There has been a trend to re-issue Afro-Colombian gems in vinyl since Soundway records released in 2010 their Palenque Palenque compilation. I have no problem with that trend at all. A few years ago, it was almost impossible to find Afro rootsie gems from Latin America. And if you did come across anything, it had brief liner notes and lacked production/sound mastering quality. Today, it's a different ball game as DJ's or compilers such as Lucas Da Silva (Palenque Records), Quantic (Soundway Records), Hugo Mendez (Sofrito Records), and Samy Ben Redjeb (Analog Africa) are helping reintroduce Afro-Colombian music. Analog Africa, based in Germany, is known for reissuing Afro sounds of the 60's - 80's from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Latin America. Recently they released a two part Diablos del Ritmo compilation. As a DJ I was fond to purchase pt. 2 instead of pt.1 which is more on the tropical funk side per se. Part 2, not only has more tracks in general but contains bass and accordion driven jammable Cumbia tracks capable of getting any party rollin'. Both vinyl sleeves contains killer liner notes full of information about the artists and the development of various musical styles from 1960-1985. So if you are not a DJ don't worry either, this compilation (available also in CD) is as good as any book. The liner notes written by compiler Samy Ben Redjeb are very detail and help illustratively educate anyone about Colombia's rich transcendent musical heritage. And to top it off, you know you are holding a must have Afro-Colombian music compilation if they are sourcing Peter Wade's book "Music, Race and Nation: Musica Tropical in Colombia". Why purchase Part 2 personally as a DJ? Well, it has various classic jams that have been heard by DJ's and cumbiamberos, such as "Lluvia by Sonora Tropical, "Santana en Salsa" by Creciendo Camacho, and "Cumbia Costeña" by Alejandro Duran. More importantly, it has track reissues of some groups I had never heard of before; such as Los Curramberos de Guayabal or Los Alegres Diablos, that sound as good as the others. Don't miss out on this amazing record compilation. Grab a copy before they are gone.
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If you haven't been introduced to Bullerengue or either the queen of this music Patrona Martinez, you are in for a musical journey. Bullerengue as the info below will explain, is a womyn derived musical circle movement that became a base ingredient for what we now know as Cumbia. In fact, the music sounds very similar and often confused with Bomba from Puerto Rico. This music genre has been featured not only in the musical projects of Toto y la Momposina but also in Calle 13's and Susana Baca' most recent album. Scroll down and check out Petrona Martinez youtube live performance video followed by a short documentary/EPK. Enjoy! Note: Bullerengue music will most definitely be in my third Palenkeando Mixtape #3 which will be dedicated to Bentos Bioho (Maroon freedom fighter who liberated the town of San Basilio Palenque in early 16th century). Stay tune . . . Que es Bullerengue? El bullrengue sentado es un género musical único de San Basilio Palenque, Colombia (serca de Cartagena) ya que en otras zonas del Caribe se maneja un estilo de bullerengue corrido, mas rápido y su sentido es comercial. El bullerengue sentado es un canto específicamente femenino porque en sus orígenes se asociaba la mujer embarazada. Según los relatos de tradición oral, este ritmo nace cuando una mujer embarazada se quedaba en la casa y el marido salía a divertirse, ella con otras mujeres organizaban cantos tonales; luego se introduce la participación del hombre con la percusión del tambor. En el bullerengue hay urna cantadora que lanza los versos, los cuales son respondidos por un coro femenino. La marcación la lleva al palmoteo que hoy en día se hace con tablitas. El bullerengue es utilizado también en cantos fúnebres palanqueros. Tambor alegre dirige de acuerdo a la rapidez o lentitud del tambor llamador, mientras las palmas de mano acompañan. Una de las mas grandes leyendas del genero, tan importante como Celia Cruz lo fue para la Salsa, es Petrona Martinez. Si el sol no hubiera brillado el 24 de agosto de 1984 la Reina del Bullerengue PETRONA MARTINEZ todavía estaría sacando arena del río, vendiendo cocadas o esperando al mes de mayo para conchabarse en la cosecha del mango. Pero ese día el sol quiso salir de su encierro de muchas semanas, y Petrona Martínez –con sus 45 años bien vividos- aprovechó para lavar la ropa en el arroyo y cantar a toda garganta.Marcelino Orozco, paisano cimarrón que repartía su vida entre el campo y la música, escuchó una voz cantante que eclipsaba el clamor de los pájaros, y porque sabía que en Gamero andaban queriendo formar un conjunto folklórico corrió a avisar que ‘en Malagana hay una mujer que canta más que la Celia Cruz… no se como se llama ni donde vive, pero hay que buscarla cerca del arroyo de Lata’. Petrona Martínez nació, se crió y sigue viviendo en el poblado de Malagana, en pleno Caribe colombiano. En el arrollo que corre detrás de su casa trabajó desde muchacha lavando la ropa propia y la ajena, o sacando arena para la construcción. Ya perdió la cuenta de los años que lleva casada, pero no los de su progenie: trajo al mundo siete hijos, que le dieron treinta y cinco nietos y ocho bisnietos. Heredera de una tradición de cantadoras y compositoras fundada por su bisabuela, Petrona es una de las poquísimas mujeres que mantienen vivo al bullerengue, aire tradicional de la costa atlántica colombiana que hunde sus raíces en lo más turbio de la historia americana, cuando los esclavos se importaban en masa y valían menos que el hierro que los encadenaba. Son pocas las músicas de este lado del Océano Atlántico en las que se destaque tanto la ascendencia africana como en el bullerengue, con su acompañamiento de tambores, palmas y cantos corales. Petrona lo define como ‘vida, salud, alegría, triunfo… es la música tradicional que viene de muy atrás, y por eso no se debe dejar perder. Es una reliquia, un tesoro de los ancestros’. Como fue desde el principio, cuando se lo entonaba para conjurar a la fertilidad, el bullerengue es patrimonio del sexo femenino. Las pocas cantadoras que van quedando son las responsables de mantenerlo vivo, mujeres mayores que desde niñas y gracias a la transmisión oral aprenden a traducir en canción las vivencias y los secretos de su gente, protectoras de la sapiencia y la historia popular, pero también de los secretos de la medicina natural y los rezos curativos. Petrona Martinez empezó a componer antes de aprender a leer o escribir, y moldeó su voz en las celebraciones familiares y en las fiestas de su pueblo. ‘Las cantadoras de mi familia eran cantadoras del tiempo de antes, cuando empezó a salir bullerengue para que las mujeres pudieran divertirse y los hombres tomarse su trago ahí, en la puerta de los bailes. Eso era cuando no podían entrar’, cuenta Petrona en una entrevista que no dudamos en ultrajar, y aclara: ‘… porque los bailes eran para señoritas. No podían entrar ni las casadas, ni las de unión libre, ni las mujeres de embarazo’. En sus canciones se esbozan escenas de la vida cotidiana pueblerina, vida que se niega a resignar aunque mucho la ovacionen por el mundo. Petrona se las ingenia para no dejar nada afuera: el trabajo, las supersticiones, las festividades y hasta los rezos de velorio tienen un espacio en su obra. Marcelino Orozco -aquel que se había prendado de una voz anónima en la orilla del río- movió cielo y tierra hasta que pudo dar con Petrona Martínez, pero ella se rehusó terminantemente a regalarle la fama al pueblo vecino. Juntos formaron su propio grupo, Petrona Martinez y los Tambores de Malagana, conocidos en la zona como ‘Los Vejestorios’ porque el promedio de edad de sus integrantes no bajaba de los cincuenta años. Con el tiempo ella incorporó al conjunto a algunos de sus hijos en calidad de tamboreros, y a un par de sus hijas como coristas. Con esa formación ha girado por medio planeta y grabado un lindo puñado de discos esta señora que ya pasó con holgura las setenta primaveras sin que se agote su enorme caudal creativo. Aunque antes componía mientras sacaba arena del arroyo y ahora las letras le vienen a la cabeza mientras fatiga la máquina de coser para adornar las faldas de sus bisnietas, las virtudes como cantadora de la señora Martínez parecen mejorar con los años. Así nos lo confirma en ‘Las Penas Alegres’, su último disco, que desde el título postula la idea de la música como una medicina, una manera de alegrarse uno la vida y alegrársela también al resto. Entre bullerengues, chalupas y ballenatos la Reina del Bullerengue nos cuenta su vida y la de su familia, haciéndose acompañar por la voz cada vez más libre, segura y vigorosa de su hija Joselína, acaso la heredera al trono. Tambores, gaitas, maracas, totumas, llamadores, palmas y coros se entreveran de fondo, mientras canta Petrona: ‘Con que se alegran mis penas, / con que disipo mi llanto, / hablo de la vida ajena / y me alegro con mi canto’. Conseguir un enlace de descarga para ‘Las Penas Alegres’ nos ha costado un Perú, y si no desistimos fue porque el disco no se encuentra en el laberíntico catálogo de nuestro reproductor amigo. Deberán clickear simultáneamente aquí y aquí quienes deseen atesorar el album de hoy en sus discos rígidos. Los que se conformen con una aproximación a la obra de Petrona pueden pasar por este lado, donde se encotrarán con varias canciones de otros dos discos -no menos dignos de alabanzas- y alguna feliz colaboración con Totó la Momposina, grátis y online. Hay fotos, videos e interesantes biografías de los músicos que la acompañan -escritas por ellos mismos- en el sitio oficial de Petrona, al que se llega por medio de este enlace. A caballo entre el video musical y el documental breve, buena parte de lo que se contó en el artículo de hoy puede verse en el video que elegimos para acompañarlo: la vida de Petrona, su casa, su familia, sus músicos, todo condensado en unos cinco minutos. Y aunque las paredes son de barro y se camina con los pies descalzos en el piso de tierra, la Reina del Bullerengue insiste con que la vida vale la pena… Los que quieran agrandar el combo pueden ver esta entrevista, en la que una Petrona Martinez muy cómoda en el patio de su casa le cuenta al mundo la experiencia de ser nominada a un Grammy. Source: www.delmondongo.com.ar ______________________________________ ENGLISH VERSION: What is Bullerengue? Bullerengue is an Afro-Colombian dance rhythm originating in the small towns of Bolívar and Córdoba counties in Colombia. It was conceived as songs to be sung only by pregnant women who were confined to their homes, unable to attend the youthful village dances. Petrona learned the melodies by listening to her great-grandmother and grandmother as they sang during their daily tasks and at patron saints festivities. All of Petrona's songs are original compositions and each one of them contains some part of her life, difficult and trying, but at the same time full of magic. English Bio: Petrona Martinez is living proof that it can take a lifetime to become an overnight success. She´s also the embodiment of culture and history; one that has African roots and ancestry that penetrate deep into her Latin American home. That home is San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, land of the slaves. A bus from there and then a journey along a path leads to her house, a place of perpetual feasting surrounded by chickens, donkeys, cats and dogs and children singing, dancing and playing flutes. Until recently, her source of income was gathering sand from the river to make bricks. It wasn´t until 2002, at age 63, that she was nominated for a Latin Grammy with the BONITO QUE CANTA album. Petrona Martinez inherited a strong singer´s tradition from Bullerengue, an Afro-Colombian dance rhythm born during the African fight for freedom from slavery and originally sung solely by pregnant women confined to their homes and thus unable to attend village dances. The melodies were passed down through the generations. She learned them from her grandmother and great-grandmother as they sang while doing daily tasks and attending Patron Saints Festivals. She is now passing them to her sons and daughters, some of whom are part of her eight-piece ensemble. Petrona´s performances are authentic, uninhibited and memorable. Whit her band pounding out rhythms and vocals venid her, she sings and alternates between dancing and sitting in a rocking chair. Her group incluyes daughters Joselina Llerena and Nilda Llerena. Appearing with them are percussionists Janer Amaris, Guillermo Valencia, Edwin Muñoz, Javier Ramirez and Stanley Montero. Her manager is Rafael Ramos. RIGHT CLICK HERE FOR A FREE DOWNLOAD OF PETRONA'S MUSIC. Occupy with Awakening Love is the message this compilation sends out. Inspired by the recent awakening, unrests, and social uprisings occurring across the world, specifically those that sparked in Cairo, Egypt (January 25th, 2011) and the ones we witnessed here in Oakland, CA (October 10th, 2011), this 60 minute live mixtape brings together some of the most conscious tunes. Lyrically these tracks speak about having to coexist with babylong/capitalism and the awakening love that is needed in these times. Musically this mixtape combines various sub-genres from roots (dancehall), dub, rocksteady, etc., to keep you awake throughout the entire mixtape. Amongst the many songs to listen in this mixtape, give an extra ear to fresh tunes by groups such as Groundation with "You Can Profit" or Dezarie "Poverty", Elijah Emmanuel's unrelease track "Globalization" and an acoustic track by Tiken Jah Fokoly titled "Political Ward". But more importantly don't forget to pay extra attention to some of the jamaican classic roots tunes in this mixtape by legends such as Linval Thomson's track "Big Opressor", Johnny Osbourne's tune "Dem Soldiers are Coming" and a not so popular tune by Gregory Issacs called "Financial Endorsement". Keeping in mind Latin America's never ending history of social unrests, we threw towards the end a few Latin Reggae tunes such as Argentinean solo artist Alika's "Teach the youth" and Puerto Rican group Cultura Profetica "In the Beginning". Hope you enjoy and help share this mixtape as you please. This compilation was made for an awakening love that is much needed in these times. ☝ONELOVE☀ 1) Conga de San Benito – Chuchumbé (Caramba Niño)
2) Spoken Word – Caitro Soto 3) Lando Negro (Coba Coba) – Novalima 4) Traigan su batea – Ondatropica (Nidia Gongora) 5) El plenero – Mon Rovera y su Orquesta 6) Ese negrito si toca - Alejo Duran 7) Pulenta - Maquerele 8) Rebelion - Joe Arroyo 9) Siguiente Latido - Bocafloja 10) Ecos de un Cimarron- Amehel Incera 11) Soy afrodescendiente – Mala Conducta Music (Cartagena Hip Hip LIve - La otra voz) 12) Advertencia – Cultura Profetica 13) Sensemaya - Carlos De Nicaragua & Familia 14) Palmares 1999 – Natiruts 15) Infinita Negra Coi – Muzenza 16) Fuleisei (Favours) – Silvia Blanco (The Garifuna Women’s Project) 17) Ese negrito si toca – Alejo Duran 18) Esclavo moderno - Manuel Alvarez y Sus Dangers 19) Veracruz - Toña La Negra Cocinando Así Noma' is a 60min sizzling mixtape full of old and recent Latin grooves (Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia, Bullerengue, Son Jarocho, etc.). The mixtape is seasoned to inspire and accompany you while cooking. These tracks were selected because they either contain terminology pertaining to food related ingredients, verb terms, or literally recipes to follow. Enjoy!
I have waited for the release of this CD patiently and I have to say it surpassed my expectations. Novalima (who is Ramon Perez-Prieto, Grimaldo Del Solar, Rafael Morales, and Carlos Li Carrillo) has been ahead of the game since 2001 and with their release KARIMBA they are reaffirming their position as innovators in the Latin Music genre. After two years of production and touring internationally (USA, Denmark, Canada, France, Switzerland, Malasia, etc.), KARIMBA mirrors their growth and reaffirms their "Retro-Vanguardist" approach to Afro-Peruvian music. In this album Novalima collaborated with Pepe Vásquez, Sofía Buitrón, Milagros Guerrero and in guitar with Félix Casaverde (who recently passed away in Oct. 2011). My favorite track is Macaco Mata El Toro because unlike any other track it demonstrates Novalima's ability to find a musical thread between Afro-Colombian & Afro-Peruvian music. In fact, this track was release in the Faraon Bantú Soundsystem album released in early November. KARIMBA will be available in Amazon January 31st, 2012. For now though, check out a recent interview with Novalima about the making of Karimba in the video below. If you like dancing, listening, or want to be schooled about the history and development of Cumbia then you most definitely want to have this amazing 2CD compilation (also available in vinyl) released Dec. 5th 2011. Unlike any other music compilation out there or book, these 55 rediscovered vintage gems from the 40's to the 70's will retrain your ears and make you appreciate the musical diversity of Colombian music. Below you will find a Q&A with the mastermind (Quantic) behind The Original Sound of Cumbia as well as a recent radio interview. Enjoy! Q&A with Will Holland (beter known as Quantic) by Andrew Perry (eMusic) For Will Holland, aka Quantic, Colombian cumbia music has gradually become the driving force in his life. The Worcestershire-born DJ and musician first started out on the London breaks scene, but soon took his passion for hip-hop’s roots in R&B, funk and soul to America, where he became a fully-fledged crate-digger, unearthing brilliant vintage 45′s from the bottomless pit of unsold records from the ’60s. After three albums leading his own jazzy Quantic Soul Orchestra, plus a collaborative record with the singer, Spanky Wilson, Will’s itinerary gradually shifted towards Central America; first to Panama, then to Colombia, where he has resided for the past five years. It was the local traditional music, cumbia, which drew him in. Based around an indefatigable “shuck-shucka-shuck” rhythm, and the accordion (the so-called “sailor’s piano”), its earliest recorded tunes, from the late ’40s on, remain timelessly vibrant and alluring. Holland’s love for this elegant party music has driven him to assemble 55 vintage tracks on The Original Sound of Cumbia — a fabulous sampling, more than half of which he unearthed on crumbling old 78s in deserted second-hand stores and far-flung cantinas around Colombia. In its irresistible grooves the listener may hear, as have high-profile fans such as the Clash’s Joe Strummer before them, echoes of New Orleans R&B basslines, or Mexican mariachi trumpets, or even North African tribal voicing. They cannot fail, however, to be seduced by its rich, unique sound. How did cumbia become a passion for you? I was travelling around, and lived for a bit in Puerto Rico, in San Juan, producing music there. I was always looking for records, as any good record addict does — whatever country he’s in, it doesn’t matter. When I got to Colombia, I came across a record called Cumbia en Dor Menor by [El Salvador's] Lito Barrientos, which was actually recorded in Medellín in Colombia, which set the ball rolling. I ended up moving to Colombia for six months to record, and about five years later I’m still there. There’s got to be a woman involved, right? Yeah! [Laughs] When is there not? But I’ve spent a lot of time on this. I’ve driven round Colombia a lot by car, on my own and with friends, looking for music, and checking things out. It’s not like I just met a record collector in Bogotá, whilst on a trip there, and compiled it from his knowledge. It has all been avidly researched. I’ve spent more time and money probably than I should’ve. It is a big passion of mine. In your liner notes, you mention that your search for old cumbia 78s around the country led to you “drinking tinto coffee and rum for England (and Colombia!).” Is there a hedonistic aspect to cumbia? Is it essentially party/dance music? Oh, God, yes! I’m attempting bi-nationality at the moment. I’ve also been learning accordion, so, coupled with looking for the records, it’s been playing music, and also going up to a lot of party places, and dancing to it. You can’t really go to Baranquilla carnival, say, and listen to cumbia, trumpeta and all the different kinds of music they play there, and not ‘get involved’ — not have Arguardiente pressed on you aggressively. It’s the local fire water. It’s part of the experience. Some other Latin music, like Brazilian samba, has a headlong craziness to it, with huge armies of clattering drummers, lots of noise and commotion. Cumbia, by contrast, has a certain poise, or suaveness, about it… There’s certainly some strains you can come across, like maybe fandango, which are more like that samba thing, but cumbia is just like you say. I think it has more in common with mento, calypso, that kind of thing. And of course some stuff does sound very close to ska and rocksteady. I think it’s unlikely there was any direct relationship with Jamaica, but it’s just the feel. People regard it as a lilting, mysterious style. A lot of the subjects are mermaids, and fishing. It’s all quite romantic, not in a love way — it’s romantic and poetic. There’s a lot of playing off of the exotic, a bit like mambo and rumba, where it’s like [cheesy Hispanic voice] “the black mambo,” or “el negrito.” It’s very much talking about the exotic black and indigenous people from the North coast. Yes, I spotted that on “Cumbia Negra” by Jaime Simanco… Right! Well, he’s a black singer. I think the roots of cumbia come from the unknown, indigenous influence. It evokes a kind of imagery that’s quite exotic, even for Colombians — especially as it was a music that became quite popular in the interior. So it was like, “The costenos [people from the coast], and their exotic sound of cumbia,” rather than it being factually on something historical. One of the theories is that there was a king from this certain part of West Africa, and he used to have parties called cumbia-something, so it translated from there. Then there are other theories that there was a certain day, just like in New Orleans, when Africans were allowed to play their drums. In Cartagena, there was a day when races were allowed to mix and play drums, so that’s also meant to be the roots of cumbia. I’m no historian. I just like records. Once you get to that stuff, I’m like, “Oh God, who cares? Let’s just put some on.” It’s still good, and you can still dance to it. On some tracks, like “Descarga en Cumbia” by Banda Bajera de San Pelayo, the brass seems to play just one note all the way through, this insistently repeated riff. Do people trance out to cumbia? That definitely shows up the roots of it being from Afro-indigenous heritage. The thing is, cumbia is just like dub or reggae in that it’s developed now into so many different forms. Many Colombians don’t even really realize that it’s originally Colombian, because it’s spread so much to Peru and Venezuela and Panama and Mexico — it’s everywhere now. Which is great. If you play cumbia in Mexico, apparently, they’ll dance to it in a completely different way. They have a whole different discipline of dance. In Colombia, it’s still a respected folk dance. If you put it on, people will immediately pretend to hold a candle. There’s a certain format, which involves candles, and certain different dresses. For Colombians, it’s within the DNA. They could be into anything in music — heavy metal or whatever — but if you put on a cumbia, they’ll go absolutely crazy. It’s nationally a DNA thing that they have to dance to it. Even people who I didn’t think could dance, and I’ve never seen dancing, they’ll be at a wedding, and there’ll be a cumbia playing suddenly, and they have to dance. As a vinyl junkie with a background in British dance music, was it all partly about an infatuation with unearthing early 78s? It’s a dangerous thing when you start getting into 78s, because the thing is, people assume you’re just into 78s. People go, “Here’s a 78!,” but it could be Frank Sinatra. You’re like, “Well, yes, but it’s not what I’m looking for.” It’s like being a traveler, and people assuming you’re into planes. It’s like, “No, it just gets me to the location.” 78s are things that just get you to the music. I’m not particularly fond of 78s as a format. It just so happens that they’ve managed to harbor the music for the last 60 years, and keep it intact, so we can listen to it all these years after it was recorded in a remote part of Northern Colombia, which is pretty amazing in my view. Was it a big leap from what you were doing before — compiling rare funk, corraling the Quantic Soul Orchestra, etc? I’m just really into music, man. If I had a chance to move to Ghana tomorrow, I’d try it. Getting into Afro-American music, which is pretty much what the U.K. has been obsessed with for the last 50 years or so, you start to realize all the similarities in South American music. If you look at R&B and stuff from the Southern States — I started getting into Cajun, and Zydeco, which is, like, black accordion players — well, there’s no difference. It’s all part of the same post-colonial tale — the wonderful musical fall-out from all that colonial mess, the Creole mixture. There’s a big parallel with the music of the Southern States, because cumbia essentially spread along the Magdalena river, just as blues from the Delta region spread along the Mississippi… Cumbia is very much a river sound. A lot of the culture that comes into cities like Baranquilla and Cartagena comes from people who are from beside the Magdalena. I was reading The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax, and it was quite a similar thing, how a lot of the initial folk talent in the cities, came from working in the fields, or fishing. Your compilation tells the story of cumbia, “as told by the phonograph — 1948-79.” What is the narrative, exactly? CD1 is pretty much what it sounded like before the invasion of the radio waves from Cuba and whatnot. Basically, it’s what Colombians were doing before they were exposed to salsa. In that time period, the 78s era, it was quite closed, as far as other music coming in. CD2 is when the first external influences are just beginning to show. For most of it, you can really hear that it’s pre-radio invasion, and certainly pre-MP3 invasion. Also, it’s centered mainly on small unknown labels that came and went. It’s more the obscurities of cumbia, rather than, say, if Fuentes, or RCA Victor, told the story. That would be much more a regal-sounding thing, probably more classic-y. This is more the leftfield side, and maybe the rootsier side of the cumbia story, rather than the glistening, over-produced one. Can you flag up the regional variations in sound or rhythm through specific tracks on there? From Medellín, which is where the recording was going on, you have Gildardo Montoya. His song, “Fabiola,” is quite a different sound — more robotic in a way; still really heavy and fluid, but it’s just closer to dance music as we know it. The rhythm is quite marked. Then you’ve got Los Alegres del Valle, which is my favourite group on the record. They’re actually from the Valle del Cauca, which is where you find Cali, where I’ve been living. Their name means “The Happies from the Valley.” Their song, “Somario,” is pretty much my all-time favorite, because it’s a very different sound, quite rural, with a different swing to it, from Southern Colombia. Stuff from San Jacinto has a very different sound as well, which is the sound that Joe Strummer was really into — people like Andres Landero — a very specific sound, quite related to gaita, which is the cane-flute, indigenous thing. The accordion is a central instrument in cumbia, often referred to as the “sailor’s piano,” or even, more recently, the “chest synthesizer.” How did you end up learning it yourself? Well, I played guitar in the Quantic Soul Orchestra. For me, music-making goes hand-in-hand with the record collecting. If you listen to almost any record from Colombia from the ’50s and ’60s, it is all pretty much accordion-led. Which is ace — I love it! It’s such a great instrument. If you go to any country, they claim it as their own. In the Dominican Republic — “No, the accordion’s from here!” In Ireland… How does cumbia deploy it, compared to other musics? I would say it’s a lot more emphasis on rhythm. Obviously the disciplines of Latin-American percussion would impel you to play a lot more rhythmic stuff, to tie in with what’s already going on rhythmically. One thing I still can’t understand with a lot of these recordings is, how they even heard themselves, because if you’ve ever played with three or four drummers in a room, it’s kind of loud. The stuff you’re recording there now, is it cumbia in the old style? How has it evolved up to the present day? Yeah, old style. Nowadays Colombia is known as a salsa country, or at least for Cali, their version of it. People like [Cali giants] Grupo Niche are the big names. But there’s a roots cumbia resurgence, especially in Bogota at the moment. You have bands like Frente Cumbiero, and Systema Solar, who are reinventing cumbia, and keeping it strictly roots, either by sampling stuff, or replaying it, or finding the original guys to replay it, and adding beats and stuff. I’m just about to embark on a collaboration, which is wholly funded by the British Council, with Mario Galeano, whose band is Frente Cumbiero. I’ve also been working a lot with Anibal Velasquez, who’s on the compilation. It’s hard to find people from that generation these days. Anival was young back then, so he’s only 72, 73 now, and he’s still in good nick Source: http://www.emusic.com/music-news/interview/emusic-qa-quantic/#ixzz1g5mFGiAC Colombia has always been on top of my list as a country to visit in South America. For now though, this interactive musical map is as good as it gets. Not only does it offer a musical demographic tour of Antillean music and where one should visit but also it is educational. Colombian music is indeed not all based on Vallenato and Cumbia. If fact it is . . . . go ahead and take a look. In a nutshell, this map will take you back not only to the golden era of the record music production (i.e. Fuentes Records) but will allow you to rediscover unrecognized musical gems that came from that era as well. Check out the music (videos) from Cali and San Basiilio Palenque. Enjoy! Soundway’s Musical Map of Colombia For close to ten years now Soundway’s mission has been to present the lost musical gems from around the world: Obscure a-sides, b-sides and album cuts that have remained unavailable and unreleased outside of their home countries – if at all. In 2008 Soundway turned its attention to Colombia, a country where music is impossible to ignore, with the release of ‘Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes. The Powerhouse of Colombian Music’. As this journey of discovery grew, four more Colombian compilations followed as well as a handful of singles and EPs. From the oddball Afro influenced champeta of ‘Palenque Palenque’ to the swinging descarga and cumbia of ‘Cartagena!’ and to the eagerly awaited 55 track new release ‘The Original Sound of Cumbia’, Soundway continues to unearth the music of one of the most musically prolific and exciting countries in the world. This map goes in part to highlight the regions of Colombia that the different styles originated from and that the musicians, labels and recording studios were based. Rare video interviews with Curro Fuentes and Michi Sarmiento feature alongside performances from the likes of Lucho Bermudez and of course, some of the fantastic music that have featured on these compilations. Hover your cursor over the map of Colombia to begin your journey. Further information on the tracks can be found below the map.
1. Santa Marta, Magdalena Department: ‘La Samaria’, performed by Orquesta Nunez and written by Roberto Lambrano, is a tribute to the women of the coastal city of Santa Marta (known as ‘Samarias’). This medium-tempo carnival-style cumbia includes some great clarinet work, clearly influenced by Eastern European styles and testament to the wide variety of influences that come together to create Colombian music. 2. Baranquilla, Atlántico Department: Cassimbas Negras’ song ‘Bumurumbumbum’ is a great example of 1980s champeta music. Heavily influenced by various forms of African music being imported into Colombia, you would often find champeta being played over huge sound-systems called picos. ‘Bumurumbumbum’ was recorded in Baranquilla in 1986. The accordion is synonymous with Colombian music, but it wasn’t always so. Before the instrument became popular, as part of música costeña culture, it was seen as second-class instrument, used mainly by the rural classes. In the 1940s and 1950s, some musicians began to utilise the accordion to create new sounds and the instrument’s position within the Colombian sound began to be cemented. One of these pioneering accordionists was Anibal Velásquez, born in Baranquilla on 3rd June, 1936. He performs a blistering vallenato in the video here, the style of Colombian music that relies on the most on the accordion. 3. Valledupar, Cesar Department: Alberto Pacheco y sus Conjuto – Sembrando Café (The Original Sound of Cumbia: The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro As Told By The Phonograph 1948-1979) A related form to the cumbia is the vallenato, a raw sound from the rural region of Valledupar, typified by the pronounced use of the accordion. 1968 saw the inaugural ‘Festival Of Vallenato’ in the city of Valledupar, a celebration of the musical style, which annually crowned one performer ‘accordion king’, based on their talent and proficiency. Alberto Pacheco won in 1971, beating hot favourite Luis Martínez to the title. Here is his early interpretation of Cresencio Salcedo’s ‘Sembrando Café’, a song which details the way coffee is cultivated.
4. Cartagena, Bolívar Department:
Saxophone maestro Michi Sarmiento honed his skills in the port of Cartagena during the 1950s. It was in Cartagena that Michi would record his first LP, ‘Los Bravos’, for one of Colombia’s most well known labels, Discos Fuentes. Michi Sarmiento y sus Combo Bravo specialized in rumbling guaguancós, descargas and hot covers of early salsa and boogaloo hits. When Antonio Fuentes moved his label Discos Fuentes from Cartagena to the emerging industrial city of Medellín in the early 1950s, his brother, Curro Fuentes, stayed behind to manage a record store. Moving into the old Discos Fuentes studios, Curro began recording his own music, forming his own label, Discos Curro, which had a slew of hits, including Antonio Maria Peñaloza’s massive carnival hit ‘Te Olvidé’. Soundway’s Miles Cleret and Will ‘Quantic’ Holland were lucky enough to meet Curro, in Cartagena, and interview him in this film shortly before he sadly passed away. 5. San Basilio de Palenque, Bolívar Department:
San Basilio de Palenque was the first free-town to be set-up in Colombia by escaped African slaves in the 16th Century. Son Palenque, formed in Cartagena in 1979 by Julio Valdez, had links to San Basilio de Palenque with Valdez’s father Ataole, tambour player in the band, having grown up there. Their African heritage would play a big part in their sound. During the period, Son Palenque, along with other bands such as Cumbia Siglo XX and La Cumbia Moderna de Soledad recorded some thrilling songs that re-adapted Afro-beat rhythms within the styles of the Caribbean coast. They were considered pioneers in 1982 when their first record came out for the label Orbe, as most of their songs were sang in Palenquero, the Afro-Hispanic language that has been preserved in San Basilio de Palenque. 6. San Pelayo, Córdoba Department: San Pelayo, some miles away from Montería, is widely considered the spiritual home of porro, a musical style with links to cumbia. It is here that dozens of groups come together annually to compete in the National Festival of Porro. The complex interpolation of porro and cumbia is no better illustrated than in Pholy Combo’s ‘El Porro es Hermano de la Cumbia’ (Porro is brother of the cumbia). 7. Montería, Córdoba Department: Montería, the arid capital of the department of Cordoba, like nearby Sincelejo, has a long legacy of brass bands. We can hear the original porro style in these bands, a style that has its roots in the rural tambora style. You’ll often hear these brass bands playing in the rafters of the city’s Corralejas, the stadiums which host a unique ‘have-a-go’ style of bullfighting where anyone is welcome to jump into the arena and take on the raging bulls in what is a drunken and often bloody spectacle. The surreal disorganisation of these events are illustrated well by listening to ‘La Cachona’ by Banda 11 de Enero de Murillo. 8. Rio Magdelena:
The Rio Magdalena runs the length of Colombia, beginning in the south-western reaches of the Colombian Andes and seeping out 950 miles later into the Caribbean Sea adjacent to the port city of Barranquilla. In likeness to the great Mississippi Delta region of the United States, traditional song and dance accompany its majestic journey towards the Caribbean. It was somewhere beside the mangroves and lagoons of the Colombian Caribbean that the first echoes of cumbia sounded across the water. As with the Delta blues, cumbia’s origins are awash in myth, romance and folklore, immersed in the cosmic depths of South American indigenous culture. If the blues is universal, cumbia is intergalactic. 9. Medellín, Antioquia Department: The Colombian label Discos Fuentes came into its own during the 1960s and began to firmly establish itself as the heavyweight of Colombia’s recording industry. Set-up by Antonio Fuentes in 1934 in the port city of Cartagena, it made a name for itself by challenging the elite order, which favoured classical European music, instead choosing to record rural and folkloric cumbia, porro and mapalé styles. In 1954, the label moved to the interior city of Medellín, where it would begin to cement its position as Colombia’s leading label through its use of Colombia’s best musicians and its utilisation of the latest technologies, such as the electric bass. One group that recorded during this period were Los Corraleros de Majagual, who consisted of leading cumbia and vallenato musicians, namely Alfredo Gutierrez, Lisandro Meza, Eliseo Herrera and Calixto Ochoa and who benefitted from the arrangements of Discos Fuentes’ legendary in-house musician and composer Climaco Sarmiento. 10. Colombia’s cold mountain cities of Medellín and Bogota: Lucho Bermudez (Lucho Bermúdez y Su Orquesta)
Derided by white high society in the early 1940s as low-class music, Lucho Bermudez’s arrangements of jazzy gaitas, porros and cumbias were a hit with the youth of Colombia’s Caribbean coast - La Costa. As the dark-skinned costeños (people of the coast) began to move to the interior cities to look for better jobs, the stage was set for música costeña to capture the attention of the nation and begin heating up the scene in Colombia’s cold mountain cities of Medellín and Bogota. Lucho would go on to become one of Colombia’s most famous big-band cumbia leaders, alongside other leaders such as Pacho Galán and Clímaco Sarmiento, and by the early 1950s was internationally famous, touring Cuba, Mexico and the USA. He would also go on to compose Colombia’s national anthem! 11. Bogota, Cundinamarca Department: Like his brother, Curro Fuentes would also eventually leave Cartagena for Colombia’s interior cities, choosing to move to Bogota in the late 1950s to escape Cartagena’s continual water and electricity shortages. Once in Bogota, Curro became involved in the newly established Philips label where he would continue to play a big influence on the Colombian music scene. The track ‘Yolanda’ is taken from the Philips LP ‘Tabaquito’, which was released in 1964, the year that Curro Fuentes was named artistic director at the label. 12. Ibagué, Tolima Department: Los Hermanitos Ferreyra (The little brothers Ferreyra) are a group from Colombia who have had some international fame. Initially from Ibagué, Colombia’s musical capital, they were raised in Sincelejo where they began playing songs in the regional costeño style. They went on to champion the style all over Latin America before moving to the United States where, after changing their name to the more easily pronounced Hermanos Ferrari, they made Colombian history abroad by being the first Colombian group to perform on the Ed Sullivan show. At the time of recording ‘Cumbia del Mar’ for Sonolux, a Medellin based labeled, the youngest of the band’s brothers was a mere seven years old!
13. Cali, Valle del Cauca Department ‘Las Caleñas Son Como Las Flores’ (’Cali Women Are Like Flowers’) by The Latin Brothers was a smash hit in the region when it was released, giving Cali, “the salsa capital of the world”, one of it’s most loved songs. The Latin Brothers were put together by Colombian label heavyweights Discos Fuentes in response to the 1975 success of Venezuelan band La Dimension. This song features Piper Diaz on vocals and the inimitable style of ‘tango’ piano played by Fuentes in-house musicians Luis Mesa and Hernan Gutierrez.
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