Blog Rumbera

Not all of my blog posts will involve versions, but many will, as I love to hear different artists from different cultures and times interpret songs that move them.

La Ruñidera (Alejandro Rodriguez) is an all-time great in the AfroCuban Canon. The first version I’m going to share below is an archetypal classic version by Cuban piano great Luis Varona, who spent time as Machito’s pianist and who Max Salazar credits with having been a key figure in the creation of “Tanga”, which he considers the first Latin Jazz song.

Varona was born in Santiago (Oriente) to musician parents – his mother was a Puerto Rican concert pianist, his father a Cuban violinist. Varona, who had moved to the US by the ’40s, has a number of excellent and hard-to-find LPs as a bandleader, and also trained many lucky musicians in the barrios of NYC, including Tito Puente, Joe Cuba’s Nick Jimenez and Gil Suarez of the Hi-Latins.

Miguelito Valdes (a personal favorite) has an excellent version of La Ruñidera that dates from the ’40s or ’50s. Just googling around Youtube I heard two versions I had never heard before, a haunting older recording by the great Antonio Machín (of El Manisero fame), and one by Spain’s Lola Flores in a Bulería style (wonder if there is a connection here, as Machín lived for many years in Spain?)

This next version is pure. With sax and almost doowop coros in the intro. I can’t recall where I found this random Gema label 45 (mine’s a white label promo, but doesn’t add any additional info), and have searched fruitlessly for information on Vitin Santiago, other releases by his Sextette. But lordamercy.

Finally, here is a ridiculously heavy version by the Congolese Docteur Nico and his African Fiesta, (mid ’60s?) with apocalypse horns and meandering West African guitars.

African versions of classic AfroCuban songs are a particular treat for many rumberos de corazon, for their passionate, idiosyncratic interpretations, often with little connection to the original lyrics, but with a deeply satisfying direct re-connection to the motherlands from which a huge part of AfroCuban musics originated in the first place.

Here is the short bit from Salazar on the creation of Tanga (which, by the way, was ’40s NY Latin hipster lingo for weed): http://robertoocasiofoundation.org/music-education/education/creation-of-latin-jazz/

I first heard “Dame un Chance” on a staticky skype call with my man Fernando in CDMX. The version was Antonio Vasallo’s from the Venezuelan Vamos Pa’ La Salsa compilation LP on Discomoda (below). My brain immediately melted out of my ears. It’s still one of my all-time favorite songs, so I thought I would share a number of different (and excellent) versions:

Beautiful Big-band version of “Dame un Chance” written by Electo Rosell (“Chepin”, of the famed Chepin-Choven Big Band from Santiago de Cuba, Oriente province). Amaranto (see link to excellent interview by Gladys Palmera below) was a bandleader from Cardenas in the Matanzas area who played in the Varadero beach area. With the triumph of the Revolution he was named head of music productions (Espectaculos) at Varadero.

He notes in the interview that both LPs (one on Egrem and one on Maype) were recorded before Cuban labels were nationalized (before 1961) and it seems the Egrem LP was released first – the Maype LP was released later when Sr. Machado, who owned Maype, fled Cuba with many of his master tapes along with singer Orlando Contreras.

Musicians involved in the production of the Egrem LP include the immortal Peruchín and Niño Rivera, so you know the music is of the highest quality. The LP is hard to find, mine is white label (nationalized) Egrem. Gladys Palmera’s site has its’ date as 1965 but I believe it’s earlier, probably from 1961-62 por ahi.

Nice version by the underappreciated Cuban crooner Pacho Alonso (on his first LP). The liners note his being part of the “Feeling” movement (beautiful jazz vocal and piano-heavy movement which included Bola de Nieve, La Lupe and others) and dates this LP from 1962-65 por ahi

And here is the version by Antonio Vasallo y su Orquesta, canta Frank Rivas. Maybe someone from @ASOCOSALSA has some information on Frank Rivas – I can’t imagine these were his only recordings.

Here is the excellent interview by the imprescindible Gladys Palmera (and her collaborator, mi hermano José Arteaga) : https://gladyspalmera.com/coleccion/el-diario-de-gladys/amaranto-fernandez-y-la-maldicion-de-ser-de-provincia/

The fantastic blog Fidel’s Eyeglasses has more infomation on Amaranto here: http://fidelseyeglasses.blogspot.com/2008/05/amaranto-y-su-banda-de-cardenas-1963-64.html

Comments welcome!

Here are three versions of the AfroCuban dance classic “Don Lengua”, one of a number of songs in the canon that warns against the dangers of chisme/gossip and how they can damage communities (see also Eddie Palmieri’s “Sujetate la Lengua”, Conjunto Paquito (Justo Betancourt)’s “La Negra Caridad” etc.)

This first version is a sublime Son by Ignacio Piñeiro’s Septeto Nacional, absolutely a song you could share with someone who wanted to hear the essence of Cuban Son. Though the Septeto Nacional – among the founding fathers of the Cuban Son – had their original heyday in the 1920’s and ’30s, they reformed in the late ’50s and recorded a number of sessions well into the ’60s. According to the back of the West Side Latino LP, this session was recorded in 1958 at Radio Progreso in La Habana, and Piñeiro himself is the author

The next version is by Ray Barretto from the epic El Ray Criollo LP (1965), during his transition from violin-led Charanga to trumpet-led Conjunto. This LP features singer Willie Garcia, a young, blond cuban Sonero who married La Lupe and became her manager (she apparently did not choose her men well, as he, like her first husband, abused her). Garcia, who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic, made a comeback as a singer in the early ’70s, singing on Joe Cuba’s Hecho y Derecho LP, with Grupo Folklorico, Chocolate and others in the booming ’70s scene.

The last version is a personal favorite, from Panama’s Orquesta Nueva Vida, a short-lived group made of members of Los Mozambiques, one of the best Combos Nacionales that graced the Panamanian airwaves in the ’60s and ’70s. Eduardo Williams supplies the soulful vocals on this 45, and I believe David Choy is on Electric Piano, but that remains to be confirmed. This version is likely from 1974-75.

Disfruten!