Retumba Revisited......9/20/00 South Street Seaport

Despite the fact that this is not purely folkloric in nature I chose to posted it here because of the over all emphasis on percussion. These are several excerpts from the all women ensemble Retumba playing at the Seaport in NYC. Retumba presents the entire spectrum of playing singing and dancing.

Street Level Productions, New Vids!

Alfie has contributed some great videos from her archives which are up for your viewing pleasure. Just click on Street Level Productions to access them.

Interview w/ Felix Sanabria

(Jose Rivera, Willie Everich, Photo Credit: Ralph Duque)

In October of 08' I made a trip to NY to catch up with Willie, Jose and Alfie, but also to conduct a comprehensive interview with Felix Sanabria, "Awo Orunmila Oshebile". We mapped it out and choose a Saturday when everyone was free, and headed out to Staten Island. Felix and his lovely wife Susan greeted us with open arms and Susan hooked up a wonderful meal that was slammin'. At the end off the night we walked away with 4 hours of interview material. 4 hours!!!
Now that is not only alot of information to go through but also alot of material to edit. So until now we are still working on being able to present to you the clips in a manner we feel most presentable. The amount of information and conviction from which Felix told us his history was not only informative, but moving as well. For Willie and I, that is all the validation we need to "do what we do".

(Felix doing his thing, Video Credit: Ralph Duque)

So all that to say, that soon enough we will have parts of Felix's interview up on the blog. Stay tuned...

Los Afortunados tienen su propio son!

As part of Mappy's birthday bash at the Taller....Los Afortunados showed their range of talent by playing an Afro Cuban Son. The crowd grabbed space on the dance floor and the party was on. Courtesy of AAA videos.

Yemaya - Los Afortunados

Here is another great clip from the "AAA." This Afortunados performance at "El Taller Latino Americano" was obviously the place to be on this particular night. They ran the gamut from Yoruba to Rumba to popular (i.e. Son). When Willie told me that Alfie hooked him up with the tape from this night I was pretty excited as I didn't really know what to expect but I knew it would be good. So far we have posted clips showing Los Afortunados doing guiro, bata, rumba tap (with Max Pollack), rumba, and we even put a clip showing the great Abraham Rodriguez singing a rumba number in English as I always wanted to see him do. I'd like to thank Alfie for contributing greatly to the blog and hopefully she will soon be able to post directly.

This particular clip shows Los Afortunados tocando para Yemaya. Abraham is at the helm singing the akpwon part, and Emilio Barretto, Fernando Taboada, Izzy Santiago, Victor Jaraslov are singing the ankori part. The late Michael Rodriguez (ibae) is playing a steady, yet tasteful okonkolo, Brandon Rosser (whom I am very glad to have on tape playing) is laying down a nice segundo and of course Felix is playing a mean caja. If you notice Felix's wife, Susan is dancing for Yemaya. Susan is very humble, yet very knowledgeable of not only her craft (i.e. dancing) but also the history behind the drums and the people that played and so forth.

Abraham Croons @ Mappy's Birthday

Abie and I share another passion...we are Doo Woppers as well as percussionists. In this video we hear Abraham Rodriguez take a classic tune from the American Songbook and put it to guaguanco. This is a AAA video.

More From Mappy's....Max the Rumba Tap Man

AAA

"AAA" will be our designation for videos provided by the Alfie Alvarado Archives