The World Cup recently closed its door on arguably the greatest month of football that the world has ever seen. Germany took home the trophy after probably playing the most consistently good footie and are world champions for the next four years; not that most Germans needed any more reason to be smug :).
Although the Die Mannschaft took the hardware and the glory, Brazil as a country was the true champ of the tourney. Despite FIFA inefficiencies, broken promises by their government, and a pretty nasty media wave before the Cup, Brazilians were incredibly hospitable and warm to my buddy Kai and I in our two weeks there. We got to see four great games and crisscrossed the north in an incredibly memorable trip with my only real regret being that we weren't able to see more live music. When I do think back I realize that although we didn't see any shows we were constantly surrounded by music-live forró on the way to games in Fortaleza, the drum rhythms of impromptu capoeira sessions on the beach, samba blasting from cars... Brazilians are famous for having a joie de vivre and a song that captures this is "País Tropical" by Jorge Ben Jor. Today's jamandahalf moves to the beat of Brazil-fast, energetic, and alive-and has me nostalgic and shaking my butt within seconds of putting it on every time.
Thanks for reading, more jams are coming!