Agbe - video clip

[niallgregory]

Thanx

[JohnnyConga]

Hi Niall ...how are things in Cloverland?....Hope all is well my brother...My DVD is half done as well as a NEW "ol skool-street jammin-folklore" CD that is half done( i will be playing all the instruments and doing my own arrangements), which will also feature my perc. ensamble "Origens", covering the "folklore" aspect of the CD. Also my NEW Conga Accessorie Invention, which I have received a "provisional patent" on, will also be available for every Conga drummer in the World...come 2006....more on that later...... Where are you guys off to next?....peace...."JC" Johnny Conga....

[niallgregory]

Hi Jc,
Good to hear all is well.Youve got loads of stuff going on.Look forward to seeing the dvd and hearing the cd.Sounds right up my alley, as they say.Not sure wheres next for the tour,if there is a wheres next.Last time they toured was nine years ago,so i aint holding my Breath.Did you get my pm with adress and stuff.Send me yours and i will send that stuff.Cheers.
Tak it easy.Niall.

[windhorse]

NEW "ol skool-street jammin-folklore" CD that is half done

I look forward to this one Johnny!
I listened to a bunch of stuff from your website once and was quite impressed with your solid groove, and solid band.
Very seasoned veteran, and the kind of stuff I prefer to hear!

Dave

[JohnnyConga]

Thank you Windhorse......I.m not trying to be different with this recording just highlighting the drum, my quinto skills, and some arranging skills, and something you hopefully will enjoy. I am basically trying this approach, cause I don't hear stuff like what I will be doing anymore....sure there is plenty of Cuban Rumba, but I'm not going that way,though there will be my "street jam rumba" style on it, and other "rhythmic arrangments", that I have been using with my groups over 25 years but never recorded any of these type of rhythms...xcept for 5 that i did on my first CD...I have about 40 different type of rhythmic arrangements based "around".. Afro-Caribbean drumming...not charted out, in my head....I put everything to memory ..I do not "depend" on the paper...and when it comes to performing them live, I have taught my drummers all the parts....so we'll see and then ya'll can be the judge.......doom black ooom......"JC" Johnny Conga....

[onile]

Alafia Abures!
Alafia Brotha JC!

You know, maybe a DVD or Tape exists like this, but if not, it could be your next project JC!
In the past, I have tried to show a couple of my students the individual parts of a Guaguanco pattern, as well as Bomba, Yambu and a couple of other rythms, but I always got the same response, "I want to learn on two, or three drums." Other than going to Cuba, or finding a seriously cool instructor to teach these parts, it's somewhat of a rarity.

The youth of today want it all and they want it right now! "I want to play like you", seeing you dazzle them with three, four or five congas. Not giving a thought to the intricate steps to getting there.

Ahhh! maybe I'm just too ol'school, but I like the individual parts, like what Los Munequitos, Los Papines, and other percussion groups like them play!

Oh well, just a thought!
I KNOW what you are producing JC is going to be "off da' hook" brotha!
I'm really looking forward to it mi pana!

Suave!
Onile

[JohnnyConga]

I know my students want everything like "yesterday"....I always tell them "you have to learn to play one drum first, before you can play 2 or 3 or 4 congas"....and they do say
"I want to play like you", and some of my students are in their 40's and thinking they can live my life, when they are just beginning to drum....I only have one apprentice that can sit in for me on my regular saturday night gig...the others want to also and have come to hang to see what I do....then reality hit's them in the face.....I can't play for 4o minutes straight, for 3 sets, and come up with a variety of druming styles to fit the music, I'm not there yet, and who knows how long it will take me...Of course I try and give them inspiration and support their desires to play, I was there once too. Sometimes I let them sit in for a tune or two to get the feeling of playing "alone" in front of a club of people,along with the DJ, so it's a motivator, for some ....others just lack personality in their playing..and will play with their head down, and not make eye contact with the public, and that is necessary to do the job, by pulling people into what your doing, up their all by yourself, which is what I do....and they have seen how the people react to me....and my drumming....so it's all part of the learning process and experience......"JC" Johnny Conga.... ...PS ..I don't know if it will be "off the hook", but I'm gonna give it my best shot, and like I said ..you can be the judge.....

[windhorse]

I figured out a way to play the movie file as a stream.

http://animaldreams.net/cong/congblock.html#agbemov

Dave

[windhorse]

Last night, Eric and I found a wonderful tone pattern I thought I would share with y'all.

Eric played the standard three drum Bembe - large drum on the left, and quinto in middle, and I played the Agbe lead.
He was using a drum tuned lower than his tumba, a larger African drum to hit on the "one".
I was using the tumba which is a bit higher note than the Mamon. Just 2 people and the drums sounded FULL!!!

I'll try to get a recording of it today!

[windhorse]

boulder bembe

My teacher - David - is playing an Iya as the lead hitting the "one", and I'm playing Agbe on the next drum up and hitting the bombo on both sides of the bell. Eric is playing a two drum bembe, and Dusty is playing bell. Dave's big Doberman keeps walking back and forth in front of the microphone - we called him the "Perro of the Rumba".. ::)
I think, though this clip mostly demonstrates the monstrous power of the Iya, that you can tell how dialogues from the bombo note become possible playing Agbe with a lower lead drum playing on and off the "one".



Edited By windhorse on 1133134345

[franc]

windhorse,
heard the boulder bembe!!! great sound clip but not the video clip. see if you can post video clip. i salute you for making great sound. really gets to the spine. my best and áche my friend, franc

[windhorse]

windhorse,
see if you can post video clip.

Thanks for the nice words Franc.

The vid clip is really huge! If you're using a new PC, it'll say file "done" on the lower left even though it hasn't fully loaded. You have to wait. You'll have to have broadband, otherwise it's just too big.

For this one, you have to right click and chose download. Then play it in Windows Media Player:
http://animaldreams.net/cong/agbecaja.avi
This one is the quicktime version, so you have to have the plug-in and wait really long:
http://animaldreams.net/cong/agbecaja.mov



Edited By windhorse on 1133358657

[Berimbau]

Hey Windhorse!
As my computor is still in boxes after Katrina and awaiting some software. rebooting, and well, someone younger than me who can actually set it up, I'm coming rather late to this thread! My comments are on linguistics.
The term you are using for this rhythm, Agbe, is a Yoruba word for the larger beaded gourd or calabash rattle. I think the term was also projected onto a related dance style in Nigeria as well. Unfortunately, as both my Yoruba and Ki-Kongo dictionaries were lost in the storm, I have to rely on memory here.
Now the term guiro is a vernacular Spanish term for a gourd and in Cuba can also refer to beaded shakers, scrapers, or in this instance to the rhythm they play. The term's semantic field was greatly increased in Cuba to describe a variety of African-derived phenomenologies. Although we know that the Hispanization of African cultures on the island was far from comprehensive, it is still a bit surprising to find the term Agbe used in this context. It seems possible that your source has preserved a Yoruba linguistic orthodoxy, resisting the social pressures of the far more prevalent term guiro. I would be interested to learn more about your Cuban source. Please do tell.


Ashe,


Berimbau

[windhorse]

It comes to me through Chris Walker (as you know if you saw the video clip - he's cited at the beginning) - via AfroCuban camp @ Humboldt State campus.
There is an extremely similar version written in Gary Greenberg's book "Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble Rhythms", and he cites the source is Regino Jimenez. Difference is that Regino's version has the last slap of the phrase an 8th note before ours. Our version hits the big slap on the 8th just before the one.

Hey Berimbau,, I saw the Frontline special on TV last night about hurricane Katrina and the question of innapropriate federal-Fima response.. Very interesting!
You've been really quiet about the whole thing,, and I have to salute you on being a "get it done" rather than "talk about it and blame everyone else" kind of guy!

Dave



Edited By windhorse on 1133532577

[Berimbau]

Hey Ya'll,
Well one of the reasons I've appeared quiet on Katrina is that my internet access is very limited. Theresa and I are moving, yet again, but to a larger sunny apartment and I hope to set up a computor there. Now Katrina was NOBODY'S fault, it was a NATURAL disaster and the folks who live along the Coast should no more be blamed for what happened to them than an earthquake victim. In the wake of such a tragedy, middle class observer's psychological well-being is SERIOUSLY compromised by the apparent helplessness of the victims. Yes, it could happen to ANYONE of you. No amount of planning can prevent any number of bad things that might happen to you. In the wake of Katrina, Theresa and I have experienced everything from incredible charity and sympathy to downright HOSTILITY.
We are both pretty much uncomfortable thinking of ourselves as victims (we're really far TOO blessed for that), or "survivors" (we weren't in a plane crash and anyone breathing is some kind of "survivor"). I am quite bored with the whole Katrina thing, but it's still not going away, and many folks have been devastated by this thing. I'm too busy feeling sorry for folks who lost loved ones to spend too much time at my own pity party. I am broke, tired, fat, fifty, ugly and only semi-employed right now. But no, I don't feel sorry for myself. Hey, I was fat and ugly BEFORE Katrina!!!
O.K. What do I think of the government's response? Well let me rant and rave until foam covers my face like a mongrel dog chewing on a White Republican!!! The government's response was criminal, but what would anyone really expect from the insidious clowns bunkered in the White House? Now this isn't your daddy's government, unless of course he grew up in Nazi Germany. Because Bush and Cheney are already WAR CRIMINALS, traitors, and liars, what could we really expect of them? Crazy high gas prices? Martial law? We got all that!!!!
Although I wasn't waiting for the Bush administration to bail me out on a roof in New Orleans, should I hate those poor souls who stayed? I think not. That wouldn't be too Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish, or Buddhist, or Santeria of me, would it?
It was my great pleasure to hear Mayor Ray Nagin, a real fighter for people, speak here in Memphis this week. The powers that be are trying to vilify him, including a certain incompetent Democratic governer, and I'm sure you've all seen the pictures of the school buses in flood waters. He did make some mistakes but he also urged folks to leave on Friday and worked tirelessly around the clock while Amerikkka watched Black folks dying on their tv.s. But how many of you caught Condi Rice at a Broadway musical in the middle of the crisis? Or Bush strumming a guitar with a country singer during his lengthy vacation which he was loathe to cut short? Or Cheney greedily counting his Iraqui blood money that he pimped off our dead troops? That's the compassionate leadership that I expected from Bush. For everyone else, I do feel sorry but DUMB choices were made last Fall, and they will prove VERY EXPENSIVE.
Kanye West was right, Bush DOESN'T like Black people.
But really who could blame him? They were ALL far to SMART to have voted for that draft-dodging, baby-killing little maggot. The White folks voted for him!!! And you thought I was going to stay quiet....


Paz y Amor,



Berimbau