Joe, Diomedez... Pacini
Joe, Diomedez... Pacini
Joe, Diomedez... Pacini
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288 Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer 1992
ClassMusic
ClassMusic(1985).
(1985).
OfOf
thethe
many
many
Arhoolie
Arhoolie
historical
historical
reissues,
reissues,
volume 24,
volume
The 24, The
Texas-Mexican
Texas-Mexican Conjunto
Conjunto
(Folklyric
(Folklyric
Records
Records
#9049),#9049),
is intended
is intended
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companion
companiontoto
the
the
Pefa
Pefa
book
book
and and
may may
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of special
utility utility
for teachers.
for teachers.
References
Pena, Manuel H.
1985 The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: The History of a Working-ClassMusic. Austin: Univ
sity of Texas Press.
n.d. Una historia de la mzsica de lafrontera: Texas-Mexican BorderMusic vol. 24: T
Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music. Notes in Englis
Folklyric Records, Folklyric #9049. Distributed by Down Home Music, 10341 Sa
Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA 94530.
In spite of its rich musical heritage, until recently Colombia generally has
had a low international profile outside of its own diasporan communities and
those very well-versed in Latin music. Colombian music now, however,
seems to have been "discovered" by European, and especially British,
audiences. So it is with pleasure that I observe a variety of Colombian musics
recently released on British labels, World Circuit and GlobeStyle, both clearly
catering to "world music" or "world beat" consumers.
While I celebrate the fact that these releases provide increased accessi-
bility to Colombian music for non-Latino audiences, they do have some
problems, mostly in the liner notes. Since educating the consumer has
typically been a complementary function of record companies specializing
in world beat (beyond merely selling the record), their liner notes are of
particular relevance to the final quality of the release. I will explore these
problems in some detail not to discourage anyone from buying these
releases-by all means buy them if you are interested in exploring a variety
of Colombian music!-but rather, to encourage the releasing companies to
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Recording Reviews 289
dig deeper into available repertoires, and to take more care in the
preparation of liner notes.
Instead of treating each of these very different recordings separately, I
will try to place them within a broader historical and cultural context by
providing a sketch of the coastal Colombian musical landscape as it relates
to these releases.
The nation of Colombia is comprised of several very distinct regions, the
most important of which are the Caribbean coast (comprising the area
between the Guajira peninsula to the east and the Gulf of Uraba to the west),
the Pacific coast, the central Andean region, the Orinocan plains, and the
Amazon lowlands. Of these, the Caribbean coast (simply called la costa in
Colombia) has unarguably been the source of Colombia's most popular
dance musics, both nationally and internationally; it is also one of the two
regions with the strongest African musical influence, the other being the
Pacific coastal area. The Pacific coast region, however, has always been
isolated by geography (dense tropical rain forest) from the rest of the
country. The Caribbean coast, on the other hand, has-since the arrival of
Europeans in the late 15th century-been Colombia's gateway to the
Caribbean and the world, and as such the region has benefitted from
constant cultural cross-fertilization.
Coastal music-mzisica costena-has developed as a result of the
blending of European, African and Amerindian cultural influences, the
proportion of each varying according to the demographics of each particular
sub-region. The musics from the area between Cartagena and Barranquilla,
for example, exhibit the most African influence, while the areas between
Santa Marta and the Guajira peninsula to the east, and between Cartagena
and the Gulf of Uraba to the west, reflect more indigenous and mestizo (that
is, mixture of Amerindian and European) influence. Among the many genres
autochthonous to the coast are the cumbia, vallenato, porro, gaita, mapale,
merengue (not the Dominican variety), son (not the Cuban variety), paseo,
puya,fandango, to name only those that most frequently identify song types
on record covers.
It is also important to stress that in Colombia both cumbia and vallenato
are sometimes umbrella terms; that is, they are marketing categories, since
they include sub-genres-although in the case of cumbia it also refers to a
specific genre with both indigenous and African elements. (The older-style
traditional cumbia ensemble includes the indigenous gaita flutes, African
drums, and a seed-filled shaker known as aguache, which can be attributed
to either culture.) For example, a recording labelled "Famous cumbias
from Colombia" can include cumbias, gaitas, porros, fandangos or
mapales, while a similar recording labelled "Vallenato" can include songs
labelled as son, paseo, puya, merengue-or cumbia. These fine distinctions
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290 Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer 1992
are difficult for anyone but the native-born to discriminate among, but it is
important for the reader and record buyer to understand that there is not just
one vallenato or cumbia.
Compounding this confusion is the term vallenato itself. Technically
vallenato is an adjective referring to anything originating in the Departmen
("state") of Valle Dupar, just as the word costeno identifies anything from the
coast (as the word "Floridian" would refer to anything from the state o
Florida). However, the term vallenato has come to refer more specifically to
all coastal accordion-based music, much of which-but by no means all
originates from Valle Dupar. When referring to coastal accordion music as
a noun, the proper term is el vallenato. When used to modify the word
musica, however, the term has to take its feminine form, since musica
feminine; hence one says mtsica vallenata. Thus, one should correctly refer
to the vallenato, and one can correctly (but awkwardly) refer to vallenat
music; it is incorrect, however, to refer the vallenata. This fine distinction
explains (but doesn't necessarily excuse) Kim Burton's errors on th
Diomedes Diaz and Colacho Mendoza Cantando! liner notes, in which the
terms vallenato and vallenata are indiscriminately interchanged. On the
other hand, in the liner notes for the Hermanos Merifo Vallenato Dynamos!
written by Orlando Ricaurte, both terms are used correctly.
In the 1950s and 1960s, all of these coastal genres were part of a shared
repertoire of song types well known to local musicians, who, rather tha
specializing in only one particular song type, would draw upon this poo
according to the context and the instrumentation of a particular ensemble.
Recordings from this era usually contained a variety of these dance music
styles, referred to collectively as mzsica tropical. By far the most popular and
successful recordings were those in which these genres, particularly
cumbias, porros and fandangos, were adapted by the big-band ensemble
known as orquestas, the three most important of which were those of Pacho
Galan (famous for inventing and popularizing the merecumbe, a combina
tion of cumbia and Dominican merengue), Lucho Bermudez, and La Sonor
Dinamita. The arrangements of Pacho Galan and Lucho Bermudez tended
to be elegant yet baroque, while the sound of La Sonora Dinamita tende
to be more boisterous. Together these orquestas, through both recording
and live performances, provided the dance music of preference for rich and
poor alike throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, and they marked the era
with their exuberant sounds.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Colombian musical landscape was
profoundly changed by the arrival of Cuban-based salsa coming from New
York and Puerto Rico, which eventually overwhelmed and displaced most
of the coastal orquestas. The highly danceable salsa music of Ricardo Ray,
Bobby Cruz, Celia Cruz, and other prominent salsa musicians was fanatically
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Recording Reviews 291
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292 Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer 1992
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Recording Reviews 293
from the 1950s to the present day." This is technically true, although most
of the music and musicians on this release are of the made-for-export variety,
including one by La Sonora Dinamita. The notable exceptions are Pedro
Laza's Navidad Negra and the Conjunto Tipico Vallenato's Cumbia
Cienaguera, which are re-releases of the 1950s and 1960s originals (though
I have an identical version of the Cumbia Cienaguera on an old Fuentes
recording in which it is attributed to another ensemble). At least one other
selection, La Pollera Colord by Los Inmortales, is a recent remake of an older
coastal cumbia. Given the predominance of the made-for-export variety of
cumbias on the recording, perhaps one can understand why Stewart refers
in the liner notes to the "cumbia music of the highlands," which initially
dumbfounded me. Yet if she is referring to the made-for-export variety
popular with people in the Andes, she should say so!
Overall, this is a perfectly good assortment of made-for-export cumbias-
some of which, like La Colegiala, are terrific-complemented by the few
classic coastal cumbias already mentioned. (However, examples illustrating
the renaissance of "authentically" coastal cumbia by the likes of Joe Arroyo,
which I will discuss shortly, do not figure on this compilation.) My complaint
is that in the absence of proper annotation, record buyers cannot know that
most of the cumbias included have become "huge hits" only in the extra-
Colombian market, not in Colombia itself; nor would they realize that if they
went to the coast of Colombia they would not likely hear these cumbias on
the radio or in a discoteque.
On the other hand, it would be desirable for World Circuit or any other
label to issue a well-researched compilation of cumbias that were hits in
Colombia in the 1950s and 1960s. Nevertheless, the mzsica tropicalfrom this
period was truly wonderful and quite unlike that being made in any other
Spanish American country at the time. Rather than Los Inmortales's adequate
but pale version of the extraordinary song La Pollera Colord, buyers would
be able to hear the magnificent version sung by Wilson Choperena with
Pedro Salcedo's orquestra. They could also marvel at the exuberant musical
constructions created by composers and arrangers such as Lucho Bermudez,
Climaco Sarmiento and Pedro Salcedo, and particularly in Climaco Sarmiento's
fantastic clarinet solos. The surrealistic and baroque qualities of these 1950s
and 1960s coastal cumbias sound like they could have been written to
accompany a script of a Thousand and One Nights; one friend of mine who
heard some recordings from the era said they reminded him of Looney Tunes
music. While Discos Fuentes continues to release quite a bit of music from
its 1950s and 1960s catalogue in Colombia itself, these records are hard to
come by outside of Colombia and the diasporan Colombian community. So
afficionados will just have to wait for future, more carefully compiled
releases to hear the full richness of coastal Colombian music.
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294 Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer 1992
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Recording Reviews 295
Brothers, on the other hand, represent the new crop of vallenato hopefuls
(of which there are hundreds). And despite the confusion between vallenato
and vallenata already referred to, the liner notes of both LPs are otherwise
informative and should be useful to the world music consumer and teacher
alike.
These vallenato recordings also serve to illustrate the interesting point
that vallenato is noticeably less orchestrated than other highly successful
dance musics in Colombia or elsewhere in Latin America. Traditional
vallenato instrumentation includes either an accordion or guitar playi
melody, with the caja drum and the guacharaca scraper providin
percussion; the traditional accordionist also sings and is expected
compose original songs. Modernized vallenato ensembles now include
electric bass and other non-traditional instruments such as conga drums or
cowbells, and the single accordionist/composer/singer has been replac
by several specialized musicians: accordionist, lead singer, backup vocali
and composer. Yet in spite of these changes, vallenato still has a relativ
acoustic sound quality that one might think would be inconsistent wi
modern-day commercial success, especially with urban audiences. To clarify
my point, I would contrast the vallenato with the situation of merengue i
the Dominican Republic, where modernized tfpico moderno merengu
ensembles similar in instrumentation to vallenato ensembles cannot com-
pete with the large, technologically-sophisticated merengue orquestas.
While the vallenato has been commercially more successful than salsa
for almost a decade, salsa has never lost its importance in Colombia. Over
the years, however, much of the once hard-hitting salsa from New York and
Puerto Rico that made such a powerful impact on Colombian audiences has
degenerated into a homogeneous, insipid commercial product with roman-
tic, ballad-like lyrics set to lush, highly stylized and utterly boring musical
accompaniment; this has been variously referred to as salsa sensual, salsa
er6tica, or less-flatteringly, porno-salsa. Fortunately, in Colombia-particu-
larly in salsa-loving Cali-rhythmically complex and textually interesting
salsa is still being made and appreciated. The most successful and by far the
most interesting of the new generation of musicians is Joe Arroyo, whose
work is showcased in World Circuit's 1989 release, Joe Arroyoy La Verdad:
Rebelli6n-a compilation of songs he recorded between 1981 and 1989. Joe
Arroyo is, in the opinion of many Colombians, the best thing to happen to
Colombian music in decades, and Colombians are justifiably proud of him.
This release (with brief but accurate liner notes) offers an excellent
opportunity for non-Colombians to hear Arroyo's work, and I recommend
it highly.
Arroyo was born and began singing in the largely black coastal city of
Cartagena; but, when his career began to take off in the late 1970s, he worked
with the best Cali-based salsa groups, including Fruko y Sus Tesos and
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296 Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer 1992
Grupo Niche. More recently he formed his own group, La Verdad, based in
Barranquilla. Arroyo composes and arranges (by ear) and sings great salsa,
better than much of what is being produced in New York or San Juan.
Arroyo's salsas, moreover, often address socially significant topics; in the
song Rebellion, for example, the oppression of slavery is expressed through
the story of a black man who rebels when his woman is beaten by an abusive
white master. Moreover, unlike other Cali-based salseros (salsa musicians),
whose recordings usually stay within the parameters of classic transnational
salsa, Arroyo frequently draws upon and interprets traditional coastal genres
such as cumbias and porros. His powerful and thoroughly modern cumbias
have made him enormously popular among coastal salsa fans. Also they
have inspired other coastal musicians significantly, who have again begun
producing terrific, modern, and danceable cumbias (for example, watch for
the Orquesta Barbacoa when they are finally discovered by internationally-
oriented record companies).
Arroyo has also created new musical concoctions by combining
Colombian, Caribbean, and African elements, to which he has given names;
cumbi6n for mixtures of cumbia with salsa or guaguanc6; son caribenos for
those examples with a strong Caribbean (primarily soca and zouk) flavor;
joeson to those with a stronger African flavor. (One of the selections,
Yamulemao, is a cover of Laba Soseh's Diamoule Mawo.) In making these
musical combinations, Arroyo is not just jumping on a trendy world beat
band-wagon; Caribbean and African musics have been well-known in
Cartagena for over twenty years-long predating the world beat phenom-
enon that made African and Afro-Caribbean musics easily available and
socially acceptable. More recently, Cartagena's interest in African-derived
musics of all sorts has been stimulated by its annual four-day Festival de
Musica del Caribe that since 1982 has brought musicians from all over the
Caribbean to Cartagena to perform. Arroyo's combinations, then, are the
mature results of a thorough and long-standing familiarity with these musics,
rather than superficial imitations; hence their unusual effectiveness and
power.
To conclude, I am assuming that the intended public for these releases
are curious music fans who look to world beat releases as a source of
interesting non-Anglosaxon music, and record libraries seeking to dive
their holdings. The recent releases of Colombian music on British
catering to world beat buyers are a welcomed addition to the internatio
marketplace, and as a group they provide a glimpse of the rich variety o
Colombian music landscape.
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