Starting yesterday afternoon (Friday), we had three live media appearances in a row. Two on the radio and one on TV. At each one, Adelle has been with us as well as Phil and, for the radio, a translator named Valencia. We also usually have two vans and drivers hauling us and our equipment around. It’s quite an operation!

Yesterday afternoon Michael and I were on Orbita Musical hosted by Elsa Fernandes. This is a radio program that features a wide variety of music. The format for this was a question and answer session interspersed with tracks from our CD. We highlighted tracks that were not pure swing. Swinging jazz does not go over as well here as afrocuban or pop feels, I think. Working with a translator was a little awkward but overall the show was fun to do and it gave us a chance to introduce our music and the Rhythm Road program to a lot of Luandans.

The evening live TV show Hora Quente was hosted by Pedro N’zagi. Pedro seemed like a fun and funny guy and he was very easy to work with. There were initial problems with the amplifier (which never worked due to a faulty electrical adapter which has since been replaced) and the show’s reluctance to let us use drums. Somehow the issues were resolved and the show went on. The format for this show was interesting and worked well for us. Pedro first interviewed us in English then he did a summarized translation for his audience. This allowed for the interaction to occur spontaneously. We played short versions of two of our songs and it was a wrap.

The last of our whirlwind media tour events occurred this morning on the live radio show Bom Dia, Bom Dia. The guests for the show all gathered around an outdoor table with the host. I acted as the band spokesman. We opened the show with a tune. Then Adelle was asked some questions and I was briefly interviewed with Valencia again translating. We closed out our portion of the show with two brief tunes.

Before the show we went over an arrangement of a popular Angolan song that I just added to our repertoire. Someone heard us playing it and requested us to play it on the show. We used it as our closer and it got a rousing reception. We’ll roll it out again tonight during our only true performance opportunity here in Luanda at a place called Jango Veleiro.
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