Que Buena Rumba...

  

Desde Cuba

¡La Rumba está buena!
1994

Tracks:

01. Saludo de Matanzas - Afrocuba de Matanzas
02. Tambor (Batarrumba) - Afrocuba de Matanzas
03. Caridad (Batarrumba) - Afrocuba de Matanzas
04. Tasajero - Afrocuba de Matanzas
05. Roncona (Columbia) - Columbia de Puerto
06. Recuerdo a Malanga (Columbia) - Columbia de Puerto
07. Oyelos de Nuevo - Los Muñequitos de Matanzas
08. Lo Que Dice el Abakua, Lo - Los Muñequitos de Matanzas
09. Alma Libre (Guaguanco) - Los Muñequitos de Matanzas
10. Una Mamita, A - Cutumba/Carlos Embales
11. Columbia/Batarrumba - Cutumba

  

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This is a fantastic and exciting collection of authentic rumbas presented in clear fidelity. The recording offers plenty of space around each instrument allowing you to hear each player's individual part in detail (if you listen intently, you can even hear the skin on the palm of the player's hand against the skin of the tumba on the bass strokes). This is good, because the music is so complex, that it has revealed new patterns and juxtapositions even after seven years of listening. I have acquired other cuban rumba discs, but this remains the reference.
~ Arise Therefore

  

  
Real Rumba is a collection of four different Cuban Rumba groups: Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Afrocuba de Matanzas, Columbia de Puerto Cardenas and Cutumba with Carlos Embale. The word "real" in the title refers to the fact that Son music has been mistakenly called Rumba (or Rhumba), outside of Cuba since the 1920's. This recording is truly the real Rumba.

There are three main styles of Rumba: Yambu, Guaguancó and Columbia. Yambu is a slow rhythm and partner dance. It has close ties to the Cuban-Congolese fertility dance Yuka. The Yambu surfaced with the end of slavery in the 1880's. At that time, the authorities who were of Spanish descent, looked down upon their citizens of African descent. Because of this, dances/rhythms with strong African roots were often suppressed by the authorities. So it was with Yambu. The pelvic thrust from the Yuka dance was not allowed by the authorities. African type drums were not encouraged and in fact, were often confiscated by the government. Yambu was not originally played on drums, but on packing crates. This style of playing Yambu on boxes (called cajones), has been preserved up to the present by many of today's Rumba ensembles. The group Yoruba Andabo plays cajones exclusively. Guaguancó is a partner dance like Yambu, only faster. Conga drums (called tumbadores in Cuba), are used in Guaguancó instead of the cajones. The contemporary style of Guaguancó we hear today was developed in the 1950s. Rumba Columbia is a solo dance done usually only by men. Columbia has close cultural and musical ties to the Abacua, a male secret society originating from the Cameroons, West Africa.

Real Rumba features all three styles of Rumba. In addition, we are treated to three Batá-Rumbas, two by Afrocuba and one by Cutumba. As far as I know, Grupo Afrocuba was the first group to fuse the Rumba and its three congas with three Batá drums. Batá-Rumba is a dense hybrid rhythm, but it's not really done justice here because of the rather flat fidelity of the recording. To date, the most audibly clear Batá-Rumba can be found on the CD Totico y sus Rumberos.

Cutumba comes from Santiago, on the eastern end of the island. Joining Cutumba is Cuba's most famous Rumba singer, Carlos Embale. This CD also has three typically remarkable performances by Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. Columbia de Puerto Cardenas are dock workers from the port of Cardenas. To the best of my knowledge, they perform only Rumba Columbia. They are a one-beat band. One of their trademarks is having the 4/4 cascara stick pattern played simultaneously with the typical 6/8 bell pattern. This creates a rhythmic tension and an excitement that is palatable.

The performances are excellent on Real Rumba. The sound quality of this recording is its greatest drawback. These seem to be the two main factors one considers when buying a new CD. Of course it would be great if the performance and sound quality were both extraordinary on every CD we buy, but often we must balance the strengths of one factor against the weakness of the other.

source & more to explore ; )

 ♥

La rumba tiene color

  

Chavalonga

"El Rey De La Tahona"
En El Barrio De Ataré

2004

Tracks:

01. Anda Llevatela 2:51
02. Donde Vas, Que Te Ves Tan Bonita 4:17
03. Quimbonbo 5:39
04. La Bullanguera 5:20
05. Te Quiero, Porque Te Quiero 4:21
06. Sabina 3:10
07. Sali De La Habana Un Dia 4:22
08. Los Rumberos Se Ponen Orgullosos 5:11
09. Mientras La Sala Pide 20 Años 4:41
10. Volviste Ahora 3:22
11. Canto A Atares 4:37

Musicians include:

Mario Dreke Alfonso "Chavalonga" Voz

Pedro Celestino Fariñas Coros
Barbarito Lopez Coros
Ricardo Echemendia Coros
Gregorio Laza "Cordovi" Coros

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  There aren't enough rumba records in the world, and this one helps out the situation. The groove here is stupendous; Chavalonga, a contemporary of Chano Pozo, from the Ataré neighborhood in Havana, has put together a great group, with tight coros. He's in his eighties, and his singing isn't always in tune, but there's an honesty to this that carries his work. And boy, does it swing.

Highly recommended.

(Peter Watrous, 2004-02-09)

  

Helio Orovio, in "Cuban Music A to Z," writes:

  "Dreke, Mario ("Chavalonga"): Author, singer, dancer, musician. Born 25 April 1925, Havana. Since the 1940s Chavalonga has been considered one of the most outstanding performers of African rhythms and rumba. Among his most popular guaguancós are "Palo quimbombó," "Los barrios unidos," "Muñequita," and "Oye lo que te voy a decir." He was a founder of the National Folkloric Ensemble [Conjunto Folklorico Nacional] and is currently the director of a company carrying his name."

       

Maria del Carmen Mestas, a cuban writer who has done more than anyone lately to document the biographies of rumberos, published piece about him recently here. (The piece was adapted from the chapter on Chavalonga in her (highly recommended) book "Pasión de Rumbero."

Below is (my) translation of her article: 

  

MARIA DEL CARMEN MESTAS:

Memories of a rumbero
 
    If you walk through the Havana district of Atarés it's possible you will see Chavalonga, a "street encyclopedia" of rumba. Chava, as his friends like to call him, has seen many moons pass in his tired heart, but if drum is heard he is the first one in dancing.

    The night traveled in the light of thousands of stars. The scent of the leafy lemon tree competed with one of jasmins. Skinny, with a brilliant glance, the youngster entered the circle. The drums exerted their ancestral spell so that Chavalonga gave a skillful dissertation when dancing to a well-known guaguancó. It had not finished and even still many were applauding. "Avemaría! Yeah! He's fenomenal!" said the queen of jolgorio, Andrea Baró, with astonished eyes, while Carburo predicted, "Boy, you will be great!"

    "Yes, back then in Jovellanos, Matanzas, I was consecrated", exclaims Mario "Chavalonga" Dreke proudly, one of our great rumberos, when remembering that happy beginning in a genre to which he has brought his creativity to dance, song and percussion.

A LIFE, A RUMBERO

    Rumba has always accompanied Chavalonga, and together they've lived moments of great joys and others of secret pain. This mythical figure has worked the genre from its deepest root, giving it an expression uniquely his; that is to say, creating a style that identifies him.

    It's certain that his first rumba was savored "very small, because as soon as I opened my eyes I heard the drum, and if to others they sang it to sleep with lullabies, mine was with that sound that can be as sweet as honey.

    My family is from Limonar province in Matanzas, and when Christmas Eve arrived, everyone who could came to my house, to "the judgement," as the rumberos called it; the same
    he appeared one of Carlos Rojas, who was from Jovellanos or Jagüey, and from different municipalities. So it was that I got started in this music, drinking from that which the stars made: Carburo, Sagua, El Dinde, Celestine Domec, Jimagua and others.

    "That was my world since I was very small, and I love it because it's a part of my life that, by the way, was very risky. I couldn't exist without music because it is as if I lacked eyes to see or my voice to sing.

    "I worked with Chano Pozo in a cabaret that was called... something like
    Spotwind, and also in comparsas, that was our diversion. All year we were waiting for the carnavales to arrive and prepared ourselves by rehearsing.

    With Chano I learned to play the drum; now I dance and sing with seven. He was a very guarachero type, happy, but the atmosphere dominated him and he took the wrong path.

    "I participated in the film "Sucedió en La Habana," and I went to Mexico, where I acted in films with the comic actress Vitola [Famie Kaufman], but I became ill because the hot spices hurt me (I do not know if it was really that, or because I carried the weight of nostalgia in my heart). I came back on the boat "Lucero del Alba."

    If someone has been in Chavalonga's memory it is Benny Moré, with whom I worked in the Molino Rojo and other places in the federal district. "Benny is always in my thoughts: a man who gave it all. His thing was to sing, to throw his wonderful voice to the wind... "

    Creator of the Tahona rhythm and inspired composer of boleros in the guaguancó style, Chavalonga also appears in other films as "La última cena," "Rapsodia abakuá," the documentary about Tío Tom, "La rumbera" and "La historia del negro rumbero Mario Chavalonga."

    Chavalonga is a founder of the Conjunto Folclórico Nacional, where he not only contributed his knowledge, he also extended his own to master other genres like the songs of the Yoruba, Lucumí, Arará, Carabalí...

    With that famous group he traveled to many countries; the greatest successes of the rumbero were in Brazil, where he sang the prayer to Shangó and was highly applauded, and in Algeria, when we was inspired to compose the number "Los Gorritos."

    Brother of another famous rumbero, Enrique Dreke, El Príncipe Bailarín, my friend Chavalonga doesn't stop playing the drum, dancing the best steps, and remembering his youth full of great rumbas.
   

source & more to read on this nice blog...
   
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¡La rumba tiene coracón! 

♥

La música cubana

 

Cuba et la Musique Cubaine
1999

Tracks:

01. Merceditas Valdés - Chango
02. Obbinisa Aché - Yuca
03. Celeste Mendoza - Poder Mayor
04. Folkloyuma - El conde con Samaleon
05. Joseito Fernandez - Guajira Guantanemera
06. Septeto Nacional - Suavecito
07. Celeste Mendoza - Carinito ven ven ven
08. Magaly Bernal - La Carinosa
09. Estrella de la Charanga - Angoa
10. Noemi y Froilan - El duce de Coco
11. Sexteto Aché - Conga Matancera
12. Aliamen de Santa Clara - Llega de Noche
13. Tipica Juventud - Rescatemos el cha cha cha
14. Chepin Choven - Como Campana
15. Cuartetos de Saxofones de Santiago - El Manisero
16. Yakaré - Rumberos de Ayer

  

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Large numbers of African slaves and European (mostly Spanish) immigrants came to Cuba and brought their own forms of music to the island. European dances and folk musics included zapateo, fandango, paso doble and retambico. Later, northern European forms like minuet, gavotte, mazurka, contradanza, and the waltz appeared among urban whites. There was also an immigration of Chinese indentured laborers later in the 19th century.

Fernando Ortiz, the first great Cuban folklorist, described Cuba's musical innovations as arising from the interplay ('transculturation') between African slaves settled on large sugar plantations and Spaniards or Canary Islanders who grew tobacco on small farms. The African slaves and their descendants made many percussion instruments and preserved rhythms they had known in their homeland. The most important instruments were the drums, of which there were originally about fifty different types; today only the bongos, congas and batá drums are regularly seen (the timbales are descended from kettle drums in Spanish military bands). Also important are the claves, two short hardwood batons, and the cajón, a wooden box, originally made from crates. Claves are still used often, and cajons (cajones) were used widely during periods when the drum was banned. In addition, there are other percussion instruments in use for African-origin religious ceremonies. Chinese immigrants contributed the corneta china (Chinese cornet), a Chinese reed instrument still played in the comparsas, or carnival groups, of Santiago de Cuba.

The great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was their guitar, but even more important was the tradition of European musical notation and techniques of musical composition. Hernando de la Parra's archives give some of our earliest available information on Cuban music. He reported instruments including the clarinet, violin and vihuela. There were few professional musicians at the time, and fewer still of their songs survive. One of the earliest is Ma Teodora, by a freed slave, Teodora Gines of Santiago de Cuba, who was famous for her compositions. The piece is said to be similar to ecclesiastic European forms and 16th century folk songs.

Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries. Important among these are France (and its colonies in the Americas), and the United States.

Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries. It contributed not only to the development of jazz and salsa, but also to the Argentinian tango, Ghanaian high-life, West African Afrobeat, Dominican Bachata and Merengue, Colombian Cumbia and Spanish Nuevo flamenco.

The African beliefs and practices certainly influenced Cuba's music. Polyrhythmic percussion is an inherent part of African music, as melody is part of European music. Also, in African tradition, percussion is always joined to song and dance, and to a particular social setting. The result of the meeting of European and African cultures is that most Cuban popular music is creolized. This creolization of Cuban life has been happening for a long time, and by the 20th century, elements of African belief, music and dance were well integrated into popular and folk forms.

read it all...

 

Timbalitas criollas de la Estudiantina Invasora © Patrick Glaize

Cuba et la Musique Cubaine. Editions du Chêne, Paris, 1999.

  

Lexique d'instruments cubains 

 

 

Encyclopedic Discography of Cuban Music

 

~☆~

 

Rumba 2

    

Los Muñequitos De Matanzas

Vacunao

Qbadisc 1995
 
Tracks:
 
01 - Vale Todo [5:51]
02 - Ese Senor [4:04]
03 - El Tahonero [4:44]
04 - No Quiero Problemas [2:46]
05 - Wenva [1:40]
06 - Abakua Makonica [5:50]
07 - Saludo A Nueva York [4:16]
08 - Lengua De Obbara [6:09]
09 - El Jardin [4:13]
10 - Sarabanda [4:31

    

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Los Muñequitos de Matanzas

 

Formed in 1952, this stellar rumba group is famous throughout Cuba.  They also charmed audiences everywhere in the US on their first, second, and third US tours, in 1992, 1996, and 1998.   They were back in August, 1999, in the Spring of 2000, again in 2001, and for the last time in the US, in 2002, after which George Bush blocked them.

  
  The group got its start in 1952 a bar in Barrio Marina in Matanzas, Cuba, when a group of youths began following the rhythms of a song by Arsenio Rodríguez that was then playing, using dishes and bottles, as is the style in "kitchen rumbas."  Then and there they decided to create a group to play in fiestas and dances in the barrio, contacting a professional musician, Florencio Calle "Catalino." Their emphasis was on rumba in its three variants - el yambú (from Matanzas), a slow rhythm danced by couples, la columbia, a rural which men alone would dance as it is sometimes done with knives, and el guaguancó, which is contemporary urban rumba.  All these variants are based on percussion, with instruments such as clave, la catá, la guagua, la maruga, las congas and even the batá.

  

At the beginning, the group was called Guaguancó Matancero, and was made up of Florencio Calle, Gregorio Díaz, Angel Pellado, Ernesto Torriente, Juan Mesa, Hortensio Alfonso, Esteban Lantri and Pablo Mesa, percusionists all. They recorded their first record in 1953 under this name and it included on one side "Los beodos" and on the other "Los muñequitos en la calle". This last song which dealt with characters from comic strips in Cuba proved to be very popular and people started calling them los Muñequitos de Matanzas, which became their name.  They recorded for the Puchito label before the revolution and since have made many records with the state company Egrem, always giving percussion the most important role.  Many members have come and gone through the group over the years and today there are three generations in the group, considered by many the most important rumba group in Cuba.  The current director is Diosdado Ramos Cruz.

 
Los Muñequitos de Matanzas are part of the living legend of African music in Cuba, and they remain very close to their Abakuá (Efik/Efo) roots. Most members are also members of an Abakuá potencia, or lodge.

 

...

 
    "This is a classic album from munequitos de matanzas .There are great songs like "Weva","vale todo" and "No qiero problemas" If you are going to acquire this album you need to know a little about traditional folkloric Cuban music e.g Guaguanco,abakua and palo.I would recommend this to anyone into Rumba and beginners into the (traditional) latin music."
 
    "I agree with the first reviewer of this album by Los Muñequitos De Matanzas, this is certainly a very 'pleasant surprise.' Vacunao is in my opinion pure heaven to listen to. Recording quality is immaculate. This is my second most favorite album from Muñequitos right next to Rumba Caliente, my number one pick! Vacunao is an absolute must have. Period."

       

 
wiki
 
some more :)

  

Rumba

    

Ned Sublette
Cowboy Rumba
1999
   
Tracks:
   
1. Ghost Riders in the Sky  
2. Cheaters' Motel  
3. Feelin' No Pain - (featuring NG la Banda)  
4. That Sad Love Song  
5. Her Point of View  
6. Ready to Be  
7. Something to Lose - (featuring Yomo Toro & Lloyd Maines)  
8. Not Fade Away - (featuring Los Munequitos de Matanzas)  
9. Que Electricidad - (featuring NG la Banda)  
10. Cowboy Rumba

  

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A co-founder of Qbadisc, Ned is an artist in his own right and created the cowboy rumba style, a fusion of rumba and country & western. He is a University of New Mexico graduate and a 2003-2004 fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, as well as a 2004-2005 Tulane Rockefeller Humanities Fellow in New Orleans. He has led a number of music and culture seminars for Americans in Cuba and is the producer of the 18 part Cuba Connection series on PRI's Afropop Worldwide.
 
Ned will always be remembered among los Muñequitos fans for his stellar role in getting them well known and on tour.
 
Cowboy Rumba was #1 on a number of latin stations
 
From Rykodisc:
 
    Ned Sublette was born in 1951 in Lubbock, Texas.  Bilingual in English and Spanish since childhood, he grew up in Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico and moved to New York in 1976. His range of musical experience is unusually broad, ranging from original musicological field work in New Mexico, to conservatory study in classical guitar and composition, to aggressive loud-guitar bands, to cutting-edge Latin music.  In the downtown New York new music scene of the 70s and 80s, he worked with artists ranging from John Cage to La Monte Young to Glenn Branca to Peter Gordon's Love of Life Orchestra.  In 1982, he started The Ned Sublette Band ("It wasn't country punk," he recalls, "because all the musicians could really play") with a gig at CBGBs. He became a fixture on the downtown New York club circuit, playing hundreds of gigs with a rotating cast of New York's best players at such notorious and legendary nightspots as Danceteria, the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge, Tramps (the old one) and the Lone Star Cafe.  
 
    By the mid-80s he gravitated toward the salsa scene ("It was the best music in town," he says) and his inspirations grew increasingly Latin.  In January 1990, he traveled to Cuba for the first time and was inspired to co-found Qbadisc, the first American record label dedicated to marketing contemporary Cuban music in the U.S. He was soon recognized as a major U.S. advocate for Cuban music, introducing American audiences to Cuban artists as diverse as Los Muñequitos De Matanzas and NG La Banda as well as Celina González, Issac Delgado, Carlos Varela and Orlando "Maraca" Valle.  In 1998,he also produced the outstanding debut album by the New York-based Puerto Rican group Viento De Agua, and for seven years, he served as senior co-producer of Afropop Worldwide, heard over Public Radio International. He is currently working on a book about Cuban music.
 
    Singer-songwriter-guitarist-bandleader-producer, Ned Sublette is one of the most original figures on the New York music scene, and COWBOY RUMBA (PALMCD2020-2), his debut solo album on Palm Pictures, is equally, and exquisitely, unique.  COWBOY RUMBA is just what the name implies: Ned's lyrics, compositions and vocals combine with a dream team of all-star musicians from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the New York salsa scene and . . . Texas, for an utterly danceable ride.
   

     

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Sublette

 

♥

"At first I didn't know what to think.   People all around me are swearing by this record.   "Man this sounds really good!", are the words coming out of individuals that I really respect and admire.   All I could ask at the time was, "Man are you serious?   You've got to be kidding me?   The guy sings and sounds like a country western guy singing salsa!"   Exactly, that's the idea!   "What?!   I don't understand?   Is this supposed to be cool?   It's corny if you ask me!   I mean, what is this?!...".. ..¸¸.•*¨*•♫

    
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