Both
“Omí Iná” and “Obbara” feature talented home-grown rumba
groups from Havana. “Omí Iná,” approximately 37 minutes
long, documents the musical stylings of four musicians from the “Cayo
Hueso” neighborhood in Central Havana. “Obbara,” approximately 14
minutes long, features the considerable musical talents of the
Veitía-Alfonso family of Luyanó (a nearby suburb of
Havana). Together, the two brief performance videos offer rich
audio-visual proof that a wide variety of Afro-Cuban folkloric music is
alive and well in Havana.
The four members of the group Omí Iná - Antonio Wilson
Pellicier (cajón), Dorian Friol Ramírez (clave and
hierro), Stanley Insua Hernandez (cajón and lead singer), and
Armando Pinillo Bencomo (lead singer and cajón) - perform an
assortment of both sacred and secular Afro-Cuban songs, including
Makuta, Yuka, Arará, and Congo, as well as songs from the
espiritista (spiritist) and bolero traditions. All the pieces are
accompanied by cajón (hollow wooden box played with the hands),
clave (two wooden sticks) or hierro (metal hoeblade or similar metal
implement struck with wooden or metal stick), and occasionally palmas
(rhythmic clapping). The group’s choice of the cajón as the main
percussive instrument (rather than conga or batá drums, for
example) speaks of their dedication to the traditions of their
forefathers. All members of the group were students of Francisco
Hernndez Moya, better known as famed Afro-Cuban percussionist Pancho
Quinto, and each musician also grew up hearing and playing Afro-Cuban
folkoric music. The cajón - literally, “big box” - is a
percussion instrument fashioned from wooden cargo crates, originally
used in the port cities of Havana and Matanzas during the nineteenth
century.
In a conversation with lead singer Armando Pinillo Bencomo at the end
of the DVD, the singer notes that the cajón remained popular
until the 1940s, when this performance tradition began to disappear.
The fading away of the cajón may have been as result of the
gradual acceptance of Afro-Cuban religious and folkloric performance
traditions, catalyzed by the now famous ethnographic conference of
1936, sponsored by Cuban ethnographer Fernando Ortíz, which
featured the first public performance of the sacred batá drums.
In the 1970s, Pancho Quinto began to create his own cajones from
plywood and cedar, and reintroduced the cajón into the rumba
tradition with his group Yoruba Andabo.
Omí Iná (from the Yoruba words for “water” and “fire”)
opens with a wide-angle shot of the group in a solar (narrow open
patio) in Central Havana. Three different camera angles show
whitewashed walls, a narrow alleyway, and the close proximity of
neighbors, who occasionally approach the doorway to watch the
goings-on. The musicians are dressed in cool, comfortable clothes (it
is hot in Havana); they sweat as they concentrate on blending their
voices and percussion. Rarely does the camera stay focused on a single
musician; usually, we see the three instrumentalists sitting on folding
chairs against the wall, and the lead singer standing alongside them,
at the far end of the solar. Dorian Friol Ramírez bounces up and
down in his chair as he plays the clave, while Antonio Wilson Pellicier
and Stanley Insua Hernandez, seated close together, stare into each
other’s faces as they create their close-knit harmonies in response to
Armando Pinillo Bencomo’s fluid verses.
The first piece, which features palmas, is “Canto a Azojano,” a series
of Arará chants evoking the deity Azoji (also spelled
Asoyí), more commonly known as Babalú Ayé, the
powerful deity of sickness and infirmity. The next song, “Popourit de
Boleros,” includes snippets of “La Media Vuelta” and “Lágrimas
Negras.” The close minor thirds of the chorus rivet the careful
listener, as does the mixture of lyrics from various boleros.
“Pregón” is a fruit vendor’s call, beginning with the
characteristic “Bele bele bele bele bele belele, a la la la,” and
incorporating a symbolic conversation between the vendor and his
grandmother about what to buy (i.e., how to live one’s life).
The fourth song, “Canto Congo,” uses the uniquely Cuban mixture of
Spanish, Arabic, and Congo languages in its introduction: “Yo Mambe!
Yo.” [Mambe is the one all-powerful God of the initiates of Palo Monte,
which is a Congo-based Afro-Cuban religion.] “Salam Aleikum. Aleikum
Salam.” [The Arabic prayer of peace.] “Santo Tomás! Ver para
creer.” [“Doubting Thomas”; seeing is believing.] Like many Congo songs
performed in Cuba, it is accompanied by a hoe blade hit with a metal
stick, which plays the “Palo” rhythm (a direct descendant of the West
African agbekor bell pattern). In “Canto Macuta,” lead singer Armando
Pinillo Bencomo switches musical places with cajón player
Antonio Wilson Pellicier, and Dorian Friol Ramírez replaces the
hoe blade with a piston from a car engine, giving the hierro pattern a
slightly higher pitch. At this point, the camera zooms in on Stanley
Insua Hernandez muting the cajón with a silver-taped finger,
showing the subtlety of his technique. The last piece, “Cantos
Espirituales,” is a collection of songs from the Cuban spiritist
tradition (espiritismo). Beginning a cappella with the familiar words
“Sea Santísima, Madre mía de la Caridad…” [Most blessed
be, my Mother of Charity (La Caridad, patron saint of Cuba)], the song
segues into a Lucumí (Yoruba) song with palmas, in which the
singer and chorus imitate a conversation between a person possessed by
a spirit and the participants at a spiritual mass (misa espiritual).
“Ayumi, ayumi, ayumi. Hay un congo lucumí.” “Pa’ qué
tú me llamas congo? Tú no me conoces…” (“There’s a congo
lucumí spirit in the house.” “Why you calling me congo? You
don’t know me…”)
The video ends
with Armando Pinillo Bencomo, supported by his band mates, explaining
that the group made a tratamiento (pact) with their teachers and family
to continue teaching the cajón to their children and
grandchildren. The extensive liner notes by Lisa Maya Knauer provide
useful and accessible information. Because Knauer knows the musicians
in the group, her notes offer important insights about their family
lineages and musical education.
“Obbara” opens with lead drummer Eduardo Veitía Carrillo playing
a combination of cajón and conga as he sings, “Simade, Congo na
ma, Simade.” His young son, Eduardo Veitía Alfonso, plays
cajón and bell, and mother Georgina Alfonso Díaz plays a
katá rhythm (elaboration of a rumba rhythm) while singing a
choral response. An unidentified man in white clothing plays the hierro
(hoe blade). The second piece is a slightly different rendition of the
spiritist song, “Sea Santísima, Madre mía de la Caridad,”
this time sung plaintively and powerfully by Georgina Alfonso
Díaz. The group then sings a well-known rumba about the
“marinero de Altamar,” the sailor from Altamar, often sung as people
depart from Cuba on dinghies or rafts. The performance ends with a
Congo song, and as the camera angle moves from Eduardo Veitía
Carrillo to his wife and son, the lighting shifts suddenly and the
texture becomes grainy, due to one of Havana’s many power outages.
After this all-too-brief introduction to the Veitía-Alfonso
family, we read that the father is a sought-after percussionist and
teacher, the mother is a leading singer on the Afro-Cuban folkloric
scene, and the son is a “budding star” at the age of 13.
This excellent DVD was made on a miniscule budget provided by the team
themselves, and the audio quality is exceptional (the drums and vocals
were recorded separately, to provide a “better-than-live” balance),
especially when heard on stereo speakers. I would make the following
observations: although both recordings were made in June 2003, the
exact date of the “Omí Iná” recording is does not appear
on the DVD; the mysterious white-clad hierro player of “Obbara” is
never identified; and although the liner notes are available on-line
and from the DVD itself, I would have appreciated a small already
printed booklet of liner notes (not possible due to budget concerns).
But these criticisms are small in the context of the very good work
represented by “Cajón Espíritual: The Music Box of Cuba.”
Both “Omí Iná” and “Obbara” are important additions to
the growing collection of recordings of Afro-Cuban folkloric
traditions, and I eagerly anticipate future work from the
Brown-Wassermann-Randall team.
Katherine Hagedorn---Pomona College
Close this window