VIDEO THREAD - POST ALL VIDEO's/CLIPS HERE!!!!!

[jorge]

Here is a guaguanco we did at the Hurricane fundraiser for Cuba a couple of weeks ago. Yesenia Fernandez and Skip Burney "Brinkito" are dancing, Mark Sanders is on quinto, Jay Camacho on tres dos, Pete Lopez on salidor, Max Valdez and Barry Cox singing, and I am playing cata. Yesenia teaches a great AfroCuban dance class at Djoniba Dance and Drum Center in NYC and Skip is one of the mayores in the rumba and bata scene in the US.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXO93NoOY-s&NR=1

[Quinto Governor II]

CongaTick wrote:

Tick on Fri Nov 07, 2008 8:48 am

The horn ensemble that starts the video sucks big time. Nothing but noise. If there's a pattern there that I don't get-- it won't ever bother me. The stufff that follows is, at its best -- as you put it-- "interesting".CongaTick

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QG wrote:

What you hear as noise, is obviously music to thier ears. I'm no musicologist or anthropologist, but I have heard many recordings of traditional music of Africa, that could prompt similar reactions from someone not of those cultures. What always fascinates me is the widespread similarities I continue to see among divergent African cultures, in the traditional musics, and the musics of the Diaspora. Here is an example - particularly the similarity in the sound of the horns.
Much of what we may not get, and again, what is obviously music to them, may be because the music - many times reflects the language, and so the sounds actually have meanings that we do not understand.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8FIJX0H ... re=related


Congadelica wrote:


Thanks QG. yes it is definatly an infectiopus version of Yambu . I liked the sound clip you did. thanks

QG : Thanks glad you liked it.


Hey jorge, Yeah our fellow Congaplace member Barry Cox and all the other rumberoes in the N.Y. area, have a very good thing going, and have had, for many years. Thanks to JConga, Barry, and all the other rumberoes who help us to learn and witness the history and continuation of rumba in the U.S..

[pavloconga]

The horn ensemble that starts the video sucks big time. Nothing but noise. If there's a pattern there that I don't get-- it won't ever bother me. The stufff that follows is, at its best -- as you put it-- "interesting".

Hi Congatick,
"Honk Horn Music of Ghana"
I'm glad you had a look at it at least, but I have to disagree with your dismissal of this music as 'nothing but noise' (personal taste notwithstanding). No, it's not compulsory to like it, but I think you owe it to yourself to slow down to it and try and understand it a little better.

Like QG says this is a common reaction by people from outside the culture. In this case the music reflects the culture and the instruments they have available in their jobs as tro tro (van taxi) drivers. When I was in Ghana I saw and heard how tro tro drivers use their horns as musical instruments as well as tools of communication. While driving they often play the horns in a musical pattern - like a clave pattern. Different tro tros use different horn codes and hand gestures out the window to signal where their bus is going to.

As a percussionist I believe you can learn a lot by opening your mind to different kinds of music. For example, the bell patterns they play in the second part of the video. I'm not a musicologist, but I know enough to say that the intensely polyrhythmic patterns are fitting into the framework of 3/2 clave - yes, essentially the same clave that is played in a lot of Cuban music for example. The guy on the left in the green shirt at 1:58 is clapping on the pulse of what we would refer to as the downbeat of the '4' and the '1' of the 3/2 bell cycle (i.e. the second clap is the first note of the '3' side of 3/2 clave.)
What a challenging task for a musicologist to notate every one of those horn and bell parts!

To help put this music in greater context, here's a an excerpt from a review about the CD that this group had recorded by the Smithsonian:

"Por Por" is a style of Ghanaian music that originated with trotro (van-taxi) drivers in the La region of Ghana's capital city, Accra; it's an off-the-cuff kind of music, played on squeezebulb horns, hubcaps, and pretty much anything else found in the back of a standard trotro. Like most things Ghanaian, por por is vibrant in the extreme, built on wild, atonal vocals, found instruments, and ancient musical traditions (in this case, asonko and mmenson). It came about, more or less, due to the general decrepitude of the average trotro; the vehicles broke down regularly, and the waylaid travelers would play por por to keep their spirits up while the driver made repairs. (Given the raucous nature of the music, it also had the effect of driving away dangerous animals.)" ~ Margaret Reges, All Music Guide


http://media.smithsonianfolkways.org/li ... W40541.pdf

Personally, I think it's amazing stuff, a very creative and incredibly skilled expression from a rich musical culture.

best regards
pavlo

[CongaTick]

Okay, okay, I guess I deserved the comments. And I greatly appreciate the reasonable appeal to a higher sense of musiccal appreciation than my initial, somewhat cavalier. dismissal. Of course, you are right. They -- as all music, whatever's its compostion--- deserve more than a cursory listen. I may still feel the same way, but you guys were respectfully helpful in encouraging me to be true to a broader appreciation. I stand corrected, humbled and willl certainly give them a more throrough and open listen. Once again, I mil gracias for the manner and civil style in which you guys reset my path. That's why I call this place home.

[ABAKUA]

Hey guys here is a clip from my gig last Saturday night with my new band, its only our 3rd gig and as many rehearsals, had 2 last minute changes for the gig, our bongo player and timbelero got delayed at another gig so got in last minute fill in's...

Horn sections solo's first, then into conga & timbal solos. Myself on Congas, Dominic on Timbales (just turned 17yrs old).

LINK TO VIDEO HERE: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZpLYJ2-pQ


Enjoy!!


Same kid on timbales with me on congas from my other vid from another gig a few weeks back. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=E0G4hythYrk


Check out my other vids on my youtube page here: http://au.youtube.com/profile?user=Masula123&view=videos

[TONE74]

What the hell is this thing. Looks like its fed paper and plays automatic. Sounds like its playing "El palo de Anon" a song by El Charangon de Reve.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2NoITShKcE

Ok I saw they have other videos about it but thought it was still interesting.

[congamyk]

^ yeah I love that! Talk about necessity being the mother of invention!

[Sakuntu]

Quinto Governor II wrote:Anyone familiar with this Ghanaian Rhythm? Sounds like comparsa. What other African traditional drumming form have a horn accompaniment, or could this be something contemporary?

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

Hey Quinto & Pavlo, I think this rhythm is the ewe rhythm called borborbor. I could be wrong though. From my understanding borborbor is a recreational music of the ewe very similar in form to the Ga Kpanlogo. I could be wrong though, I'm no ethnomusicologist

[yoni]

Hi all!

Marcelo, you a badass! Great clip! You should be arrested for playing like dat! You should be locked up.

All da best,

yoni

[ABAKUA]

Thanks Yoni!

[afrocubarico]

Marcelo,
That was a great performance clip! Dude, you totally rock! I must say that I totally dig your way of playing. I've seen some of your other clips in the past and all are very impressive. Brother, if we were close by I would totally dig studying with you. Keep up the great work!

afrocubarico

[tamboricua]

Hi Congaplace,

Hope this message finds all of you well.

Check out Trio Montuno's rendition of Fuller/Pozo "Tin Tin Deo".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pwfaEBvpDI

Trio Montuno is:

Dana Sudborough-Vibes/Marimba

Jonathan Fisher-Bass

Yours truly-Percussion

Saludos,

JG

[ABAKUA]

Thanks to Bembeleke on youtube: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=QyBpCkrIkIU

IN 1963, Pedro Izquierdo, known as Pello el Afrokán—who recently passed away—created the mozambique, one of the hottest and most debated modern rhythms on the island.

In the wake of Eduardo Davidsons pachanga rage, like a wizard or African griot Pello produced a primitive or more authentic sound of tom-tom and metal drums. It was like a call from the earth which scandalized many academics, but won public acclaim. It was a renewal of the conga lines dating back to the colonial period, and had the crowds dancing down the streets.

El Afrokán was born in 1933, a time of hunger and desolation for Cuba with the toppling of dictator Machado. He was the grandson of Mandingos who reproduced the drumming and rhythms of Africa on the island. "Thats the blood running through my veins," Pello told me when we met in his musical enterprise, named after Ignacio Piñeiro. "My father was one of the first percussionists in Belisario López band. Im a cousin of Mongo Santamaría and the kings of percussion used to visit my house."

The creator of the mozambique started playing wherever he was needed, as well as working as a stevedore on the docks in his Havana barrio of Jesús María. He did commercial jingles for CMQ radio and in 1959 founded his own group, playing at the Havanas mecca of cabaret, the Tropicana.

In 1962 he was already experimenting with the great tribe which would be the talk of that decade. Meanwhile, he also imparted his musical knowledge at the National Art Instructors School.

"The mozambique is played with 12 conga drums, two bass drums, three bells, a frying pan, four trumpets and three trombones. An innovation. The percussionists were exceptional, thats my specialty. I created a set with five conga drummers."

The rhythm is an Afro-Cuban fusion that Pello called a stew: Abakuá, Yoruba, Congo, Carabalí and Jiribilla. Naturally, the rhythm is linked to a dance whose steps were devised by El Afrokán himself and later stylized by choreographer Guanari Amoedo. "The mozambique is walking, walking in time," its inventor defined it.

"I sang in Pellos tribe," composer Evelio Landa recounts, "and I know the way in which he put together his compositions, without arrangements, with a drummers sensibility. But the whole thing worked."

Pello introduced the mozambique at the University of Havana and it had an enthusiastic response from the youth. It had its television debut in July 1963, when the Beatles were invading the world without permission. With great daring, Pello served up the mozambique as a wall of contention before the avalanche of pop music.

In the Radio Progreso studios and at that years carnival, the mozambique was an explosion only comparable to the Cuban salsa boom. Surviving film footage reveals that the mozambique carried away a sea of people. The legend began and is still resonant.

With Pello, the mozambique traveled as far as Paris Olympia Theater in 1965, touring half the world. In 1979 it slipped into the Carnegie Hall and Japan. Stars like Eddie Palmieri, Carlos Santana, Issac Delgado and many others recorded cover versions.

Pello was laid to rest on September 12 with full Abakuá burial rites and the sound of the mozambique performed by grandson Omar and his group.

[No.2-1820]

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

[blas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmJWT79sQio&feature=related

Yesith Lozano, my original instructor