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Do you enjoy Latin music? Would you like to get more involved in this genre and share your passion for Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba, Merengue and more. Why not joint our Global Team of volunteers as a correspondent?
You can ask for more details with no obligation and we’ll be happy to talk to you about the benefits that come with the role [Read more…] about ISM / September 2024
There are many instruments that have greatly contributed to make Latin music and its great exponents known worldwide, but unfortunately they are not very popular and the general public is unable to identify them. Such is the case of the charango, which we will talk about in this opportunity.
The charango can be defined as a stringed instrument that is part of the lute family and has its origin in the South American Andean region. It is believed that it began to gain popularity during the Viceroyalty of Peru. It has approximately five pairs of strings, but there are some models that have a greater or lesser number of strings.
Here is more information and interesting facts about the charango and its history.
Although it was not possible to determine exactly when the charango began to be played, it was found that it existed from the 17th century and was inspired by the Canarian timple (a stringed instrument from the Canary Islands that has five strings).
The Canarian timple was always very present in the so-called ”Spanish charangas”, which were a type of parades or comparsas that took place in the street. This is the origin of the name ”charango” with which it would be called from now on.
Previously, it was an instrument used exclusively by the more rural classes of the time and was closely related to the indigenous population. However, since the 1950s, this situation began to change and the charango started to be heard in more urban areas, which led residents of such places to participate in concerts and folkloric activities for all audiences.
the one responsible for this was Bolivian-born musician and luthier Mauro Núñez, who in 1944 began to use the charango to disseminate folk music and peduce new charango models in order to popularize it even more. This led many other musicians to find their own musical styles with the instrument, which brought the charango to concert halls and theaters all over Bolivia.
A few years later, the charango arrived in Ecuador, but in the 1960s, it reached Argentina and some European countries. During those same years, several artists from Bolivia, Peru and Argentina began to tour the world and, as a result, ended up taking the charango to the rest of Europe, the United States and Japan.
In 1973, Bolivian charanguista and composer William Ernesto Centellas took the initiative to create la Sociedad Boliviana de Charango with the support of charanguista Abdón Caméo and singer-songwriter Ernesto Cavour Aramayo. This society organizes the Congreso Nacional de Charango and the Encuentro Internacional de Charanguistas every two years.
Nowadays, everyone accepts the idea that the home city of the charango is the city of Potosí and, due to the way its later diffusion went, the town of Aiquile was very important for the instrument to the point that today it is known as the ”Capital of the Charango”.
The charango is shaped like the guitar, although it tends to be slightly smaller. Likewise, its sound box has a smaller size and the neck is much shorter. Among the most common sizes, we can mention 50cm, 60cm and 75cm. Generally, it has five pairs of strings, but there are some Peruvian models that may have four strings, two at eaither end and a double string in the middle.
The way in which the charango is tuned varies depending on the area and the musician’s preferences, but the most common tuning is natural temple. Just like the guitar, the charango also has the third-order strings octaved between them.
As for the way the charango should be played, the techniques most used by the charanguistas are the rasgueos, the repiques and the tremolo. In talking about the most popular rhythms, we cannot fail to mention the Huayno, the Carnaval, the Cuenca, among others.
Playing the charango can be quite a challenge for beginning musicians, but with enough effort and dedication, incredible results can be achieved even for the most inexperienced.
Read also: Yes, I speak the ancient African Lucumi toungue: The second language of salsa
The Salsa Museum always seeks to give exposure to the best of our Latin music and on that occasion, we want to talk about one of the most popular representatives of romantic salsa in recent years. We are talking about the amazingly talented Willie Gonzalez, who has recently been on the Johnny Cruz Show, so we think it is pertinent to do a review of his career and the most important details of his brilliant artistic background.
Willie’s formal beginnings in music were when he was just a 15-year-old boy with the dream of becoming an acclaimed artist in the future. It was the Orquesta de Chamaco Rivera that gave him his first opportunity in the musical environment by playing the trombone, but this would not be the artistic area in which he would develop later on. What ended up catching his attention were singing and songwriting.
During the 1980s, he was part of some important groups such as Orquesta Saraguey and Conjunto Chaney, in which Willie and Eddie Santiago were the main voices and began to gain great notoriety among the public.
In 1988, he decided it was time for him to become a soloist in the company of the Orquesta Noche Sensual and the support of the Sanatone record label. Romantic salsa was in style at the time, so Willie followed that same line and named his first album ”Willie González, Original y Único”. Thanks to this material, the artist managed to sell more than 100,000 copies, receive Platinum and won other recognitions.
In the coming years, he continued to release albums that was reaching greater success such as ”Willie González, Sin Comparación”, ”Para Ustedes, El Público” and ”Justo A Tiempo”. All of these have left great hits that are still considered romantic salsa classics to this day.
In 1994, the company Musical Productions published two compilation albums with Willie’s greatest hits which he called ”Éxitos de Willie González, Volumen 1” and ”Éxitos de Willie González, Volumen II”. The following year the singer demonstrated his talent as a composer with his album ”Willie González, Hacia Un Nuevo Camino” with songs like ”Quiero Recuperarte” or ”Dame Una Oportunidad”.
Once the year 2000 arrived, he continued adding successes to his career with his next album ”Sensualmente A Mi Estilo” from the hand of a Venezuelan company called Trama Records and includes great songs like ”Sensualmente Loco”, ”Tatuaje Eterno”, ”Amor Audaz”, among others.
About six years later, he released ”Reencuentro”. This musical work receives this name from a reunion between Willie and Eddie Santiago, who was his partner in the group Chaney many years ago. Together they recorded the songs ”Por Esta Mujer” and ”Solamente Ella”.
Years later, Willie recorded live from Colombia, testing his skills as a producer along with talented Diego Galé. He also wrote some of the songs ”Juré” and ”Estoy Contigo”.
In 2017, he continued to work in Colombia and released ”Willie González en vivo desde Manizales”. Such musical work contains songs like ”Pequeñas Cosas”, ”Quiero Morir En Tu Piel” and ”Si Tú Fueras mía”.
In 2020, Willie released his album ”Esencia” and continued with the line of sensuality and romance with which he has become known over the past few years. In the case of ”Esencia”, he counted on the collaboration of talented composers such as Jorge Luis Piloto, Kiko Campos, Jandy Feliz, among others.
The Spanish Harlem Salsa Museum has been fortunate to be supported by Willie, who was kindly committed to donate some of his most precious objects to the institution so that salsa fans can appreciate them.
In a video uploaded to the social networks of Johnny Cruz, president of the institution, they both talk about the role the museum has played in salsa and Willie said he was happy and proud to be able to support a place where there is a lot of history and items from such great Latin artists.
Read also: Ralph Rivera’s rol in the promotion of Latin Culture
We know that the most of our Latin countries have historically become known for genres such as salsa, merengue, bachata and more recently reggaeton and trap. However, the popularity of the aforementioned genres made us leave aside other more local rhythms that also deserve exposure.
On this occasion, we wanted to talk about the bomba and plena, so we resolved to interview Nanette Hernandez, who is one of its main proponents here in the United States, more specifically in New Jersey.
Nanette began by telling us that her interest in music was born thanks to her parents, who are Puerto Rican and moved to the United States, Pennsylvania, during the 1950s to continue their life in this new country. However, his home was built based on Puerto Rican culture and, of course, that included language and music. Her father had an ensemble that played jibaro music and Nanette grew up watching this, so this musical environment was always very familiar to her.
As she grew up, Nanette also became very interested in dancing and discovered that she really liked salsa when she was just a teenager. She remembers listening to Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, El Combo de Puerto Rico and many of the most popular groups and musicians of the time, who also inspired her to keep dancing. She felt that she was encouraged just by dancing, so she continued to do so over the years, but not professionally.
After marrying Juan Cartagena and seeing that she and her husband shared a taste for Latin music, they began to frequent places where Puerto Rican music groups performed. That is how they were in a show of the dance and drum ensemble ”Los Pleneros de la 21”. They were so fascinated by what they saw and heard that both Nanette and Juan began to study the plena and bomba because they wanted to know everything about these rhythms. Their interest was such that they were even in contact and consistently et with the Cepeda family, which is a cultural institution with many years of experience in everything to do with the bomba and plena.
She also mentions that Roberto Cepeda, part of the aforementioned family, was very important in her decision to devote herself to promoting the bomba and plena and feels that he saw something in her that even herself was not able to see, so she decided to search for expert teachers in these genres to become more professional in the dancing and instrumental part in order to be able to teach them to others.
When we asked Nanette about the differences between the bomba and plena, she made it very clear that people often think that they are almost the same, but they are not. They are extremely different and have many differences from each other.
In the case of the bomba, it has re than 400 years of existence and originated in Africa. The genre arrived in America along with the slaves who were brought to the New Continent and the new inhabitants of these lands brought their improvised instruments with them such as the so-called ”barrels”, which have a great resemblance to drums. They are often accompanied by maracas.
In the case of the plena, this rhythm uses the pandero, the güiro and other smaller hand instruments with which they make a completely different sound from the bomba. To complement what Nanette told us, we can also say that the plena is believed to originate in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and its lyrics are very focused on comedy, activism and denunciation. In addition, it is also seen as a very peculiar mix between African and European music.
Another difference between the bomba and plena is that, in the bomba, it is the dancer who leads and guides the musicians, while in plena the opposite happens. These genres are very different from each other, but that does not change the fact that both complement each other perfectly well in any show or class.
Segunda Quimbamba is a project initiated in 1989 by Juan Cartagena, Nanette’s husband, which was born as a result of the couple’s interest in promoting two of the most important ancestral rhythms from Puerto Rico and preserving the most important musical traditions on the Island of Enchantent, such as the ”parrandas”. A few years later, they began introducing the bomba and plena until they became the center of the project.
In 1997, Nanette and Juan founded the Segunda Quimbamba Folkloric Center, which is a non-profit arts organization that seeks to promote the bomba and plena in New Jersey and the rest of the United States so that those interested can learn more about Puerto Rican music and culture in general. The organization also seeks to offer music and dance workshops at solidarity prices and even for free at times.
Nanette and Juan have been invited to participate in numerous events and have been recognized for the role they have played in promoting Latin music, especially that of Puerto Rico. For example, in 2023, The New Jersey State Council of The Arts recognized the couple with the New Jersey Heritage Fellowship Award in honor of what they have accomplished with this wonderful and ambitious musical project.
Read also: Edwin Ortiz y La Mafía del Guaguancó is present in ISM
Former member of Cortijo y su Combo. Don Rafael Ithier is by his own merit an authentic living legend of salsa worldwide.
The Korean War was imminent. The young Puerto Rican soldier Rafael Ithier, in the service of the U.S. Army, feared being sent to the battlefield. Music was his thing.
He had been a pianist in several ensembles in his native San Juan before his military service.
His mission at that time (1950) was to organize an orchestra to liven up the parties at the military base.
But the group did not progress because the soldier with the soul of a musician did not hurry the coupling of the incipient band.
With that same astuteness, and after six glorious years and a painful separation from Combo de Cortijo, one of the most successful groups in West Indian music, this self-taught musician founded El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico.
He called several of the best musicians of the defunct Combo and two very young singers: Andy Montañez and Pellín Rodríguez.
May 26, 1962 marks the birth date of the orchestra, which today has become a living legend of the genre, with 48 years in the salsa music scene and 57 recordings.
Since its first presentation at the Rock and Roll saloon in Bayamón (Puerto Rico), the Gran Combo revolutionized West Indian music with an innovative clave rhythm for that time, which was aimed at the dancer’s ear.
The jocular lyrics of their songs with Andy Montañez’s and Pellín Rodríguez’s strong voices made an immediate impact.
In addition, the band’s fresh image and colorful choreography soon gave the band its own identity, at a time when orchestras were proliferating.
One of the difficult moments that Ithier remembers was when the two flagship voices of the group left in the seventies. According to the musician, “many decreed the death of the Gran Combo”.But once again, the director’s wisdom came to the fore when he found two voices that matched the band’s style.
The arrival of the new singers (Jerry Rivas and Charlie Aponte) reflected Ithier’s knowledge and leadership in managing his orchestra. When Rivas, white and blond, was introduced to replace the stellar Andy Montañez, the other musicians, most of them dark-haired, looked at him with suspicion. Ithier, with his traditional good humor, responded: “You can rest assured, he’s a black man painted white”.
On the cusp of success today few remember the vicissitudes to consolidate, after the disintegration of Cortijo y su Combo (due to indiscipline of the musicians, among them Ismael Rivera), from where the base of musicians of the Gran Combo came from. Ithier recalls how they were branded as “traitors” by the public and the musical milieu.
“The musicians came looking for me and after begging me to conduct for a while, I returned. The truth is that with so many problems I thought the group would last one or two years at most and look where we are now,” confesses Ithier.
But the constancy, the iron but friendly discipline and the virtuosity of the 14 members of the group paid off. In 2005 alone, they performed in 137 shows around the world.
Los Mulatos del Sabor, La Bandera Musical de Puerto Rico or La Universidad de la Salsa, nicknames by which the legendary group is known, are now in their 48th year.
The successful musical life of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico is linked in every musical note to the style andpersonality of its director and founder Rafael Ithier. This pianist describes himself as a self-taught musician who never attended a conservatory.
His musical school was the street and his discipline to learn from the musicians of his time. Ithier, born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, in 1926, has proven throughout his 63-year career to be a visionary of Latin music. In the 1960s, when he founded the group, he cemented his own style based on the rhythms that dominated the music scene of the time, such as bogaloo, jala-jala, bomba and plena. As for him, he was always a classical pianist.
In the seventies he understood the new direction that West Indian music was taking, already known as salsa, and he adapted to the changes.
“Music evolves like everything else and we adapt to the changes. Many orthodox of the genre do not accept it and criticized us, but for this reason many orchestras disappeared”. However, Ithier is one of the defenders of classic salsa and a critic of the so-called salsa monga (romantic), today in decline due to the resurgence of salsa dura.
“Those little guys missed the formula. They didn’t know what the clave was and they took away all the flavor of our music, they all did the same thing and that scared the dancer away. They even said that the clave was a delay in the music”.
In Latin music industry and genre circles, his influence is more than recognized.
It was Ithier who Gilberto Santa Rosa sought out for advice and support to become a soloist after having played with orchestras such as Willie Rosario’s. At present, Rafael Ithier continues in the direction of the Gran Combo and has no plans to retire, although he has not sat at the piano for three years due to hearing loss, according to himself, “due to an illness poorly cared for by not stopping traveling with the orchestra.”
Source: Alejandro-Gonzalez Teodoro (Dr Ted Alejandro Jr)
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