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The album that brought me to Colombia

By Daniel Brody, Editorial Director

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

When I first decided to live and travel in Latin America, choosing a country seemed daunting. The Spanish-speaking part of the New World stretches from Mexico down to Argentina, encompassing all kinds of people, culture, and climates. How would I ever pick one? I analyzed and overanalyzed, read every travel book I could find, and asked my friends who had traveled there, but as my summer deadline for getting out of dodge approached, I had to pick somewhere. Always the music junkie, my decision finally came down to the records I was downloading to practice my Spanish and get myself familiar with Latin rhythms. "Colombia! The Golden Age Of Discos Fuentes – The Powerhouse Of Colombian Music 1960 to 1976" pushed me over the edge; I was going to Colombia.

Discos Fuentes, founded in Cartagena in 1934, was Colombia's premier label for all kinds of local music during the vinyl era. It is as integral to Colombian music as Fania Records is to New York Salsa, or Motown is to rhythm and blues music from the 1960s. The many styles of music native to Colombia, like porro, cumbia, salsa, and vallenato, all have their history documented in the archives of Discos Fuentes. A walk into any record store in Colombia will reveal hundreds of albums and compilations put out by the company, often at very cheap prices. However, many compilations available in Colombia will throw together songs free of context, with little concern for relationships between songs or history. Songs with cheesy-sounding eighties synthesizers will rub up against stone cold classics from the fifties and sixties. Finding the best material can require a lot of digging and slogging through boring tunes.

Which is where this incredible compilation comes in. Put together by British label Soundways Records, the record does all the crate digging for you, taking the listener on a lightning-fast trip through several genres of classic Colombian music. The album kicks of with Fruko y sus Tesos "Salsa Na Ma," a speedy, energetic number that shows right out of the gate that this is a different kind of salsa than was being produced at points further north at the same time. There is no breathing room here; the pace is breakneck and the dance steps are probably a blur. Other Fruko cuts like "Improvisando" experiment with a kind of rock/soul/salsa fusion sound, taking British Invasion harmonies and piling them on top of Latin percussion and piano. Latin Brothers have a more languid take on Salsa. "Las Caleñas Son Como Las Flores" (Girls from Cali are like flowers) is a breezy tribute to beautiful Colombian women, and its relaxed beat is perfect for gringos with two left feet who need to practice their dancing skills. Michi Sarmiento y Sus Bravos provide yet another version of salsa, with an Asian flavor on "Hong Kong" and sounding like a roller coaster going off the rails on the teetering "Mirame San Miguel". But the centerpiece is the ten- minute extended jam "Mondongo" by Corraleros de Majagual, which riffs endlessly on the pleasures of the Colombian soup made from cow intestines.

But salsa is not all that is here. Genres like cumbia, gaita and porro sound similar to big band jazz music from the United States, and have a stately elegance to them. Lucho Bermudez, known as the "King of Porro Music", is represented here by "Gaita de las Flores", and the clarinet-driven tune could be mistaken for Benny Goodman going south of the border. Other great songs like Orquesta Nuñez' "La Samaria" and Lito Barrientos y su Orquesta's "Cumbia en Do Menor" sound much older than the dates on the album would suggest, like something your grandparents would have danced to during courtship. Climaco Sarmiento y su Orquesta's duck romance tale, "La Pata y el Pato", provides some much-needed female singing, and sound like pre-rock singers such as the Andrews Sisters or Peggy Lee.

The dynamic sound of Afro-Colombian music is represented on the album too. Wganda Kenya, a band intended to replicate the popular sound of Africa with a Colombian twist, positively slams it home with the song "Tifit Hayed". An elastic Moog keyboard rhythm bounces all over the place as African beats clash with salsa pianos and frog-like vocals. It sounds like it could have been made today by some hipster band with a huge record collection. Afrosound, a band that tried to provide a Colombian version of Peruvian electric cumbia music, closes out the disc with "Pacifico". With its jungle noises and disco sythesizers, it sounds like it was transmitted from the middle of the rain forest.

Having lived here for a little while, it's a thrill to hear any of these songs in a real Colombian context, whether I am bouncing along on a colectivo bus, picking up some aguardiente at the liquor store, or dancing at a fiesta. Loading this album on the MP3 player always seems to get the party guests moving and shaking, and the variety of genres explored keeps things interesting. The album sounds just as good here in Colombia as it did when I was outside, and only gotten groovier as I get more comfortable living here. Warning: this album may cause you to buy a one-way plane ticket to Colombia.

Some Cool Tracks:

Wganda Kenya - Tifit Hayed

Michi Sarmiento y sus Bravos - Mirame San Miguel

Lucho Bermudez - Gaita de las Flores

Purchase the album at the Soundways Records website.

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