Guaguanco's That Use Son Clave

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Guaguanco's That Use Son Clave

Postby Quinto Governor II » Sun Jul 22, 2012 6:13 pm

Think I may have heard maybe 1 or 2 other recordings of guaguanco's that use son clave. Anyone know of any others? Would like to get a sense of how frequently this has been done. I know the early or at least the Havana yambu's used son clave, but the use of it on guaguanco's is a rarity, as far as I know.

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Last edited by Quinto Governor II on Wed Apr 17, 2013 11:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby jorge » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:25 am

It was not that unusual in early recorded guaguancos to hear son clave. In that particular recording, which I had not heard before, the tres dos part fits with the clave in the same way as in modern rumba. Interestingly, some of the lyrics of that song, credited to Gonzalo Asencio Tio Tom, reappear in popular music (still using son clave). Charlie Palmieri's 1973 song El Guaya Catalina sung by Vitin Aviles, is a cover of Como Traigo la Yuca (Dile a Catalina) recorded by Arsenio Rodriguez around 1945. Vitin Aviles uses the lyrics, "Catalina, Catalina, no puedo vivir sin verte, Porque mi fin es quererte, y amarte toda la vida." Those lyrics are not in Arsenio's versions that I have heard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP7SFlm9bMc&feature=related, or in the other older versions I have heard by Chapotin with Miguelito Cuni or Irakere. I don't know at what point or who appropriated the lyrics, whether they went from son to guaguanco or guaguanco to son. It seems to be particularly common that Tio Tom's rumba lyrics appear years popular music.
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby davidpenalosa » Mon Jul 23, 2012 2:29 am

Barry Cox and I are working on an article about the earliest recordings of traditional rumba. The pattern North Americans call son clave was used on a lot of the rumba recordings from the 1940s to 1950s. I'm going to be lazy and cut-and-paste from the notes of my book The Clave Matrix:

9. Centro de Investigación de la Música Cubana (CIDMUC) (1997: 63) refers to son clave as la clave de La Habana (‘Havana clave’) and attributes the pattern to Havana-style rumba. In the first half of the twentieth century, what we now call son clave was the clave pattern used in Havana-style yambú and guaguancó. Yambú and guaguancó are Cuban partner dances that evolved from the older Congolese erotic dances of yuka and makuta, both of which can use son clave.

Exmples of son clave used in yuka and makuta:
"Tambor yuka" (Antología de la música afrocubana 1978: CD).
"Wanilerilo; makuta, Congos" (Antología de la música afrocubana 1984: CD).

Examples of son clave used in guaguancó:
"Ultima rumba" (Festival in Havana, Embale 1955: CD).
"Agua que va caer" (Patato Valdés 1968: CD).

Some contemporary Havana folkloric groups still use the son clave pattern for yambú. Recorded examples of son clave used in yambú:
"Ave María" (Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba phonorecord LP).
"Mama abuela" (Conjunto Clave y Guaguancó 1990: CD).
"Maria Belén" (Yoruba Andabo 1993: CD).
"Chevere" (Conjunto Clave y Guaguancó 1996: CD).
"Las lomas de Belén" (Ecué Tumba 2001: CD).

Most likely the early son borrowed the Havana clave pattern from rumba at the turn of the twentieth century.

yambú:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eufNwxWwW0&list=UUcjcFA3-2aSoe5m-uP1HJtw&index=10&feature=plcp
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby Quinto Governor II » Mon Jul 23, 2012 3:24 pm

davidpenalosa wrote:
"Some contemporary Havana folkloric groups still use the son clave pattern for yambú. Recorded examples of son clave used in yambú:"

Quinto Governor II wrote:
Isn't son clave the norm for yambu? I believe I have heard rumba clave used on a yambu a least once also. That begs the question now of yambu's that use rumba clave. Also, is the 7 stoke clave exclusively Matanzas style? Thanks for the responses guys. As usual you guys bring more clarity to all of this for me.
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby guarachon63 » Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:04 pm

I would say that the vast majority, if not all, of the guaguancós recorded before the early sixties used what we now call "son clave", and in many cases, probably more than half, there is no clave used at all, just the guagua pattern.

Son clave for yambú seems to have always been a Havana phenomenon, but as with guaguancó, nowadays it's usually played with rumba clave. I'm sure Dr Clave can provide a more detailed answer.

Jorge re your comment about the lyrics, note that the ones you quote are from the décima, and not from the song itself. Décimas (and their variants, such as cuartetas, etc) are for the most part interchangeable among rumba songs, and I believe rarely composed by the rumbero specifically for any particular song.

In a traditional rumba event, décimas in guaguancó can be thought of as functioning as transitional devices, usually employing a few standard melodies which allow one singer after another to trade off songs without the abrupt melodic shifts that simply going from one song to another might cause. They also serve as the new singer's intention to "have the floor" as it were, and giving others a chance to calm down before the "actual" song (or even the transition to the montuno) starts. (Décimas in columbia and yambú have different functions.)

In some cases a décima might be used which aligns contextually with its accompanying song, but if that is not the case, it won't be a hindrance. Nowadays though with the prevalance of recordings, certain décimas get "stuck" in our minds as being attached to a particular song. This can lead to textual non sequiturs that some listeners looking for a cohesive narrative structure throughout the performance might find bizarre. But just like a coro in a montuno doesn't have to have anything to do with the song that came before, so it is with the décima. One that comes to mind is in the song "Los Muñequitos" which employs imagery from the daily comics pages. But then right before the montuno, comes the lines:

"Le dijo el sapo a la rana
A las orillas del río
No seas tan haragana
Tápame que tengo frío"

Samuel Feijoó collected many variants of this particular cuarteta and it was probably as popular among campesino decimistas as among urban rumberos.
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby KidCuba » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:05 pm

Some of you might have seen this already, but I think it fits into this conversation.

Maestro Goyo (Ibae) provides some perspective on the similarities between early Yambu and Guaguanco styles - and their origins. An excellent video by Berta Jottar.

Towards the end, when discussing yambu clave, Maestro Goyo claps out what many of us know as "son clave".

A very interesting topic and a big thank you to those of you who have provided excellent information in this thread!

http://youtu.be/hSgDa38GDco
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby davidpenalosa » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:23 pm

Quinto Governor II wrote:Isn't son clave the norm for yambu? Also, is the 7 stoke clave exclusively Matanzas style?


Son clave is used in Havana-style yambú, but calling it the "norm," in terms of contemporary use is probably too strong of a statement. The seven-stroke pattern is the norm for Matanzas-style yambú, but it is not exclusive to Matanzas.

X . . X X . . X X . X . X . . . seven-stroke pattern which combines rumba clave with the main beats.

The fact that the CIDMUC refers to "son clave" as Havana clave and the seven-stroke composite pattern (above) as Matanzas clave, tells us something about these pattern's use in the two cities. However, as time goes on, the regional distinctions have lessened.
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby JohnnyConga » Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:12 pm

I have a rare Guaguanco album/vinyl by Orlando Contreras and Patato Valdes and if I remember (havent heard it in a while) almost all of the Guaguanco is in 3/2 clave and played on the 3 side...it's from the early 60's...Rumba Clave didn't hit New York overall really until the late 60's(68-69) early 70's...most musicians only knew 3/2 back then...
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby jorge » Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:45 pm

I was playing for an Afrocuban rumba dance class a few months ago and the teacher, a well known Afrocuban singer/dancer from La Habana, called what we are calling son clave "clave blanca" and what we generally call rumba clave "clave negra". David, and others, have you heard that terminology before?
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby davidpenalosa » Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:55 pm

jorge wrote:what we are calling son clave "clave blanca" and what we generally call rumba clave "clave negra." have you heard that terminology before?


I have heard those terms. I have always assumed that the names have some racial meaning, but I don't really know.
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Re: Guaguaco's That Use Son Clave

Postby pcastag » Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:52 am

Poder mayor by Celeste Mendoza uses son clave, interestingly enough the quinto is also lower than the segundo. One of my favorite tracks.
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