QuintoMan...EMERGENCY Communique....Muy Importante....
All the french has disappeared from Celeste's song !!!.
Its all Spanish, Celeste singing about some dude that broke her heart, and how she is now in la Cumbre (the Peak, some kind of moral high ground), where she says she will not forget what he did, how he will have to come a-begging for her, and follow his “camino” on his own…she sounds very bitter...
I listened to two CDs with the Cumbre song:
La Rumba de Cuba – One version here with Los Papines
Rumbas Cubanas – Another version here
No Frances, trust me, even though I was eagerly wanted to discover it, would have been neat…
And somehow we wandered into Tumba Francesa...it only exists in the Oriente Province, primarily in Guantanamo where there is a Cultural Society there. I have a whole album of Tumba Francesa from the white history of Afrocuban music anthology, in vinyl, of course, and ...you know where it stored... is of course...
Here is some stuff from the liner in the back of the album (paraphrasing it):
Tumba Francesa is a Haitian dance in which the dancers imitate the social dances of the French slave owners combined with Cuban dance and music. The instruments in the Tumba Francesa ensemble are:
First and foremost - A giant Cata' about 3 feet across and 1 foot in diameter, played with palitos...every song there the Palitos rhythm varied. This is a very, very big Cata !
Premier (Redouble) - This is a giant barrel drum, about 18 inches in diameter, improvising licks for the dancer(similar to the Quinto, but in this case it is the low drum)...kind of an Iya Mother drum doing all the talking in Bata...
Bula - This smaller drum provides the MAIN RHYTHM, which is closest to the Arara tradition (Matanzas) and sounds like a Merenge, with lots of rolls towards the end of every bar.
Segon - plays counter-rhythm to the Bula
There are two main dances in Tumba Francesa:
Mason, a couple dance and Yuba, group dances
The songs were primarily praising Fidel Castro and all his "accomplishments" in this album.
All in all, the Tumba Francesa is only indigenous to the Oriente Province, and mostly Guantanamo...I have never seen any of these drums first hand...they are rare...and believe you me...there is a lot of tambores and cajones of all kinds in that island !
If you want further background and some pictures of the tambores of Tumba Francesa see:
http://www.union.edu/PUBLIC/PARTDEPT/cuba.html
Look at the size of them suckers !
http://www.afrocubaweb.com/BanRrarra.htm
This group does Tumba Francesa stuff, also Cutumba has a couple of numbers with it
If you are interested in studying Cuban Folklore live, there is a guy by the name of Chuck Silverman that has a web site
http://www.chucksilverman.com/
that covers a lot of folkloric stuff, he coordinates trips to Cuba and Brazil to study percussion there…or to sit in the beach watching those wonderful Culos walking by…
There are a lot of other rhythms in the Oriente Province, dances and guitar music from that area: Tajona, Chancletas (literally Cuban clogging), Kiriba, Mengon, Changui (somewhat popular now), Sucu Sucu and other obscure stuff…I am not from that neck of those woods so I only have superficial knowledge of the Eastern Cuba type of music…besides my ex-wife was from the Oriente province and I am trying my best to forget her and that province !