by jorge » Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:18 am
I love guaguanco matancero for its clean style, bien sabroso. Players like El Goyo (Diaz), his son Agustin, and now Eddy Espinosa and Freddy Alfonso (and Sandy Perez et al in the US) really started to stretch out the traditional guaguanco matancero, mostly still playing tumbadoras. The matanceros have the advantage that they are all family and have been playing together since childhood, so their interactions are really tight.
In La Habana, the cajon has really become popular and the traditional guaguanco is getting stretched with even more Cuban and international influences, and drummers come from more than a few families, so the art of everyone knowing what everyone else is going to play is not as well developed. Even so, the spreading out of the traditional rumba rhythms onto different and more drums and cajones has made the modern rumba much more varied with lots of different melodies and polyrhythms going on. When done well (eg, Yoruba Andabo Callejon de los Rumberos, Rapsodia Rumbera, Rumberos de Cuba) guarapachangueo is beautiful and very musical. I recently saw the new Yoruba Andabo at Carnegie Hall and, in spite of the horrible sound system, those young guys were really creative and it sounded great.
SOMETIMES our guarapachangueo rumbas in Central Park and clubs around NYC sound great too. However, more often than not, when even one of the drummers does not know what the others are going to play or tries to play "old skool" style, sometimes it sounds horrible. For guarapachangueo to work and sound musical you really have to have excellent drummers who know guaguanco backwards, forwards, inside out and upside down, and who know each others' styles very well. Playing bata helps too. The quinto has even less space to play than traditional guaguanco, and has to really be well disciplined to not overplay. When people start playing licks on top of each other, clashing polyrhythms, playing too loud or too fast, quinto or bass cajon overplaying, or someone going off time, it can easily sound like noise.