Re: Rumba and Jazz: Pushing vs. Rushing
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:40 pm
Another vote in favor of CFN's "Ave María Morena"!
I agree it's an acquired taste, but keep listening BNB, there's a tremendous groove on that track and they are singing exactly how they want to hear it, it's just really, really funky. That's the way I like my yambú, and my guaguancó too for that matter, even though finding someone who can play it like that anymore is difficult.
I think "pushing" becomes "rushing" when the majority of the players in the group don't want to push...
Seriously though I for me what Thomas said about the intentionality of the players nails it.
When I started up a traditional septeto de son several years ago, we were all new at it, a few people had jazz or classical backgrounds, and we had lots of trouble agreeing on this. The tres player would set the tempo for the song, then say the guitarist might fight to maintain a steady tempo, while the bongo player felt it should be accelerating a bit, everyone had a different idea, which just killed the groove. We used to have arguments, "The tres sets the tempo" "Every one should listen to the clave and follow him" etc.
Then after much listening we realized that what really needed to happen was we all needed to first just agree on how the song should be played, then all listen to each other.
I learned guaguancó and rumba clave without ever actually having heard any rumba, and usually practiced along with a metronome and other novice players. And I can clearly remember the first time I tried to play clave along with a Muñequitos record - and promptly got left in the dust!
I agree it's an acquired taste, but keep listening BNB, there's a tremendous groove on that track and they are singing exactly how they want to hear it, it's just really, really funky. That's the way I like my yambú, and my guaguancó too for that matter, even though finding someone who can play it like that anymore is difficult.
I think "pushing" becomes "rushing" when the majority of the players in the group don't want to push...
Seriously though I for me what Thomas said about the intentionality of the players nails it.
When I started up a traditional septeto de son several years ago, we were all new at it, a few people had jazz or classical backgrounds, and we had lots of trouble agreeing on this. The tres player would set the tempo for the song, then say the guitarist might fight to maintain a steady tempo, while the bongo player felt it should be accelerating a bit, everyone had a different idea, which just killed the groove. We used to have arguments, "The tres sets the tempo" "Every one should listen to the clave and follow him" etc.
Then after much listening we realized that what really needed to happen was we all needed to first just agree on how the song should be played, then all listen to each other.
I learned guaguancó and rumba clave without ever actually having heard any rumba, and usually practiced along with a metronome and other novice players. And I can clearly remember the first time I tried to play clave along with a Muñequitos record - and promptly got left in the dust!