had to leave midway through to get dinner ready as he doubled as our head waiter. Robinson materialized in the middle of song #3 but somehow we managed to produce an 11 song collection for them.
We decided to record only Peruvian songs and local classics for them but they also played a amazing assortment of classics and pop songs ... John Lennon and Paul would be happy to have heard the Turmalina versions of "Imagine" and 'Let it Be" ... played wonderfully on the pan flute by Amalier.
We wanted to cut the CD that night for them but with limited equipment, no editing software and only my netbook (with no CD drive!), I was stuck. Mirko offered up his laptop but me fumbling around in Vista ... in Spanish (!) was simply more than frustrating than productive.
Watch for the website and CD soon! :) It was a lot of fun to do this for them - it's just too bad the sound quality was poor on my dSLR camera.
This song is link to youtube - "Amazonia" - a tribute to the Amazonian Rainforest and our need to preserve it for the world ... and all of it's citizens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voX-IJWzwdA
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