John Santos Lecture - African Spiritual Practices and Retentions in Latin Music

    Last year I had the opportunity to attend the incredible lecture series by John Santos called La Rumba No Es Como Ayer, a wonderful 7 part lecture series on rumba; history, styles, instrumentation, influences, etc, etc.

    Well it seems this year Mr. Santos will be continuing his participation with SFJazz by offering another interesting 6 part lecture series August 4-September 8 called African Spiritual Practices and Retentions in Latin Music. I found John's lectures to be very high quality, entertaining and educational . An added bonus is he permits audio recording for future reference. I'm certainly planning on attending this upcoming lecture series. If you happen to live in the area, or are going to be visiting, why not take in a lecture if time permits. It is bound to be fascinating. Highly recommended.

SFJAZZ, the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival and The Museum of the African Diaspora present a unique and distinct series presented by Bay Area lecturer, band-leader, percussionist and educator, John Santos.

Music is the richest source of African culture in the Americas. And musical practices throughout Latin America have preserved a wealth of African spiritual content. This six-part series will reveal several elements of African spiritual origin that form the basis of popular Latin music and Latin jazz, including instrumentation, rhythm, melody, lyrics, mythology, oral history and language. During the series, participants will listen to and analyze a broad cross-section of recorded examples from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Republica Dominicana/Haiti, the United States and Brazil that span the last century.

6/20/10 Sunday Streets Rumba on Valencia Street in the Mission, San Francisco

   San Francisco has been starting a tradition of closing different neighborhood streets to automobile traffic on the weekend, called Sunday Streets It really is a great event, with thousands of people coming out and enjoying themselves. Cyclists, pedestrians, roller bladers, etc fill the street. Local shops and restaurants pour out onto the sidewalk. Performers, bands and musicians perform in the street and on the corners.

   It just so happens that this weekend, Sunday June 20, the street our local rumba spot is on,  22nd and Valencia, will be closed. Last year we had a great rumba right out in the street. During the 4 or 5 hours I'm sure at least 10,000 people passed by, with a large circle forming around us when the dancers were doing their thing. Anyways, tomorrow we are going to continue the tradition and have the rumba in the street starting at 10:00 and ending around 3:00. I'm looking forward to it.

   Last year a reporter I know caught the event on video and there is actually a decent amount of footage of the rumba featured in it. Check it out!

Conga "Master' Class

    I recently acquired an account at percussionist Michael Spiro's instructional website "Conga Master Class" . This is a fantastic new resource of instructional videos for Afro-Cuban percussion instruments and rhythms. It is a large and extensive site, with frequent new updates. Video lessons include, Guaguanco, Columbia, Quinto for Rumba, Arara, Bembe, Abakua, etc, etc. Guest artists include Jesus Diaz and Karl Perrazzo 

    Anyways, I plan to explore the videos on offer there and write a review,  which might take a little while, so stay tuned. In the meantime you can check it out for yourself. Conga Master Class offers a few freebies, which can be viewed here:  

Free videos

Now for some "Real" Instruments

   I recently sold my wonderful set of Isla Percussions bata drums to an acquaintance in England. This rumbero already had an early set of Isla Percussions congas so it seemed to make sense to sell them to him, especially as the canoe wood is no longer available. Now he has an incredible set of 6 matching Isla drums; congas and bata. What a lucky guy, huh?

  Not to worry bloggers, I have not given up the bata. I have made arrangements for a new set, and the apartment just is not large enough for six bata drums.

  Some of you bloggers may recognize a few of the other instruments in the photo. I've sold this fine English gentleman 3 of my shekeres for a full guiro set and also two of my early guaguas, which I am happy to see seem to have held up rather well. Certainly a fine collection of instruments, for a truly dedicated musician, if I say so myself.

...and a very strange looking conga!

Presenting the Octaconga!

Strangest looking bongo I have ever seen.

Cruising Ebay and Craigslist for bargains on instruments as I do, I frequently come across some truly unfortunate versions of these drums. There are of course the clumsier Mexican drums, some strangely evolved fiberglass ones and of course the truly awful modern budget versions with their strange shapes, anemic hardware and bulbous comfort rims.

But these bongos are truly the weirdest version I have come across.... of course now that I have said that something weirder is going to come along...

Mas Que Nada!

I've been completely in love with Brazilian music for a while now. It started with Bossa Nova and then Samba, Maracatu, Brazilian Jazz and even some Baile Funk. Mas Que Nada originally by Jorge Ben, and covered so famously by the Tamba Trio has been one of my favorites and is a standard from Brazil. Hearing the chorus sing the opening refrain always gets me going:

O, Ariá! Raió!
Obá! Obá! Obá!
O, Ariá! Raió!
Obá! Obá! Obá!...

I'm sure it is well known among my readers that a rumba version of Mas Que Nada exists. Famously performed by Virgilio Martí  on Patato and Totico's seminal album. Listening to Jorge Ben's soulful and simple singing of this song, I can understand how Marti may have been inspired to sing this song as a rumba.


I've been wanting to sing this song for years at a rumba. It's such a catchy tune and famous. The problem is the lyrics are in Portuguese, which is a beautiful language, but not really appropriate for rumba.  Virgilio twists things up and sings his version with some funky Spanish lyrics more appropriate for rumba. I've probably sat down 3 times to try and piece Martí's version together, but my Spanish vocabulary just is not that expansive. I really did not want to be singing some gibberish that I thought was Spanish at the next rumba you know? Sadly, Patato, Totico and Virgilio left the lyrics out of the liner notes.

Luckily, we have the great rumba song lyric website El Cancionero Rumbero so I consulted it's huge archive to get the lyrics. Surly all the songs to this famous album would be there. Aaah, no such luck.
I've had the good fortune to correspond with Barry Cox who runs that site and Vamos a Guarachar and La Rumba No Es Como Ayer , so I sent him a request for the lyrics which he so kindly provided me with.

I'm very happy to have these lyrics now, I've been kind of butchering the song with a strange mix of half remembered parroted Portuguese and Spanish lyrics during my private practice. Not pretty! I like this song as a Columbia. Anyways, Caranaval is this weekend here in San Francisco, so I'm going to try and get it down for our rumba performance there.

Okay, so here are the lyrics to Mas Que Nada:

Mas que nada

Compositor: Samba de Jorge Ben; Adapt. Virgilio Martí

Estilo: Guaguancó

Grabación: Patato y Totico

E bele bi bele bele be, etc.

Oh la di a, ay Dios

Opá, opá, opá

(bis)

Mas que nada

sálgase de frente

que quiero pasar

esta samba está animada

lo que quiero es sambar

Esta samba

con ritmo de maracatu

es un algo nuevo y bello

tan bello como tu

Mas que nada

un samba como esta es pa' bailar

Você la va a querer

y você la va a gustar

Coro: Y você la va a gustar

and here is the incredible video of Virgilio singing the song.

Francisco Aguabella - IBAE

Sadly I have heard the news that Francisco Aguabella passed away today, Friday May 7, 2010

Francisco Aguabella was a personal favorite of mine. As a musician he could do it all. Afrocuban Folklore, Rumba, Bata, Jazz, Latin Jazz, Salsa, etc. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to see him perform. A look at my music library shows an extensive collection of his works.

Francisco Aguabella:

• Agua de Cuba
• Cantos a los Orishas
• Cubacan
• H2O
• Hitting Hard
• Ochimini

Francisco Aguabella y Su Grupo Orishas

• Bembe y Afrocuban Music

Not to mention the several albums he  played on for Mongo Santamaria and Tito Puente among others.

My favorite quote regarding Francisco comes from Dizzy Gillespie:

"Aguabella is the John Coltrane of the Conga Drums.” -- Dizzy Gillespie

 I was fortunate to see Aguabella play at Yoshi's on Filmore a couple of years back. An incredible show. The pictures in this post are from that show. I remember something Francisco said that night, which made me very happy

"Now I live in L.A., but San Francisco, is my city!"

We'll miss you terribly Francisco. Thanks for all the great music.

My shekere.

I'm keeping this one. It came out really nice.

Bembe Agwe

This rhyhtm is an adaptation of Bembe Agwe played on three drums by myself. Bembe Agwe is a bembe played when singing songs for females. Zoom H2 and Alesis SR-16 on bell.

Bembe Agwe