Fecha: 05/03/2011


Grupo Afro-Cuba de Matanzas - Raices Africanas @ 320

01. Caridád (BataRumba)
02. Ogún (Iyesa)
03. Oshún (Guiro)
04. Changó (Batá)
05. Ananú (Arará)
06. Elegua (Bembé)
07. Palo (Bantú)
08. Pa'Los Mayores (Yambú matancero)
09. Enigue Nigue (Guanguancó)
10. Aguado Koloya (Rumba Columbia)
11. Brikamo (Calabar)
12. Abakua (Calabar)
13. Baila Mi Guaguancó (Bata Rumba)


Total Size: 159,59MB






Quote:
When Dizzy Gillespie brought Afro-Cuban jazz to North America in the late
'40s, he was drawing on master Cuban drummers who had emigrated to the
United States. Those congueros were drawing on Havana's popular dance
bands, and those bands were drawing on religious groups out in Cuba's
provinces, whose use of chanting and drumming was little changed from the
music brought from Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. Seldom have those
fundamentals of Afro-Cuban music been documented as usefully as they are
on "Raices Africanas" ("African Roots") by Grupo AfroCuba de Matanzas.
Unlike African slaves in the American South, those in Cuba were often
allowed to congregate by tribe, keep their drums and thus preserve their Old
World traditions in organizations called cabildos. Many of those cabildos are
still active today, and members from several different groups in the port city
of Matanzas formed Grupo AfroCuba in 1957. Consisting entirely of
percussionists, singers and dancers, the troupe plays essentially religious
music, honoring the gods of West Africa with hypnotic call-and-response
patterns.
These musical dialogues are dominated not by the singers but by the drums,
which are each tuned to a specific pitch, a distinctive voice. The low-pitched
lead drum will initiate a phrase that is both rhythmic and melodic, and the
other drums respond with both echoes and variations on the phrase. The
chanting singers then amplify the dialogue with their own give and take. The
lack of horns and strings may dismay the North American listener, but the
gradually accumulating effect is mesmerizing and provides an invaluable
glimpse at the origins of the hugely influential Afro-Cuba sound.