Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the amos, owners of Colombian slaves, allowed their charges, both indigenous and African, to socialize through dances. Free from the burdens of electricity, the slaves created their own light with candles and torches. A group, each person holding a candle, encircled a sole couple who performed a ritualistic dance hailing from Guinea in West Africa. These dances were called called cumbe. Against a backdrop of percussion and vocals, these mixers focused on a simple premise: the male had to conquer the unapproachable woman on the dancefloor. The woman, teasing the man and refusing to make eye contact, would encourage him just enough to keep it interesting. Meanwhile, the man would offer the woman lit candles and put on his best moves in an effort to woo her. Replace the candles with cheap beer and the tradition thrives today in any college campus.
Enter Rough Guide, the tour guide publisher and (assisted by the World Music Network) world music collector that once again deserves kudos for doing its homework. As with its other musical surveys, this focused collection starts off old school, digging up the completely addictive tunes that defined Colombia's signature song style during the 1950s and 1960s. Artists such as Alberto Pacheco recorded songs in the la puya, or folkloric dance music, tradition. Against a rhythm track of simple drums and bass, Pacheco's accordion shares the spotlight with the joyous vocals. These punchy, highly syncopated, dithering squeezebox melodies are more commonly heard in Czech polkas and Mexican conjuntos, yet they're a perfect fit for the cumbia beat. Lucho Bermudez, another artist presented herein, shuns the accordian in favor of wind instruments -- practically all of them. Evocative of nightclubs and slinky dancing, Bermudez took cumbia from Colombia's coastal towns to the interior regions during the '60s. Though as contagious as Pacheco's simpler style, Bermudez's big band arrangements lend a certain grandeur to the genre.
As it pokes around later decades, Rough Guide's cumbia survey sneaks out of the dance hall and peeks into the garage. Two '70s-era bands in particular, Los Black Stars and Los Falcons, inject a pinch of grunge and dollop of electric guitar to formula. During their popular concerts, Los Falcons, knowing damn well how irresistible their rock-tinged cumbias were, defied audiences not to dance. Their arrangements are a little sloppier and somewhat faster than their dancehall forefathers, yet these subtle, punk Esquivels keep the cumbia faith. As with Rough Guide's thirty or so other world music collections, this comprehensive sampling is wonderfully curated, not to mention intelligently documented with fantastic liner notes. Take a listen and try your best not to dance. Like Los Falcons, I dare you.
