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