LISTEN: 1st recordings of folkloric rumba

[davidpenalosa]

Hi,
Musician and discographer Zeno Okeanos put the first recordings of folkloric rumba up on his website for us to listen to. These are from out-of-print 78s that have never been and never will be re-issued. It's worth listening to what rumba sounded like over a half century ago. Here is Zeno's post from the Yahoo Latinjazz group:

I just posted the 4 SMC 78 tracks from the Ritmo Afro-Cubano series that have
not yet been reissued. This is for educational purposes only. You can listen to
them free on my webpage:

http://www.zeno-okeanos.com/rumba-1947.html

[onile]

Ay Dio' Mio!
that is the shi**! Chacho, it is one of the most pristine copies of vintage music I've ever listened to!
78's que cosa, they've been extinct for ions! That is a great find, thanks for sharing Papa!

Stay well

Onile!

[jorge]

David, thanks for posting those 4 beautiful cuts. Merceditas Valdes in her prime singing rumba and santo. I wonder who is on quinto, doesn't sound like Giraldo Rodriguez who is smoother and better at leaving space for the lead singer. That definitely sounds like a quinto not bongo on the guaguanco and columbia. On the abakua, the quinto drum is playing the kuchiyerema part and the bonko part is on a lower drum that sounds like a conga not bongo or bonko. The other drums sound like congas not Abakua drums.
I think the speed is more from influence of the conga de comparsa than cabaret. Listen to the clave player at the beginning of the guaguanco. He starts off playing a comparsa bell part on the claves then plays sort of a 6/8 clave then drops out and leaves the guagua holding time.
Sounds like the original 78s are in decent condition. Technically, I think a lot of the noise is digital clipping more than just the surface noise of the 78s. Digital clipping is easy to avoid by keeping the volume below 0 dBu at all times during the transfer from analog to digital (keep peaks below -6 dB or -12 dB, use 24 bit not 16 bit). Unfortunately, once the transfer is done, digital clipping is impossible to fix in the mix. Hopefully the digital transfer can be done again. Who has the original 78s? Are the 4 Chano Pozo sides available?

[Thomas Altmann]

[guarachon63]

Haha love that R. Crumb cover Thomas, I know the feeling!

Nice 6-stroke clave in the guaguancó, what are we going to call that one?

I'm curious about something though, Zeno writes:

"The personnel are listed as Vidal Bolado, Merceditas Valdés, Chonguito, Monguito, Willie and Candito."

Listed where? Is there a cover to the album these came in?

Great stuff though, I love the Abakuá especially, beautifully done.

I'm with George too, would be nice to hear these with some tasteful noise reduction or whatever, and from good quality lossless files, they really deserve the royal treatment.

[casaet]

The Chano Pozo sides are available in a boxed set of three CDs. I think it contains the complete recordings of Chano Pozo. Can be bought at Descarga. Ya no se puede rumbear is on Youtube.
casaet

[davidpenalosa]

I wonder who is on quinto, . . . That definitely sounds like a quinto not bongo on the guaguanco and columbia. O Who has the original 78s? Are the 4 Chano Pozo sides available?

Hi Jorge,
These are the out-of-print Carlos Vidal (Vidal Bolado) recordings. The masters were destroyed. That's Carlos on quinto I assume. These 78s are owned by Zeno.

It's the Chano Pozo sides where you hear the quinto and bonko parts played on bongos. As Casaet says, the Chano Pozo tunes are available on the box set.
-David

[davidpenalosa]

Nice 6-stroke clave in the guaguancó, what are we going to call that one?

That six-stroke pattern is the composite clave (The Clave Matrix 2009: 82). It contains the strokes of both son clave and rumba clave. How interesting that the very first recording of folkloric guaguancó begins with that pattern, considering that in Havana during that era, guaguancó was transitioning from using "son clave" to rumba clave.

The composite clave is also heard on the 1958 rumba "Ven francisco" by Sylvestre Mendez, "Andule andule, makuta" from the Antologia de la música afro-cubana (1984) and "Rumba tonando" by Oba Ilu (1995). It's also a bell pattern used by the Kpelle people of Liberia.

Please excuse me. Lately I've been geeking out on editing "clave" and related topics on Wikipedia and they insist that you cite sources to back up your information.
-David

[davidpenalosa]

"The personnel are listed as Vidal Bolado, Merceditas Valdés, Chonguito, Monguito, Willie and Candito."

Listed where? Is there a cover to the album these came in?

Yes, Zeno has their covers. Maybe he will log-in and elaborate here.
-David

[davidpenalosa]

CORRECTION

"The personnel . . . Listed where?

My apologies and thanks for pointing out my mistake. Zeno read me the personnel from Mongo's 1952 10" 33 RPM over the phone awhile back. I mistook the list for the personnel on the Bolado date. Perhaps because Merceditas Valdez is singing on both the Bolado and Mongo records, Zeno didn't catch my mistake. Zeno passed along this tonight:

Thanks for fielding the inquiries, etc.

I do not have covers, only the discs. there were no covers as far as I know.

Even the 10" vinyl generally from SMC had generic sleeves with no info.

I am not sure where you (or me) got those credits. I think we (you) are confusing the 78s with the SMC LP with Mongo. We may have to revise those notes about the 78s from you that I posted. I thought something seemed funny there since I didn't know any info from the discs as such.

As far as recording quality, I did the best with what I have here, Played the discs on high end system, but only took the files to my mini disc player then into my iMac with Toast Titanium software, then burned the best CD my 7 year old burner could do. Maybe later with the help of Emiliano and Clayton we can make higher quality files. Kevin might have ideas as well. BTW Emiliano claims to have the discs as well, not sure if they are as clean as mine, he is currently digitizing his also. The discs are safe and do not get played other than for transferring, so yes, in the future we can contemplate giving them a royal treatment better than what we have done so far. Glad the rumberos are digging the offering, wish I could post there, I will check again to see what gives.

Zeno

[davidpenalosa]

Last night, after learning that I had mixed up the personnel, I wondered if that was indeed Mercedita Valdes singing on the bembe ("santo") selection. I went back and forth between recordings of Gina Martin and later recordings of Mercedita Valdes, but the results were inconclusive for me. Mercedita Valdes does fit the timeframe of the late 40s, but... Then I saw this post in the Yahoo Latinjazz group:

>> "There were two "Mercedita Valdes". Both, Cuban, sang and danced rumbas and, were married to famous musicians. One was married to drummer Gillermo Barreto and the other (a dear personal friend) was married to composer and band leader Marcelino Guerra; who was later also La Lupe's friend and confidant. The ladder (who's still beautiful and lives on the west side of NY) first arrived in America as a member of a Cuban musical ttroop (Armando Peraza was part of this group) and was informed that she's the vocalist on these records."<<

I'm not sure what to think now.
-David

[Xeno]

Perhaps one is Merceditas Valdes and the other Mercedita Valdes. I have recordings with each usage. Maybe that is how the two kept their identities unique?
The one married to Guillermo B. is Merceditas on this Lp I am looking at, I am pretty sure. The one listed on the SMC Mongo Afro-Cuban Drums 12" Lp I have here is Mercedita Valdes (recorded 1952) I think that is the other one because that is the era of Marcelino Guerra who she was apparently married to and who had a band, similar to Machito's in NY during this era. This makes sense to me. If there is a M. Valdes on the Bolodo 78s (recorded in NY circa 1948), my vote is that it is the same singer who appears on the Mongo SMC LP a few years later (Mercedita with no "s" at the end) and not the one in Cuba who we are more recently familiar with who has the "s" eg. Merceditas. Why wouldn't these gals themselves need to have a way of distinguishing themselves? I say it is the "s" at the end of the name. Mercedita married to Marcellino Guerra (Rapindey), Merceditas married to Guillermo (Bill) Baretto. My 2 cents. Mercedita is the one more active and known in the 50s era. The other, Merceditas, was in Cuba as was Guillermo for the most part.

Xeno=Zeno, the same.....

Marcelino Guerra had a band very similar to that of Machito in the mid to late 40s. I need to dig out my 78s and give them a re-listen. There is a bunch. Not sure if they made it to a volume on Tumbao or not.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... ntent;col1

[Xeno]

And furthermore, don't forget guys that in 1958 there is both a Marcelino and a Mercedita (no "s") who are listed as singers on the classic RCA LP by Tito Puente: Top Percussion, still connected to that same era.

Zeno

[guarachon63]

Zeno, first of all thanks a lot for sharing these historic rarites. It must have been a great thrill to find these discs. I sent a link to your site to Cristobal Diaz Ayala, those recordings are not even listed in his comprehensive discography, I am sure he will be glad to have that info.

To compare the vocalists, I listened to the CD called "Santero" which Ayala's discography says was originally recorded in 1947-48, and features (the more famous?) Merceditas Valdés (you can listen at the link below). Especially the song "Yemaya," which you can hear at the link below:

http://www.goear.com/listen/f69e58a/yemaya-merceditas-valdes

At 00:59 Mercedes begins singing "Yemaya e, olodo awo yo Yemayá" which the vocalist on the SMC recordings begins singing at 2:27 (a bit oddly, this song is introduced by the coro a few seconds earlier).

To me it is clearly not the same person on the SMC record, Merceditas Valdes has a more full-throated voice and somehow more professional...the singer on the SMC recording is more nasal and more casual, natural sounding. I like them both, they just don't sound the same.

Interesting info about the "other" "Mercedita" Valdés, I wasn't aware of that.

However, I believe the adding or dropping of the "s" at the end is more a factor of Cuban speech patterns and lack of careful notation that about distinguishing one performer from another. I see (the more famous?) Merceditas Valdés written both ways, and also sometimes as "Mercedes Valdés."

[EDIT:]Orovio's dictionary of Cuban music has it as "Mercedita," Radamés Giro's Diccionario Enciclopédico has it as "Merceditas" (with an "s"). (They also give completely different birth dates, for what that's worth!)


If I am correct though, the whole notion that the singer on the SMC recordings could be Mercedes Valdés is based on mistaking the players on the Mongo session, is that right? So it could be anyone really.

It would be great to nail down the players on this session. I see Carlos Vidal died in Los Angeles in 1996, maybe some of you guys on the west coast could track down someone who knew him, maybe he talked about it before. There is a video of him on youtube in 1994 with a group called the Estrada Brothers Latin Jazz Sextet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMA2eyyD0GE

One other question I have, about the dates of the sessions, you wrote they were recorded "circa 1948".

Ayala says the Chano Pozo sides were done on Feb 4 1947. The catalog numbers are 2517 and 2518 and the titles are "Ritmo Afro-cubano 1 - 4."

The Vidal Bolados sides are numbered 2519 and 2520 and entitled "Ritmo Afro-cubano 5-8." So couldn't we assume that they must have been recorded very close to the same time, maybe even at the same session, with some of the same players?

For example, I am pretty sure the singers of the columbias Nos 4 & 5 are the same person. (BTW your transfers sound much better than the ones on the Tumbao reissue, I have to say.) Maybe the Tumbao booklet that came with the Chano Box set lists the personnel? I don't have it at hand at the moment.

Saludos
Barry

[davidpenalosa]

If I am correct though, the whole notion that the singer on the SMC recordings could be Mercedes Valdés is based on mistaking the players on the Mongo session, is that right? So it could be anyone really.

You are absolutely correct and thanks so much for raising the question that ultimately led to the realization of my error. I very much prefer to be corrected before publishing! I'll let Zeno answer your question about the dates.
-David