by jorge » Mon May 14, 2012 4:31 pm
Assuming you have additional lead and coro singers who can play clave and bell and sing, and we are just talking about percussionists, I still think 4 is not enough. Bombo and sartenes/bells are 2 necessary parts that require at minimum 1 player each. Salidor is a difficult part and hard work by itself, very hard to hold while playing tres dos and/or rebajador in addition, so count on 1 player for salidor. Niall, I know there are some drummers who can do it, but very few outside Cuba can hold it without dragging or rushing the timing or crossing clave. Someone who really knows conga de comparsa could potentially play conga / rebajador or tres dos / rebajador on 1 or 2 drums and talk to himself, but again you need a really good drummer. One more to play quinto or tres dos and quinto together could make it work with 5, but you can't really walk and play. We have done it justice with 7 including singers and singing drummers, but most of the guys are bataleros/rumberos from la Habana and we play sitting down for 5 or 10 minutes as the last song of the night, not walking for hours. Usually we pull a few from the audience to play quinto, sing coro, maybe play tres dos, and we wind up with 9 or 10, which is a good number as long as everyone knows their part.