One of the singular pleasures of sitting in the many street cafes and restaurants in Rio de Janeiro is to hear live instrumental music played by a small group of street musicians. Comprising a guitar (played with some mesmerising finger work), a flute, sometimes a clarinet and a cavaquinho (a small four-stringed guitar), with drums…
Month: August 2016
Carlos Gardel – The Legend of a Birth
That a bullet was found lodged in one of his lungs during his autopsy was proof to many that Carlos Gardel had bravely struggled with a gunman on the plane shortly before it careered into another aircraft during take-off at Mendellín in Colombia on 24 June 1935. It was one of many fanciful stories which…