More info regarding a rare Yoruba Andabo recording...

If you are a regular "Sentimiento" follower than you are probably already checking out "Vamos a Guarachar", Barry Cox's site who has been doing this kind of thing for sometime now. Barry's site includes alot of rare information and even rarer music downloads like the aforementioned "Cajones Bullangueros" recording that you can still get off of his site I believe.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

The Story of "Cajones Bullangueros"

(Versión en español aquí.)

My very first post when I started this blog was a link to some recordings by Yoruba Andabo I call "Cajones Bullangueros." A friend gave me a cassette copy of the recordings a few years earlier and it quickly became one of my favorite rumba records.

I digitized the tape, put the tracks on a CD and designed a little cover, calling the whole thing "Cajones Bullangueros," which I thought was an apt title, considering the instrumentation used and the inclusion of a standout track by that name. (Most of the other songs were later released (in different versions) on their classic "El callejón de los rumberos.")

(you want to read the rest, click here)

Bata Fundamento from the North West.....

Here is a great picture of Ricardo Guity's (Sango Dina) juego de bata fundamento billed as the only one of its kind in the North Western United States. Maferefun Chango! (Photo sent to us by JC Johnny Conga)

Message to a young percussionist.......

I'm not going to preach to anyone. It never did me much good. Rare is the individual wise enough to learn from observing and listening to others talk about their mistakes and not make the same ones. The human ego is such that we believe that we are immune and therefore must go through it ourselves to learn some of life's valuable lessons. No I will not preach, but rapidly coming up on 60 years of age, 37 years of which was spent playing my drums professionally, I can share some of my experiences which some of you may take to heart.
On the subject of talent let me say this. Our talent should be a source of humility. Some of us are born with more or less talent and Ive seen many with lots of natural talent never get where they wanted to go because of how they carried the gift around. I'll let you be the judge over how talented I am. There are many examples of my playing abilities on these pages. I'm smart enough to know that I had to work hard to get to the point that I achieved whereas with others it came much easier. Even though this was the case, I worked steady for years because I practised some other important behaviors beside the playing. Let your talent do your talking, you don't have to keep reminding everyone all the time how well you play. That gets tired real quick. Two, try to fit in with the situation. There may be other members of the group whom you don't particularly care for. The sound of the group is the priority and takes precedent over any petty rivalries. Please be on time for the gig, in fact be a little early. Making a group of musicians wait for you is selfish to say the least and will not make you any friends. Of course there will be unavoidable delays and an apology goes a long way towards good will.
Now Im going to talk about the dirty little secret most don't even want to think about, drugs and alcohol. Of those 37 years of playing, I spent nearly 20 of them under the influence of one chemical or another. To me, it made perfect sense that the word RUM was inside the word DRUM. I smoked lots of bud and sniffed and smoked a lot of cocaine during those 20 years as well. Now me and my fellow musicians fooled ourselves into believing that we played better under the influence. It's just not true. In fact it's a lie that has destroyed many talented individuals and sent many to an early grave. I remember the older Jazz musicians with whom I had the honor of playing when I studied at the Jazzmobile talk about the phenomenal Charlie Parker. Some of Charlie's contemporaries actually believed that the source of his extraordinary abilities were in the syringe he used on a daily basis. A whole generation of young musicians looking for Charlie's secret became junkies instead. Drugs and alcohol are insidious. They feel good for a long time then one day you wake up and you realize you need them. Bad news. I have been completely sober for 18 years now and even played in a sober band which carried the message of sobriety to others.
Last but not least, the new Lions of percussion are all READERS! They have studied and read and write music for that matter. My generation for the most part wasn't expected to read and we as congueros and other percussion committed the breaks to memory. This limits what you are able to do especially in the studio. I would urge you to learn to make you a well rounded player.

Da Bronx Rocks.....

and it always has....from Jazz and R&B at places like the 845 Club on Prospect Ave, to the great Sunday Latin Dances at the Hunt's Point Palace, on to Break Dancin' and your very first Hip Hop MCs, now a world wide phenomenon and last but not least, rumbas in the parks on those hot summer nights, the Bronx has been heavy in the talent department. I have been here for almost 60 years and am a witness to much of the cultural development of this truly remarkable place . Click on the photo to enlarge.

Congratulations are in order

Congratulations to Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra for their triumph in the 2009 Grammy Latin Jazz category. If you have not heard the album yet you are missing some truly great music. We have several videos of Arturo's father, the late great Chico (the albums name is Song For Chico) for your viewing and listening pleasure on the Street Level Productions partner site. Arturo plays piano with his father on the vids.

Caoba

To address the question circulating in the comments section of the blog, Caoba is the TAINO word for Mahogany. The Tainos were one of several tribes, the Arawak, Siboney and Caribe among them, that came from both North (what is now Florida) and South America to settle on the many islands of the Caribbean. Many words of Taino origin have worked their way into the Spanish language such as 'huracan' or hurricane. My Junior Tirado drums are most likely made of Honduran mahogany. There is a great museum right at the foot of the dirt path that leads to El Morro fort in Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico that is dedicated to the Taino and their ancestors the Nis Taino. If you get a chance to travel to Boriquen (the Taino name for PR) it is a must to visit.

Bomba Classes - POSTPONED!!

This is the latest from Julia:

Familia,

Alma Moyo's BOMBA CLASSES (at Hybryd Fight Dance Studios) are temporarily postponed due to construction challenges at our space We are aiming to start all sessions soon, so keep in touch! Thank you for your interest, we will see you soon!

**Come and check out Alma Moyo on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7TH 2009 ~ 9:00 pm ~@Camaradas, El Barrio2241 1st Avenue and 115th Street, El Barrio, NY $5.00 coverIn a special performance in collaboration with the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute that celebrates Afro-Boricua heritage with live bomba music, song & dance. The evening will also begin with a special opening performance of live Afro-Bolivian music!

For more information about the new class schedule and/or to sign up on Alma Moyo's mailing list, contact us at: rioloiza@gmail.com / almamoyo7@yahoo.com http://www.almamoyo.com/ / www.myspace.com/almamoyo

(Alex LaSalle @ a Workshop, Photo Credit: Alma Moyo)

In Support Of The Spoken Word 10/30/98

There are members of my generation who will remember the Last Poets and their particular blend of progressive poetry accented by percussion. Amazingly, more then 35 years later, the Last Poets continue to spread their message. Today, there are any number of both groups and individuals who use the format to express their points of view. In this video we play our instruments in support of a group of young poets who are fighting for better living conditions in their homeland of Indonesia. Kali Ramirez, Victor Montanez, Adrian Garcia and myself are in attendance.

NY Rumba 101 Orchard Beach

In the 60's, there were three locations where one was almost always assured of finding some drumming going down. One was Central Park, which began at Bethesda Fountain and then moved over the hill West to it's present location past the bridge near the row boat lake. Then you had Marcus Garvey Park which back then was called Mount Morris. Located at 5th Ave. and 124th to 122nd Sts., the park had drummers playing there in the early 50's. Queen Latifah filmed one of her first videos at the park's highest point which looks out over the Harlem community. Then you had Orchard Beach. Known as the Bronx Riviera or Horse Shit beach depending upon your point of view, Robert Moses, the great city planner, created a beach where there had been none before. Opening in the mid 30's, Orchard Beach rapidly became one of the Bronx's favorite weekend retreats. It is very possible that I had been there prior to being born as my parents frequented the beach on a regular basis and I'm sure my mother went there while carrying moi. The beach was divided into 13 sections, each reflecting various cultural and racial identities. Section 9 had a picnic area just off of the boardwalk and I remember vividly those of Ukrainian heritage eating our foods and playing our music while dancing the folk dances from the "old country." Time went by, demographics changed and from this emerged a new paradigm of beach use. Sections 11-13 became White working class enclaves with Italians dominating population wise. Sections 5-11 were frequented by African Americans and a smattering of other folks. It was perhaps the most diverse part of the beach. Sections 1-4 became in essence, an extension of the Bronx and Manhattan's Puerto Rican community. It was here that the rumba was played and a tradition begun. By the time I was 14 (1963) I was practically living at Orchard. My crew would arrive on Friday after school and stay until Sunday evening...sleeping on the beach, living off of hot dogs and bacalaitos and consuming copious amounts of cannabis. It has been decades since anyone has been allowed to sleep on the beach at this point. The police put an end to it. Such was the reputation of section 1 that would be Latin Music stars such as King "El Solitario" Nando used the beach as a background for a photo for one of his hit albums. There were sure to be drums being played all day Saturday and Sunday. I learned several of the popular coros, "Tu ve yo no lloro tu ve," and "Ave Maria morena," among them so that I could participate. This was 7 years before I began to study the drum in earnest but the seed was firmly planted by these experiences. When not playing, there was plenty of mambo dancing going on. There would literally be 50 radios of various dimensions tuned to the same station, uniting into a cacophony of Bugalu, Cha Cha and Guaracha. The boardwalk was instantly converted to a ballroom as scores of dancers took to the floor.

There are those whose intolerance will not allow for the expression of a culture different then their own. Racism, the ignorance of which knows no bounds, reared it's ugly head on more then one occasion leading to the suppression of the drum several times. This was also the case in Central Park and the drummers of Marcus Garvey are now fighting for their right to express themselves free of the censorship some would impose upon them. The Mariel boat lift bred new life into the rumba scene and Orchard saw a resurgence of a waning tradition. The location has changed to a pathway leading from the parking lot to the boardwalk near section 5. Go on a Sunday about 3PM if you'd like to learn a coro or two and participate. Who knows...you may be inspired to pick up a drum.

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...

Bomba Classes - Washington Heights

I just got an email from Julia on some upcoming classes taught by none other than herself and Alex LaSalle.

Thursdays, 7:00 pm8:30 pm

Hybrid Fight Dance Studios
1828 Amsterdam Ave (btwn 150 151 Sts)
Washington Heights, NY 10031
C train to 155th Street

STARTING JANUARY 22ND, 2009
ALL ARE WELCOME!

Intensive Puerto Rican Bomba
DANCE & PERCUSSION CLASSES

Honoring our cultural heritage and spiritual legacy
by
Alexander LaSalle (Director, Alma Moyó)
Julia GutiérrezRivera (dance teacher)

For more information: almamoyo7@yahoo.com / rioloiza@gmail.com
www.almamoyo.com / http://www.myspace.com.almamoyo/

About Alma Moyo:

Alma Moyo is an Afro-Boricua musical group dedicated to the preservation of Puerto Rico's oldest living African musical and cultural tradition, la Bomba. Founded in 2002, under the musical direction of Alexander Vale LaSalle (Moca, Puerto Rico), the group's members are a talented intergenerational mix of musicians, educators, community organizers and historians from Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Offering performances, school-based residencies, workshops and lectures, since its inception, Alma Moyo has toured regionally and collaborated with numerous bomba collectives in the US and Puerto Rico, all to critical acclaim. The group is hailed as the next movement in Pan-Caribbean Musical Expression, and is considered as NYC's new bomba ensemble powerhouse.

BOMBA has its roots in the Western coast of Africa and especially in the Congo/Bantu people of Central Africa. Bomba refers to a Bantu word that translates according to the Kikongo language into "drum" and "music". Bomba arrived in Puerto Rico during the slave trade in the late 1500's, where it continued to evolve, picking up influences from New Orleans, Haiti, Guadaloupe and other Caribbean islands. Bomba music follows the Call and Response tradition common to all African music and has served as a means of communication where members of the community express the reality of their daily life through song and dance.

About the Instructors:

Alexander LaSalle, a researcher & lecturer of the oral history of Afro Antillean traditions, Mr. LaSalle is a skilled percussionist, songwriter and singer whose versatile musical talents lend themselves to singing Afro-Boricua, Afro-Dominican, Afro-Cuban and Haitian traditional music. As the founder/director of Alma Moyo, one of NYC's most powerful Bomba ensembles, Alex works dedicatedly to honor the legacy and voice of the ancestors from the bomba communities stemming from Mayagüez, Cataño and Guayama. Alex is a member of Los Pleneros de la 21, Juan Usera y La Tribu and has performed with numerous groups both in Puerto Rico and throughout the United States

Julia L. Gutiérrez-Rivera weaned as a child on bomba and plena, received formal training as a part of Los Pleneros de la 21's Bomba and Plena Children's Worshops' Pioneer Class. As a young woman, she is now recognized as one of NYC's premier Bomba and Plena dancers of her generation. Taught by many of NY's bomba and plena luminaries, including founding members of Los Pleneros de la 21, Eugenia Ramos, Paco Rivera, Tito Cepeda, and Roberto Cepeda, Julia embraces diverse regional influences in her dance as a member of Los Pleneros de la 21, Alma Moyo, and Bámbula. Julia has also worked with La Tribu, William Cepeda's Afro-Boricua and Afro-Rican Jazz ensembles, Papo Vázquez Pirate Troubadours and Plena Libre. Julia has provided workshops for students of all ages nationally for the past four years.

Luciano "Chano" Rodriguez....Calabashologist

Of course there's no such thing as a Calabashologist, but if there were, Chano would have certainly held a PhD. His knowledge of the plant, the fruit it bears and its cultural and historical place in the lives of the People of the Caribbean Island groups becomes abundantly apparent in this video of his teaching abilities. Filmed at a beautiful retreat called Wave Hill in the Bronx, Chano shares his knowledge with a family who give him their undivided attention. Chano, who lived in a private house in the Sound View section of the Bronx, actually grew shekere size gourds along the side of the house. To say he had a green thumb is an understatement. Besides being an excellent percussionist with a collection of drums from various cultural backgrounds, he was also an instrument maker which will be seen in the video as well. We lost Chano a while back and the community lost a source of knowledge and wisdom that doesn't come along every day. Chano...those of us that knew you loved you.

Djoniba

I just read this off a conga E Group (congaplace.com). Jorge is out in the NJ area, plays with some of the cats out there plus he was a Castle Hill regular as well (among other places).

Djoniba Dance & Drum Centre in NYC is closing next week
by jorge on Sat Dec 20, 2008 2:30 pm

One of the great cultural institutions in NYC, Djoniba Dance and Drum Center, is being forced to close next week, primarily due to the economic crisis. DDDC is the one of the largest multi-ethnic drum and dance cultural center in the world. There are classes in a variety of West African and East African dance styles, djembe drumming, and a huge variety of dance styles reflecting many different parts of the African diaspora, including Afro-Caribbean, Capoeira, Samba, Afro-Cuban (Yoruba/orisha, Congo/palo, Arara, rumba), Afrocuban popular (Son, Timba, Rueda de Casino), Haitian, Hip Hop, Mambo/Salsa, Reggae, Katherine Dunham technique, and others. DDDC has provided free classes to thousands of children in NYC. Yesenia Selier Fernandez, who recently arrived from Cuba, just started several months ago teaching the AfroCuban classes, continuing the tradition of some of the great AfroCuban dance teachers in NYC, including Xiomara Rodriguez, Rita Macias, Danys Perez "La Mora", and Felix Insua "Pupy". We had just started playing bata for every AfroCuban class, with Skip Burney, Barry Duke, Diosvany, Guayacan, Barry Cox, Maximo Valdez, Susan Rapalee, and others playing and singing.The main reason for the closing is a recent decrease in students, largely because of the economic crisis. Many people have lost their jobs, others have less job security, less disposable income, and less free time. In addition, there was a rent increase that the Centre is unable to cover from current revenues. As one of the drummers who has been playing on and off for the AfroCuban classes over the past 10 years, I have seen this decline in students from packed studios with 20-40 students for every class 5 and 10 years ago to 15-20 students in the largest classes and 2-10 students in the smallest classes recently.With this closing, about 55 dance teachers and drummers will lose their jobs, and thousands of adult students and hundreds of children will lose their access to studying with some of the greatest African based drummers and dance teachers in the world. Drummers and dancers in NYC (and visiting from around the world) will lose one of the most diverse and important African diaspora cultural institutions in the world, and the rich opportunities for cross fertilization among all these different forms of drumming, dance, and song.

Here is the website, which also has yesterday's press release on it: http://djoniba.com/about_dec08.html

We will try to find a smaller, less expensive space and rebuild the Centre, but it will take years of hard work and sacrifice. Donations of skills including fundraising, construction, database/outreach/marketing, as well as direct financial contributions are being sought. AfroCuban drumming, dance, languages, and religions survived "tiempo de España" for many years, and most recently survived the economic and human devastation of the "special period" in Cuba in the 90s, so I am sure the culture will survive the oncoming recession / depression. In fact, many aspects of these African diaspora based cultures have evolved as powerful tools to help people survive hard times. Even so, we all need to be aware that we can't just take cultural institutions like Djoniba for granted. They require ongoing hard work, sacrifice, and nurturing by those of us who are the bearers of these cultural traditions for the next generation.Ache, Alafia, Paz, Shalom, Salaam Aleikum, Peace

Interview With A Rumbero......

There can be no doubt of Armando Costales' passion and deep abiding love for La Rumba. This passion went past the playing of the music into construction of some of it's instrumentation. Armando was nothing if not generous with his knowledge and friendship towards those who embraced the rumba as did he. His "Rumbacera" as he called it lasted in the same location for just over 20 years. During that time such notables as Jorge Tapia, Eloi Marti, Eugenio "Totico" Arango, Daniel Ponce and Los Munequitos made their way to 182nd St. and Amsterdam Ave. to participate in Armando's rumbas. In the winter Armando made his home available so that the flow would continue on a weekly basis. Armando died about 5 years ago at the age of 55. La Rumbacera never did recover from his absence and soon after become part of the city's folkloric history. I knew Armando for most of those 20 years and my life was enriched by the relationship. I was able to catch Armando with some free time one evening and let him tell some of his story. Also present was Victor Montanez Jr., son of the famous Plenero featured on the Grupo Folklorico Y Experimental Nuyorquino's first album. As was his nature, Armando shares with us some of his techniques and tricks in making instruments and what got him into it in the first place.

Barry Cox

(Barry, Max, Mark, Photo Credit: Mark Sanders)

Unfortunately for me, I have never had the pleasure of sitting down with Barry in person. I have talked to him over the phone but nothing substantial. I have dealt with him enough to surmise that Barry is one of those rare, "salt of the earth" kind of cats. Usually I am a pretty good judge of character. But wait, thats not what the post is about. Sure, Barry is cool people, but let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

The way I look at things, as far as the NYC rumba scene is concerned there are the players that can play well, and you can count on them being at the rumba, and then there are those that make the rumba happen. Barry and his cohort Max Valdez are the latter. This particular duo has been singing together for quite some time, and as someone once told me, "when Barry and Max are at the rumba, they never let it get boring..." Couple this with the fact that Barry has done extensive research on rumba and music as a whole, while also sharing his findings and documents wholeheartedly, and we have just the kind of guy that we need in this particular scene. I believe (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that if it weren't for guys like Barry Cox, rumba in the city would have given way to street jamming a long time ago.

So I asked Barry a couple of questions about why he does what he does, and here is what the man had to say.

1. Barry you are out of NC, how did you eventually make your way to NY?

uff that's a very long story...not sure i want to go into that one

2. What/whom got you into the whole Afro Caribbean (Afro Cuban) drum scene?

Another long story but...I had grown up listening to hippie rock, like Dylan, the beatles, the stones, hendrix and pink floyd, then I got into the velvet underground and for a long time for me the Ramones were just it. Plus Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Gang of Four, B-52s. That sort of thing. I was also really into Prince and the Time, I saw them on the "1999" tour. But that whole pop scene started to lose steam for me around the mid 80's when I moved to Chicago and started getting into brazilian music, bossa nova mostly, and other stuff what is now called "lounge" or exotica, like martin denny, yma sumac, etc. I was always going to thrift stores and digging up old records, all kinds of stuff, old easy listening stuff, what they now call "world music," basically anything that wasn't rock music. I never got into "salsa" though, never had much appeal for me.

I was living in Wicker Park, which at the time was a pretty rough latino neighborhood, mostly Puerto Rican and some Mexican. One day I was leaving my house and some mexican neighbors were having a party in the front yard and just blaring this amazing music. I stopped and managed in what little Spanish I knew to ask them for a cassette copy of that music. ( I think at first they thought i was going to complain.) Anyway I came back the next day to get the tape, which turned out to be Perez Prado. Well that set me off for many years, he was my idol. I always had kind of a penchant to look into the roots of the music I was listening to, so I got the older recordings of Perez Prado with Beny More and that was when I really seriously started getting into cuban stuff. Beny More just blew me away. ONe of the greatest talents of the 20th century. Then I started getting into son, those Sextetos Cubanos recordings form the 20's and 30's reissued on Arhoolie never left my stereo for years.

At the time I had a girlfriend who was a classical percussionist, and she was also into african drumming but wanted to get more into latin. A friend of hers told us about The Caribbean Music and Dance Programs Summer Workshops started up in the 90's at La ENA by Lisa Maria Salb, Deborah Rubenstein and Melissa Daar (?). So we went on a 2 week trip around 1994, and it changed my life. But I didn't really even get into rumba that much then, I bought a tres on that trip and then moved to Austin Texas, where I started up a septeto called Son Yuma, which caused quite a stir around there, it was very popular. We even went to Santiago and played at the Casa de La Trova there, a real honor. This was a few years before the whole "BVSC" crap. I hated that whole thing.

3. How did you get started singing and how did you and Max meet?

There were a few drummers around Austin I would get together with occasionally, to try to figure stuff out, and I don't know, I just started singing rumbas out of boredom mostly, buncha guys sittin around playing kun-KIN - KIN - kun for few hours and...When I first started listening to rumbas I thought of it mostly as drums, with some singing going on, but then I just started paying more attention to the songs (mostly on the munequitos rumba caliente CD, but also carlos embale "rumbero Mayor" and the Real Rumba compilation on CoraSon), and I just decided that for me the spirit of rumba was really in the songs, the singer and the call and response...

Anyway, I always had kind of a knack for imitation and also for harmony, I think it was all those years of listening to the beatles, I used to be able to sing along with paul's part or John's part pretty easily. I had also taught myself portuguese by singing along with João Gilberto records (many of his records came with lyric sheets), I had always sung in the rock bands I was in and also in Son Yuma, so it was a pretty natural thing. Then when I got a copy of the Orisha/Rumba anthology, I was on my way.

I met Max pretty soon after I moved to NY, in 1999, the muñequitos were in town, and were giving a dance workshop in a space in Williamsburg that Xiomara Rodriguez was using. Her son Michel Sotolongo was playing batá and I started talking to him, he said he had a group that was getting together there, and that I could come to rehearsals if I wanted. And that's where I met Max.

Turned out we worked near each other, in midtown, and we would get together after work almost every night and walk downtown, practising songs, from 45th street to Houston, where I would get on the train and head back to brooklyn.

This guy Frank Bambara started having a rumba at a place on Rivington called The Saint, Gene Golden was playing there, with him, and Papo Pepin, and Chino was singing, sometimes Manuel El Llanero, sometime Abe Rodriguez, but they didn't have a coro. So max and I started going and doing the coro, then they started letting us sing songs.

4. How important is one's knowledge of the history of the artform (i.e., rumba, etc…)

For me it's essential, but i guess that's just my nature. When I was thirteen and I loved the stones version of "You Got To Move" on the Sticky Fingers album and saw it was by Mississippi Fred McDowell, I ran out and bought a Fred McDowell album. I just like to have that context...especially for people who didn't grow up around it that kind of thing is really important.

(Union Guarachera, Photo Credit: Mark Sanders)

5. How did Union Guarachera start and what players made up the group?

There was a guy who used to live here named Esteban, he was from Argentina, we used to see him at the classes at djoniba, and soon after 9/11 when nobody was going out he somehow got this bar owner in the village to have a rumba there, I think it was on wednesday nights. It was on Macdougal street, called the Wreck Room and it used to be the famous Gaslight. Esteban was trying to get like a group together to play there, so to try and promote it I did some flyers and just made up the name "Unión Guarachera"...but there was a bit of tension, some of the drummers wanted to do all kinds of afro-cuban stuff, like palo and bembe and all that, but me and max just wanted to do rumbas all night.

I feel like a lot of people are into "drumming" in general but aren't really into rumba in particular, so they get bored easily, they want to try out some new rhythm they just learned, or whatever. They don't get used to or develop an appreciation for the rumba repetoire, so they get tired of playing 3/2 after a half an hour. But to me if you can't do that you don't love rumba. I think drummers should know as many songs as possible, even if they don't ever sing, they should still be familiar with the melody and the phrasing of at least the most common rumbas, so they know where to place all these licks they are always learning.

But so anyway Esteban went back to Argentina, I guess the other guys got sick of us just wanting to do rumbas all the time, and so we started bringing drums and people started showing up, mostly from uptown, but also Skip Burney, Alberto Quinto, Mark Sanders. It started to be quite a scene. One night Horacio El Negro Hernández was there ( he didn't play though) then an other night some of the muñequitos stopped by a gig and then it was just wild, but they sold the bar a few weeks later, which was fine with me, it was starting to get out of control...

6. In your opinion is the Central Park scene as important as it might have been 10-15 years ago?

Honestly for me Central Park was kind of a let down. My main knowledge of it had come from Robert Freidman's 1978 article "If you don't play good they take the drum away", which talked a lot about the dynamic of the rumba with respect for the elder and better rumberos, the constant evaluation going on, etc. But by the time I got there 20 years later it seemed that had kind of fallen by the wayside, I guess Giuliani had stopped it for awhile, and by the time it started up again it just sort of became a free for all, and also the singing was very poorly developed, just people doing coro after coro, and mostly santo coros too, not rumba coros. Manuel was good but he was getting older, it just wasn't like it used to be

7. How did you get started with the blog "Vamos a Guarachar", was it just on a whim, or was it something that you wanted to do for some time?

That started up when I realized I kind of had a pretty good collection of not-readily available rumba audio and video recordings, and was thinking maybe other people had some too, and we could all share with each other and expand our collections. The rumba/afrocuban scene had always had a kind of "Deadhead" approach to allowing recordings being made of live performances, with the understanding that they would not be sold but only shared among the community, so I felt like the time had arrived that that could be done via the internet rather than through casettes and VHS. I saw what guys like Loronix and all that sort of "sharity" blogspot crowd had been doing so I wanted to see how it worked with rumba.

Soon after, Patrice Banchereau contacted me from France and he has been a great help and inspiration and has really done a lot to make the blog what it is.

hope that helps...

Barry

One last note, Barry wanted me to add the following,

I did want to add something in there though, about Max. He was the guy who really taught me about singing with clave, how to listen for that. And also he was a big help with the cancionero rumbero, he was giving me song lyrics he had learned and I would ask him to help with parts I couldn't figure out or had wrong, we spent hours and hours on that stuff. So he was a huge help to me in lots of ways.
Patrice too, he had found the pdf version before we ever met and he took it to cuba and went over all the lyrics, especially with El Gato, to check them.

If you want to see some videos of Barry and Max in action, click here.

Always respect your drum.

Make sure that others respect your drum as well. Now there are those who may disagree with this philosophical point of view...alla tu. The drum has an inviting surface for those inclined to want to put their beer bottle or sheet music on it. Some will turn it into a regular dinner table. The Tito Puente restaurant on City Island in the Bronx had LP congas as stools at its bar. People put their behinds on the drum. I have had serious falling outs with people disrespecting my drum and teach any one who cares to listen to not allow it. I'm going to tell a story to illustrate my point. You can make of it what you will, but this happened and I witnessed it.
July 4th was rapidly approaching when I got a call from an old squeeze named Rona. She had hooked up with a fairly wealthy guy who was interested in throwing a July 4th bash on two houseboats he owned and moored at the 79th St Boat Basin off the West Side Hwy in Manhattan. This was very much for the well heeled and I became interested because I had never been on the dock despite having lived in the city all my life. She explained to me that the party was on but she knew that his group was more of the stand around and talk Wall Street and drink cocktails type of folks. She wanted a PARTY. So she convinced him to let me invite 25 friends to make sure it was a party. I had a bit of a reputation back then. I went to my hang on Brook Ave and 139th St. and got my peeps together and it was on. Of course, I invited four rumberos so we could play some drums along the Hudson River.
Well the party was slammin.' There was a cat in a tux serving drinks from a well stocked portable bar...the kitchen was popping as two chefs cooked steak and lobster...all you could eat. Needless to say, by 3pm most folks were embalao and dancing up a storm on the roof top of the bigger house boat. One of my friends had commandeered the DJ table and folks from all over the pier came over. In fact a schooner, which was heading up to West Point from Lower Hudson's Bay heard the music, saw the action and dropped anchor to join us. Rona was ecstatic as was her old man and his guests. They got right into it with us.
After awhile folks took a break and we pulled out the drums to do our thing...it became difficult to play because as ships went up and down the river..the wakes they generated would rock the houseboat and one drum almost wound up in the drink. We decide to lay the drums down and chill. So here we go. I have a very good friend named Angel Berrios. He was six sheets to the wind and feeling no pain at this point. My drum happened to be near where he was sitting on the deck floor and he began to rub his feet on the skin. I said Angel...that is definitely not cool...you are disrespecting the drum. His reaction caught me by surprise. He got very indignant, telling me it was just some wood and skin and what was I worried about. I realized that this was basically the booze talking and dismissed it and told him that he really needed to check himself. He got pissed and said "I'm gonna get something to eat." As he was climbing down the ladder which led to the kitchen or galley as they call it, a huge tanker was making its way down the river...a serious wake emanating from its rear. Angel arrived at the kitchen as did the first wave at exactly the same time. A pot of boiling water waiting for more lobster to be added slid off the stove surface and caught him on both feet. I heard him scream and everyone turned to see what had happened. I quickly went down to survey the damage and the blisters were already beginning to form on his feet. He looked at me...completely sobered by the pain and said "Don't say it!" Only he and I knew what we were talking about at that point. Well it took several weeks for him to heal after spending that evening in the hospital. Pure chance, instant justice, spiritual intervention; you be the judge. Respect your drum and make sure others do as well.

NY Times, Central Park Rumba article, 96'

In my never ending search to document as much information about NYC rumba as I can, I came across this old NY Times article. It mentions the late Morty Sanders (ibae), Iwao Sado (from Puntilla's crew), and of course Eddie Bobe. Here it is for your reading pleasure.

by Mirta Ojito
published: August 31, 1996

Directions to a Sunday party: enter Central Park near the Dakota on West 72d Street and walk through Strawberry Fields past the John Lennon memorial. Right about there, if the wind is blowing a certain way, you'll hear the insistent call of the drums. Tum-taca-taca-tum.
Follow it.
There, by the side of the Lake, you will find a piece of Cuba, or of its music, which for many of the drummers and listeners who gather here every Sunday is the same.
''This, and nothing but this, is the essence of being Cuban,'' said Arturo Cuenca, 40, a painter who left Cuba six years ago and now lives in Manhattan. ''I didn't know that in Cuba. I learned it from a distance. Here, with these drums.''
These drums have lured Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans -- and just about anybody who cares about rumba -- to Central Park for a long time. They offer free weekly entertainment for New Yorkers of a certain sensibility. And more importantly for some, they offer what many immigrants are perpetually searching for: a whiff of home, a space where people ask not what country you come from, but what town.
It is here, perhaps more than in any other place in New York, where many Cubans feel at home. This is the one corner of the city where they encounter old friends, enjoy homemade Cuban food, and effortlessly revert to rapid-fire Spanish.
''I have found people here that I hadn't seen for years,'' said Rosa Nieses-Torres two Sundays ago. ''I come here as much as I can. I was born and raised in the old part of Havana, where this sort of thing was an everyday event.
''Coming here is spiritual for me,'' said Ms. Nieses-Torres, a college literature professor who came to New York from Cuba in 1979. ''It's an act of remembrance; a ritual.''
It starts with the music.
The drummers begin arriving shortly after noon.
Eddie Bobe is one of them.
Mr. Bobe was born 36 years ago in Puerto Rico to a Cuban father and a Puerto Rican mother, and the beat of the drums ''is in his blood.''
''I'm following a tradition, that's all,'' he said, wiping the sweat from his brow with an open palm. ''For me, it's a cultural expression, a way of defining who I am, because rumba means people. The instruments alone can't do it. You need to have people to have rumba.''
Before long, a crowd has gathered.
Mothers with babies in strollers sit on the green benches. Young couples share an old blanket on the lawn. Old men respectfully stand by the drums, waiting for the first cue to join in the chorus. Food vendors peddle their dishes: pasteles and tamales from Puerto Rico; cod fritters and rice with chicken from Cuba. A man sells beer out of a brown plastic bag packed with ice.
The drums attract a mixed crowd: the die-hard rumba aficionados, the tourists who stop to take yet another picture of New York City life (some make awkward attempts to follow the rhythm with their hips) and the nostalgic types who come not just for the music but also for a slice of Caribbean warmth and camaraderie in the land of McDonald's and rock-and-roll.
And then there are the curious passers-by who stay for so long that eventually someone hands them an instrument. There seems to be a silent command behind the friendly gesture: here, you make music, too.
It happened to Iwao Sado, 48, a sushi chef who came to New York from California 11 years ago.
As Mr. Sado tells it, he was walking in the park one day when he heard the sound of drums. He followed it and came upon a group of people singing in Spanish, a language he is now trying to learn. He became fascinated by the music's rhythm and timing. An electric bass player in Japan, Mr. Sado had never been as deeply touched by any other music.
''Something happened inside of me,'' he said. ''It just totally transformed me.''
He started taking lessons from Mr. Bobe and others and soon got a chance to play for the Central Park crowd. The music led him to Santeria, an Afro-Cuban religion practiced on the island and increasingly abroad. Mr. Sado recently made a trip to Cuba, where he officially joined the religion.
Nowadays, ''El Chino'' -- a term that Cubans and Puerto Ricans use to describe anyone with Asian features -- plays the drums next to some of the most experienced musicians in the park.
Nobody here seems sure how these rumba Sundays started. Some say it started spontaneously 80 years ago with a group of friends who wanted to play drums outdoors. Others recall a day in May 14 years ago when a group of Latinos, looking for a place to continue to party after a big parade, settled on this specific spot in Central Park and started a tradition.
Morton Sanders has another version. His, he insists, is the true story.
Mr. Sanders, a retired architectural designer who is 75, said he became immersed in Cuban culture after a series of trips to the island in the 1940's and 50's. He had gone to Cuba for the first time on his honeymoon and was immediately smitten with the island's sensuality and contagious joie de vivre.
For $35, he bought a drum and hired a private instructor. He returned to his Manhattan apartment and practiced until his fingers were calloused and his palms no longer hurt.
Eventually, accompanied by two friends, Mr. Sanders took his drum to a fountain in Central Park where Latinos, mostly Puerto Ricans born in New York, used to gather. That was 30 years ago.
With his blond hair and blue eyes, Mr. Sanders wasn't immediately accepted, he said. Undaunted, he took his music someplace else. He found a bench he liked next to the boat lake under the shade of a big old tree. And there, with his drum and his friends, Mr. Sanders began to play for fun.
Intrigued by the music, the Latinos who had shunned him soon followed. Since then, Mr. Sanders said, musicians and fans have got together every Sunday, from spring to fall, in the same spot.
In 1980, the gatherings received an unexpected jolt when Cubans who had arrived in the Mariel-Key West boat lift began appearing.
The Cubans, most of them blacks from economically poor but culturally rich Havana neighborhoods, brought new energy and authenticity to the gatherings.
Rumba, which is not a rhythm, but rather a concept that means to party, was born in Cuba more than a century ago. It is regarded as the first musical expression of Cuba's nationhood, said Rene Lopez, a Puerto Rican record producer who lives in New York.
It began with the black Cubans who had moved to the cities from rural areas. Influenced by Spanish music, but emotionally tied to their traditional African rhythms, they took elements of both and created a new sound.
Although the sound is distinctly Cuban, it has traveled the world.
It was popularized in the 1940's in New York's biggest nightclubs by performers like Chano Pozo and Miguelito Valdes, who used trumpets and other musical instruments to make it more palatable to American dancers. Yet rumba can be played on just about any surface, from a wooden box to an upside-down dresser drawer. Most often, it is played with at least three drums, a set of claves (sticks), a lead singer and a chorus.
In the early 60's, Mr. Lopez said, Puerto Ricans played drums on the rooftops of El Barrio. Eventually, they took their music to local parks, but the police used to chase them away and confiscate the drums.
''They said it bothered the neighbors, but nobody believed them,'' Mr. Lopez said. ''They just weren't ready for us, didn't understand us.''
Today, Mr. Sanders said, the police do not bother the Central Park crowd, though it can get rowdy at times toward the end of the day. Sometimes, there are too many people, maybe even one or two who have had too much to drink. There have been fights, often over who gets to play the drums.
But most Sundays, by early evening, the party has become a huge family picnic. Budding friendships are cemented with a drunken hug and a promise to call. Old friends agree, once again, to keep in touch. A shirtless man gently touches a baby's forehead and asks the gods, his gods, to bless him.
The drummers, perspiring from hours of intense pounding, get up to leave, already making plans for the next weekend.
Mr. Sanders is one of the last to go. ''I have had such good times here,'' he said. ''I don't want to stay away. I have told my wife that when I die I want her to throw my ashes in this lake. That way, I'll always be close to the music.''

Siento una voz que me dice..... Are Iye O!

I have been trying to build up my rumba repertoire, and although I do not consider myself a singer at all, when I get together with the guys and we play a little rumba without lyrics, it kills me, so I'll usually work up the nerve to sing a verse or two and bring a coro in, just so things sound halfway decent. If its one thing that I have learned about the rumba is that it is comprised of 3 necessary ingredients: Drum, Voice, and Dance. Without this triumvirate you are just jamming. So I have been trying to learn as many rumba "standards" as I can. "Donde Vas, Mulato, Donde Vas", "El Kikiriki", "Palo Quimbombo", and "Malanga". So as I am singing "Malanga" again and again, while playing guagua, I start thinking, "Why not try and do a little research on the legendary rumbero, Jose Oviedo "Malanga".

Now Malanga, along with other rumberos such as, Chaborro, Andrea Baro, Mulense, Roncona, Pancho Mumba, Macho, have been canonized to the point where at times we may not even believe they existed as humans, but rather the legends they portray in the songs in which they are mentioned. But lets dig a little deeper shall we?

A quick google inquiry dug up the following, written by Maria del Carmen Mestas.

His body stopped moving and his soul departed to only god knows where. His eyes were still open and a fine line of blood left his mouth. José Rosario Oviedo, the best timbero ever had just enjoyed his last pleasure of rumba.
The day before he had had a weird dream: a faceless woman was taking him by the hand and leading him along a path of silence. He woke up and the vertigo made him feel as his bed was a ship about to sink. He looked out the window and the cold wind brought shivers down his spine: little by little he managed to get on his feet. It had to be that way. That was going to be a great day. His friends were waiting for him to watch him dance and he had to show them that he was still the king, the chosen one by the rumba goddess.
On his way to the party he ran across an old man who told him: "Malanga, don’t go. Go back home. This is not your day." The dancer laughed and his small teeth shone in the dark. He turned away and kept moving toward the challenge.
Before he got there he stopped and tapped the rhythm in his mind. He also rehearsed a few steps of Columbia, an exclusive dance for men, even when Andrea Baró and Chichí Armenteros became famous Columbia female dancers. He pretended to bat a homerun, then to bullfight a fierce bull ready to run him over, and finally to fly a kite willing to escape in the blue sky.
The party had already begun. Chenche and Mulense, with their usual skills, gave a magnificent dissertation to the audience. Then, José Rosario, who was never the first to come out, danced and danced to everyone’s joy.
Short and fat, but with quick moves, Malanga challenged gravity with a bottle over his head looking up the sky. Then, he produced several sharp knives from his waist and, with a unique, violent, and feverish dance, he stole a big hand from the audience. Then he had fun, cracked a few jokes, and strolled with proud amongst the women present at the party. He had a glass of cheap aguardiente in his hand.
Suddenly the great timbero dropped the glass and took his hands to his aching stomach. His look seemed lost in the distance. His legs weakened and then he fell heavily to the floor. Someone asked, "Malanga, Malanga, what’s wrong, bro?" The rumbero wanted to answer but his words wouldn’t come out. Then he died.
Who was the murderer? Whose hand dropped poison or ground crystal in the glass? Was it a broken-hearted affair? Was it vengeance? Was it the rivalry of another rumbero? Or maybe politics? Believe it or not, Malanga had enemies due to his increasing support to the liberal party, of which he was a political sergeant. Everyone gave his or her version of the facts. However, the truth was never known. It remains as buried as the famous rumbero.
Some people say he was born 5 October 1885, in La Esperanza estate, Alacranes. Others say he was born in Sabanilla del Encomendador, in the properties of a wealthy landowner named Oviedo, near Unión de Reyes, Matanzas. He was the son of an unknown father and Francisca Funciona or Pascuala Oviedo.
There are no pictures of him, only the spoken portrait of those who met him.
He was a nice guy. His face was marked by chickenpox. He had big eyes. He was nicknamed Malanga when he was a kid. He was a black guy who danced and played rumba very well.
People say that in Guines, Havana, he had a group of fans who would always come to watch him dance in the porticos of Café La Lombilla, where he often came to dance rumba. The businessmen of the café appreciated it so much that even gave him a commission because he drew many clients to the place.
He would often travel to Ciego de Ávila to the sugarcane harvest. There is a story that reflects his vocation for rumba. One day someone came to the fields looking for him. He was needed urgently. But he was nowhere to be seen. Then someone asked: Why don’t we play some rumba? And if fact, he showed up in seconds hoe in hand.
It is believed that he became so famous that the Club Atenas, and exclusive place for black intellectuals in Havana, welcomed him in their premises because of his dancing prodigies.
Before his involvement in the Guerrita de Agosto, the dancer had founded the Union de Reyes’s Timberos club, who followed him around the country.
In the 1920s he had a strike of bad luck. His daughter Bernarda died one month after she was born, and later he broke up with his wife Federica Crespo.
Even when his death might have happened in Ciego de Ávila, some people say it happened in a shantytown in Ceballos, Morón.
An old musician of the times, Cecilio Campanería -Campana Naveró-, ascertained that Malanga and a group of rumberos were invited by Chenche and Mulense to travel to Morón "to have a ball," but everyone "smelled a rat" and declined. Only the ever defying Malanga went looking for death. He paid no attention to his friends’ warnings. He wouldn’t listen to anyone.
"I saw him depart on that one-way trip. I insist it was envy, Chenche and Mulense’s envy. That poison was in their hands."
Where is Malanga’s body? That’s another mystery. A gravedigger who met him back then is sure he didn’t bury him in the Ciego de Ávila cemetery. Then, if he did die there as so many people claim, where was he buried? Or maybe his body was secretly buried to avoid a police investigation? Was it really a murder?
Research hasn’t shed any more light over his death, which shocked rumberos and friends alike. It is known that it happened in the 1920s, maybe in 1923, and that the Unión de Reyes mayor, Ramón González Quevedo, allowed a three-day feast as tribute to the great timbero. There is a park in Unión de Reyes called Parque de la Rumba José Rosario Oviedo, and musicians play their conga drums there to keep Malanga’s flame alive.

So while the purpose of "Sentimiento" remains to highlight rumberos, bomberos, pleneros and Afro Caribbean percussionists from the NYC area, It would almost be criminal not to mention some of the early pioneers whose influence has definitely stood the test of time. Thats all on Malanga for now, but if you want to do more research on the Cuban rumberos of yesteryear you need to check out: (These are the cats that are really tackling the Cuban side of things)

Esquina Rumbera (Barry Cox' Site)

Conjunto Folklorico Nacional Blog

La Rumba No Es Como Ayer

La Timba No Es Como Ayer........

Speaking from an East Coast perspective, ever since Daniel Ponce pulled out five congas in New York and played all five, nothing has been the same. He and others have certainly challenged the notion of the congas being a time keeping member of the rhythm section and maybe allowed to voice a solo on occasion. The possibilities exploded on the scene with the wave of great percussionists ushered in by the Mariel boatlift. There were some examples of the potential as portrayed by the late great Chano Pozo and the little known Peanuts Taylor (check him out on YouTube) who played as many as six drums at a time. Mongo Santamaria has got to be mentioned. They were few and far between however. Giovanni Hidalgo has blown away all convential wisdom as it pertains to the tumba and its application in various musical settings. He has been followed by scores of great young percussionists including Los Postritos from Puerto Rico under the tutelage of "Mole" Ortiz. This freedom of expression has found a rather new voice in explorations in clave in odd meters. Musicians, when not playing, like nothing better then to discuss music. I have two Internet buddies, Max Garduno from Califas and Conor Guilfoyle from Dublin whom I have dubbed the Odd Couple because of their steadfast dedication to pushing the clave envelope into uncharted waters. We have indulged in an ongoing debate about odd meters in clave for months now. I was taught by traditionalists. I tend to be conservative in my views of just what constitutes clave driven music. They have been working on me however and I'm beginning to see their respective points of view. Conor sent me a video where he plays a straight ahead 4/4 swing time against the rumba clave and it really works well to my ears. These guys are into 5s, 7s and 9s as well and have developed some interesting ideas. Many Latin Jazz ensembles offer odd meter numbers in their repetoires over the last 5-6 years. Listen for them and you'll see what I mean. Willie "El Ruso"

How It's Made - Conga

I was talking to Willie earlier and he mentioned that tonight on the Discovery Channel they are going to show how a "conga drum" is made. According to the listings it starts at 11pm tonight, so don't miss it. It would be cool if they showed how a drum is made by hand (i.e. Skin on Skin) but I have a feeling they will take us through the LP factory or something like that. I hope I'm wrong.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-schedules/daily.html