Cupcakes, chorinho, samba, old friends, and staying up past my bedtime

Last night combined the best of all possible worlds: baked goods, various types of Brazilian music, old friends and new ones, dancing, being happy, letting the hours fly by, and just relaxing utterly and completely.

First off, I got to celebrate a friend's birthday by surprising his partygoers with my famous chocolate cupcakes. (Made with a rich chocolate buttercream frosting--when it comes to baking I'm always one to gild the lily.)

Then, since I was just down the street from Bistro Jules (St. Mark's @ 1st St.) where the Choro Ensemble plays every Sunday, I just had to stop in. I hadn't been to see them in weeks and was going through a bit of a withdrawal from their music and from the convivial atmosphere of Jules. I've never been a Francophile (nor have I ever travelled to France) but Jules almost inspires me to learn a little French and take a trip to Paris. But probably the better option is to just sit back and enjoy the 100-year-old music that is choro/chorinho. Or as Jesse of Mangos and Mandolins MP3 blog describes the genre:

Choro is a close cousin of samba. Here's what happens: The slaves win emancipation in 1888 and come south from the sugar plantations looking for work in the big cities. They find a bunch of white people pretending they're in Europe, dancing to waltzes, foxtrots, mazurkas, polkas. The black musicians start picking up these tunes, do their thing with them, and pretty soon we have choro: European melodies over a proto-samba groove.

Never have you heard a sound so simultaneously funky and classy. That's why I love this music. Even better when you make a new friend there and she grabs your hand and gets you to samba with her between the tables. (Always fun to see people's reactions to the occasional spontaneous dancing at Jules. Go ahead, stare at us--we don't care.)

So then I convinced my new young dancer friend, B., to join me and a friend of ours in common to head out to Brooklyn for Black Betty. She knew Greg Caz was the real deal from her many visits to Wednesday-night Nublu insanity, but she'd never been to Brazilian Beat.

I was hoping that BB would be as lively as Greg's reports have been lately. Due to Christmas/New Year's obligations and general malaise, I had skipped the past few weeks and was now really jonesing for that mix of Brazilian funk, samba, samba-rock, and baile funk vibe that resides in abundance at Black Betty Sunday nights.

The moment I walked in, I knew it would be a special night. Old friends who I haven't seen or heard from in far too long were there. Good dancers who could be counted on to keep me company on the floor and push me to my limits were in abundance. I danced, and danced, and danced some more. I sang along to favorite songs and even got to partake of a roda and some dancified capoeira. I missed that feeling, and I was glad to have it back.