Asa Branca (Baião), A Banda 
   Felicidade, A Banda

- Everybody's partying, writes Hugh Matthews from the Brazilian carneval.   Hugh is playing with the Danish band A Banda in Pelourinho, Salvador Bahia's historic centre. 
It wasn't easy to get a line (or even find one) to the Internet, but our intrepid reporter managed in the end to send a few pictures and some RealAudio straight off the street... 

The Danes certainly weren't ignored by the press. The daily A Tarde featured A Banda's dancers on the front page of their carnival section (bottom right). 
The headline goes something like Female Beauty Shines at Carneval  

The headline on this article about A Banda reads Danes Surprise. People were amazed that we could actually play. 
The dancers were -- naturally enough -- the focus of attention. 

Two of the Pelourinho Carneval's main guests: A former A Banda rhythm ace, the samba maestro Søren Jønch, and local percussionist par excellence, Marcus. 

A budding maestra.  
This 16 year-old gal can play anything. We bumped into her at her father's restaurant before our evening bash. 

Pelourinho by night.

The party's all but over, but nobody dares think that far... 

Pelourinho by night. 

Filhos de Gandhi

Filhos de Gandhi (The Sons of Gandhi) one of Salvador's truly great traditions. 
With several thousand members - all of them men - they are VERY visible during the carneval. Like the man whose name they adopted over 50 years ago, they are pacifists. Their traditions are also deeply rooted in Candomblé. All members are bound by a strict code of ethics.

One of the numerous small orchestras that make Pelourinho's carnival such a great success. 

'Trombone power'. 

They just don't give up. They day after the carnival officially closed, Timbalada was out on the streets in force under the leadership of their creator and mentor Carlinhos Brown. Not the most conventional of gentlemen.  

Their drums above their heads, Timbalada heads to a hillock at Barra to give praise for yet another a great carnival.  
Their cone-shaped drums are called TIMBAUs. Like an ultra-light weight djembe with a plastic skin. They gave the band its name, and players of this fabulous instrument are called TIMBALEIROS.