Mambo Gallego

Mambo Gallego by Tito Puente

I’ve only ever been madly in love once. Dancing with someone connects you to them on another plane, in an unparalleled way. I’ve never been able to duplicate the feeling. So you can imagine what it’s like to dance with a person every single day for two whole years. Ali was my dance partner in a student organization that we were a part of in college. We bonded faster than I could blink. He was a talented drummer, and I was an ex-ballerina. I taught him how to dance, and he taught me how to appreciate music.


By the end of the spring semester, about four months after we had met, I was head over heels. We were attached at the hip; we spent every free minute within ten feet of one another. We joked, studied, talked, danced and ate together. People began to refer to us as one unit. Believe me, I’m not the kind of girl who likes getting too close, but Ali was different. He helped me be a better person. We were happy, and life was good.

The salsa bug bit us about halfway through our relationship, and we became obsessed. We started taking private lessons and traveling all over Texas to attend congresses, socials and performances. Ali was really into latin jazz, and the more he heard, the more I learned. One day, we watched a Masacote performance and for one of the first times, I could predict the breaks in the song and was actually enjoying the capricious, playful dynamics that mutated its vibe and tempo.

It instantly became ours. Everytime we heard Mambo Gallego, by Tito Puente, it was as if someone had turned on a light inside of me. Ali used it as his ringtone, and when we heard it in a club or at a social, we would run around the floor in a frenzy to find each other quickly enough to dance before the song ended. I can’t remember many stages in my life when I’ve been happier than I was with Ali. Although things didn’t work out for us, every time I hear Mambo Gallego it reminds me of the good times and I can’t help but smile.

Karen

Masacote Dance Company performing to Mambo Gallego

Las Malas Lenguas

Las Malas Lenguas by Orquesta Dee Jay

As a huge fan of trombone based bands such as Orquesta Dee Jay, I always get a kick out of Rafael de Jesus’s work on the album ‘Pa Alante con la Orquesta Dee Jay.’ In my quest to learn more about Rafael, I came across an interview on Jazz Con Clave where the sonero admits not knowing much Spanish while he rocked songs such as Las Malas Lenguas, Campesino, and Te Triago. My favorite part of Las Malas Lenguas is how Rafeal emerges from the piano solo and trombone section on minute 3:24 to finish off the song with a commanding soneo. I would have never imagined a performance like that coming from someone who didn’t master the language. The interview presents an insight into the life of this singer which has shed light on how language has helped shape who I am, especially now that I live in a Spanish speaking country.

Similar to Rafael de Jesus, I grew up in a Spanish household. Like most Latinos, our home was a place where we mostly listened to Spanish, only speaking the language around Mamita Amada who can barely ramble the days of the week in English. So in my early years, I developed a good ear for the sound, which triggered the Paisa accent once I began speaking more Spanish, allowing me to more easily fool folks just like Rafael did. Luckily when I met my wife, she didn’t speak a lick of English, so out of necessity I was forced to finally learn to speak Spanish. Even so, my childhood Espanglish slips out from time to time. I’m often a bit self-conscious about my language difficulties as I tend to focus far too much energy in Medellin on blending in.

A comment made by a friend made me think if I should have placed the effort to write this blog in Spanish instead of English. I am of course writing about music interpreted in Spanish. As a hyphenated Colombian (or American depending on the context), I can’t deny that English is the more natural form of processing information for me. In Spanish, I’m always stuck within the confines of my Espanglish upbringing, wondering whether I had just made up the word I was attempting to communicate.

One of the reasons why I identify with salsa clasica is the artists’ use of Espanglish or in my wife’s words, poor Spanish. We once took on the task of writing the lyrics to an entire album for a friend as a Christmas gift and my wife, as a Spanish teacher, couldn’t help inserting the correct grammar, concerned that our friend would learn improper Spanish. Looking back I wish we had written the lyrics to that album just as they were.

Colombians, particularly those from the interior, have the reputation of having as near close to perfect Spanish as there could be in the Americas. Probably more of a self proclamation but I do notice quite a few people speaking what my wife characterizes as Español teorico. It’s often quite a task for me to figure out what Paisas are saying. This may be where my self-consciousness originates.

That pride for properness compelled my mother to criticize Puerto Rican Spanish, often directing her jokes at my brother who would butcher the language far worse than any of our Puerto Rican friends. As a kid her jokes seemed rather funny and I often repeated them to the delight of my fellow Colombian friends. It’s only as an adult living in a Spanish speaking country that I realize how my language limitations put me closer to the Puerto Rican experience. My childhood naivety and my mother’s ignorance prevented us from not understand the politics behind the Puerto Rican plight and thus ours, as Latinos growing up in an American ghetto. On various occasions throughout the island’s history, attempts were made to change the official language from Spanish to English or Spanish and English. Combine this with a Puerto Rican’s ability to freely travel between the island and the U.S. mainland and you witness the development of a hybrid language.

Campesino by Orquesta Dee Jay

Language has always been a source of difficulty with my Espanglish background binding me between two forms of communication. It’s been one of my greatest advantages while simultaneously presenting a disadvantage. I can communicate with a larger number of people with my bilingual skills yet I don’t have a dominion over either language. This inquietud brought me to think of Rafael de Jesus. Just as he often had to ‘fake the funk’ on his understanding of the language, I too fill in the blanks with English words when I can´t complete a thought in Spanish.

The more I learn to better communicate in this language the more I can appreciate the ingenuity it takes to speak Espanglish, the more respect I have for soneros such as Rafael de Jesus who thrived in the lingual duality I live. Salsa clasica, along with my Colombian experience, has helped me accept my language skills not as a deficiency but rather a skillful art grown out of living in two distinct worlds.

I began this acceptance when realizing that language is merely a set of words, symbols and images. If you and I can understand that Gueso means bone does it really matter that it should be Hueso? Yesterday I made the common mistake three times within a half a minute of replacing the Spanish H with a G sound, even though I felt my wife’s corrective stare, as though my brain couldn’t accept the H being silent. I’ve learned to say disculpe instead of con permiso as they are used in different excuse me contexts. However, before learning their proper use, people would excuse me either way.

Te Traigo by Orquesta Dee Jay

Salsaclasica.com’s biography of Orquesta Dee Jay describes how:

“Orquesta Dee Jay was a unique band who did not put any of their music on paper. Their music was original and arrangements were created from jam sessions they had before rehearsals in the basement of De Jesus Bridal shop. ‘If it sounds good and it’s swingin’, the heck with it, let’s record it’ said George De Jesus.”

Espanglish is very much the same. If it sounds good then say it. There´s a sense of liberation in stepping outside the boundaries of strict Castellano and viewing speech merely as a form of communication, an imperfection heavily dependent upon a listener’s acceptance of what the sound represents. It’s the people that give words their authority not La Real Academia Española.

When I first started drafting blog entries, I tried to be as inclusive as possible by translating Spanish phrases where I thought suitable. A friend pointed out the inappropriateness of this technique, putting me on to how Junot Diaz in ‘The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao’ “weaves together Spanish, English, science fiction, and street language and doesn’t make any apologies. If you get it you get it, if not go find out. If you don’t then it’s just a reminder that all of our perspectives and all of our knowledge is always partial. We can never know the whole.”

Language should be open and spontaneous yet common enough so that one can be understood. As cognitive beings we often attach ourselves to words and their meanings more obstructively than most people realize. It’s normal for language to cause deep roots that define us but it should not be a source of limitation.  I hope to continue taking Spanish classes, partially because I enjoy the sound of Spanish but more importantly so I can improve my decoding ability for what my fellow Paisas are saying. I’m slowly accepting Espanglish as much a part of my identity as the light green house on Watson Street where I lived the important moments of my teenage years. Those classes should not be used to ease any discomfort at not knowing the official way of communicating as my ‘malas lenguas’ says much more about the richness of my experience, along with that of the Puerto Rican soneros, than what I can learn in any Spanish class.

Peace
DJ Walt

We're fortunate enough that Jerry Hernandez, the trombonist from Orquesta Dee Jay, has revived the band.  Here's La Nueva Orquesta Dee Jay performing Las Malas Lenguas.  If this band is ever in your neck of the woods, they are well worth the price of admission.

Live Performance of Las Malas Lenguas by La Nueva Orquesta Dee Jay

El Periódico

El Periodico de Ayer by Hector Lavoe

My first consciousness of salsa was watching my step-father sitting on the linoleum floor of the living room in the apartment we lived in Fillmore listening to Oscar de Leon. I was twelve years old. I remembered Oscar de Leon’s songs sounding too adult, too slow, and too narrative for me at the time. There was the Puerto Rican salsa that he played on weekends at home and then there was the Colombian salsa the aunts and uncles danced to at family parties: high heels, sweat, couples dancing in Marucha's carpeted living room or Mona’s second floor apartment while the little ones played Mario Brothers in the bedrooms, Vitamina dancing with the tias, and Mamita sitting in the kitchen table eating.

The irony of life is that it is through my son that I have begun to see salsa through very different lens, through a writer’s lens, to appreciate the narrative richness in the songs, little windows into stories of life. For me now, it is the storytelling element of salsa, most specifically the classic salsa, that as a writer I really appreciate. Little gems. It is now that I understand why perhaps my step-father enjoyed listening to salsa. Fast forward twenty years, and my son has the ear, the sensitivity for salsa. He loves Ismael Rivera and Hector Lavoe and can detect their voices in the supermarket or the colectivo. His childhood memories will be inundated with the sounds of classic salsa for sure. How did this happen?

El Payaso Porcelana

It was chance, coincidence, a lucky merging. I’m listening to Hector Lavoe’s Periodico de Ayer while I’m sweeping one afternoon and the narrative of this song conjured up in my mind the article I had read in El Colombiano of a man who works as a street clown in the streets of Medellin. It was as if I had seen the sparkle of a diamond on the kitchen floor, kneeing down and discovering the truth, disguised and hidden in the dust. That afternoon I sat at my computer to write the story of a son who discovers the whereabouts of his father, who he hasn’t seen since the age of seven, through an article in El Colombiano. Periodico de Ayer and the story of this man were the impetuses for my story.

Edith

Live Performance of Periodico de Ayer 

Yo Soy Palo Malambo

Within the first week of starting this project, I received the following message from Salsero Fever regarding the blog:

“dude you think you are discovering salsa, others dj are way ahead of you.......”

At first, the comment caught me off guard as I still wasn’t quite sure what direction the blog was going to take. Nonetheless, his criticism gave rise to just the type of discussion I had in mind:

I was interested in the choice of words, specifically that of discovery. The comment assumes that you cannot discover that which already exists. Discovery in the traditional sense is an illusion. So Salsero Fever, you were correct: you can never really discover anything because truth always has and always will exist. Therefore, through salsa, you can only become aware of a part of yourself, of who you are, and how that truth helps to shape you. So when I say discovery, I mean the process of self-awareness.

Let’s take a trip back in time to September 2001 when I purchased my very first two albums: Reincarnation by Orquesta Narvaez and Orquesta Dicupe (self titled). Reincarnation was released in 1975 and Dicupe in 1972. So over 26 years elapsed between the time the first listener put the needle to the record and the moment I pressed play on my cousin’s cd player, more years than I had been alive. So how could I possibly have “discovered” those two albums? More importantly, if I did discover them, what did I discover?

I’ve been in Medellin a little over three months. So the word discovery was an appropriate term for the commentator to use. What am I here to discover with Salsa Session? Is it really about music, about how many or the quality of albums in my collection? Is it about the number or importance in the gigs I’ve DJed? Is it about the precision in my song selection?

You see the number of different questions this comment “discovered”?

The comment also assumes I lack in originality. After only two posts, the commentator knew enough about what I had in mind to conclude I was reinventing the wheel. This brought me back to the early nineties when the common phrase being heard at school was “Yo, stop bitin’ kid!” Those were my hip hop days, when Gangstarr got some heavy rotation.  My brother suggested the commentator misinterpreted what I meant by Salsa Session. When my brother thought of DJs and sessions, he thought of the battling sessions of hip hop. Whatever DJ came up with the most out of world, pioneering scratching technique took home the prize. That DJ was “ahead” of the game.

I’m sure the salsa DJs that are ahead of the game are aware of how many salsa covers where done during the 60’s and 70’s. Most of the music during this golden era of salsa were remakes of songs dating back as early as the 20’s. So if you follow the commentator’s logic, the music he proclaims to love actually lacked originality. I happen to disagree. Just as the hip hop artists did in the 70s and 80s, most notably the DJs, salsa artists took something old and put their spin on it to create something completely new and fresh. There was no shame in bitin’. In fact, it was part of the game.

Wait just a second! Maybe he’s right? Maybe I’ve decided on a song for a routine that others have performed before. Maybe, I’m just a salsa band doing a cover or a performer repeating a move during a routine. Let’s take a look at these three versions of Malambo to see if you can listen to where I’m going with this:

Joey Pastrana

Jimmy Sabater

Jimmy Urbana y Su Orquesta Revolucion 70

Although Jimmy Sabater was better known for his timbales work with the Joe Cuba Sextet, he performed on vocals for his Malambo version on the album Solo. José "Chombo" Rodríguez sang on Hot Pastrana and Salvador Tirado sang on the Revolucion 70 version, which was released in 1975 on Sabor Moderno. Don’t you get the same exact feel when you listen to the singers on each track? Well, don’t you? They’re the same song, right? Pastrana uses a different style of music altogether to start and finish the song whereas Revolucion 70 kicks it into high gear from the start and never looks back. Sabater’s version is the more popular version of Malambo amongst modern day dancers but his is not the first. Pastrana released his in 1968 and Sabater released his in 1969. According to the commentator’s logic, Pastrana was ahead of the game and Sabater is just “whack” for all his bitin’ but the popularity of Sabater’s version would suggest otherwise.

Now let’s watch these three routines of Jimmy Sabater’s Malambo:

Ataca Jorgie & La Alemana directors of Island Touch Dance Academy

Peter Fige and Dorota Polkowska

Lupita and Riemino from Tucson, Arizona

I’m sure each of these groups at least suspected someone else had performed this song. Its high energy, the breaks and changes in the music, and Sabater’s voice make this version ideal for a routine. And due to the popularity of the song, it was bound to be performed by more than one group. So why did each band and each dancer decide to perform this song? We all have our opinion as to who performed better but if we focus on that, we’re missing the point. If we pay attention to what each artist “discovered” in the song, then we’ll be the ones that nailed it. Discovery to me is a personal path, a process which is different for everyone. Each of you reading this blog will, for better or worse, take something different from the very same words I’m typing because each of you has a different experiential lens to view them by.

Each band’s lens creeps up on us in my favorite line in the song, “Yo Soy Palo Malambo.” Each artist decided to introduce the line in a different part of the song. Sabater takes a powerful initial stance in his proclamation. Pastrana takes a subtler approach with his first spoken word by using a chorus to sing “Me gustan los timbales pa’ gozar bembe”, followed by a drop in the music and then with equal force to Sabater’s intro declares “Yo naci en Puerto Rico.” Pastrana doesn’t sneak in “Yo Soy Palo Malambo” until the 50th second. Whereas Revolucion 70 decided to start with Salvador trash talkin’, “Anda… y vuelvo con todos los trastes de nuevo… rumbero… oiste eso!”, proceeding with Pastrana’s approach to introduce Malambo. To me, this change in the process of introducing the song’s title makes a huge impact on the song we’re listening to because it shows that each artist had a different agenda. Each band interpreted the song differently, which means each artist had something different to share.

In Israel Sánchez-Coll’s interview of Joey Pastrana for Herencia Latina, when asked what inspired him to compose Malambo, Pastrana explains that the “piece was composed for the timabales… and made for [his] ancestors, for [his] roots.” Therefore, each artist invites us to saborear from the palo monte, which is an essential aspect of the afro-caribbean culture. Even so, Sabater’s version presents more folkloric elements with a more extensive use of Bantu throughout the song. In my opinion, the afro-centrism of Malambo, especially Sabater’s version, is what makes this song so powerful.

A fundamental facet of salsa clasica is improvisation, more visible in these three versions by the soneo section of the songs. Through the liberty afforded in freestyle, soneros can often create a slight change in how a listener can interpret the meaning of a song. For example, Sabater towards the end of the song puts us on to the fact that “la rumba esta mal de un pie” (coincidentally, for South Americans Malambo is a bark used in medicine). I believe viewing salsa as a competition of which artist can rock which version the best is what’s currently ailing salsa.

Instead, what we should be doing is searching for what each artist has “discovered” in their process as that is what they hope to transmit with their performance. Each dance group decided to perform Malambo because the song moved them to discover something different within themselves and each group felt the need to share this. I, nor the artists mentioned above, did not discover Malambo but a slice of ourselves through Malambo. Since we fabricate this world we live in through sensations, we will always view and feel Malambo differently than you, whether as a slight variation or a large leap.

In that same breath, I venture to say that uniqueness in the human experience is also an illusion. The longevity of humanity presents the high probability that what we feel has been previously felt. We’re all walking someone else’s path. Music and dance are no different. Aren’t we all doing some variation of a basic step when we dance salsa? As we social dance, don’t we repeat some of our moves throughout a song, moves that others have already executed? In fact, some very famous dancers decide to repeat certain dance moves throughout their routines (just watch any Frankie Martinez video). You may be inclined to think this is “whack” but don’t musicians repeat bars and phrases during a song? Music is only a representation of the circularity of life. Shouldn’t a routine follow the same path of music? Shouldn’t we as “salseros” recycle the ideas the music presents to see if we can extract our own meaning, our own interpretation and apply them to our context?

I’ll leave you with one last routine of Malambo, which was recently performed by a friend at the Jimmy Anton Salsa Social in NYC.  Not only is Vera an amazing dancer but a super cool person.

Juan Chavez and Vera Rowe

Peace
DJ Walt