The music and narration tell the whole story.
What else can I add?
The only thing I can add is the location.
The playground of PS 130, Hewitt Place, Bronx.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
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From the YouTube collection of Neil Axelrod.
Beautiful footage from a wonderful time. Dave Valentin shines as host and leader of an impromptu flue summit.
Now out of business, La Maganette was a salsa magnet.
Here’s how New York Magazine described it:
Midtown’s kitschy old-Italian La Maganette (825 Third Avenue, at 50th Street) specializes in charanga, with performances by such vintage regulars as flute legend José Fajardo and New York’s seminal Orquesta Broadway.
Personnel:
Jose Fajardo
Larry Harlow
Nelson Gonzales
Eddie Servigon
Dave Valentin
Cachette
Jimmy Bosch
Aretmes Chocolate
Joe Santiago
Hermon Olivia
Pablo Rosari
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
Filmed in 1975.
Ray Barretto with vocalists Humberto “Tito” Gómez and and Rubén Blades. Composition by Rubén Blades.
Posted to YouTube by Salserodel70.
Click here to learn more about Abakuá
Lyrics:
Se escucha el sonar de tambores
Anuncian la misa pa’l que tenga fe
Y en medio de la noche oscura
Avanzan los fieles con rumbo al bemb
Se oye el repique’l tamb
Ecos de un viejo cantar
Olofi, Lofi y Vilat
En medio e’la oscuridad
Y sigue vibrando la noche
Al compas bolero del coquioyamba
Los negros se agarran las manos
Repitiendo a coro
El viejo cantar
Se oye el repique del oyamba
Van cantando los niches de madruga
Oye mi canto abacua
Ay, a prisa negro que la misa va a empezar
Oye mi canto abacua
Yo por eso le canto porque yo se que el santo me pue’ayudar
Oye mi canto abacua
Le pedimos la libertad
Oye mi canto abacua
Campanas, campanas, campanas llamando estan
Oye mi canto abacua
Abasi vigila en la oscuridad.
Coro 2
Abasi es tambores abacua
Cantando de madruga
Abasi es tambores abacua
Se escucha el misterioso cantar
Abasi es tambores abacua
Son los niches que te vienen a rezar
Abasi es tambores abacua
Mis tambores abacua
Abasi es tambores abacua
Abasi
Abacua
Abacua
Abacua
Abacua
Abacua
Abacua
Abacua
Abacua
Abacua
Este es mi canto abacua
Coro 1
Oye mi canto abacua
Ay, tambores de madruga
Oye mi canto abacua
Ayofi venme a ayudar
Oye mi canto abacua
Oye mi canto abacua
Oye mi canto abacua
Great news!
You can now watch this video – and all Spanish language videos – with English subtitles. It’s free!
Click here for instructions on how to turn on English subtitles.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
Imagine being able to go back in time and actually SEE classic Son ensembles of the 1920s perform in Havana.
Thanks to an unexpected discovery hidden in the archives of the University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research Collections you can do that now.
Ensembles like this are the root of everything.
In the late 1930s, they evolved into the conjunto format with trumpets, piano, and tumbadora with Conjunto Casino, Canjunto Kubavana, and Arsenio Rodríguez learning the way.
What do we know about the musicians in this footage?
Not much.
We do know that Havana was a popular tourist destination for people from the United States during this period. Prohibition was on in the US and there was no Prohibition in Cuba.
The first video show two different groups. (There’s a second video on this page. Don’t miss it.)
1. A sexteto – filmed December 24, 1928.
2. Fragments of a second group with a very able bongocero – filmed May 30, 1930
The bongo made its way to Havana and Western Cuba from Oriente, the eastern part of the island, and was the first instrument with an distinctly African character to appear in gatherings of “polite” Cuban society.
The then-new medium of radio started putting Son on the map in 1922 and by the time these films were made Son was Cuba’s most popular music
Son was a socially controversial form of music (considered “too rough”) until Cuba’s president Gerardo Machado, who held office from 1925 to 1933, invited the group La Sonora Matancera to perform at his birthday party.
The second video filmed on October 31, 1929 is an octet with a drum that looks and sounds like an early variation of the timbales.
The banner for the group says “La Estudiantina Invencible.” – The Invincible Students.
Great news!
You can now watch this video – and all Spanish language videos – with English subtitles. It’s free!
Click here for instructions on how to turn on English subtitles.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
The year: 1977.
The place: La Habana, Cuba.
President Jimmy Carter thawed the freeze between the United States and Cuba a bit by allowing a boatload of American musicians to travel to Havana to perform with Cuban musicians, the first such officially sanctioned visit since 1961.
Check out the young, very serious and (very thin) Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D’Rivera.
Smoking hot!
Personnel:
Dizzy Gillespie, leader and trumpet
Arturo Sandoval, trumpet
Stan Getz, saxophone
Paquito D’Rivera, saxophone
David Amram, french horn
Ronnie Jones, guitar
Ben Brown, bass
Oscar Valdes, chekeres
Los Papinesm, congas
Mickey Roker, drums
If anyone knows other musicians not listed, please let me know.
Also, if anyone knows where the rest of the tape is, I’m all ears.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
Gilberto Valdés Zequeira was born in Havana on August 16, 1928.
Note: His mother was a milliner (hat), not a millionaire.
As a kid he listened to Chano Pozo’s rehearsals in the Colon neighborhood of Havana.
His vocal group had a weekly gig at the San Souci night club in Havana and he appeared on Cuba’s pioneering television channel twice a week in the 1950s.
Roy Haynes introduced him to American jazz drumming and gave him his first set of drumsticks.
He performed with his old friend Bebo Valdés when the two of them found themselves in Europe in the early 1960s.
He spent time as the #2 man at Egrem.
He was Dizzy Gillespie’s host when Dizzy visited Havana in 1977.
He introduced Irakere to Columbia Records and toured the world with them as their manager.
He helped save Cuba’s most important jazz club La Zorra y el Cuervo from being turned into a pizzeria.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of Gilberto’s remarkable life.
Click here to learn more about Gilberto.
Havana’s top nightclub Sans Souci (1958)
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
Thelonious Monk
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