More Drum Master Cha-Chá

Cha-chá Plays Rumba

The great Esteban Vega Bacallao, otherwise known as Cha-Chá, video posted by Mark Sanders. I logged many a day in that room, but Cha-Chá is younger here than when I first met him in 1996:

Aña: La MAGIA del TAMBOR (1994 Cuban documentary)

Changuito timbale solo 1985

I saw this on a VHS copy of a copy that circulated back in the 1980s. Poor audio but absolutely stunning solo:

Que Suena La Timba (Documentary)

Documentary about Cuban timba music;

Corneta China

[click to enlarge]

Video of the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba

Akira Miyagawa's Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Mambo No.5 Combination 宮川彬良

Symphonic mash-up!

(Cuban singer) Silvio Rodriguez: Nostalgia Merchant

Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez is touring the US for the first time in thirty years. Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has an blog post at HuffPo

Silvio Rodriguez: Nostalgia Merchant
Yoani Sanchez

Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
Posted: June 2, 2010 09:52 PM

While young people around the world enjoyed the music of the sixties, for Cubans it was forbidden to hear anything that had imperialist echoes, including the Beatles. Just at that time there appeared in our island what ended up being called the Nueva Trova -- New Minstrel -- Movement. Silvio Rodriguez has been its signature performer with songs full of poetic lyrics and music that mixes the tonalities of our traditional minstrel songs with the chords of Bob Dylan.

Silvio's generation, touched by the euphoric effects of the Revolution, was considered anti-establishment, based on between-the-line meanings one could read into his lyrics. He was banned on some television programs and many of his songs were never broadcast. Little by little, before the eyes of followers and detractors, the Movement was absorbed by the ruling ideological apparatus to the point where there came a time when no political event lacked the accompaniment of his songs. He won admirers and spawned imitators, girls swooned over him, and requests for concerts came from all over Latin America.

.....

The 1980s, when at any hour of the day or night, you could turn the radio dial and hear Silvio's songs, are long gone. In those days he won every popularity contest and seemed like a star whose light would never fade. But the demands of tourism and Cubans' own weariness with protest songs, set the stage for the creation and spread of danceable music which, in all its rawness, is the anthem of these times: reggaeton. While Nueva Trova still has its adherents, it has been relegated to niche audiences.

Today, Silvio Rodriguez is the living representative of nostalgia for a utopia that never materialized. Some of his fans come to his concerts decked out in their Che Guevara T-shirts and sing the choruses as if they could roll back history; it's as if they are saying, "This is not dead." Increasingly rare are those who can reconcile his musical expression with his civic behavior, as few can forgive the many years he has been sitting in parliament without raising his hand to ask for an end to the immigration restrictions, the elimination of the dual currency system, or the decriminalization of political dissent.

......

Read the full post HERE.

Francisco Aguabella (1925-2010)

Legendary Cuban drummer Francisco Aguabella died today after a battle with cancer. Aguabella was born in the Cuban city of Matanzas on October 10, 1925, the youngest of seven children though only one of two to survive a typhus epidemic. Though neither of his parents were musicians, Francisco began playing music while a child and was drawn to the music that surrounded him in Matanzas. He began to play the sacred batá drums at age twelve, taught by another youngster at the time, the legendary Esteban Vega Bacallao, popularly known as Cha-Chá (1925-2007). According to Raul Fernandez' book From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz, Aguabella apprenticed on the supporting drums for five years (two on okónkolo, three on itótele) before studying the lead drum of this ensemble. He became known as a fierce and powerful drummer in both sacred and secular contexts, becoming, by his own account, the lead soloist for a local comparsa group at age 16, an accomplishment of which he was very proud. At age eighteen Aguabella was initiated into a local Abakuá potencia (an Afro-Cuban male initiation society). During this time he also became friends with drummer Julito Collazo (1925-2004), who would later become, along with Aguabella, an important source of batá drumming in the United States.

In his early twenties Aguabella worked on docks in Havana and Matanzas while continuing to drum during his free time. Eventually he was asked by influential Havana drummers to join their show troupe in Havana. In Havana, Aguabella also played in various sacred, band, and comparsa groups. In 1953 American dancer Katherine Dunham saw Aguabella perform in a nightclub and requested his services for a show scene in a movie (Mambo, starring Shelley Winters and Anthony Quinn)that was being filmed in Havana. Dunham invited Aguabella to join her company, and he soon accompanied her to Italy, the first of many tours. In addition to drumming, Aguabella had small dance and acting roles in the company's productions.

After touring with Dunham, Aguabella came to the United States at a time when Latin music was mixing with popular jazz. While fellow drummer Collazo settled in New york, Aguabella settled in California, living in Los Angeles and San Francisco for the rest of his life. Aguabella had an impressive career, including recordings, performances, and tours with artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Eddie Palmieri, Cachao, Lalo Schifrin, Cal Tjader, Nancy Wilson, Weather Report, Poncho Sanchez, Bebo Valdes, Carlos Santana, Malo, Three Dog Night, Paul Simon, and the Doors. (According to Francisco, Sinatra would introduce him to audiences as "My Italian conga drummer, Francisco Aguabella.") Aguabella also led his own Latin jazz group, playing concerts and issuing recordings for many years. He also composed music for his and other ensembles, mostly works that took advantage of his extensive drumming knowledge. Importantly, Aguabella was a source of authentic sacred Afro-Cuban music in the United States at a time when few knew the secrets of sacred drumming. Aguabella was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Durfee Foundation's Master Musicians' Fellowship, and was recognized by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. He was the subject of a documentary film by Les Blank titled "Sworn to the Drum." Agubella taught Afro-Cuban music at UCLA from the mid-1990s until 2008.

Aguabella was the strongest, fiercest drummer I have ever seen. I once saw him play a sacred tambor in the 1980s (for Changó, with frighteningly fast, loud, and long sections of drumming), and also at the famed Conga Summit concert in San Francisco. By the time I got to study with him a bit in the mid to late 1990s, he had mellowed considerably from his earlier days, when he had the reputation of being a tough taskmaster. I last saw him in late 2008, when the photos below were taken.






Information above was based on Aguabella's own biography, Raul Fernandez' From Afro-Cuban Rhythm to Latin jazz, and personal communication.

Graciela Peréz-Gutierrez (1915-2010)

NYT has an obituary of the famous Graciela:

April 9, 2010
Graciela Peréz-Gutierrez, Afro-Cuban Singer, Dies at 94
By BEN RATLIFF

Graciela Peréz-Gutierrez, known professionally as Graciela, one of the great voices in Afro-Cuban music, died on Wednesday in Manhattan, where she lived. She was 94.

The cause was renal and pulmonary failure, said Mappy Torres, her friend and assistant.

For 32 years, Graciela sang with a band formed by her foster brother, Machito, whose real name was Frank Grillo.

Many of Graciela’s most famous appearances on records, including “Que Me Falta,” “Vive Como Yo,” “Ay José” and “Si Si No No,” were swoons and flirtations, from coy to outrageous. She was a forthright performer, singing with a clear and powerful alto voice; she could make it soft, then expand it into a clipped vibrato or a ragged shout.

Graciela and Machito, both raised by Graciela’s parents in Havana, were each established professional singers before they teamed up in New York in 1943.

In Cuba, Graciela had been singing with the all-female Orquesta Anacaona and El Trio Garcia and had traveled to New York, South America and Europe. Machito had moved from Havana to New York City in 1937, recorded with the Orchestra Siboney and Xavier Cugat, and ultimately formed the Afro-Cubans with the trumpeter Mario Bauzá, a group that helped galvanize the mambo and Latin-jazz movements.

When Machito was drafted into the United States Army in 1943, Bauzá sent for Graciela, eight years Machito’s junior, to join the Afro-Cubans. She was the band’s lead singer for a year before Machito’s return. From then through the 1950s, with the two lead singers trading off vocal turns and Graciela clicking through the rhythm pattern with her wooden claves, the band established a high standard for the mambo orchestra.

The Afro-Cubans played to integrated audiences at the Palladium, Town Hall, the Apollo, the 52nd Street jazz clubs, the Concord Hotel in the Catskills and the Crescendo nightclub in Hollywood, among other places.

Graciela left the Afro-Cubans in 1975 but rejoined with Bauzá’s own band, first in 1976 on “La Botanica” and then during the 1990s in his career’s 11th-hour revival.

Graciela was never married and had no immediate surviving family members. She died, Ms. Torres said, with her claves in her hands.

Silfredo La O Paints and Dances to the Music of the Afro-Cuban Oricha

A cool event on April 3, 2010, the debut of a space in downtown San Diego called The Salon. Cuban dancer, painter, and drummer Silfredo La O danced and painted to the music of the oricha as performed on batá drums and voice. Photos and video by Kevin Delgado.

BBC on Sudanese "Cuban-Jubans"

BBC
Can the 'Cuban-Jubans' rebuild South Sudan?

By Lucy Fleming
BBC News, Juba

With Cuban pork roast on the menu, Salsa classes on a Thursday and animated Spanish competing with the Latin beat, De Havana club in the South Sudanese capital Juba feels as though it is on the wrong continent.

“ I think Cuba is unique; they believe in what you are - not where you belong or which religion you practise or the colour of your skin ”
Dr Okony Simon Mori

It is here that a group of former Sudanese exiles, known as the "Cuban-Jubans", gather most nights to share a bottle of whisky and put the world to rights - in Spanish.

Among them are doctors, pharmacists, accountants, engineers and economists.

All were educated in Cuba during Sudan's 21-year civil war and are now regarded as the intellectual elite of the south - one of the world's poorest and least developed regions.

"In Juba we have more than 100 Cuban graduates from different fields, all part of the 600-plus students sent to Cuba for education," says 38-year-old Dr Okony Simon Mori.

He returned to work at Juba's Teaching Hospital in 2007, two years after a peace deal ended the conflict in which some 1.5 million people died.

'Pencils for Kalashnikovs'

He was just 13 when chosen by the newly launched southern rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), to go to Cuba.

"Our late hero [SPLM leader] Dr John Garang told us: 'Now the elder people will take the AK-47 and you guys will take the pencil and the pencil will be your Kalashnikov,'" he recalls.

Dr Okony left his family in 1985 at one of the refugee camps in Ethiopia where thousands of Sudanese had fled the fighting between the army of the Muslim-dominated north and Arab militia on the one side and the SPLM on the other.

He travelled to Cuba aboard a Russian ship and did not see his mother and father again for 18 years - and it was not until he graduated and moved to Canada a decade later that he had any direct contact with them.

"We stayed in a boarding school in a small island called Isla de la Juventud [Island of Youth]. There were 25,000 students from different countries - most of them from Africa and Latin America," Dr Okony says.

"I think Cuba is unique and is a very special place; they believe in what you are - not where you belong or which religion you practise or the colour of your skin.

"The only thing they care about is your well-being and your aptitude. Really, they treated us as their own children."

>>>>>>>>>>>

Read the entire story HERE.

Buena Vista: Cuban band or brand?

Of course, it's both: quality nostalgia guaranteed. During a recent trip to Cuba I walked through Old Havana and heard the song "Chan Chan" three times in a during a walk, one version fading from a cafe while another one, at a different point in the song, swelled up in volume.


BBC
Buena Vista: Cuban band or brand?

By Michael Voss
BBC News, Havana

Sunday night in Old Havana and dozens of tourists pack into a club on a corner of the colonial Plaza Vieja to hear the sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club.

Leading the night's entertainment is 67-year-old "sonero" Felix Baloy and his big band. Looking dapper in his white suit and white fedora hat, he produces a pulsating evening of traditional rhythms and songs.

Felix Baloy sang on several of the early Buena Vista albums and can now use the name on his billboards. The original band has turned into a brand.

"Buena Vista Social Club has transformed into several bands, including mine," he said.

"I play traditional Cuban music and will continue doing so until the day I die."

'Sound of Cuba'

For many around the world, Buena Vista is the sound that defines Cuban music.

“ Members of the band may change because some have passed away, but the spirit lives on ”
Omara Portuondo Original Buena Vista singer

You can hear songs like Chan Chan played on almost every street corner in the tourist centre of Old Havana.

Yet in Cuba, these are considered "golden oldies". At home, Buena Vista must compete with everything from salsa to reggaeton and the folk ballads of revolutionary idols like Silvio Rodriguez.

"This is such a musical country with so many different rhythms; young people have gone their own way," Mr Baloy says.

"You still hear it here, but for the rest of the world, Buena Vista remains the sound of Cuba."

The original Buena Vista Social Club was a loose collective of ageing musicians brought together by the American guitarist Ry Cooder in 1997, in a bid to re-discover the music of Cuba's pre-revolutionary past.

Since then many of those who shot to stardom in the award-winning film have died, including pianist Ruben Gonzalez and the singer Ibrahim Ferrer.

New generation

It is Ibrahim Ferrer's former band which has taken over the official mantle and today tours the world with a mix of old and new faces, under the name Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club.

Apart from an occasional concert in the beachfront hotel resort of Varadero, the band almost never performs at home.
......


'Trade mark'

Buena Vista has turned into a project rather than a band.

"It's been converted into a trade mark. A lot of the well-known figures who were in Buena Vista have developed their own bands; that's where the spirit of Buena Vista lies," said Mr Valdes.

Today, this 63-year-old drummer still lives in the same modest Havana apartment in which he grew up.

On the walls of his tiny living room are framed gold disks, along with a fading black-and-white photograph of his father - a clarinettist in an early Cuban big band.

There is also a glamorous colour photo of his daughter, Idania, who has taken over as the lead female singer touring the world with the Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club. She was just 20 when she joined it.

"It was a little unnerving at first, especially stepping in for such a famous name," she admits.

Cuban diva

Omara Portuondo is one of the only original Buena Vista superstars who remains hugely popular at home.

The 79-year-old diva is regularly invited to perform at major cultural and political events.

At a recent Alba summit of left-wing Latin American leaders, the closing ceremony saw Omara singing her way across the platform; Venezuela's Hugo Chavez blew her kisses, Cuba's President Raul Castro reached out and kissed her hand.

She was also the first Cuban musician to be granted a visa to perform in the United States after President Barack Obama ended restrictions on cultural exchanges.

Her most recent album won a Latin Grammy, which she was able to collect in person at the award ceremony in Las Vegas.

Her repertoire has expanded beyond the classic Buena Vista sounds but the band and the music, she believes, will always live on.

"This type of music will always be with us. It's still the Buena Vista sound; members of the band may change because some have passed away but the spirit lives on."


Read the complete story HERE.

THE SANTERIA HOUSE OF MOSCOW

What a trip. A listing in the Moscow Times:

THE SANTERIA HOUSE OF MOSCOW (La Casa del Santo) is a nonsectarian social association of worshippers who are interested in Santeria (Afro-Cuban religion). We have several celebrations and spiritual activities related to our Orishas (gods). Our place is at Ul. Klimashkina Bldg. 22, M. Ulitsa 1905 Goda. Contact Carlos A. Reyes, e-mail: aoddun@yahoo.com. Phone: +7-963-616-3498.

Jesús Alfonso Miró, Director of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Dies at 60

From Ned Sublette:

At 6:45 a.m. today, June 3 2009, at 60 years of age, Jesús Alfonso Miró,
musical director of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, exceptional composer and
percussionist, died in his home town of Matanzas, Cuba. The only son of the
Alfonso Miró family, he was the father of 8 children, all dedicated to the
rumba as musicians or dancers. Two of them have been members of the
Muñequitos and at present, Freddy Jesús Alfonso Borges, a practitioner of
his father’s art, plays the quinto of the group and has begun to follow as
well in his path as the composer of heartfelt rumbas.

As a musician of Los Muñequitos Jesús traveled to almost all the continents.
Wherever he went he left friends and disciples. He shone on every stage he
played on, but he never forgot his roots and lived a full life, proud of his
lineage as a rumbero, enjoying the flavor of every corner of his barrio, la
Marina. Beginning at the age of seven, he participated as a musician and
dancer in the Comparsa La Imaliana, founded by his father and by Félix
Vinagera. For a time he was a member of the Orquesta de Música Moderna of
his city and of the Papa Goza group. From 1967 he was musical director and
quinto of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, a group which he profoundly loved and
to which he dedicated the greatest part of his life.

As a composer he was indispensable to the repertoire of the group, with his
works known worldwide. He was the author of “Congo Yambumba,” “La Llave,”
“Chino Guaguao,” “Lengua de Obbara,” “Saludo a Nueva York,” and many others
that are now classics of Cuban rumba. Prestigious interpreters including
Eddie Palmieri took note of his sabrosura and the popularity of his works,
including them on their records and mentioning him as indispensable to the
music of our continent.

When Jesús Alfonso was still very young, together with another of the great
figures of Los Muñequitos, Ricardo Cané, he went to the mountains of Cuba to
teach literacy to the people of the countryside, graduating later as a young
revolutionary teacher. For his great contributions to music and to his
community, he received the title of Hijo Ilustre (Illustrious Son) of
Matanzas.

Jesús Alfonso, member of the Matanzas society Efí Irondó Itá Ibekó and
respectful observer of the regla de Osha, will be remembered by all his
community and especially by rumberos around the world. His name will never
be forgotten. His strong voice and the sound of his hands on the skins will
remain in the memory of those who knew him and recognize him as one of the
most celebrated musicians of all time, because Jesús was to the rumba as was
Cuní or Chapottín to the son. Jesús gave his entire life to the rumba. His
name is next to Chano, Tata, Papín, and all the greats of Cuban music.

Viewing will be in the place where Los Muñequitos de Matanzas rehearse every
day, at 7906 Matanzas Street, between Contrera and Milanés. After respects
are paid, he will be buried in the early hours tomorrow.

To his wife Dulce María Galup, to his children and other family members, to
Diosdado Ramos and all his compañeros in the rumba who have so much admired
him and are today feeling his loss, we send our heartfelt condolences.


CARY DIEZ

As per Ned's List (Sublette)

Cuban Bassist Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez (1933-2009)

AP

Buena Vista Social Club bassist Lopez dead at 76
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 1 min ago

HAVANA – Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, considered the "heartbeat" of Cuba's legendary Buena Vista Social Club for his internationally acclaimed bass playing, died Monday of complications from prostate surgery, fellow musicians said. He was 76.

Lopez, a founding member of the band brought together in the 1990s by American guitarist and producer Ry Cooder, died in a Havana hospital several days after surgery, said Manuel Galban, a Cuban musician who played with Lopez for decades.

"We have lost a great companion," said Galban.

Born in Havana in 1933, Lopez became an international sensation as part of the Buena Vista Social Club — a group of elderly, sometimes retired, musicians who were living quietly in Cuba before Cooder brought them together and they became worldwide sensations.

"I will remember him as marvelous, both in his music and as a person," Galban, a guitarist, said by telephone. "He was extraordinary, affable, a great bassist."

Lopez died less than a week after turned 76.

"I called him last week because it was his birthday and his voice didn't sound too good," said musician Amadito Valdes, who added that Lopez had undergone prostate surgery several days ago. "He was a person who was always sharing with everyone around him, very noble."

Lopez was held by many to be Buena Vista's heartbeat and had played to international audiences as part of its touring company.

The group, which plays a mix of traditional Cuban rhythms, has lost many of its key members of late. Singer Compay Segundo — who was born Maximo Francisco Repilado Munoz — pianist Ruben Gonzalez, and vocalists Ibrahim Ferrer and Pio Leyva have all died in recent years.

But Lopez was also a star in his own right, independent of Buena Vista. His groundbreaking debut album Cachaito won a BBC Radio 3 Award for Word Music in 2002.

Lopez hailed from a family of at least 30 bass players, including his uncle, legendary bassist Israel "Cachao" Lopez. His nickname translates to "Little Cachao." His father Orestes played piano and cello in addition to the bass and was also a composer.

Lopez originally played the violin, but as he said publicly many times, eventually switched to the bass after his grandfather urged him to take up the family craft.

He was a pioneer of Cuban mambo, and by 17 was part of a noted big band group known as Riverside. He later joined Cuba's national symphony. He also played with a band called "Los Zafiros."

Lopez was at home playing classic as well as popular music but also dabbled in late night jazz and jazz fusion.

However, he only gained international notoriety when Cooder brought him together with such standouts as Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez and Omara Portuondo to form Buena Vista.

Later, Wim Wenders released a documentary titled Buena Vista Social Club, in which he profiled the musicians whose talents had all but been forgotten.

Family members planned to cremate the body but there was no immediate word on funeral services.

Grupo Folklorico y Experimental Nuevayorquino Reunion

NPR [with sound files]

Grupo Folklorico: A Classic Reunites
By Latino USA

KUT, October 1, 2008 - On a recent Saturday afternoon in Washington, D.C., Latin music history was made. A handful of original members of a seminal Afro-Caribbean band reunited to play music that, after three decades, still has the power to move hearts and hips.

Grupo Folklorico y Experimental Nuevayorquino played its first gig at the Smithsonian Institution's Folk Life Festival 33 years ago. Back then, Grupo Folklorico, as the band became known, was about to shake up the Latin music world with two albums of jazz-influenced explorations of Cuban and Puerto Rican folk rhythms. Grupo Folklorico was a collective of younger musicians brought up on the music of Afro-Cuban masters, as well as a few of those legends themselves.

On this humid day, some of those masters have died, and those once-younger musicians are now considered the guardians of Afro-Cuban musical tradition and history.

A Long Time Coming

In the back of a giant outdoor tent, just blocks from the Capitol on the National Mall, musicians take their horns out of their cases, tune up congas and reminisce. While sound technicians set up the band's equipment on stage, just across the mall the rest of the group is escaping the heat in a small air-conditioned trailer. Quietly sitting across from each other amid the chaos of younger musicians excited to be part of history are two original members, timbalero Manny Oquendo and bassist Andy Gonzalez, who says the reunion has been a long time coming.

"We had been planning it for a while," Gonzalez says. "We realized that we made quite an impact when we made our original recordings."

Out Of The '70s

Gonzalez says that the music on those recordings got its start in jam sessions in the basement of his parents' home in the Bronx. Andy and his brother Jerry, who plays congas and trumpet, were already performing in the vibrant New York City salsa scene of the early '70s with musicians such as Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barreto and even jazz master Dizzy Gillespie.

But the Gonzalez brothers and other musicians felt something was missing in the salsa that was taking the world by storm back then. The music they made in those basement jam sessions became their musical statement — a look to the past to move the music forward.

"It really reflected the kind of stuff we were interested in in New York," Gonzalez says, "which was Afro-Cuban folklore and Puerto Rican folklore, and not just trying to be truthful to those roots. More like using that as a starting point and experimenting with it."

Home Schooling

Those experiments were the lab work for the home schooling they were getting in Afro-Caribbean music from Rene Lopez. Lopez was an amateur ethnomusicologist who was taking notes on his own Afro-Caribbean culture with a massive collection of historic Cuban and Puerto Rican recordings. He held listening sessions at his home, but Gonzalez says that they were much more than social visits.

"We had rules," Gonzalez says. "No talking during the playing of the record. We would talk after the record, but while they were being played, not talking. If anybody opened their mouth, we would say, 'Shut up.' We really put our minds to listening with more care than usual. It was a casual thing, [but] we were going to school. This was a classroom."

High Water Marks

In 1975, Grupo Folklorico released Concepts in Unity, which was followed a year later by Lo Dicen Todo. Both records are considered high water marks of Latin music — not only for the music, but also for the extensive liner notes written by Rene Lopez, who also produced the albums.

Lopez says that the recording sessions were just as organic as the jam sessions that spawned them.

"Fifteen people without music, they didn't believe it," Lopez says. "We did all except one on first take."

But the logistics of trying to book a band of sidemen who were making a living in recording studios and on the road led to the demise of Grupo Folklorico as a working band.

Anticipation And Nostalgia

Thirty-three years later, at the same festival where it all started, nostalgia is mixed with eager anticipation. Trombonist Reynaldo Jorge and percussionist Gene Golden were here 34 years ago.

"First time I played here, I was 26," Jorge says. "Now, I'm 56."

"It's beyond words," Golden adds.

Andy Kaufman, who co-produced the Grupo Folklorico albums with Lopez, is here to celebrate and to reminisce.

"We had the time of our lives, and we wouldn't trade it for anything," Kaufman says.

Sweaty And Joyous

After a brief ceremony, during which the Smithsonian honored Rene Lopez for his work documenting Afro-Caribbean music and culture, the band kicks off and doesn't stop for a sweaty, joyous and inspired 90 minutes.

At the end, longtime fans and newcomers rush the stage to congratulate the musicians and Rene Lopez. Tres player Nelson Gonzalez is greeting friends just outside of the massive tent where the concert was held. He was also part of the basement jam sessions three decades ago, and he's at a loss for words to describe the emotions of today's reunion. So he turns to one of the Afro-Cuban masters to explain why they've come together again.

"Imagine, after over 30 years of not playing together," Gonzalez says. "This is an incredible thing. It feels like the old times. It's like Cachao used to say: 'We cannot let tradition die.' It's up to us to continue this tradition, but to also move it forward."

Andy Gonzalez and Rene Lopez have already booked Grupo Folklorico in New York for a gig in November. And, for a band with such a formidable past, there is now news about the future: Gonzalez and Lopez say there are plans for an album of new material.

Orlando "Puntilla" Rios (1947-2008)

Global Rhythm

Master batá drummer Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos, a seminal figure in the New York Latin music scene, died in a New York City hospital August 12 of complications from heart surgery. He was 60.

Ríos arrived from Cuba in 1980 with the Mariel boatlift and formed an Afro-Cuban folkloric group called Nueva Generación (New Generation) intent on preserving and disseminating both sacred Afro-Cuban music and secular forms such as rumba. He became a pillar of the religious Santería community in New York City as well as an in-demand session musician, recording with such luminaries as the Latin jazz pioneer Chico O’Farill.

Ríos relished his role as mentor and teacher to up and coming percussionists, transmitting what Cubans call “fundamento” (fundamentals) on the sacred, two-headed batá drum used in Santería ceremonies and increasingly in secular music. He was also renowned for his prowess on the conga drums and diverse percussion instruments. Ríos’ polyrhythmic performances and recordings such as 1996’s Spirit Rhythms: Sacred Drumming and Chants From Cuba are credited with exposing a wider audience to Cuban folkloric music. His last project was a tribute album honoring the guaguanco rumba legacy of the late Cuban singer-percussionist Gonzalo Asencio (“Tío Tom”). Released this year by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Ríos recorded the album in Havana’s legendary Egrem studios accompanied by El Conjunto Todo Rumbero.



Born in Havana in 1947 (Dec. 26?), Ríos was a teacher of percussion at the National School of Art in Cuba between 1971 and 1978. He went from performing in the city’s most exclusive hotels - storied cabarets such as the ones in Tropicana and the Hotel Riviera, to accompanying great Latin music figures of the stature of Celia Cruz and Tito Puente on the international stage. He is survived by his wife Ileana. - Lissette Corsa

Afropop Worldwide: Cuban Abakuá

From Afropop Worldwide, which includes photographs, sounds, and links.
Ivor Miller 2007

Place and Date: Brooklyn, New York
2007
Interviewer: Ned Sublette

VOICE OF THE LEOPARD: IVOR MILLER talks to NED SUBLETTE



Ned Sublette: I’m talking to Dr. Ivor Miller, Research Fellow in the African Studies Center of Boston University and author of the forthcoming Voice of the Leopard, from University Press of Mississippi in the Fall of 2008. What does Voice of the Leopard mean?

Ivor Miller: The voice of the leopard is the main symbol of the Ekpe society of the Cross River region of Nigeria and Cameroon, which was re-created in colonial Cuba as the Abakuá society. And it’s a symbol in both. Essentially the leopard is a sign of royalty all over Central West Africa and the Calabar zone, and it’s a symbol of their political autonomy. Every village in the Cross River region that has Ekpe has their own way to manifest the voice, which means, “we are independent.”

NS: In Cuba the Abakuá occupies a unique position in the history of the society. Can you give us a sort of thumbnail of what Abakuá has meant in Cuba?

IM: Abakuá is at the foundation of Cuban society. It was founded around the 1830s in Havana by African Ekpe members who had been enslaved and brought over. They reorganized themselves in the cabildos and they would not allow their offspring born in Cuba to join, because of the well-known tensions between the so-called old world and new world people. So eventually they decided to establish a lodge of their offspring, the black Creoles, and they called it Efik Butón, after a settlement in Calabar. To do that they had to create a fundamento [consecrated object], which represented the autonomy of that lodge.

NS: When you say they created a lodge, that’s a word that we associate maybe with the Masons or the Odd Fellows.

IM: The great Cuban scholar Don Fernando Ortiz used to refer to Abakuá as “African masonry,” because there are similarities in the fact that it’s a graded system – there are titles – and they are an independent group of mutual aid. The function of Abakuá was to buy people out of slavery, so Abakuá is known as a force of liberation in Cuban history. And in the wars of [Cuban] independence, representatives of Abakuá lodges interacted with Freemasons – people like Antonio Maceo, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, all the leaders of the Mambí independence army, were Masons – so they’re parallel systems.

NS: What about the aspect of secrecy? The Abakuá is a secret society of men…

IM: Yes. Abakuá is exclusively for men, and there’s a lot of reasons for that we could talk about. But another way of saying a secret society is to say an initiation society. Once one is initiated, one takes oaths about maintaining discretion about what one learns. What they call the esoteric knowledge, the insider’s information, are the secrets. There are secret societies all over the world. The Vatican is a secret society. Whatever happens at the top layers of the U.S. government, those are secrets too. Essentially these secret societies or initiation schools are really schools of learning, and in order to begin to learn, you’ve got to take an oath.

NS: Now these hermetic societies also existed in the Cross River Delta of Africa. How did they function there?

IM: In the Cross River region, Ekpe is the indigenous government. As an example, in order to found a settlement – okay, we want to take my family and move to a new place? We’ve picked a piece of land. The first thing we do is create the Ekpe lodge, and then we create the settlement, because that is the symbol that we are an independent settlement. You can’t come here and do anything you want, you’ve got to deal with Ekpe. It’s the indigenous system. The legal system, the judiciary, the executive branches, are all Ekpe.

NS: In place of a strong centralized government, there were Ekpe lodges throughout the region.

IM: That’s exactly it. Whereas the Yoruba have a centralized system, Ekpe was how a series of autonomous villages could trade and interact in meaningful ways. If one was an Ekpe member in the Cross River region, one could travel anywhere and be safe. Because wherever there was a lodge, you were protected.

NS: So there were offshoots of this system that were transported to Cuba. But unlike the Yoruba system – or santería, or Ifá, or Ocha, or Lucumí, whatever you want to call it – which has gone all over the world now, Abakuá has remained only in Havana and Matanzas province, not even in Oriente in Cuba. Only in these two parts of Cuba and only there in the entire New World. Why is that?

IM: Because the Abakuá have retained what they were given by the Africans with a remarkable orthodoxy. In order to establish a lodge, one has to get the permission of all the elders. There has to be a collective consensus. And that’s part of what makes Abakuá so important. They want to control the morality of their citizens, as it were, of their initiates. And if it starts spreading anywhere, it will be transformed and perhaps used for other means.

NS: So it has been a decision of the elders in Cuba that this not spread.

IM: Exactly.

NS: How did you get involved with studying this, and what is your status vis-à-vis this practice?

IM: I first went to Cuba in 1991 as a student of the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional to study dance -- I danced professionally in New York -- and really became interested in Cuba from being in New York and going to toques [Yoruba ceremonies] with Puntilla [Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos]. While there [in Havana] studying the Lucumí [Yoruba] system, in my andanzas [wanderings] in the city, I was introduced to a gentleman [7] who was in his 90s. His grandfather had come over from Calabar. He wanted to tell me the story of this, and he was an incredible storyteller. Andrés Flores was his name. And all the members of his family were members [of Abakuá]. He was not. That gave him certain liberty to tell me the story.

NS: Because an initiate can’t tell the stories.

IM: Or one would run the risk of being castigated.

NS: Well, they’re quite serious about their secrecy within this practice. Can you explain about how the militancy with which this secrecy is maintained?

IM: You have to understand the context within which Abakuá was founded and created: the extreme oppressive society of colonial Havana. Anyone who reads the history knows that the Year of the Lash, 1844, was an extreme repression. Abakuá, in order to survive, have maintained discretion in order to not announce their presence.

NS: So there are things you can talk about and things you can’t talk about.

IM: And in much of the Cuban popular music we’re going to listen to [in the Hip Deep episode in which portions of this interview appear], there is Abakuá language. It can be spoken, because people don’t understand what they’re saying. So in “Ritmo Abakuá” of the Muñequitos de Matanzas, they’re essentially greeting the first lodge in Cuba, Efik Ebutón, they’re greeting it as a way of saying, “we thank God for the birth of Abakuá. We’re members from Matanzas, and we greet Havana.” And this is all in Abakuá language.

NS: And this is recorded in 1956.

IM: It’s the first Abakuá recording from Matanzas, as far as I know.

NS: So if you’re not an initiate, there are sounds you’re allowed to hear, and sounds you’re not allowed to hear. I recorded the Muñequitos de Matanzas, as you know, playing a number called “Abakuá Makánica,” in which they play traditional Abakuá drums. And that’s allowed. But in their ceremonies, there’s a drum you can see that does not make sound.

IM: Exactly. There’s a drum that is called the eribó – the sese eribó, which is a silent drum, it’s symbolic. It represents the mother of Abakuá. This refers to the foundational myth of how Abakuá was perfected, in a place called Usagaré, now known as Isangele in southwestern Cameroon. The story is that a princess went to the river to get some water. She put her ceramic jar in the water, and inadvertently, a fish entered it, and the fish made a roaring sound. She put the jar on her head and she became in effect the first initiate. This is a story to talk about divine creation. She’s the universal mother, and when men are initiated they’re effectively reborn, so as in any other religion, initation in Abakuá is a rebirth, symbolically.

NS: And this story is what Benny Moré is referring to when he sings “En el tiempo de colonia / tiempo de senseribó.” [“In colonial times, times of the senseribó”]

IM: A classic! That’s a classic. Yes, so this is the drum that’s symbolic and it doesn’t make a sound. And why? What is the message there? This is Ekpe philosophy. If you know esoteric secrets, you don’t talk about them. That’s the message in the silent drum.

NS: Now what about the sound? The voice of the leopard is a sound. What is that sound?
IM: In Ekpe they describe it as a mystic sound that emits from the butame, the temple, and only the high levels of society’s leaders know what makes that sound. It’s not known by others. But the sound is the symbol that Ekpe’s in session, and those who are not members should move away, should stay clear.

NS: Do you consider Abakuá a religion? Do you consider it a society? Do you…

IM: Well, Abakuá describe it as a religion. But that’s a very interesting question, because it’s an exclusive thing that not everybody can join. So it’s really a club of prestige that has a very deep spiritual base.

NS: And this is based on a sound.

IM: Mm-hmm…

NS: But it’s a secret sound. It’s a sound that we can’t play on the radio.

IM: Exactly.

NS: Why can’t we play it on the radio?

IM: [pauses] Well, because that might be seen as disrespectful by the leadership. They don’t take this lightly at all. And as a matter of fact, on none of the recordings that I know from either West Africa or Cuba is that sound reproduced.

NS: That sound is never heard outside the sacred region.

IM: Exactly.

NS: And you can’t really talk about it.

IM: Exactly. But the point is that it’s not the vehicle that makes the sound that’s important. It’s the sound that is adored, that is worshipped, that is seen as the voice of God. It’s connecting humans with the divine.

NS: And at the same time, the sound has been evoked frequently in popular music by Abakuá members. It’s not the same sound, but it’s evoked.

IM: Exactly. As you well know, some of the same recordings by Sexteto Habanero in the 20s, there’s a track called “Criolla Carabalí”, we’ll hear some of the bongó drum, the glissade-making.

NS: When the bongosero moistens his finger and slides it across the drumhead, making a friction sound.

IM: It’s a reference.

NS: There are friction drums all over Africa, that make various sounds. One place the sound is referenced, and it’s a unique recording -- could you talk about the importance of Arsenio [Rodríguez]’s recording of Abakuá music?

IM: Well, one of the incredible things about the story of Abakuá is that like other African-derived traditions it’s expressed most fully through artistic means – through popular music, through dance, through theater. The commercial recordings made by Abakuá people and people who love Abakuá, whether they’re members -- or not, like Arsenio – these commercial recordings are important to understand the history of Abakuá. And New York has played a fundamental role in this story. Many Cubans have come to New York throughout history. Ignacio Piñeiro was one. Chano Pozo was another. And Arsenio in New York in 1963 recorded “Canto Abakuá,” a fantastic tune. In it he’s evoking Abakuá, and he’s speaking about the relationship of the Congo, of which [religion] he’s a member, and the Carabalí, which is the base of Abakuá. And it’s a very important track for bringing up the relationship between Congo and Carabalí. And also, at the end, there is an evocation of the voice of the leopard by the bass.

NS: In your work, you did something no one else has done: you made a re-encounter between Cuba and Africa. The Ekpe of Cuba, which began in 1830, has continued all this time, but meanwhile, in the Calabar region, the Ekpe society there has also continued. But there was no contact between Cuba and Calabar during all this time, as far as anyone knows.

IM: I don’t know of any contact, if there was. And this is quite a unique situation, because in the Yoruba case, especially between Yorubaland and Brazil there was a lot of contact and moving back and forth. In terms of Cross River and Cuba, as far as we know, there is none. That’s why it’s extraordinary that Ekpe in Calabar can listen to speech by Abakuá, and music and chanting, and understand it and recognize the rhythm and many of the words.

NS: Now tell me about what you did.

IM: From 1991 until the 21st century I was in Cuba documenting history. Cataloguing when each Abakuá lodge was founded, its name in Abakuá language, et cetera, et cetera. Because I recognized there was an incredible story that had not been told about the migration of African peoples and how their actions helped found Caribbean societies. And in order to prove that, in 2004 I was able to go to Calabar.
I brought some videotapes of Abakuá ceremonies. I brought some recordings of Abakuá music. And I gave a talk at the National Museum in Calabar. And the Ekpe people there were overwhelmed. When I played “Criolla Carabalí,” they freaked out. They got up and strated dancing, and they said, “This is the way our parents used to play.” And they recognized the very specific rhythms that the Cubans were playing as the rhythm of a particular grade. The Ekpe system has nine different grades. One of those grades is called bonkó. Bonkó really represents the universal mother, the myth of the woman I talked about, and this is the rhythm that they recognize in the Cuban music. They’re playing the bonkó rhythm. There happens to be a grade in Cuba called bonkó, which is the talking drum that we hear referred to in a lot of the recordings.

Bonkó enchemiyá is the full name of the drum. And as we know from Joseíto Fernández’s recording, “Así Son Bonkó,” and Arsenio Rodríguez’s “Oigan bonkó / Como se gozan en el barrio,” bonkó has become a word that means truth.

NS: How many times have you been to Calabar?

IM: Three times. I went in the summer of 2004, and I brought materials. I met essentially with all the paramount rulers of Calabar, which has three different groups: the Abakpa, which are also known as the Qua Ejagham, and the Efik, which are [known as] the Efí in Cuba, and the Efut, which are [known as] the Efó in Cuba, so I met with all three of these leaderships.

And it so happens that the leader of one of the lodges – Efé Ekpe, Eyo Ema, and the lodge is also known as Ekoritonkó, which happens to be a lodge in Havana -- the leader of this lodge invited me to come to a ceremony soon after I had showed them all this material. During that night they initiated me. It happened that way – “please come to our ceremony” -- and essentially they recognized the importance of this connection with Cuba, and in order to help me with my research, they initiated me so I could actually go to different settlements and talk about Ekpe, because it’s off limits to non-initiates.

NS: So you haven’t been initiated in Cuba, but you have been in Calabar.
IM: Exactly. So I’m unofficial ambassador of Calabar Ekpe to the Caribbean. After the talk in the National Museum, there were some government representatives there, and they announced that they were going to put their support behind this project for the Third International Ekpe Festival. There’s a festival there every December, to which y’all are invited.

NS: I’m there.

IM: And I was able to go with two Abakuá members – Vicente Sánchez and Román Díaz, who both happened to be from the Ekoritonkó lodge of Havana.

NS: And who both live in New Jersey now.

IM: They’re both professional musicians from Havana that now work in the New York area. It was a very spontaneous visit. You know, Abakuá’s a collective society. To have a full conjunto, a full ensemble of Abakuá, you need about ten people, with the dancers, the drummers, the chanters, and all that. We had two. But they did a beautiful job, and we have some recordings of Román chanting to an audience of about 2,000 in Calabar.

NS: What happened when he chanted?

IM: We came to Calabar in December of 2004, invited by the government of Cross River state for the Third International Ekpe Festival. The day we arrived to the Calabar Cultural Center, there was a huge open space, and at what they call the “high table” in Nigeria, where the important people sit, was the governor of Cross River state and the iyamba of the Eyo Ema lodge Ekoritonkó, who were judging the event as a competition of masked dancers. Masked dancers are another thing shared by Ekpe and Abakuá. They represent ancestors, who are there to make sure that the living conduct the ceremonies in the right way, another part of the orthodoxy we talked about.

So Román Díaz and Vicente Sánchez arrive. There’s about 3,000 people there in a circle, about the size of a football stadium, a hundred-yard circle. And the masked dancers come out one by one and are performing. There is no rehearsal for any of this. Román Díaz is asked to come out. He goes over to the percussion ensemble and gets them in a pace that he likes. Which is very easy, because they’re basically playing the same music as the Abakuá do – the same instruments, fabricated in the same way, the same construction. So Román goes out and he starts chanting the phrase about the foundation of Abakuá in Cameroon: Iya, iya, kondondó. And all of a sudden the crowd starts responding, two to three thousand people. Usually an Abakuá ensemble is ten people, but Román is going out there essentially alone, with Vicente on the bonkó. And the entire crowd responds. And then using, of course, Cuban methods, he calls out the masked dancer, who responds to him and enters the competition. He picks up a drum which he uses as the symbolic drum to call out, because the drum is the symbol of authority, so the drum calls out the masked dancer, and he brings it to the high table, just like the others had done. The crowd goes wild, and for everyone there it’s the confirmation that the Abakuá is obviously an extension of their own culture. Iya, iya, kondondó is related to the myth of the woman who goes to the river. Iya is the fish. The fish who was an ancestor, who came back to bring the divine voice. In Efik iya is fish. In Abakuá iya is fish.

NS: What does kondondó mean?

IM: It means arrival. The people understood what he was saying, and they responded. Unrehearsed. Very powerful.

NS: So what then happened in terms of your experience in Calabar with the Abakuá?

IM: Essentially what I’m trying to do as a historian, as a scholar, is facilitate this conversation. Because the first thing is to confirm that this cultural migration actually happened. The Cubans have had no contact with Calabar since the 1830s. They know this language and they’re told it comes from somewhere. But there’s doubt, if you don’t have concrete information, so I’m trying to share information, very much in the way that Pierre Verger did between Yorubaland and Brazil. And the Calabar people are very happy about this, because all of a sudden they have an international dimension to their culture, which they never knew about. Something they’re very proud of. I think this encounter is strenghtening the historical awareness of both groups, and it’s strengthening their practice.

NS: Let’s talk about some of the music we’re going to hear in this program.

IM: There are some wonderful field recordings done through the years. Harold Courlander went to Cuba in the 40s and recorded some beautiful stuff by Alberto Zayas, an important rumbero who had his own group in the 50s, an Abakuá man.

NS: The first person to record rumba in Cuba, in fact. Before the Muñequitos.

IM: That’s right, Alberto Zayas, “El Vive Bien.” So Courlander did a field recording, and then in the 60s, or maybe it was ’59 or ’62, Argeliers León recorded Víctor Herrera. Víctor Herrera had a folklore troupe called Efí Yawaremo – it’s an Abakuá term – and they did in the first-ever Abakuá performance in the National Theater. So he recorded the chant, Iya, iya, kondondó.

Essentially the Abakuá tradition is epic poetry. It’s Homeric in that way. The artists who are chanting it are drawn from an epic tradition, and they’re telling the story of the mythic past, which they believe to be their authentic history. And they are re-creating it in the present, so every time there’s an initiation, they’re recreating the original initiation in Usagaré.

NS: You were telling me about a recording that you believe is the most important, greatest Abakuá recording ever done.

IM: In 2001, a group of Abakuá masters – people who in the barrios performed the ceremonies and, really, the vanguard of the culture -- got together in a studio and they recorded an album called Ibiono. Ibiono is an Abakuá word for music with swing. Each track is to a different territory in Cross River, and they’re laying down the basic elements of their mythic history. They start with the Efó group, who are the Efuts in Cameroon, then they move to the Efí, who are the Efik of Calabar, and they end with Orú, who are likely the Uruan people of the Cross River region. All of them have Ekpe, and all of them interacted to create what’s known as the modern Ekpe system -- a cosmopolitan form of Ekpe.

NS: This is basically an album of poetry.

IM: And it’s an essential album for any student, any scholar, or any practitioner of this cultural system. The importance of this album is that it confirms all the Abakuá chants that have been recorded throughout the 20th century in little fragments. This pulls them all together into one epic narrative. And by the way, this album is only a small piece of what could be [done], what’s out there.

NS: These fragments have been dropped into popular music over the course of Cuban music history since the beginning of recording in Cuba. You made the observation to me when we were talking earlier that whatever the important style of recording Cuban music was in any given era, Abakuá was always present.

IM: As you well know, there’s no recordings from the 19th century, but the titles of habaneras and danzones have Abakuá terms in them.

NS: For example?

IM: [20] Miguel Faílde was using Abakuá rhythms – “andante ñáñigo” [ñáñigo: an Abakuá practitioner]. There was a danza by Enrique Peña, who was Antonio Maceo’s cornet player during the invasion of the west [of Cuba, in 1895]. He composed a danza in 6/8 rhythm called “El ñáñigo” that starts off with the trumpet call to arms of the military band. Abakuá musicians tell me the tune is definitely Abakuá.

NS: Let’s talk about Ignacio Piñeiro.

IM: “Los Cantares del Abakuá” by Ignacio Piñeiro – Piñeiro was an Abakuá man. He was a member of Efori Enkomo, the parent lodge to Muñanga. He was fantastically important in the development of the son. He had a coro de clave [19th-century style of ambulatory choral group] called Los Roncos at the turn of the 1900s. He played with María Teresa Vera in her Sexteto Occidental.

NS: And they recorded “Los Cantares del Abakuá.” Can you tell me about that?

IM: Ignacio Piñeiro is known as the poet of the son. He’s supposed to have composed about 400 sones. A prolific person. A lot of his compositions are in the costumbrista genre – meaning, he was describing the customs of the era, what was happening in the neighborhood. Things he overheard people talking about, or what happened last night at the Abakuá plante, the Abakuá ceremony. “Los Cantares del Abakuá” is talking about the police invasion of an Abakuá plante, because Abakuá, being a symbol of liberty for the black population, being an organized black society, was repressed throughout Cuban history.

NS: And was considered witchcraft by the ruling class.

IM: Everything that the nation was held to be, Abakuá was not. Progress, et cetera. And so Abakuá are essentially the boogeymen of Cuban history. And so “Los Cantares del Abakuá” describes the police invading a plante and how even in spite of that the plante continues, because the people and their culture cannot be stopped.

NS: What is a plante?

IM: A plante is an Abakuá ceremony that happens in the temples and the patios. And we talked about how in the Cross River the Ekpe lodges represent an independent community, and so the temple grounds of Abakuá are off limits to anyone who’s not a member. So it’s a very sacred space, and not anyone can just go there.

NS: So when the Cuban police came to an Abakuá plante…

IM: Well, as I said, the Abakuá have historically been the boogeymen of Cuba, and they’re described as criminals throughout Cuban history, especially the colonial period. So the police thought there was criminal activity happening, they wanted to get inside the temple, and they were not allowed to, so there were conflicts about that. Piñeiro’s describing one of these, and how in spite of the repression, the culture continues. And for me, the important lyric in this is: “En cuanto suena el bonkó, todo el mundo se emociona” -- when the bonkó drum sounds, everyone is moved. This is a very poetic way of talking about the importance of Abakuá music in commercial recordings in Cuba. The Abakuá clave, when it’s heard, people get excited, because it represents their capacity to be autonomous people on their own terms. It’s a symbol of liberation, and so forth.

NS: So, 1928 – Septeto Habanero, “Criolla Carabalí” – what gives?

IM: The composition “Criolla Carabalí” evokes the union of tribes, territories and people through the adoration of Ekpe. There’s a phrase in this track that says, “aba íreme efí, aba íreme efó, bongó itá.” That is, it doesn’t matter if you’re from the Efí tribe or the Efó, our adoration of the Ekpe makes us one. So this 1928 recording is essentially describing the function of Ekpe in Cross River.

NS: But it’s a Cuban son, released commercially on Victor.

IM: Exactly. So this is part of my proposition, that the narratives left by Africans in Cuba are useful to understand African history. And also they’re describing, of course, the Cuban context, because there are lineages of Efí, Efó, and Orú. Each is considered a different territory in the Cross River, and they’re talking about, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, we’re all one in the drum. Because the drum is a universal mother, and we’re reborn as a brother. In Abakuá they say yeniká. It’s like saying ekobio, it’s brother. It means “brother of the same mother,” literally.

NS: Let’s talk about Chano Pozo and Abakuá.

IM: Chano Pozo, one of the great composers of Cuban music in the early 20th century. He came to New York in 1947, ended up playing with Dizzy Gillespie and transforming the sound of bebop music in that era. And a couple of months before Chano met Dizzy, he recorded a very important Abakuá track. As you stated in your book, it’s the first real recording of rumbas de solar. This track is called “Abasí,” which is the prime mover, the supreme being. “Abasí” is God almighty. This track has an incredible swing in the rhythm. Oh my lord, it’s just a beautiful piece. Essentially Chano is evoking an Abakuá ceremony. It’s all in Abakuá language. You start off by greeting the astros – the stars, the moon, the sun, the ancestors, and then you greet the living leadership in all their hierarchies, and then you commence. He introduces himself as a member of the Muñanga lodge of Havana. And there’s a point where he starts to bring out the íreme, who are the representatives of the ancestors, the masked ancestors. And to do that he says, cle-cle-cle-cle-cle, which means, come, come forward, come forward.

Now this track influenced a lot of people in New York at the time. And one of them was Machito. In the 1949 version of “Tangá,” Machito is riffing on Chano Pozo’s cle-cle-cle-cle-cle, when this mambo-tanga begins, and he’s inviting the dancers to come out to the ballroom and get down. And he says, “Cle-cle-cle-cle-cle-cle-cle” – a wonderful example of the influence of Abakuá on the popular music of the day.

NS: What’s the influence of Abakuá on rumba?

IM: It’s profound. I believe that the influence of Abakuá and rumba begins at the foundation of Abakuá itself -- let’s say, in the mid-1800s -- when the Africans were in their cabildos, their nation groups, performing. Down the street in Matanzas there was a Congo cabildo, and on the other block was a Carabalí cabildo, and they would hear their music and they would interact, they’re part of the same community. That fusion, I believe, is how the rumba emerged as a so-called secular form, but all the people involved in it are definitely initiates in all the Cuban traditions, and they’re referring to it each time they play.

The Muñequitos are the best example of that. They’re an all-Abakuá troupe, as well as practitioners of Congo and Lucumí, and their messages are all about the importance of these traditions to the well-being of their communities. And they’re doing it in coded languages, but that’s the message. They’re talking about their philosophical system, and how it’s been a heartbeat for the communities in Cuba.

NS: You identified Agustín Gutiérrez, going back to “Criolla Carabalí” for a minute. We were talking about the referencing of the sacred sound in the bongó playing in son. Agustín Gutiérrez is, I think, one of the key figures in Cuban percussion, and often overlooked.

IM: I’ve heard some speculation that Agustín Gutiérrez came from Santiago de Cuba. I don’t know if that’s rumor or what. There’s also speculation that this sound, this glissade, actually came from Santiago de Cuba with the son already, because there are Carabalí cabildos in Santiago as well. So, whereas Abakuá was only established in Matanzas and Havana in northwestern Cuba, Carabalí culture was throughout the island in the cabildos, and that’s something that really hasn’t been studied yet, but I can tell you an anecdote that Fernando Ortiz got me started on. During the wars of independence, known Abakuá were captured and they were sent overseas, to Ceuta and to Fernando Pó, along with a lot of other people, like Masons and any rebel. And it was in Ceuta that Carabalí members and Abakuá people from Havana and from Santiago could meet and interact, and therein may be part of the history of the son and the story of that sound.

NS: Wow.

IM: So that’s a bomb I’m dropping. It’s unconfirmed, but it’s quite possible.

NS: And ironically, Abakuá were sent to Fernando Pó, which was right across from where Abakuá originally came from in Africa.

IM: Yeah, Fernando Pó is a really incredible story. From the 1820s to the 1840s, the British were centered there, and it was their anti-slavery base. They were trying to stop slavery in Calabar and in that whole Biafra region. Ekpe members were interacting with the British in Fernando Pó, so there was Ekpe going to Fernando Pó also. The Cubans started coming in the 1860s, because part of the Spanish project was to make Fernando Pó another plantation colony. At one point it was called the “African Cuba,” because there were so many Cubans being sent there. [Note: Cigars made from tobacco grown on Fernando Po plantations run by Cuban deportees won the Amsterdam Prize in 1878 ]. And of course the white Cubans didn’t want to go, so they were getting black laborers to go work the tobacco crops in Fernando Pó.

So again, it’s very under-researched, but there is definitely an Abakuá resonance, and perhaps they were meeting with Ekpe there. And some of those people came back. Most died. But many Cubans were able to come back, and if there was a meeting of Abakuá from Havana and Carabalí from Santiago, they each came back having learned more from the other folks.

NS: You identified Agustín Gutiérrez as an Abakuá member.

IM: I learned this from the director of Septeto Habanero in the 90s, because they know the story of their conjunto very well. And yes, he was a member. As I said, when I played this track to Ekpe people in Calabar, they got so excited, started dancing, they responded to this viscerally.

NS: Let’s talk about Tito Rodríguez and “Abanekue.”

IM: So Chano Pozo arrives. He records “Abasí.” With only Cuban musicians, by the way. It’s very interesting to listen to “Manteca” and the Afro-Cuban drum suite that he does with Dizzy Gillespie, because he’s so articulate when he’s chanting Abakuá in “Abasí,” and if you compare that to his chanting with Dizzy, he’s diminishing it, he’s become very discreet. He’s sort of turning it into a scat. Because he knows they’re not going to be able to understand him, and he’s also being respectful of the tradition by not articulating it among people who aren’t members.

So the work of Dizzy and Chano changes jazz history, essentially, and in 1950 Machito does another track called “Negro Ñañamboro.” I consider it to be in the dance instruction genre. You know, usually they’re teaching you how to do the latest step? Here he’s describing the person who catches the spirit. He’s mounted by an orisha, so the shirt is taken off, the shoes are taken off, and the hat is taken off, and he’s saying, “Negro ñañamboro, arrollando como es.” He’s dancing like it should be done. But ñañamboro is – there are two Abakuá phrases, ñaña is the masked dancer, and Embemoro is an Abakuá lodge. So it’s a playful use of Abakuá themes, but he’s evoking ritual in the mambo context in the Palladium. Kinda nice.

In the same year, Tito Rodríguez does “Abanekue,” which is a beautiful Abakuá-inspired dance tune. The title “Abanekue” means “initiate.” Some people in Cuba say obonekue, but the term is also abanekue, which is what the Efik call it. This is the earliest recording of Abakuá material by a Puerto Rican that I know.

NS: How did Tito Rodríguez, who was a Puerto Rican, learn about this?

IM: I wish I knew. That’s a great question. It’s an expression of the interaction of the musicians from all over the Spanish Caribbean in New York, and their mutual support and enthusiasm.

After Tito Rodríguez did “Abanekue” in 1950, there’s been some amazing recordings by Puerto Rican bands. El Gran Combo did “Írimo,” which is íreme, the masked dancer. And it’s a wonderful dance tune. This is popular music. And they’re talking about the íreme coming out, the representative of the ancestors, and interacting with the bonkó. Now what’s amazing for this – talk about the Abakuá influence in the rumba. That’s exactly what happens in the rumba – the caller and the drum bring out the dancer, and they begin to interact. It’s the same structure. Then another important track is La Sonora Ponceña, who did “Congo Carabalí,” which is a fantastic Abakuá-inspired track, which I hope you can play.

NS: Can you talk about the role of Abakuá in Puerto Rican culture in general? They have that famous word…

IM: Which is?

NS: Chévere.

IM: Chévere, qué chévere, qué chévere. I was just in Venezuela, where chévere is in every other sentence as a term of affirmation. What’s so incredible about using music as a way to understand Abakuá -- the perspective we get is totally different from what’s in the official histories of Abakuá as criminals, as something negative, like, “watch out, kids, don’t go out, the Abakuá will get you.” Because chévere is a positive term of affirmation. To be chévere is to be, that’s great, it’s positive, what could be better. It’s an Abakuá title, they say Mokongo machévere, because Mokongo was a valiant warrior who, thanks to him, the society was created in Africa. And the term Mokongo machévere is in almost all the Abakuá recordings that we’ve mentioned, somewhere. Usually it’s the last phrase – Mokongo machévere. It’s in the Muñequitos “Ritmo Abakuá.”

NS: Let’s talk about Mongo Santamaría, a figure who just gets bigger as time passes.

IM: In the 50s in New York, the mambo was happening, and the involvement of Puerto Ricans cannot be underestimated. It’s tremendous. Tito Rodríguez, Tito Puente. When Mongo came on the scene, Tito Puente hired him in his band – another example of Puerto Ricans supporting and sustaining this culture. Mongo ends up recording a very important Abakuá track called “Bríkamo” in the 1950s. I think around 1958 Mongo records “Bríkamo.” And Bríkamo is a Carabalí tradition in Matanzas, it’s sustained by the Calle family. They’re very famous rumberos.

NS: Co-founders of the Muñequitos.

IM: Exactly. And Bríkamo – the Abakuá language is called Bríkamo, and Bríkamo is understood to be a reference to Usagaré, the place where the woman got the fish in the river and Ekpe was perfected. So Mongo lays this track down with Willie Bobo and Francisco Aguabella in 1958.

NS: Now what about Julito Collazo?

IM: To talk about Julito Collazo, we’ve gotta talk about [choreographer] Katharine Dunham, a very important figure in the Caribbean cultural scene in New York in the 1940s and 50s, and onwards. Katharine Dunham went to Cuba, where she hired some Abakuá musicians for her international troupe to tour the world, and she did Abakuá-inspired pieces. One was called “El ñáñigo.” Katharine Dunham hired Julito Collazo, and brought him to New York, where he became a foundational figure in the culture of santería, in the culture of batá music…

NS: …and in the culture of palo…

IM: Exactly. And Julito taught a lot of people. René López, who organized the Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, worked with Julito Collazo. Mongo and Julito went on to record a very important track in the 70s – I think, 1976, called “Ubane,” with Justo Betancourt. “Ubane” uses jazz harmonies, and it’s an Abakuá track, praising an Abakuá lineage, Efí Obane. It just so happens that Oban is a very important Ekpe village of the Ejagham people in the Cross River region, so again, when I play this for people in the Cross River they get it immediately, and they’re amazed that their town is remembered 200 years later in Cuba.

NS: Ivor Miller, thank you so much for sharing your deep experience with us today. I wish we could go on longer because this is obviously endless, but this has given me a lot to think about.

IM: Well, thank you. This is really part of a process, and it’s been a real privilege for me to share this information and be part of this historic connection. And the Ekpe festival in Calabar is ongoing. It’s meant to be an annual event, and details are posted up on Afrocubaweb, so folks can go there and check that out.

NS: www.afrocubaweb.com