Curry Clube and Favela Brass

A couple of years ago I was introduced to a friend of a friend of a friend in a bar in Rio. When I told her I lived in Santa Teresa and had a food blog, her face changed and she went “Ah! You must be the guy that does the Curry Club thing, right?”. Well, that was confusing! After further chat we established that there was another English guy called Tom who lived in Santa Teresa and he ran something called Curry Clube, a regular get together that involved curry and music.

Well, after I’d got over the fact that I was not the only English bloke called Tom in Santa Teresa, my mind turned to food. In fact it turned to curry! I know many foreigners living in Rio who pine for a decent curry – it really is one of those dishes so packed with flavour that when you get a hankering, nothing else will do. I decided I would have to meet this Tom fellow and go along to his Curry Clube. And do you know what? Approximately 2 years later, I finally made it!

Tom’s work has been making headlines – this was from an article in Veja Rio last year.

In fact I met up with the ‘Other Tom’ (as I used to think of him – I now know him as Tom Ashe), earlier this year to find out a little more about him and his project.

Originally from Doncaster, a town in the north of England, Tom came to Rio back in 2008 and was instantly smitten. Tom had already developed a love of Brazilian music back in England where he played trumpet and other brass intruments, so when he got to Rio, he jumped head-first into the music scene and before long found himself playing in a number of bands.

After some time, word spread of the virtuoso gringo and so Tom was invited to play with a samba band in Complexo de Alemão. Tom’s impressions of the samba scene in Rio were that the community were very welcoming and many musicians (particularly the percussionists) were very highly skilled. However, he noticed that people playing brass instruments (trumpet, trombone, etc) were rare. In fact when Tom showed up with a trombone, many people didn’t even know what the instrument was!

Tom and his mystery instrument!

Tom was living in a favela in Santa Teresa and started to take an interest in the music education that the children there were receiving. Clearly it wasn’t great if they didn’t even recognise a trombone! Over time, Tom developed the idea to help improve the musical education of the favela kids and so he started work with a local charity called Projeto Tô Ligado. Funding education projects is always a challenge and this is how Tom came up with the idea for Curry Clube – a way to combine his love of music and Indian food and at the same time, raise money to buy the instruments and other resources required to teach music lessons.

So there’s some background, but what is Curry Clube like? Well, the first rule of Curry Clube is you do not talk about… Oh wait, no, actually it’s fine to talk about Curry Clube. In fact it’s positively encouraged! Curry Clube is brilliant! I went along last Sunday with a few friends and had a really good time. Tom and his team had made a huge batch of chickpea and tomato curry. Now the meat-eaters among you might think that sounds a bit dull, but let me stop you right there. This was one of the most delicious curries I’ve had in years.

Chickpea curry with puri – no meat required.

As well as the curry, there was live jazz from Tom along with some friends of his and also some of his students. Great food, great music and a really nice crowd of people coming together to enjoy themselves. And the best thing is that although the prices were very reasonable (the R$20 entry fee includes curry, a delicious homemade puri and a dessert), all the happy guests were helping to support Tom’s fundraising efforts.

Tom recently started his own organisation called Favela Brass.

Curry Clube is not only a great night out, but it’s also a very worthy cause – if you’re in Rio, either as a visitor or a resident, why not come along and join in the fun!

I’m going to leave you with 3 short video clips I took on the night – these should give you an idea of the music and the atmosphere we enjoyed at Curry Clube. Click here to see some footage of Tom’s work with Favela Brass.

1. Tom and his Favela Brass students playing a tune while the rest of us listened, chatted, ate lovely curry and generally had a great time:

2. Who can resist this classic? Oh When the Saints!

3. Tom doing his thing – impressive!

Curry Clube runs on the second Sunday of every month – for more details, follow Curry Clube on Facebook.