Best Rumba recordings - What are your favorite rumba artists ?

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Postby RitmoBoricua » Wed Mar 26, 2003 7:40 pm

Hi. I have never heard "tumba francesa" (No that I know of) but from what I hear is close to Puerto Rico's "bomba". What is you opinion? Sound similar? Thanks! ???



Edited By RitmoBoricua on Mar. 26 2003 at 19:40
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Postby benbaboon » Wed Mar 26, 2003 10:24 pm

Tresgolpes, that was an awesome tape you sent.. thanks. :D ...amazing solos, and it really makes you wonder why bongos lost their standing in traditional music.
and now that I finally scored a copy of the papines commemoration album (the one with si no bolero and zarara), I'm still gonna have other stuff to hunt down.....

Just got Mongo's "Chango"..... a recent rerelease I guess, since I've never seen it before..... great rumbas and bembes... well worth the investment.
-bb
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Postby quinto governor » Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:13 am

Sorry TresGolpes! Didn't mean to get you into any trouble. Have heard the name Cutumba before, but not the other group. WilL have to add them to my long list of stuff to get. Thanks!
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Postby TresGolpes » Thu Mar 27, 2003 6:38 pm

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 !
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Postby RitmoBoricua » Thu Mar 27, 2003 7:32 pm

<<<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.>>>
Hi. Interesting stuff, I know the bass drum used in Puerto Rico's "Bomba" is called "buleador".
???
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Postby rahalak » Thu Mar 27, 2003 7:35 pm

There are two main dances in Tumba Francesa:
Mason, a couple dance and Yuba, group dances



This is the second source that I've seen that mentions Yuba in connection with Tumba Francesa. I'm wondering if this Yuba is related to the Puerto Rican bomba rhythm of the same name?
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Postby TresGolpes » Thu Mar 27, 2003 9:42 pm

It HAD to happen...

We have departed Cuba in rafts and arrived in Puerto Rico !!

Here are some choice links explaining Bomba and Plena...notice the Barriles how closely they resemble in girth the Tambores Franceses ...

http://www.salsacrazy.com/salsaroots/bombanew.htm

http://www.salsacrazy.com/salsaroots/bomba.htm

http://www.nvo.com/luisdiaz/afroricanmusicalterms/

http://lmri.ucsb.edu/pipermail/reformanet/1998-February/002728.html

http://www.olmoterron.com/html/musica_1.htm

http://www.geocities.com/lleo.rm/Links.html
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Postby KingKongas » Mon Mar 31, 2003 4:33 am

Let me say that the Bomba/Plena rhythms on this site are AWESOME! I play them and get "lost" in the rhythm... they also "fit" in a lot of other rhythms too... try the solos Gio gives on the PLENA rhythm given on this site with any 4/4 rhythm you are doing and tell me it aint smoking!


The original post is awesome!!!! Thanks mi gente for giving me music to go after!!!!
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Postby TresGolpes » Tue Apr 01, 2003 7:26 pm

I have always been interested in Bomba and Plena. Since there are several Boricuans in this board let's get into great sources for Bomba/Plena.

I have some albums, I am sure there is a lot more:

Cortijo y su Conjunto - some stuff from the 60’s
Grupo Afro Boricua y William Cepeda
Cepeda - Bailando el Tambor
Modesto Cepeda - Raices de Bomba y Plena

Went to Descarga.com and did a search on Bomba, which ones of these are really good ?

Atabal - Voces y tambores
Hermanos Ayala - Bomba de Loiza
Canario y su Grupo - Plenas
Cesar Concepcion - Plenas Favoritas con Joe Valle
El Gran Combo - Bombas
Cortijo - Has dozens of albums, what other ones will you recommend ?
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Postby tamboricua » Tue Apr 01, 2003 7:45 pm

Here is a link to an introductory article to Plena I wrote a while back. There you will find some of the best exponents of this genre past and present. Hope you guys like it!

http://www.rhythmweb.com/jorge/plena.htm

Saludos,

Jorge Ginorio
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Postby tamboricua » Wed Apr 02, 2003 1:42 am

Hi Tres Golpes, hope all is well! From the list you did get from descarga.com:

Canario y su Grupo-Plenas, is a classic and was the first set of Plenas ever recorded by Manuel "Canario" Jiménez on Ansonia Records.

Los Hermanos Ayala along with Grupo Afroboricua are the keepers of the flame of the Bomba de Loíza. They preserve two styles of Bomba; Seis Corrido and Corvé.

Cesar Concepción, El Gran Combo, and Cortijo all of them brought the Bomba and the Plena to the ballrooms dance floors. Cesar Concepción with his big band style and Gran Combo and Rafael Cortijo in a conjunto format.

Hope this helps!

Saludos,

Jorge Ginorio



Edited By tamboricua on April 02 2003 at 18:45
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Postby TresGolpes » Wed Apr 02, 2003 7:04 pm

Very interesting article...

And hey, I found there is a group that visited the Bay Area called Tamboricua...any association with them ?

In any case, I found this link that has a lot of good stuff on the roots of Plena and Bomba, particularly the Tambourine part that says it originated in Andalucia...and not far from there in North Africa they play a lot of frame drums, so the influences could have been Arab as well.

http://aris.ss.uci.edu/rgarfias/courses/latino/pr1.html

All this historical stuff yields some unexpected offshoots...the Bagpipe did NOT originate in Scotland, as a matter of fact in Spain in the Galicia province there are the Gaiteros who preceded by several hundred years the Scottish Bagpipes, there is a festival in Galicia where the Scottish come to jam with the Spanish...and earlier still the bagpipe seems to have originated in Egypt with a reed like instrument that had a bladder with air in it.

Another interesting historical comparison is the Flamenco dancing...I have watched the Katak dancers from India and they do the same hand motions (mudras) and twirls as the Flamenco dancers...but they stomp the floor, in short stomps, instead of the taconeo of flamenco...I am sure there were Indians in Spain a thousand years ago !

Now, back to the Panderetas, how about Brazil, they have the Pandeiro and Tambourim, lots of those in their Carnavals...

See http://www.brazildrums.com/percussion.htm

maybe we should eventually start a frame drum thread !

By the way, I just got a CD from Ben with a mix of great music...this music exchange thing really works !



Edited By TresGolpes on April 03 2003 at 20:15
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