Ever since internet, email and world wide web became common in the early nineties, I've tried from time to time to get in contact with my long lost friend Carlos Niehues from Itajao, Brazil. Carlos and I studied together at www.mi.edu in Hollywood, CA in 1987-88.
Besides that, Carlos let me join him on his regular gig at the Cafe Connection on 9171 Wilshire Boulevard every friday and saturday night. I totally fell in love with brazilian music and brazilian people and enjoyed a very intimate friendship with Carlinhos and his wife Anna. Guests would often sit in, and below, you see the artist BAKARI on percussion and below that the cook Gustavo on bongos.
On this soundcloud-link, you can hear Carlos, me and Jean-Bruno Meier playing Carlos' composition Amenecer , that seems to have become quite popular in Brazil. This is probably the first public performance of that tune in january 1988 :-)
Just tonight I learned that Carlos actually passed away in 1994 - the year when I myself did a tour in Brazil with Sigurd Barrett and Trio de Janeiro - we played in Rio, Recife and Belem.
At Cafe Connection |
While digging through the net this night, I came across this blog, that gives some informations on Carlinhos' life and death. (use google translate if your portuguese is limited). Some of his music is present in this youtube channel
All this inspired me to share the above stories and the pics below. God bless you Carlinhos, RIP.
Playing a wedding - spring of '88 |
My very last hug from Carlos - i flew home to Denmark the next day |