Salsa Blog

30th December 2011 El Rincón Latino Pre-NYE Party @Anchor Inn, Clowne, Derbyshire

2012-01-03T14:57:00.002Z

Karen wanted another salsa fix. In Barcelona, her regular haunt 'El Manisero' is not five minutes' walk out of her front door; there, she dances as often as the DJs play. We'd already cut a rug in Wetherby two nights before, but her feet had started to itch in a way that only a good dose of hot sauce would cure.

In the quiet time, when events draw a breath between Christmas and New Year, salsa nights are rare as truffles. I said "well, there's Clowne..."
"Dónde?" she asked quizzically.

I'd recently become acquainted with Iván and Emma of Salsa Beat who'd both struck me as having an inclusive dance philosophy; and when I said that I thought Stephen Gordo Mágico played a good set, that sealed it for Karen... she couldn't get to the car fast enough.

Salsa is a monolithic transnational phenomenon, bestriding the megalopoleis of New York, Japan, and London; and yet it thrives in modest fertile places like Clowne, Debyshire (population circa 7500). Walking into the village centre's Anchor Inn, the barman motions us to the function room around the side of the main salon where we're greeted by salsa music blaring away.

El Rincón Latino pulses in a slightly-narrow rectangular room boasting a good wooden floor, a raised stage at one end, counterbalanced by a modest stretch of bar at the other. By the time we got there at nine-thirty the place was packed, many with faces I recognised from as far afield as Nottingham. Above the energetic hubbub, Stephen kept the dancefloor filled by limiting his palette of colours to Nuyorican dura, crossover and Colombian salsa; merengue; bachata; and kizomba - Fania classics and sones/son montunos didn't to see light of day. A track by Bamboleo (a bold choice I though, as it requires a dancer with strongly internalised rumba clave to navigate through it) made it onto the decks, but remained the sole timba number of the night - it wasn't received with the same certainty as the Colombian fare. La Excelencia's 'Salsa con Conciencia' got an airing, although I suspect it's message flowed over the majority of the dancers; I might have gone for something from their 'Mi Tumbao Social' album instead.

Observing audience-dancer responses to Stephen's music selection, I was able to assess the local salsa scene's development to be in the latter phase of the youthful growing stage. Karen paid El Rincón Latino's party her ultimate compliment by saying that it felt like being at El Manisero. She and I left as the night wound down through a bachata set into kizomba. We'd had our satisfying fill of salsa by then, including some Cali stepping (Karen'd lived in Colombia for a bit).

There are just a couple of tweaks I'd recommend that would make a huge difference: a pair of air blowers positioned at the bar-side exit facing outward, to extract heated air from the room; and slight attenuation of the low and low-mid frequencies to manage the bass rumble of the room.

We live in an age where bigger is marketed as implicitly better e.g. "The biggest <insert adjectives and superlatives here> salsa congress". On the contrary, I've discovered people from smaller cities and towns to be the more accommodating by far.

For the atmosphere and its warm welcome, El Rincón Latino's party en el pueblo de Clowne [in the village of Clowne] is hard to beat.

Smaller is most decidedly better.

Loo Yeo

Timbale Landmark - The First State of Independence

2011-12-16T22:53:00.000Z

Last night's band practice marked the passing of a huge milestone. It was the first time I was able to cue the transitions with the abanico, play cáscara and clave (either flavour) in the pre-montuno, timbale bell and clave in the montuno AND sing lead vocals at the same time.

I know it's taken a little longer than anticipated but I think I can justify it, what with having so many projects going on at the same time, and give myself a wee pat on the back. So what next? The most immediate is being able to play bongó bell (left hand) and timbale bell (right) whilst singing. Having just practiced it for a couple of hours just now, I can do it already... minus the singing.

After that, it's sorting out how to play the maraca and güiro rhythm on the hi-hats a la Mike Collazo; then with cáscara, then plus singing.

In the meanwhile Catie has been keen to add congas to her arsenal of musical instruments; and this is a fantastic opportunity to explore rhythmic movements together - like mozambique and songo. Plus I'm sure there'll be a healthy amount of 'chop-building' ahead.

My dance partners, old and new, are very much aware of these developments even if they don't exactly know why. As I said to Emma the other night, 'It's a shame to have so many rhythms playing and to use only one'.

Loo

24th November 2011 Son Para Todos @Revolución de Cuba, Sheffield

2011-11-28T12:55:00.000Z

Son Para Todos is Sheffield's own working salsa band. Originally conceived as a duo: Rodrigo Paredes (vocals, guitar) and Armando Murillo (percussion, coro), its line-up has stabilised over the years to include an additional keyboard, second guitar and trumpet. They work hard to earn a living off their playing, that's what I mean about a 'working' band, lugging their instruments and their PA around in car boots to deliver music in restaurants, bars, and the odd special event.

Respect. This is the grind of what Nuyoricans would call the cuchifrito circuit. I understand the decisions they have to, and are willing to, make in order to bring a touch of Latin American zing to Sheffield's night life.

For years, they've held a once weekly residency at Cubana where they played Cubanesque standards such as 'El Cuarto de Tula' and 'Montón de Estrellas'. Then Inventive Leisure decided to diversify to include rum-based drinks and launched its Revolución de Cuba chain, opening a branch in Sheffield's city centre a salsa song's walk from Cubana - the fit-out has been superb, and the balance of drinks on offer very well-judged.

And so it transpires that Son Para Todos now have three residency slots, playing twice weekly in Revolución de Cuba on Thursday and Friday nights as well.

A wee slice of fantasy Cuba on Mappin Street

I turned up to listen and to get a vibe of the place on Thursday evening. The bar was humming with activity from the beginning of their first set at about 8pm. The hubbub continued its crescendo even when the final strains of their third set faded at 10:30 and Stephen 'DJ Gordo Mágico' Jackson worked the decks.

Chatting with Armando over a mojito, I said that I'd noticed that there were new numbers in their repertoire, mainly at chachachá /son montuno tempo from the Latin Crossover pocket (think Santana), salsafied pop, and some reggae. He gave a wry smile, gestured to the crowd, and said that they'd had to expand and diversify their selection, what with having to play longer and on two consecutive evenings. I told Armando that I thought Son Para Todos had made the right decision - I know plenty of salsa bandleaders who would sneer at playing this mix, but these are ones who have the luxury of not having to perform for a living.

Actually I think that Son Para Todos are being true to their name - bringing the experience of son and its children to everyone - and playing the key role of cultural mediator. And they do so deftly and with aplomb. Cultural mediators are necessary. They are the conduits by which the salsa scene is (Re)energised and (Re)vitalised. A case in point being that when I popped in on Nicolai's lesson two days later: I stepped through Cubana's aged wooden doors to be greeted by two young English lads who introduced themselves to me as Chris and George. They were both there for their first salsa lesson after having been completely taken by the atmosphere at Revolución de Cuba, and I was recognised from there.

I would also confess that my first four Latin CDs were Gloria Estefan's 'Mi Tierra', Alfredo Gutiérrez's 'El Palito', Cheito Quiñones' eponymous album, and La Conexión's 'Conexión Latina'; of which Gloria's and Cheito's were my early favourites. As an ethnomusicologist of transnational genres, I understand the importance of crossover artists as cultural mediators, and am happy to say that Son Para Todos are as deft as they come.

Loo Yen Yeo

8th October 2011 Soweto Gospel Choir @Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield

2011-10-09T09:39:00.000Z

"...and I'd like one for the Soweto Gospel Choir, too" I heard myself say.

I was standing in the sun-drenched box office of Sheffield's rather swanky Crucible Theatre. I could rationalise it as much as I'd like, for instance saying: "well, as an student of AfroCuban music, it's important to see its roots at the source", but the truth was that it was a momentary mugging by spontaneity.

I can only put it down to Rising Sap from the pseudo-Spring conditions teasing Yorkshire's autumn.

I expected beautiful rich tibreous voices in rhythmic harmony. My mind's eye painted an image of 'Songs of Praise' crossed with the deep South's Gospel. My mind's eye was agog seconds bars into the programme.

The twenty-strong men and women of the choir slipped onto stage in a vibrant kaleidoscope of colour, swaying and singing in undulating rhythm. Unlike their genre predecessors Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the presence of women in the ensemble endows the Soweto Gospel Choir with a greater vocal, harmonic, and timbrel range. It also extended the possibilities in programme presentation: very early on in the first set there was a piece sung by the ladies, followed straight after with another by the gentlemen - it was call-and-response achieved by gender.

Photograph Copyright © Waltons New School of Music.
All Rights Acknowledged.

Call-and-response was the overarching theme in their concert, and it was a full blown concert, of two sets: the first, a call of traditional and folkloric songs; the second, a response of more accessible contemporary numbers. The mix was well-judged, the very pleasant white middle-aged ballroom dancing couple occupying the seats beside me, Susan and Paul, clearly preferred the latter when they said "the concert just kept getting better and better". The hard-nosed musicologist inside me found the first set spine-tingling; it has been the only time, ever, that a musical performance has ever ilicited tears.

It was impassioned and committed unlike any performance I'd experienced before.

Within the choir were leaders and instrumentalists, some of them assuming the positions of bassist, pianist, guitarist, and percussionist (trapset or djembe). I was least prepared for the dancing - a joyous celebration of the music they create. Group, couple and virtuoso solo performances of physical movement, from which it was obvious where Cuba's rumba yambú, guaguancó and columbia were desecended.

Each and every one of the twenty women and men sang from their very essences, their voices a commitment to an absolute purpose. As a musician, it was my privilege to be humbled.

I can only sum up my Soweto Gospel experience with one word - Joy.

For Cubans and those partake of AfroCuban culture, from this choir there is much to be learned.

Loo Yeo

23rd September 2011 Palenke @SalsaWorks, The Engine Shed, Wetherby

2011-09-25T09:00:00.000Z

Tony 'El Caballero' Piper understands how central the breaking of bread together is in creating strong social bonds. That's why he makes the run to his local supermarket twice weekly, to nab provisions for his salsa classes and his social evenings - it's an effort he makes that's over and above any other promoter I know.

So I'm perched at the breakfast bar of the Piper kitchen, scoffing one of Mary's cupcakes and watching the last batch of sausages emerge from the oven with a predatory eye. It's been a while since I was here last and I find the rhythm of this household to be refreshingly different. Already I've been Tony's grocery trolley dolly, a slicer and chopper, and packer of various comestibles; and as soon as my host's back is turned, those piping bangers are going to get a right menacing.
I'm staying over to enjoy one of my favourite salsa dance bands, Palenke, perform at the Engine Shed.

Palenke's Fernando, Adriana, Lisandro and Bill are the warmest characters you'll ever meet, and I surprise them side-stage just as they're about to soundcheck. We go back a long way. Smartly, the band provide their own PA, which means they can remain competitive with other ensembles who don't, and still being able to take home a more live-able wage. It's something well-established working bands do.

Both Tony and I feed back that the sound's a bit bright, so Fernando juggles the controls to tone down the migh-mids as the dancers begin to trickle in. SalsaWorks at the Engine Shed features a band on its programme once every six months. It's something they don't have to do (in fact they just about break even) but the team feel it's important to support live music otherwise "where would future recorded music come from?"

Palenke, giving it plenty @The Engine Shed

Alfredo and Christine take the intermediate salsa class on the main floor, while Tony leads the willing beginners (and one house guest) up to the smaller dance area. The theme of the 'beginner' lesson (as opposed to 'absolute beginner' of which there were none) is cross-body lead with "Titanic" variations, where us gents play Leonardo DiCaprio to the ladies' Kate Winslet with varying degrees of aplomb. Since these manoeuvres, though commonly found in the wild, aren't in my active dancing vocabulary, El Caballero's ship-encounters-iceberg hour made for a mischievous diversion.

Shortly afterward, the band struck up.

Palenke are in the midst of producing their second album. Strictly speaking, it's Lisandro who is its central custodian and midwife; he's always dreamt of having the band's album made in his home of Colombia and finally decided to take the plunge. Their two live sets featured numbers from the upcoming release, and if they're anything to go by, their production should be feature a cracking number of dancefloor-fillers.

There were signs, which only an experienced eye could glean, that the band weren't entirely comfortable with their foldback (i.e. onstage sound) during the first set - that's part of the risk with not having a dedicated live engineer - and as such I think Palenke delivered their second with more surety, with a well-judged mix of salsa, son montuno and bachata.

It's on past record how brilliant I feel Palenke are. That has not changed. They still reside at the pinnacle of salsa dance bands in the UK, and have been so for more than 20 years when others have been and gone. Dancing to them is a joy and a privilege, especially in a such a venue as the Engine Shed.

Basking in the warmth of their music and of dancing friends, this has been one lovely highlight to this year of salsa.

Loo Yeo

"La Lucha For Cuba" by Miguel A. De La Torre

2011-08-17T13:23:00.000Z

Illustration Copyright © 2003 University of California Press Ltd. All Rights Acknowledged.

I was drawn to this book by its cover: a protester clutching a Cuban flag, a sash of cordon tape across his chest, being restrained by three concerned blue-clad police officers. It looked familiar somehow, and it turns out that it was an exilic Cuban protesting at the Los Van Van concert at the Miami Arena. I remembered watching the DVD of the concert which opened with scenes of the protest, and wondering why salsa - a phenomenon which sometimes sells itself on the basis of Latin American unity - inspired such fervent anger.

There was another reason; research into augmenting the History of Salsa on my website, with sections on Colombian, Venezuelan and Miami salsa.

The author, Miguel A. De La Torre, writes about Miami exilic Cubans' power geometry in the contexts of Dade County, the United States, and against Castro's Cuba. The work unmasks the structures of oppression deployed by exilic Cubans to maintain their position of power; it is piercingly insightful, utterly convincing and written with relentless candour. He is a brave man. I can only imagine what he risked as an insider, in the publication of 'La Lucha'. Laura Pérez, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies in University of California Berkley, regarded it as an "... extremely important, courageous and long overdue project about cubanidad...".

It is heavyweight, erudite, and yet personal. It is not light reading. But difficult endeavours, and their accounts shouldn't be. His writing is compact, succinct, heavily laden with meaning. I think the value of his commitment is best be revealed through some of his own words (In order to avoid misunderstandings due to my purely personal choice of excerpts, I strongly urge you to obtain a copy of the book to read them in the context as the author intended):

In his preface he observes, "My hatred for Fidel Castro has been ingrained in me since childhood."

And of the institutionalized racism he and his family encountered when they moved from Miami to Kentucky he says, "The day we moved, I woke up "white" in Miami, but that night in Louisville I went to sleep as a man of color. This experience illustrated that while in Miami, I benefited from the power and privilege obtained by Exilic Cubans, yet when I left Dade County, I suffered because I was seen as a Latino."

And for me, most importantly,

"The Cuban clergy was predominantly from Spain... trained during the Franco dictatorship and highly influenced by the bitter Spanish Civil War victory over communism."
"These priests transplanted the atmosphere of a religious crusade against communism from Spain to Cuba."
"The Cuban Revolution occurred before the churches in Latin America became radicalized by the Vatican II (1962-65)... which articulated the basic tenets of liberation theology." [page 27]

This was the 'a-ha' moment - all of a sudden, things made sense. It was worth the cost of the book for the value of page 27 alone.

'La Lucha for Cuba' has brought me to a cross-roads. Should I augment the history with a deeper analysis which would necessitate consideration of political (and hence polarising) influences? Or should I maintain the history's accessibility to all by side-stepping the controversies which lie at the very heart of salsa?

Perhaps there is a middle path, should Elegguá be kind enough to show me the way. Otherwise, my instinct tells me I should follow De La Torre's example, and trust my readers to know the price of the difference.

Yeo Loo Yen

M is for Metaphor

2011-07-31T09:13:00.000Z

I've been working my way through Beard and Gloag's 'Musicology: The Key Concepts' (2005), using musicology as a lens through which to study dance. To be frank I've found the book a bit of a struggle, more due to the density of subject concepts than the writing style (see the review in a later post). But along the way, there's plenty of stimulus for thought. Take the opening section on the entry for 'Metaphor':

[Quote]

Metaphor is a concept that defines our relationship to music. For example, music cannot be said to be sad; rather, sadness is a quality that we may ascribe to it (Neubauer 1986, 151). Metaphor arises in all forms of discourse about music, even when, as in theory and analysis, it attempts to treat music as an autonomous object (see autonomy). Naomi Cumming has summarized metaphors about music as 'a projection onto sound of aspects of our own mentality' (Cumming 1994, 28). In a critical appraisal of Roger Scruton's discussion of ways in which metaphor has informed musical descriptions, Cumming comments:

If explanations of music commonly make it an 'intentional object' by treating it as the object of understanding, not as a thing which can be described 'in itself'... then references to qualities which derive from our own cognitive mechanisms rather than from any acoustic property of the music are bound to appear.

(ibid., 28)

[Unquote]

An aspect of the philosophical use of analogy is that confidence in validity of the comparison depends upon the level of similarity between the things being compared. Based on the Latin American concept of 'ritmo' which refers not only to rhythm in music also to its associated dance, we can derive these analogous statements of high confidence:

Metaphor is a concept that defines our relationship to dance. For example, dance cannot be said to be 'hot'; rather, 'hotness' is a quality that we may ascribe to it
Metaphors about dance (can be described) as a projection onto movement of aspects of our own mentality
...references to qualities which derive from our own cognitive mechanisms rather than from any kinesthetic property of the dance are bound to appear

Through this lens, we can pierce the marketing veil to look at underlying constructs and contradictions.

Of Hot and Hotness
A glance of the salsa dance listings in the United Kingdom is replete with terms like: fuego [fire], fever, heat, and spicy. The marketing implication is that one can be 'hot' like the constructed Latin American. However if we ascribe the property of 'hotness' to salsa, or at least the potential for it, then it leaves responsibility for achieving it in the hands (and bodies) of the interpreters.

'Hot' allows the engagement to be passive, just by participating in the activity renders the dancer 'hot'; whereas 'hotness' demands active engagement, requiring the conscious and continuous act of interpretation to realise potential. But as salsa is rendered here as a decontextualised activity, how much Latin American hotness should we expect to achieve?

Projections of our own mentality
In the content of our salsa lessons, move vocabulary vastly outweighs rhythmic strength demonstrating our cultural pursuit of the pinnacle at the expense of the fundamental. That our prevailing style skims across the surface of the floor instead of deriving a strong hip action off it, privileges the European roots over the African.

Qualitative references derived from cognitive mechanisms
The segregation of salsa communities into those brandishing salsa, mambo, contratiempo, On1 and On2 markers tell us that salsa is the being treated as an 'intentional object'. It causes us to ask the question, "what is the underlying intent?" driving the promotion of these markers.

And the next concept is 'Modernism'... Hmm...

Loo Yeo

Listening in Rome

2011-06-21T13:49:00.000Z

"...a phasing effect with the very early reflections". One bit of sentence told me that Bob Katz works on a completely different plane altogether.

The thought of listening for this audio artefact had never troubled my mind; and even knowing what to listen for, I could only just make it out in the studios at home and at Red Tape. Having said that any feedback on Corazón Fugitivo's 'Rome Calling' mix would yield new and valuable information, this innocuous-looking snippet was a complete game-changer - telling me that I would have to send the salsa album to Florida for mixing as well as mastering.

That was the day before Rome.

I walked into the Auditorium della Discoteca di Stato on a wondrous Wednesday morning to be greeted by the lovely Andrea and Laura assisting none other than the flame-haired Mary Kent, author of "Salsa Talks". It was a great thing finally to meet and connect over salsa, as my attendeeship to "Bob 'Til You Drop" (BTYD) was being processed. Indeed, over the next three days I consider myself fortunate to have had so much of Mary and Bob's time to talk about things other than and including salsa dancing and music.

Loo... certified by Laura and Andrea

BTYD was a brain-melter of a workshop.

The early part of the morning dealt with ear-training; listening to several audiophile recordings and understanding how they were achieved. After the mid-morning break, it was into mastering software and workflow. Lunch was delish; an outside catering company had set up in the old courtyard with benches laden with classic Italian cuisine, and there we mingled - engineers, producers and musicians alike - under white canopies in the bright early summer sunlight. Then it was back into the fray to ruminate over the main tools of mastering and their effects. By the time those essentials were covered, space in the schedule for mix evaluations had run out.

If there were to be one slight regret, it would be that (frankly, all of us were hostages to the effects of saturation by then). It was more than compensated for by the company of warm, open, like-minded talents like Pierangelo, Federico and Samuel - musicians and audio experts in their own right.

Bobbin' 'til we were a'droppin'
(back, left to right) Pierangelo Troiano, Bob Katz, Federico Simonazzi
(front, left to right) Samuel Gaehwiler, Loo Yeo
Photograph courtesy of Mary Kent. All rights acknowledged.

Bob had kept up a lively, engaging patter throughout the day. It's not easy to run a full-dayer like that; his slight frame surely hid a deep well of stamina to draw upon. What I can say is that Mary and Bob hosted, presented, managed and delivered the workshop with not inconsiderable style. It is certainly one to go to again.

The next two days of 'Rome Calling' were more technically based on broadcasting and, despite being focussed on loudness normalisation as per European Broadcasting Union's Recommendation 128, had more than enough of the good stuff for the general producer and engineer. I came away with a feeling of being privileged to have engaged with unassuming people at the top of their game, the likes of Florian Camerer, George Massenburg, Thomas Lund, and Alessandro Travaglini. George especially, still communicates energy, enthusiasm, curiosity and wonder in all things to do with sound, music and people.

I have also an elevated respect for TC Electronics, headline sponsors and organisers of the 'Rome Calling' Audio Seminars, a company with so much class that it chose not to emblazon its presence in every nook and cranny. Instead, everyone from TC Electronics adopted understated roles of facilitators/advisors. Deserved plaudits go to them all.

And salsa still proved relevant to this entire context. Rome Calling affirmed several things. Foremost, a number of the demonstration pieces selected by Bob and George were Latin; in private conversation it sparked considerable interest when we discovered that it was an area I worked/played in. Afro-Cuban and Latin music has stature amongst the audio elite.

Just as invaluable was the chance to hear the personal story, about: why Mary embarked on "Salsa Talks" and how it resonates with my position with Víspera, and what she's working on now; Bob's insights into the remastering of the Fania back-catalog; and George's work with Cándido Camaro and Linda Ronstadt.

BTYD in the Eternal City.
Photograph courtesy of Mary Kent. All rights acknowledged.

Salsa is such a rich sustaining world that it's easy to be drawn in and become cloistered within it. Rome was a landmark event, to step out and to look back, and to savour it as appreciative outsiders do, if only for a short while.

Loo Yeo

For more about Loo's sojourn in Rome, visit the public photo album links (by Facebook) below:

Corre Mi Corazón

2011-05-30T23:53:00.000Z

That's it. The first mix of the first song of the album has just finished being uploaded to Digital Domain's site.

Three weeks ago I learned of a rare opportunity - there was going to be a gathering of the world's audio elite, respected audiophile and Grammy award-winning producers/engineers, in Rome to convocate a new broadcasting standard; one with the potential to change the way all music is produced and broadcast. Competition for places was always going to be keen, but a lightning spate of to-ing and fro-ing (plus maybe a wee bit of leverage with a UNESCO credential) committed me to a presence in the Eternal City.

Yet, there is more icing to this already jammy cake. It transpired that one of the speakers, Bob Katz, author of "Mastering Audio" and sonic guru at Digital Domain was conducting a full-day seminar the day before!

If anything, this was more important (if that's at all possible), since I'd earmarked Digital Domain as the likely Mastering house for 4 de Diciembre's CD, at a time even before Bob had been commissioned to re-Master much of Fania's back catalogue. It was the ideal chance to meet Mr.Katz beforehand; be taught audio mastering from a world authority; and, as a mix engineer, to learn what to do, and what not to do, so as to avoid painting a mastering engineer into a corner.

The unique selling point was modestly tucked away in the prose of the seminar programme. It simply said, "Bring your mixes for evaluation and to see how they might be mastered".

For me, this was the ultimate. If I were able to produce a final mix of any of the salsa band's songs, and if it was to be accepted for evaluation, I would have a chance to understand how the production could be improved before it faced mastering for real at Digital Domain. In other words, I could have two bites of the cherry. A most desirable thing.

But you have to be in it to win it, right?

Hence the relative silence of SalsaDiary. Ana's backing vocals and my congas were re-recorded for "Corazón Fugitivo", edited, mixed, re-mixed, and re-remixed. Since I'm also part of the Recording 2 Course currently underway at Red Tape Studios, I was able to evaluate the mix in an alternate professional environment.

I can honestly say that the mix I've just submitted to Bob is done to the absolute utmost of my ability. No excuses. That's crucial because any feedback Bob gives, any recommendations for improvement, will be completely novel. From one of the world's best. Learning can't get more pertinent than that.

For now, it's fingers crossed that "Corazón Fugitivo" will be among the chosen few. And not too long hence, I'll be leavin'..

...on a jet plane...

Yeo Loo Yen

Lead Vocals a la Middle-Side... done!

2011-04-26T10:55:00.012Z

All lead vocal re-recordings are finally in the can.

The last one 'La Llamada de Ogún' [The Call of Ogún] got the Loo treatment on Thursday; and although there is one more tune, 'Jardín' [Garden], to record, that's yet in the writing stage so it's ostensibly time to move on.

Our rather large vocal 'redo' escapade was nosed on by Digital Domain's advice on preparing tapes and files, particularly the "Gang of Four" stems. One of these stems is lead vocals only (with its reverb), which plainly means no hiding place in regard of performance, technique and engineering. All the tracks, not only my own, must withstand the close scrutiny of one of the world's foremost mastering engineers; and what I did not want, was to find myself in his mastering suite, without something to be proud of. Since there were inherent flaws in the previous engineering, Dave (our new man at the controls) and I have had to start anew.

Middle and Side. Go on... you know you want to!

(Neumann TLM 103 for the middle, and
AKG C 414 B-XLS on the side)

And this singer's having to scoff humble pie.

I used to think that pop singers were poor singers because they relied on composited vocals, and here I find myself doing the same thing. But before you judge me as harshly, there are two pretty big things in my defense:

auto-tune does not exist in this project, and
each take is non-identical as regards musical interpretation.

The second point has actually transformed the process of editing from one of potential tedium, into one of creativity, surprise and discovery - exploring the combinations on the route to building the best composite vocal has made a better lead singer. An additional improvement has come about with deploying the mid-side recording technique, which has gone a long way into allaying my fears (as a mix engineer) as to how to get the lead vocals to stand out in the dense mix that 4 de Diciembre's music presents.

Next on the list is to get Ana, Catie and Jeremy in to lay down the coro [backing vocals] using the same method. If things go really well, the results could be astounding. If not, there's always Plan B. And a Plan C...

Loo Yeo

The Challenge (Part Two)

2011-03-17T16:14:00.002Z

After hearing scant word from the commissioning publishers I'd written for [see earlier post "The Challenge (Part One)"], I was somewhat surprised to hear from the lead editor, David, last November.

Reading in-between the lines, the publishing house had put itself through a phase of restructuring to face a toughening economic environment, and this particular project had gotten itself ensnared in that process. The wrought changes struck me as seismic with a near-complete replacement in editorial committee, and yet it seemed to have resulted in renewed energy - a new submission deadline for all work by contributors was set for the end of March.

I reckoned that the deadline wasn't a big deal: my entry was already in, approved, and the contract signed. I was safe. As a matter of fact, a tight deadline meant earlier publication.

Silly puppy.

David yanked away my security blanket; he asked me if I would consider re-writing. Now normally, one expects to do a little fine-tuning (although not post-approval) and I don't mind putting pen to more paper to make a better article. But this was a completely different kettle of fish: the original brief required an international slant but the editors, realising that there was an definite space on salsa in South America to be filled, felt that adjustments to my entry could address that gap and yet retain the global outlook. They estimated the article as being already 80% of the way there.

In effect, this was a change of brief.

There were two considerations: the demands on time (bloggable activities plus those unconfessable); and the amount of effort required which, to complete a task, increases exponentially towards its conclusion. I estimated that the remaining 20% would require about half again the original amount of effort to complete the work.

In chess it's called "zugzwang" or compulsion to move - if I didn't, there was the possibility that all the work might be wasted; if I did, it would require more effort. Deep down, I couldn't help but wonder if this additional commitment would pay off in a publication; the first commission happened almost two years ago.

Three months, two additional books, a handful of DVDs, and several research papers later, the alterations [] to the original structure looked like this:

Introduction describing transnational salsa as a music and dance genre
[primary emphasis on Caribbean and South American practices, secondary emphasis on non-indigenous practices];
Origins of the word, from flavour term to stylistic label
[expansion to the debate as to whether salsa is a genre or not];
Properties of the music including the psychoacoustics for dance;
Structural elements of a 'typical' salsa song;
The five main schools of salsa performance with a comment on corroborating dance movement;
Historical perspective on the development of each school;
Other areas of production including the re-Africanization of salsa
[section split into additional Caribbean and Extra-Caribbean sites of production, and expanded];
[Additional section - Major themes in salsa: gender, and Latin unity as a label marketing concept];
[Additional section - Patterns of salsa consumption between Latin and non-Latin communities];
[Additional section - Areas of relevant research]; and
References and recommended reading/listening/watching.

The re-write came in at five thousand words, two thousand more than the original. David had relaxed the word limit - actually he removed it altogether. I didn't realise what an important gesture that was until a day later, at a seminar by Peter LaPlaca, editor of Industrial Marketing Management. Editors of print journals are given an annual budget... in pages, not money; and the removal of a word count, well, is no trivial gesture.

The change in commission did consume the amount of effort estimated, but I think the entry is much stronger for the changes.

Now, it's back to waiting for word.

Loo Yeo

"The Book Of Salsa" by César Miguel Rondón. Translated from the Spanish, by F.R.Aparicio with J.White

2011-02-08T09:43:00.001Z

Cover Illustration Copyright © 2008 J.T.Morrow. All Rights Acknowledged.

The original version has acquired near-mythic status as THE reference guide on the impact and development of salsa in the Caribbean with emphasis on Venezuela. This translated version finally makes this work accessible to the English-speaking audience.

Rondón's chronicle doesn't disappoint, providing a join-the-dots genealogy of salsa replete with interesting musical examples. His division of salsa into movements - the avante garde and matancerization; and by locale - salsa of the north (New York) and salsa of the south (Caribbean), are well argued; as his is take on the origin of gender narrative being guaperia, although his handling of the topic of sexism is far from deft.

The author's role in broadcast media placed him in prime position to witness and comment on salsa's impact on Venezuela: right from the very start as an imported music adopted by the urban underclasses facing censorship by the elite, through to Oscar D'León's productions for international consumption. His access to musicians and inclusion of interview material adds a much-needed counterpoint to the main narrative; I found Tite Curet Alonso's theory about love and the position of the bolero as being enriched by confrontation especially enlightening.

The storyteller is not above hyperbole and sensationalisation, and one would to well to remember that "The Book of Salsa" is no more than a personal account, and as such benefits (as above) and suffers (below) from all that that entails. It has instances of:

absolutism - "those Cuban examples... were always isolated experiments that had no support from dancers and music fans"
vague value judgement - "Lavoe did not (capitalize on the potential that Curet's lyrics)... show off through the montuno in new or creative ways"
lack of detail - failing to clarify what he means by "mediocre arrangements" and what constitutes a good one
blatant author filtering or poor editing - "however, for the purposes of this book, that does not matter much"
getting out of his depth - weak knowledge of resident Cuban musicians; misrepresenting an artist as two separate ones e.g. Francisco Repilado and Compay Segundo, Manuel Licea and Puntillita; poor gender commentary
poor internal consistency - "but those same nuances acquired a special, if negligible value" (under what conditions would something deemed special be also deemed negligible?)
affectation - where he confesses that there are "other erudite books free from intellectual prejudices"

It is a credit to Mr.Rondón that despite its faults, his work remains important. It provides the salsa researcher with the precious gift of investigative direction; admittedly one which, due to shortcomings in its stringency and internal consistency, requires corroboration with other sources.

Loo Yen Yeo

"Stage Presence" by Jane Goodall

2011-01-12T07:54:00.000Z

Illustration Copyright © 2008 Routledge. All Rights Acknowledged.

An academic study describing the titled phenomenon, "Stage Presence" largely documents and analyses the efforts of others who have sought to describe it, rather than pointing in directions as to how it might be developed. Consequently, it is a step further removed from the vital attribute - listening to and critiquing the thoughts of others, leaving the reader to deduce its contextual significance.

Stage Presence's discursive quality is that of movement in an ever-tightening spiral; of trying to identify something ephemeral by describing everything around that's subject to its influence - like astronomers witnessing the effect of a strong gravitational field through the distortion of light from surrounding stars.

What lends cohesion to the work is the thread of a timeline, from the ancient to the recent, where the expressions of stage presence were drawn from the scientific understandings of that epoch: mesmerising, magnetic, electric, radiant, dazzling. Indeed, Goodall sets out her stall in the introduction by describing the work as "an enquiry that breaks down the cultural dualisms of rationality and superstition, science and art."

The book is, at its very superstructure, a Chronicle of Rhetoric. Within that framework is located some very succinct definitions, such as the meaning of 'Star Quality'; analytical dissections, for example in the 'Definition of Parody'; and practical applications, like 'the management of energy in performance'.

Whilst there are numerous useful insights and ideas, and the author comes across best when talking about musicals, the effort becomes less convincing when Goodall strays from the aesthetic domain into the scientific; where her words are beguiling but lacking in rigour - "nature abhors a vacuum" neglects the largest known phenomenon in nature: Outer space.

At times, the author seems to grasp at straws:

[Quote]

"Why do ghosts, which the French call 'revenants' - those who return - come back to the places from which they are supposed to have departed, and how do they achieve the presence effect? This is a question with which scientists would have no patience but, with a little poetic licence, it helps to raise some other questions that are of the essence in an enquiry into stage presence." (Page 170)

[Unquote]

Yes, skepticism is an inherent part of a scientific philosophy which West inherited from the Greeks. But I contend that scientists would indeed entertain her question above, if there was preceding reproducible evidence that:

ghosts did exist;
the returners were one and the same as the departed, only transcendental;
there was a quantifiable presence effect; and
such presence effect was caused by ghosts.

In the next line, she asks the reader for an act of faith (in the form of poetic licence) in order to bridge a gap in logical argument in an enquiry.

I found the pseudoscience hard to swallow.

With any advanced material, it is encumbent on the reader to maintain a critical mindset to recognise personal truths. "Stage Presence" is no different. Indeed, I found the discourse on Dramatic Interpretation: the "use of repetition - verbal and melodic - to create variation, so that their unfolding is improvised line by line with a fresh interpretive attack" particularly relevant to the performance of salsa.

But it is in the analysis of John Cage's 'now moment' as "the vanishing point in time and space" that I found my personal nirvana. Coming as it did in the closing stages of the book, it vindicated my doggedness in seeing the book through to its end in the face of a scientist's umbrage.

It articulated clearly that which I'd experienced as, "a shift in consciousness resulting in break-through to some normally excluded dimension of experience" but had never been able to express personally in words. Understanding the distance Science has yet to cover, I would not attempt a logical explanation.

Stage Presence is a valuable endeavour whose riches require considerable effort by the reader to unlock. Those of a more scientific bent would have to exert themselves a little more in the suspension of their disbelief.

Loo Yeo

What Is Important?

2010-12-21T13:51:00.008Z

I will be standing in front of the mics tonight, doing the same as I did last night.

After a decent spell of soul-searching and a heart-to-heart with friend, confidante and co-writer Ana, I've laid my timbale development on the sacrificial altar of Víspera. Playing the past evenings to the first cut-pass mixdowns has crystallised the realisation of how close the album is to finishing. And yet, with my vocals and congas being the first step of the critical path, the work could not proceed until I've done my part.

Ana understands how importantly the timbales feature potentially in the future of 4 de Diciembre; and she too, has made her fair share of sacrifices for the band. Over the snatched moment of her lunch, Ana expressed her preference, candidly and unburdened by expectation, for Vispera's progress to be at the fore.

I'd come nearly to the same conclusion; 'nearly' in that I was still looking for a way to have my cake and eat it. If I prioritised the recording of lead vocals, only a little effort would be needed to prepare for each song, and therefore the rate-limiting step would be the availability of Dave, my-partner-in-studio-crime, to work some magic with Cubase and press the record button. Practice times on timbales and congas (for the next recording step) could be arranged around these dates.

I sent Dave a speculative text and, bless him, he freed himself up yesterday and today in a busy run-up to Christmas. If things go well tonight, I'll have suitable final vocal takes to work on, to keep me from being a glassy-eyed, TV-swilling, Auld-Lang-Syne-singing lounge potato. In-between sessions on the drums, that is.

A timely reminder that in the midst of so much that can be done, determining what should be done can be resolved by digging deep and asking the question, "exactly what IS important?"

Loo Yeo

Doing The Hard Stuff

2010-12-17T08:53:00.002Z

It feels as if everything that's happened over the past few years has culminated in preparing me for this one moment - taking on the challenge of being lead vocalist and timbalero at the same time.

If I were a believer in the Fates, I would say that it was their hands that had wrought it so, because all the key elements are in place:

The Festive lull - unlike most households, the Christmas and New Year period is a relaxed, introspective period after the frenetic activity of late-November to early-December;
The first cut pass of Víspera's songs have just been completed - the mixdowns provide the most context-accurate material to play to;
Playing of the timbale ride patterns is on the verge of being naturalised - a sustained effort has freed up enough cognitive overhead to process vocals as well, resulting in three (possibly four) way independence - vocals, clave, shell or bell pattern (pulse marked with a foot);
Compelling reasons for doing so - for the sake of the band, a timbalero adds more percussive weight to the ensemble, helps define the song's structure, and gives Whib our conguero someone closer to play off; for the sake of Víspera, I'll be having to lay down new and replacement timbale recordings.

The first stage of developmental independence is to be able to sing, play the rides and cue the transitions; with the target time being mid-January when band practice resumes. Having just done two evenings worth of solid practice, progress has been good using the cáscara, son clave in the context of one song, 'Hijos de Cam'. So much so, that 'Corazón Fugitivo' gets the cáscara and rumba clave treatment tonight.

Most of all, I'm curious and excited to find out what unexpected gifts this atypical-and-not-particularly-easy endeavour is going to do to my understanding of musicality and dancing.

Exciting times are happening right now!

Loo Yen

The Cut Pass

2010-12-13T09:51:00.003Z

One of the first things a mixing engineer/arranger/producer does upon receiving and listening to audio from the recording engineer is a cut pass. In principle the idea is straight-forward: simply to cut out any material extraneous to the song. The actuality is anything but.

Deciding on what to leave out requires a firm sense of what constitutes the Essence of the song, as gleaned from the different voices of the people - the performers, the lyricists, the songwriters, and the producers - who've had a hand in its creation. For me, having assumed all four roles for Víspera, the cut pass has been at both times easy and difficult.

Its been easy because with the first lyrical melodies from the very start, a completed version of the song has lived in my mind. 'Completed' as I would have performed every part.

The challenge has been in loosening the Grip of Conviction sufficiently to listen, understand, appreciate, and weave a place for my peers' virutoso expressions; so that they augment the vision with their own understanding, making each work richer from the creativity of more than one. And so when it's come to the cut pass, a lot of the work has been emotional-intellectual: in reconciling what I understand the song to be as its songwriter-performer, with the ideas of my friends who've breathed it to greater life.

With my producer hat on, I'm conscious of not to riding rough-shod over 4 de Diciembre's individual musical interpretations - I have to be even more a builder, and a reluctant blocker. It's a team-working thing where:

a blocker says 'no' to a suggestion; whereas
a builder says, 'that's a good idea, here's how we can make it better.'

There are times where elements are left out because they butt heads with others or detract from the focus of the song.

At the editing desk, this translates into the fine-details of:

slicing audio files at zero-point crossings;
muting audio regions;
aligning elements where the attacks weren't appropriate; and
moving elements into new places.

The latter task, that of arrangement (and in some cases re-arrangement), has been the most rewarding; where the products of the first cut pass, rejigged and tidied up of all extraneous parts, have sounded more than a little inspiring.

It doesn't mean that there isn't a long way to go, because there is. But at least after tonight, when Thom's trumpet riff at the beginning of the second chorus plus a couple of stabs during Mike's trombone solo in 'Tributo al son' have been adjusted, I can mix-down all the drafts so that Jeremy, Ana and I can prepare for the next tranche of overdubs in the next year.

There'll be more about that in my end-of-year update but at least by the end of tonight, the first cut pass will have ended, signalling the resumption of the recording phase.

Loo Yeo

Where Is The Love?

2010-11-22T11:23:00.012Z

Cafféteria is where I go for my regular poison. It might be true that a few yards farther, both Gusto Italiano and Caffé Nero share more luxuriant decor and narrowly a better bean. But whereas its more auspicious competitors are proud to deliver a good product as standard operating procedure, Cafféteria's girls show me the love.

It means a lot to me.

A touch of Gemma in the morning

If you found yourself smiling, you're feelin' it too.

I'm finding that my relationship with salsa is moving the same way. With less and less time on hand, there's no choice but to be increasingly selective about where I dance and whose lessons I attend (yes I still do occassionally). With the former, it used to be about great music.

It's now about where the music comes from; the disc jockey's heart, if you will.

I can forgive a multitude of sins if I know that the person behind the decks cares for whom he or she is playing. The operative words here are: 'care' as in the well-being sense; and 'for' instead of 'to'. It stems from my consistently lukewarm experiences of the Biggest and Best events, and the intimate and unexpected delights from the least assuming of venues.

My contention is that an emotional need cannot be fulfilled by solely rational circumstances - a compelling performance cannot be assured through technique alone. A competent DJ who really cares manages to communicate this in the atmosphere he or she generates, and it makes a world of impact on the clientele the DJ attracts and retains, and in constructing the night's cultural timbre. An observer should take just three to five songs, reading the deck-spinner and the crowd, to understand where the DJ is coming from.

Let's put it another way.

Below is a quote taken in entirety from a semi-open forum. It was expressed by a leading DJ for the response of other salsa-folk:

[quote]

Question?
What was THE salsa track that, many, many years ago was one that got you hooked? For everyone it will be something different.
But, I'll bet it wasn't Hacha Y Machete, or other such matured palette tracks.
Was it perhaps an Africando track? Was it a melodic Frankie Ruiz. Or even God forbid! Sonora Carruselles
We need to keep our minds open to the fact, that our over exposed tastes may be becoming prejudices. Seem exotic to the silent majority, in fact....
We all love salsa. If you want it to grow, it needs to be inclusive not exclusive.
All I've seen over the years is the salsa crowds, get smaller and smaller and the music become more and more exotic.
I can't help but think there is a directly proportional relationship.....
In truth if I had walked into a salsa club over a decade ago and heard the never ending hard core styles I hear today, I would have walked back out and never have bothered.
Cheese has it's place. It brings people in.
I'm not saying shit music should be played all the time. It just has it's place.
You can't grow quality Fruit and Veg, without a little manure.

[unquote]

The point regarding inclusivity and the arguments flowing from it are hard to ignore. The tenor bears no small element of condescension, imbuing the passage with a shade of arrogance. And yet the question is open, unguarded and disarmingly honest.

But for all its rationality, my question is, 'Where is the Love?'

What kind of participants does this DJ attract? What might be the timbre of the culture constructed?

And so I'm coming to redefine what I mean when I use the words 'good' or 'great'. People who work the decks do so because they draw from a complex pool of motivations, some being: a desire to share one's love of music; an economic need; external validation; political altruism; ideological conversion... To propose that there be just one reason would be a little bit naïve.

I'm looking for the mix that most suits me - Great coffee.

An admittedly commercial product (I don't mind paying for the good stuff);
Made up of good ingredients (it doesn't always have to be top-of-the-line, but right up there is nice);
Blended with loving care; and
Pitched with a good twist of humour.

Loo Yeo

P.S. My answer to the question is Proyecto Uno's "El Tiburón". It's a merengue, but I didn't know that at the time. And I still love it as much today as I did then.

"The Art Of The Solo Performer" by Steve Rapson

2010-11-11T12:18:00.000Z

Illustration (left) ©Copyright 2007 Steve Rapson. All Rights Acknowledged.

This book is lavished with personal insight about the music performance business. From cover to cover, the witty, mischievous, and sometimes moving morsels of wisdom pose as answers to rhetorical questions, like:

Should I fire my manager?
What is a song plugger?
How come everybody doesn't recognize my greatness?

Mr.Rapson's style is easy to read, making light work of deceptively profound performance truths gleaned at the coal-face of Boston's acoustic musicians circuit. It is less of a field guide, and more of a field journal: the sort of book that rewards re-reading as you develop.

Steve makes little distinction between musical performance and public speaking, and understandably so: unless you're as great as the late Roy Orbison, most artists have to have a little patter between the numbers.

Although the ideas are arranged into the major categories of Philosophy, Business, Material, Performance, and Public Speaking, they are still quite modular in nature; so it's worthwhile making notes and arranging them in a way that suits your own mind.

Clever, honest, funny and perceptive. There's always something on its pages for you as a performer to think about; be you a fledgling to the stage or a seasoned hand. Having "The Art Of The Solo Performer" next to you is like having your own personal performance consultant, and therein lies the rub: consultants help you understand what should be done, but you still gotta do it yourself.

He makes mark of that in the Addendum.

Steve Rapson's book is a deserved classic.

Loo Yeo

"Stage Presence From Head To Toe" by Karen A. Hagberg

2010-10-19T18:17:00.001Z

Illustration (left) ©Copyright 2003 The Scarecrow Press, Inc. All Rights Acknowledged.

This work strangely only gets going halfway through - as if the author began with what she knew best, worked through to the end, and then addressed what she considered the ancillaries; some of which were placed at the beginning. Consequently the sections following "The Orchestra" on page 47 inclusive are most coherent; while those preceding, for example "The Small Ensemble", read as a largely repetitive subset of this 109 page publication (including Bibliography).

All the material, set within the realm of classical rendition, is based on the principle of 'The Listener's enjoyment of the Music is paramount, and anything that distracts the Listener from its performance should be eliminated'.

While such a defensive approach does have value, it by no means portrays the full story; there is negligible mention of how a special rapport might be established with the audience, and nothing at all about how it might be enhanced. As such, the marketing of Dr.Hagberg's work under the title "Stage Presence" is hardly justifiable. "Stage Conduct" would have been less sexy but more apt.

There are some "Don'ts" and too few "Dos"; most iterated more than a handful of times, and the book does positively boast illustrations which drive the points home very well indeed.

Dry, procedural and uninspiring... it is an attempt which could have been précised in less than half the space. If the publishers had had a certain minimum size in mind (as I'm sure they would have done), then there would have been plenty of room for personal insight - Dr. Hagberg presents workshops and offers consultancy in this area, and thus should have had plenty of scope to demonstrate her expertise. Sadly, this was overlooked.

Overall, "Stage Presence From Head To Toe" is a flawed endeavour; an squandered opportunity whose strong concept deserves a well-planned revision.

Loo Yeo

1st October 2010 Havana Rakatan @Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield

2010-10-03T09:21:00.004Z

Havana Rakatan, the Cuban dance show spectacular, had been making large enough waves that even the regions far-flung from Britain's capital had heard of, albeit perhaps not witnessed, it. That changed as Summer's September gave way to Autumn's October, when Sheffield was chosen to launch the company's 2010 UK tour. Unusually, Havana Rakatan stayed for four nights instead of the usual Latin dance show's just one; a sure sign that artistic directors have begun to realise a-more-than-cursory interest in the genre.

http://www.sadlerswells.com/fliers/havana2010/index.htm
(All Rights Acknowledged)

I thought it'd be a fine thing to start the weekend on a high, so on Friday night I plopped myself in Circle and thumbed excitedly through the programme. Good thing I did too, because as it later transpired, no audio narrator is present with this production. By the time the show commenced, I'd gathered that it was cleaved into two acts - the first comprising five scenes set from the early colonial period until 'El Manicero' of the late 1920s, with the exception of the contemporary opening of El Malecón in contemporary Havana. The second act has scenes set in 1940s 'Golden Havana', 1950s-60s, 1970s, and Modern Havana.

A lot can be gleaned from what was emphasised and what was left out - it was clear that the show differed little from 'Lady Salsa' and 'Pasión de Buena Vista' in portraying an idealised fantastical Cuba. Havana Rakatan possessed scenes of strong multi-textural themes, whose layered meanings were sufficient to satisfy a broad audience: from the 'there-to-be-wowed-by-the-dancing' to the culture aficionado. As such, modern standards internationalised by the Buena Vista Social Club did make an appearance: 'Chan Chan' and 'Candela' although the latter was reworked in such a musically satisfying manner, I doubt that many recognised it from the album.

The company's band "Turquino" was typical of a stage ensemble where versatility is paramount. Many of its nine personnel (excluding lead male and lead female vocals) were multi-instrumentalists: the bassist taking on lead vocals; the bongocero also playing timbales; and horn players singing backing vocals. The phrasing of their music was spot-on for each genre - it's not an easy task to play well the musics spanning more than a century. Turquino's professionalism came across best in their understated nature, never detracting from the main focus of the show which was the dancing.

It's here that the show was greater than any other of its ilk.

Being unable to rely upon the crutch of the spoken word, the choreography had to convey every facet of the narrative. The dancers, being graduates of Havana's Escuela Nacional de Arte were proficient in timing, execution and performance, although admittedly some were markedly better than others. There were a few surprises too, some great 'salsa' style dancers were less comfortable performing rumba and vice versa. And I found the rumba columbia segment too tinged with jazz movement and not flavoured enough from Matanzas, but I'd forgive the necessity to sacrifice authenticity for the sake accessibility.

If there was an Achilles' Heel in the repetoire, it was in the execution of the non-native forms like the mambo where the dancers' foot-speed was sluggish (the lead male vocalist possessed far superior foot-speed than the dancers; he could have showed them a thing or two), and the body-speeds lacked shading. Likewise the brass section was too small to deliver brashness and punch, and neither did the timbales attack quite early enough. But those were simply minor shadows in what is a high quality commission by Sadlers Wells. Havana Rakatan bears all the hallmarks of that Theatre's excellent standards - the set design, lighting, and sound reinforcement enhance the experience without being obtrusive. The programme notes could benefit from the same level of attention, given its primacy from the lack of commentary.

Havana Rakatan has come closest to transporting me to escapist Cuba, and is easily the show I would most rather to see again.

Loo Yen Yeo

"Guide To Karaoke Confidence" by Jeffrey Allen

2010-09-12T14:57:00.000Z

Illustration Copyright © 1995 Warner Bro. Publications Inc. All Rights Acknowledged.

Aspiring performers, discount this publication on account of its title at your peril!

If the mark of true understanding is the ability to distill that which is complex into a work of simplicity and brevity, then Jeffrey Allen is a Master of Performance and Singing. This is the quickest route to getting ready for vocal performance bar none.

The blurb describes it as: "A quick, simple and fun course for everyone who loves to sing. Designed for all vocal ranges and styles, Jeffrey Allen's Guide to Karaoke Confidence offers numerous, invaluable performance and singing tips to insure that each and every moment in the Karaoke spotlight is successful."

I can attest that the schedule of development is indeed brief, easy to follow, and has plenty of lively learning points. I make it no secret that I'm a fan of Jeffrey Allen's work and found the second part: "The Vocal Makeover: Tricks, Tips, And Secrets Of Singing" highly familiar, drawn as it is from his comprehensive "Secrets of Singing".

But for those who can already sing, and to some extent those who can play, it's "Part 1: Secrets of Living Comfortably Onstage" which promises the elevation from musician to performer - it details succinctly the mental preparation required to take to stage. Even then, a good deal of effort needs to be invested on your part; those hoping for the lurking of magic words in Mr.Allen's handbook, the mere reading of which to transform them instantly into a mesmerist on stage, are going to be sorely disappointed.

Take, for example, the critical self-reflection he demands of the singer in order to breathe life to performance:

"Why did I choose to sing this song...?"; and
"To whom am I singing this to?";

are but a pair of sample questions. Applying them all in turn to each song, yields insight into and artistic confidence in, every work.

Pound for pound, word for word, the compact "Guide to Karaoke Confidence" provides the best value in self-schooling for the Performing Arts.

Loo Yeo

To Complete An Emotional Space

2010-08-23T08:10:00.010Z

The past two months have been intense. The editing of 4 de Diciembre's music has, and continues to be, one of the most demanding challenges - on a par with setting up Verdant, and the completion of my postgrad thesis.

It's not that the recorded performances have been poor, in fact, it's been the converse. Most of the time's been taken up with the pain of deciding what to leave out - the Sonic Archaeology of revealing the essence of each piece.

But the most personally enlightening experience has been having to audition my own vocals listening to every positive and negative, over and over again, as they were chronicled three years ago. Many people I know are uncomfortable with the actual sound of their own voices. With the recordings, this is magnified and relentless. It's harsh medicine.

What were considered good takes then, many performances and tough experiences later, I can better. And with the audio having been aligned, cleaned up, and arranged, the four songs done so far deserve a stronger vocal. As top music producer Richard James Burgess says in his book "The Art of Music Production", a great vocal is the next biggest asset after the quality of the song itself. Mr.Burgess goes on to describe what is meant by a great vocal; and it's not about the technique, although that helps the chances of recording one. Bob Dylan's grammy-winning one wasn't technically perfect - the producer tried for a correction with a 'punch in', but eventually had to abandon the attempt because the emotion couldn't be re-created.

To let the cat out of the bag, I'd been delving into this aspect of performance for months and there are several book reviews to follow. They all offer valuable advice and insight, but the reality of willingly placing oneself in a position of emotional vulnerability can only be done by one person. It's anathema to what we're used to socially. At least it is to me, coming from an East Asian society where cards are played close to the chest.

So it's baby-steps to overcome a giant hurdle (in the Soft Arts, one learns very early on that the hardest thing to overcome is one's self) beginning at band practice, where my vocal's being positioned to 'complete' an emotional space. I've chosen not to mention what I'm doing to my band-mates, so that I might gauge their natural responses; which has been subconsciously positive. The sessions have, in the main, been musically easier and convivial - possessed of a substantial anchoring point.

There's yet a long way to go, but I forsee the vocal re-recordings to take place first quarter of 2011 at the earliest. My voice should be stripped of its defenses by then.

Loo

Measurements Of Expression

2010-07-19T18:07:00.003Z

The music desk's been my hangout for the past five weeks, and there're two edited songs 'Corazón Fugitivo' and 'Yo Soy El Sonero' sitting smugly on disk to show for it. A vast chunk of the work has been in getting each instrument track aligned; a weakness of computer-based digital recording is latency, where there is a delay in the delivery of music to the recording musician. This delay can vary up to twenty, even forty, milliseconds which means a newly-recorded track is slightly out of sync with older ones.

It not might seem like a lot, but given that the effect is cumulative, and that the ear begins to distinguish two sounds of similar loudness as individual ones from thirty milliseconds onwards (see Haas effect), the alignment of instrumental tracks becomes a key qualitative issue.

That's at the coarse level.

At the fine detail level in terms of artistic interpretation, the single millisecond is King. No-one I've yet encountered can listen to two examples and objectively say, "that's a millisecond later than the other", but I'd contend that that's not how a millisecond's variance is heard. My suggestion is that such minute fractions of time are detectable, and that they are interpretable by the listener in terms of emotion.

If I may take Catie's flute relative to the other instruments as an example: one thousandth of a second (or even fraction thereof) late to early, changes the feeling of her performance from sluggish, disinterested, passive, laid back, mechanical, keen, energised, nervous, pushy, to single-minded. Ten milliseconds is the span of that gamut from end to end. One day after the CD is done, I shall put these up on the salsa website as audio examples.

This concept of fine timing has tremendous bearing on the professional dancer, who trains long and hard for consistency, precision and accuracy - because a millisecond in time, is a millimetre in movement. I've found very few salsa professionals capable of communicating feeling through their bodies in the way that ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov did in a scene in White Nights; he is, for me, dance's equivalent of Maria Callas.

Lest I end up sounding too high-brow, I chose these two because they are paragons of their Art. It is not enough for me to be dazzled by high-speed spins and 'armography'; Wonderment is an easier feeling to evoke than Longing or bittersweet Joy - Wonderment doesn't require the performer to reach out and resonate deeply with their audience.

Salsa has a rich heritage and doesn't deserve to be short-changed with "it's only a social dance" as an argument for a less-than-exemplary emotionally-engaging performance. I look forward to the day when our displays in salsa-the-dance match the millimeter-commanding expressiveness of Baryshnikov. And why shouldn't we expect it to be so, since our evocative performances of salsa-the-music already stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Greats of other genres?

We certainly don't make excuses for Beny Moré, Hector Lavoe and Ismael Rivera as being "only social singers".

Yeo Loo Yen

Resuming Víspera

2010-06-14T08:06:00.012Z

It was two weekends ago, in one of the lulls during practice, that I aired my intention to resume the recording project. Ana, Jeremy and I band together on the-more-than-occassional Sunday afternoon to put intransigent rhythm sections to the sword; and with the two of them being the longest-serving members of 4 de Diciembre and both also having invested the most in the creation of the album's songs (after yours truly), it was only right that I broach the matter to them first.

The project had slipped into a state of suspension after Dan and Nathan left at the end of 2008; I'd engaged the former in a paid professional capacity to record us using some pretty state-of-the-art equipment I provided. Accountants would call it an 'opportunity cost': bands are, by their very nature, living breathing things that change, evolve and dissolve; and I wanted capture some of that raw essence while it was there for the taking. We succeeded in getting a wealth of inspired musicianship on tape.

But the more urgent matter of rearranging 4de12 music to a different line-up took precedence; and it wasn't until the process had run its course, culminating in the latest acquisitions of 'La Gota Fría' and 'One World', that I could think about brushing the dust off the project.

All set up for editing, complete with Mickey Mouse timekeeper.

Both Jeremy and Ana were very keen to see 'Víspera' (our album title) awakened, even while knowing that it would take some of my focus away from regular band-related activities. Dan never maintained a studio log, so it would up to me to find out exactly what had been recorded, where the material was located, how it was organised, and what needed to be done to realise the dream.

It's about assuming Ownership of the project once again - and all of the benefits, efforts, and trials that that entails.

So over Saturday, Jeremy and I cleaned up and packed down the recording desk and outboard equipment; leaving only the server, monitors, sound interface, hard-disk recorders and house clock - reconfiguring the recording booth to an editing/mixing studio. A fish lunch at a recently-discovered Japanese restaurant featured somewhere in between.

Yesterday we fired up the Digital Audio Workstation, sighing with relief that all our connections were right, and created a new project file for 'Corazón Fugitivo' which will feature second on the album - the first clean slate of many.

It feels good. Very good.

Loo

29th May 2010 Calle Real @Relentless Garage, London.

2010-06-01T07:56:00.043Z

The Venue
I knew I had to make this one. By hook or by crook.

The soreness of disappointment, after last summer's foiled attempt to import the Cuban-funk-playing Swedes to these isles, still chafed; and the salve took a wee bit of juggling to arrange. I emerged from the depths Highbury tube station into the drizzly afternoon sunshine, and a touch of trepidation weighted my heart as I took in the exterior of the Relentless Garage across the road.

What I'd thought was a curious name ("Relentless") for a converted venue (garage) in the tradition of Wetherby's Engine Shed or Camden's Roundhouse, turned out not to be so. A suspicion that it was indeed a venue where garage-the-genre was played-without-quarter left me disquieted. It continued to do so as I was metal-detector-swept by a politely looming doorman some hours later. I'd left my Letter-opener of Ultimate Despair behind at the hotel, and only a concerted grope would have discovered the Chopsticks of Ineffable Annihilation secreted about my person.

He didn't go there.

Slinking up the stairs with a brief detour via the cloakroom, the Misgivings fell silent with the closing of the double doors behind me. The main hall was a cosy affair measuring 15 by 20 metres with the stage to my left, permanent front-of-house booth to my front-right, and a disabled-access ramp and steps on the immediate-right leading to a 20 by 6 metre elevated tier, with the bar at the end along the far width of the room. More importantly the wooden floor bore a healthy sheen of regular cleaning and polishing, and there was not a whisper of staleness in the air. The venue was looked after by some serious people.

Karen, also from Sheffield, was the first person I saw. I invited her to dance.

The speed of the floor was slightly on the slow side, but would not pose a problem for the 'Cuban-style' clientele Calle Real would attract. The Relentless Garage was a countess of a venue, but not quite the princess. What Karen told me next confirmed my thoughts; the doors had been late to open because, apart from a delay to their flight, the band had had a longer-than-anticipated sound check. I could tell this from the sogginess of the music, and it couldn't have been due to the dimensions, size nor surfaces of the dance hall.

As my amiable bar-man decanted my poison, he volunteered that Garage and Rock were indeed the mainstays of the place. That would explain the boomy bass and the smeared dull mid-range; if the installed Public Address (PA) system, and especially a graphic equaliser, had been optimised for these genres. The sound-man would have asked for access to the PA cabinet (hunting for the EQ bypass switch), and the duty manager would not have confessed to having the keys (for fear of irrevocable tinkering).

I got my dances in early, anticipating a packed floor, and possibly to enjoy the coming performance in singular spectatorship. Although the sound was better at front, I was concerned that the signal from the DJ decks was being fed through the mixing desk, which would not bode well for Calle Real. But then I'm also very familiar with their PA requirements, having used them as a starting-point for 4 de Diciembre's own, so I knew this was unlikely. More probably the gains on the DJ mixing desk had remained undisturbed, which to me was a shame - irrespective of song selection, each piece passed with heavily unrealised potential.

The Concert
Soon came the Witching hour. I picked my prize spot at the top of the stair and waited...

Calle Real, baby!

The Meaning of Bliss:
Calle Real and a really good audience

It was fulfilling finally to put faces, fingers and hands, bodies and movements to the sounds of 'Con Fuerza' - one of my most frequently revisited timba albums.

Did Calle Real sound better live?

In many ways they did, more so with the numbers from their second release 'Me Lo Gané'. The studio recordings had had much of the life compressed out of the brass during the mix, but dished out live, the songs sang as if they'd just gotten out of jail - trumpets punched out their accents with brilliance, and trombones rasped as they were born to do. With this era of digital tools, we're led to expect perfect sound, even from stage. There were occassions of imperfect tuning from the brass (usually indicative of issues with onstage monitoring), but that only lent authenticity to the feel of the moment.

In terms of execution, Calle Real were outstanding; every stab physically accented, every passion expressed. They were generous to a fault. The weaknesses of their debut album, primarily the languid attack of the backing vocals, had been well and truly eradicated. This was a performance of confidence and maturity; best portrayed by their rendition of the United Kingdom's favourite, 'Ya lo sé'.

The CD version is lush with poignancy, suspended with the intimacy which the privacy of a studio can bring. Knowing that this effect is unachievable in a club setting, Calle Real reinterpreted it successfully as a rhythmic ballad adding more inspiraciones and melodic brass. That maturity also manifested itself as contrast: when one of their youngest songs 'Me Lo Gané' and one of their oldest songs 'Princesa' were performed in juxtaposition.

Me Lo Gané required a conscious exertion of power for its delivery, leaving less space to the skill of interpretation; while Princesa eased from them with creative musicianship, propelled by a potent yet effortlessly-flowing energy. For any ensemble musician who's worked at the coal-face, the qualitative difference in interpretation between a song one decade old and another many years younger is abundantly clear.

Fervour after the encore, Con Fuerza

The Calle Real experience left a number of lasting impressions:

Surprise. Karl, Michel and Patricio's backing vocals sounded higher than I remembered; that wasn't obvious from the CDs.
Respect (in the Jamaican sense), complete and utmost, for Gunnar's virtuoso performance as a timba pianist.
Regret. That the sound of flair player Rickard Valdés' conga failed to come across properly in the mix.
Amusement at the personality of Andreas' bass - 70s-inspired funk complete with dark glasses.
Pensiveness. That perhaps Harry's songo on the drums could, occassionally, have been given the regular driving framework of the bongó bell rhythm to tug against.
Pride in Cuban-style dancers. Nearly all of the audience stayed face-forward to the stage throughout the eighty-minute concert; the true sign of live music appreciation.
Satisfied. That 'Con Fuerza' got to see the light of day. As an encore.

Calle Real's melodies mark them as European despite the Cuban authenticity of their rhythms. Another property which reveals their hand is how the attack of their instruments is distributed; a sonic fingerprint if you will, which gives the band their characteristic laid-back feel even at higher tempi. That and their uniqueness leads me to suggest that if it ever occurred to anyone on the U.S. West Coast to play timba, they'd use Calle Real as a role model.

End Note
Performance dynamism is clearly one of the band's greatest assets. For Heaven's sake, bottle it! I'd like to see every one of their gigs for the next year digitally recorded off the front-of-house desk. Heck, I'd loan them one of my HD24s. Then cherry-pick the best performances, edit them, mix them, send them to Bob Katz for mastering, and release a 'Live' album.

What would it take to make that happen, I wonder?

Loo Yeo

The Salsa & Merengue Website (Part 2): Adding Voices

2010-05-25T13:38:00.017Z

In the years its been available, the site has seen hundreds of thousands of visitors; a small proportion of whom had made the effort to express their thanks, offer suggestions, and rare criticism. All of these little treasures sat patiently in a mail folder, preserved for posterity. The fact that each of these people who drank from the well of Latin America had cared enough to write, left me always with the feeling that I should be more generous than a personal response (which they each received), by finding light for their words in public.

If anything, it would be a nod to the curious as a glimpse behind-the-scenes of one of the world's most relevant internet resources on salsa and merengue.

Stories to be told..

I decided that their place would be as quotes on relevant pages, as other voices to the website's main narrative. It is a risk to take: a balance needing to be struck between narrative cohesion and diversity of prose; in relaying stories by people without teetering into the realm of commercial-style endorsements. I admonished myself for my control-freakery and forged ahead.

The first flurry of quotes are now up (the second tranche will be garnered from web references), and some trimming of position and weight is expected.

Yes, it's true that a number of the words featured come from prestigious sources; and the subtext of their place on the pages could be read superficially as commercialism. That's a peril I'm happy to face, since a more-than-cursory inspection of the site will show no attempt at 'monetising'. I think that readers would like to know that the material they've chosen to look at is highly regarded by independent authorities.

But there's a more intimate side to the story, and one that is, I feel, infinitely more valuable.

The quotes tell of how important salsa is as a personal cultural marker to the Latin American; of how the tutorials have helped people learn to dance in privacy, at their own pace, successfully, ...and that it's okay to do so; that learning to dance can be a family activity that builds strong bonds; that involving oneself in salsa can instill a strong sense of purpose and responsibility, even if the torchbearer wasn't born into the arms of Latin America.

Ultimately, the risk of losing the focus of a single voice was far outweighed by the potential of a stronger, more humane, narrative wrought by the expressions of those who'd experienced it first-hand.

Loo Yeo

The Salsa & Merengue Website (Part 1): The Big Clean

2010-05-19T14:47:00.018Z

The Salsa & Merengue website has for a long time been an uncomplainingly unattended brainchild. As salsa horizons stretched, dotted with the hugely entertaining events and pithy crisis-points, this wondrous resource (words from you, the users) saw less and less of me.

High on the list of things to do was the archiving of the Spanish sections.

It was a decision weighed with reluctance, but there were increasingly fewer and fewer resources to be mobilised for human translation, and it was beginning to show. The divergence between the modern English sections and the fractured Spanish ones painted the loss of coherence as obvious. And bearing in mind what new material there is to go up, the lack of their Spanish language counterparts would push the website's identity into the realms of the unravelled.

Another minor niggle was the information section about the activities of the University of Sheffield Union of Student's Salsa Society. I'd kept that publicity avenue available to them because of our long history together, but since their move almost solely to Facebook, responses to email queries directed to them via this route had become sporadic. It was starting to hurt public perception of the site.

But the straw which stirred prompt action assumed the form of an email by a kindly concerned visitor, a Mr. Silvestre, last week:

[Quote]

"Your trainings are fantastic. They are helping me a lot for salsa. I started with Merengue also and noticed that the codec you used (ligos-Indeo) for compressing these videos are different and are not supported by Vista or Windows 7. No video viewer is able to display them (VLC, Gom, WMP, etc)

"I found a solution by reincoding in a different xvid codec and now I am able to watch them. Other people may be disapointed by not viewing your videos and may not find a solution.

Here's a link where they explain the problem: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/GettingReadyforWindows7/thread/b9789ce2-394d-4499-850e-04d67650e4e2"

[Unquote]

Okay. That's a problem on a different scale altogether.

I replied expressing my profound thanks, and then set about a solution. My first inclination was to recode and re-upload - not a small task. What I found galling was that there was no guarantee against the same thing happening again, some time down the line.

Then my colleague, Paul, suggested YouTube. And it all made sense!

They'd bear the burden of band-width and future-proofing; I'd be able to integrate video inline with the text on the webpage; and there was a small opportunity to direct new-sector traffic to the website. The only downsides were a compromise on intellectual property use as per YouTube's terms and conditions (which is only a theoretical compromise, since people were free to download and use it before); and the poorer control of the playhead slider.

And that's what's been happening in-between blog posts: uploading, and spring-cleaning of files and HTML.

It's done, and I'm very much happier with the presentation of the dance lessons now that the videos are embedded on the page. The proof of the pudding, as always, will be in the responses I receive from developing dancers like Mr. Silvestre.

Loo Yen Yeo

Predictable Outcomes

2010-04-16T07:22:00.011Z

The core members of 4 de Diciembre have been together for a decade, and you would've thought that I'd have the measure of them by now. But even after all this time they conspire to surprise me.

We've been booked for a prominent gig next year, and with such a supposedly-distant horizon, the inclination is take things at a sedentary pace. I certainly didn't want that to happen. To stop the claws of complacency from digging in, I sat the band down and sketched a vision of the ideal playlist; a challenging roadmap if you will, of the best I thought we could be by that time. It's essential for everyone to understand and share the same vision; 'buy-in' is key to maintaining a healthy ensemble.

Two pieces of the puzzle to be put in place were a couple of cover adaptations: 'La Gota Fría' based on Carlos Vives' version, and 'One World' by local Sheffield band 'Boy On A Dolphin'. When suggesting these, I thought the former would pose the greater challenge; we'd never tackled a vallenato before, whereas the latter bore more familiar motifs.

We tackled One World first, and my optimism soon got bogged down in the quagmire of frustration - its chord structures, the very thing that made it interesting, didn't fit the modal system that underpins salsa. There was also dastardly a one-chord vamp section that had Jeremy scratching his head in trying to keep it more tasty than musical cardboard. He and I consigned two Sunday afternoons to the salsa wastebasket before I tried something out of the box of Desperation.

I slapped on a version of Xiomara on the CD player and proceeded to sing One World's lyrics over two different sections of piano montuno. Jeremy and I are of very different music backgrounds and have highly contrasting approaches to salsa, which has always been our strength. The most important thing I had to do was to demonstrate what was possible. He got it. We spent a few minutes determining which was the more suitable base progression, changed some chording to double its cycle length, and we had it! What was looking like an attempt I might have to bin, transformed into a song of promise; and one which we were well on the way to making our own.

Decent quasi-salsa songs in English are as rare as hen's teeth and One World, with its different harmonic textures and meaningful lyrics, complements any of 4de12's originals perfectly. It was a relief to crack it and be able to add it to our stable.

Given the birthing troubles of One World, I was a little gun-shy about approaching La Gota Fría last night. That's probably why I left it until the last thing at practice, almost as an afterthought.

One pass of the song, lasting all of three minutes and thirty-two seconds, was what it took to nail the core of it. That included transformation to salsa piano vamp over a hypnotic jungle-inspired conga rhythm, glued together by a funk variation of the classic bass tumbao, while still holding true to the spirit of the piece's energy and melody of haunting undertones. The latter is preserved by Catie on the flute and the adaptation of the accordion's lines to Jan's violin. On hand percussion, I found that the cumbia's güira rhythm on the gourd scraper worked best.

What an astounding experience.

True, plenty more creativity and work will have to be exercised before these two songs will be polished to my satisfaction. But at least I can now envisage it happening, whereas I couldn't before. And the band-members do so too.

Only one thing is certain: that the mercurial talents (and I can think of no more apt a description) of my fellow Decemberists will conspire to keep me safe from predictable outcomes.

Loo Yeo

Right Brain, Left Brain, And The Grey Bits In-Between

2010-04-05T08:01:00.012Z

I've just passed the finish line of my four-week commitment to the timbales, and what have I learned? The most important has been a reinforcement that building a foundation for the realisation of ultimate potential is a painstaking process. Males like myself are largely task-driven and, were I to accede to the desire to be ready to perform at the earliest opportunity, I'd specialise as a right-hander, target the commonly deployed patterns and bypass their variations - a timbale synonym for the social dance environment.

Luckily, I'm not your average bear.

The complete approach to the fundamentals would include pitting cáscara and timbale bell rhythms against rumba and son clave, in both 3-2 and 2-3 orientations, sinistrally and dextrally. It immerses both hemispheres of the brain in every rhythm, fine-tunes the motor control (especially of the non-dominant side), and allows a comparison of phrasing.

Additionally, since research increasingly holds the cerebellum as the seat of timing, see for example:

Ivry, R.B. and Keele, S.W. (1989). Timing functions of the cerebellum. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Vol.1:2, pp.136-152; and
Pollock, B., Gross, J., Kamp, D., and Schnitzler, A. (2008). Evidence for Anticipatory Motor Control within a Cerebello-Diencephalic-Parietal Network. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Vol.20:5, pp.828-840;

it makes perfect sense to exercise it with the motor cortex in all possible combinations. I estimate the difference in effort between the complete approach and the task-driven approach, to the First State of Independence, as being in the ratio of 5:1. A large portion of that is in developing the fine motor control of the sub-dominant side.

And that's where I'm at, at the end of the beginning - killing three birds with one stone. Interpreting the timbale bell rhythm (subdominant) against rumba clave (dominant) in the 3-2 orientation; changing sides one in every four times, varying the phrasing and increasing gradually the tempo.

I'm in it for the long-term relationship, and I have my inspiring secondary school biology teacher to thank for this robust approach; although I suspect that Mr. Menon would never have anticipated this particular application.

Loo

Playing The Silences

2010-03-30T07:04:00.015Z

Two weeks of standing in front of the timbales and I'd love to describe progress as being superhuman. But I can't. 'Steady' is the best I can muster. But then, there's always next week...

The lion's share of the hours have been devoured by the fundamentals - I've approached this little escapade as somewhat of a restart, a chance to put the perfection of hindsight and years of accumulated experience into practice.

How many times have we uttered the phrase "if only I knew then, what I know now" and had the opportunity to do it all over again?

I'd decided long ago that closed strokes, sometimes called press strokes, would form the backbone of my playing. This is when the timbale sticks stay on the shells after each strike to mute their ringing. It's decidedly old school, from back in the days of the danzón when the dance salons of Cuba knew nothing of microphones. Timbales were played in this way so as not to overpower the delicate violins, just perfect for 4de12's charanga line-up and the confines of the practice room.

Old Skool is a patient person's game; it takes more energy to perform and takes longer to learn. But what it yields are greater dynamics and more articulate expression.

The dynamics come from a greater contrast between the sound of the initial strike and the silence of the shells being closed to ringing - the timbalero plays the silences. The articulation comes the way the sticks come off the shell, either: straight off; or slightly rolled off, towards or away from the drummer.

Its brought back early memories of training as a dancer: learning to thread movement through each floor contact; and why foot placements, on and off, are more articulate than footfalls. The principles are identical: minimise movement to achieve consistency, and lessen background noise so that actions can be clearer without needing to be louder.

Dancing the silences draws your partner into your sense of time.

Playing the silences does the same. The technicalities might be different, some analogous some not, but both are also alike in requiring an exacting level of detail at fundamental level for success. With the timbales, for example:

control resonance by striking the shell directly opposite the rubber stand-off, so that vibrations travelling clockwise and anti-clockwise have identical distances to travel;
sense the stand-off through the timbale sticks when the shell is placed under different levels of compression;
the sticks must become extensions of the hands, where the position of the tips and the speed of their movement are known even when they're unsighted; and
know which part of the stick gives the best feel of the stand-off, the best sound, and the most versatility in voicing.

I can be a better musician because of my dancing. And there is much that can be transferred between the two.

Particularly with silence.

Loo Yeo

The Artistry Of Vulnerability

2010-03-27T09:24:00.011Z

Kate is a sweet, diminutive, young English rose.

An organisational reshuffle six months ago caused our spheres to overlap, and we've become casual acquaintances. Last week when I strolled into the reception, she motioned to me and asked, "do you dance?"

I decided to play along, shifting subtly to a leaden pose. "Do you really think I look like a dancer?" (add slightly disbelieving tone)

"Yes you do actually."

Darn. Normally that works. This one's a sharp cookie.

Kate had always thought that I'd looked familiar but could never place where she'd known me from. A chance conversation with a colleague let the cat out of the bag. It turns out that I'd shared a song with her one salsa night eight years ago. She told me she was just beginning then, and still remembers it clearly. Because even though the song had stopped, she kept on dancing on the inside.

A genuine compliment.

Kate's caused me to think about the persistence of a dance experience. What turns it into an Event? An landmark memory?

Louie Spence said that the performance of dance can be so emotionally evocative that it can make the watcher cry. The fourth episode of SKY1's exuberant 'Pineapple Dance Studios' is the best so far, especially the five minute sequence where Louie is down but not out after realising his age, being unable to stay the distance though an hour-long warm-up, which the teenage dancers around him don't even break a sweat through.

He rallies spectacularly once the music comes on and the youngsters, with their physical prowess, are awestruck. The videotape editing leads the episode to skim over the most important artistic truth that Louie reveals to his young charges; that a performance at the pinnacle of Art requires you to expose your emotional vulnerability to your audience.

It takes a mature performer to believe, and trust, that the audience's acceptance of a genuine effort is unconditional.

I've been wrestling with this since performing in Yarm. Being a better singer is now no longer about skill, it's about letting down my defenses to let people see how the song makes me feel. This invitation to vulnerability is so very alien, complete faith to be placed in strangers.

It's the reason why we seldom look into the eyes of those but our loved ones. As windows unto the soul, looking into someone's soul requires that we expose our own to them.

All the enduring artistic Events have this in common. An truth of expression born of vulnerability.

That's why I take umbrage to 'styling' as it's purveyed - it is not delivered nor received as an aspect of form for the conveyance of artistic expression. It is manufactured and consumed as a pair of sunglasses to shield the soul, a façade behind which we can shelter our vulnerabilities in comfort and yet still sell to our audience-partners as 'art'.

Each dance robbed of the possibility of forever.

But there is one great positive to say. In this place, those of us willing to risk, stand out to our kindred. Because we all show to each other, and are recognised by, our calling.

Loo Yen

A Reason For The Timbales

2010-03-15T09:31:00.018Z

The past three months have been a musically busy time, as I've been leading 4 de Diciembre through a comprehensive series of new arrangements. The outcome has surpassed even my best expectations; good songs have metamorphosed into artistically compelling works - it has to be put down to working with a collection of great musicians. During this period, I've had at various times to play (while singing) a variety of rhythms on congas (such as guaguancó contra-clave, songo con marcha, mozambique) and on hand percussion (timbale bell, clave) to tease out the right groove.

Along the way our little revamp-fest exposed a pair of Achilles' heels which might one day stunt my growth as a rumbero/salsero: that my command of clave was not yet instinctive, and that I was still an eighty pound weakling in the rhythmic independence department. Playing clave is a world away from clave phrasing, and I used to think that the phrasing bit would be more difficult to achieve, since you'd have to keep both the clave and what you were playing in mind. I was wrong.

What I learned was that it takes a stellar level of ability to make those five notes sing - in that rhythm there is no hiding place.

To achieve mastery, I needed to play it more often. And it'd have to be 'extra-curricular' with respect to the band, since the hand percussion I play when performing is necessarily pulse-based for the sake of the dancers, and it also sets up the rhythmic structure in which our conguero can improvise. An exception to this rule is "Tempest", one of our newly (re)arranged songs, which now works best with the timbale bell pattern played on the mounting block of my trusty bongó bell.

So to recap, I needed to work on my independence, internalise clave, and play highly syncopated bell rhythms. What might be the best way of doing this?

hmm...

My anticipated restoration to the timbales has been an on-and-off lunchtime topic of conversation with Christophe who, as a dancer, could anticipate a number of benefits:

The ability to tune in better to the polyrhythms of the instrument, understand its phrasing, and become more sensitive to transitions and their cues.
Use dance movement and music as mutually supporting activities in evolving soloing strategies.
Increasing four-way independence to five (a giant leap for a percussionist dancer).
Timbales interpret at least two rhythms if not three, as compared to the congas' one. A window upon hybridity, the timbale domain not only encompasses the AfroCuban domain, but intersects others like pop/funk/rock.

And, it's the last major piece of my recording project jigsaw which has been in hiatus. The only thing holding me back was the commitment - I needed to schedule three weeks of daily high-quality practice to establish momentum.

But as I say to my students, "people always make time for what they feel is important".

Was it important enough for me? How much of this was 'comfort zone' resistance?

On Saturday, I went upstairs and unpacked the timbales.

I'm actually lucky enough to possess two: as custodian of the band's Latin Percussion (LP) Tito Puente timbales in brass, the industry reference standard; and my own personal Meinl Luis Conte timbales in cymbal-quality brass. I've had the Luis Conte ones for four years, and had every intention of playing them, but then 4de12 suddenly needed a lead singer. The rest is history.

So, as it transpires, I've never laid a stick on them; that was a pleasure left for our former timbaleros. Considering the LPs and the Meinls side-by-side, it took five minutes to decide on the Meinls:

I like the larger shell area for playing the cáscara (something which LP addressed in latter revisions).
I prefer the sound of the shells - their hand-hammered surface has a warmer sound, and strikes have body and yet can cut through the mix.
Most importantly the Meinl shells are more sensitive, less forgiving of inconsistent technique. They would take longer to master but, being more articulate, will reward more musical players.
Of all the cowbells that were in the house to constitute a timbale set-up (I've mugged enough cows for four sets), the Meinl ones best suited the sound of the timbalero that I will be.

In the best AfroCuban tradition, I cleaned away the neglect of the set's previous caretakers, selected my bells, adjusted the heights and angles, and prepared a place of commitment in the front room.

Then I washed my hands and began to play.

Loo Yen

16th February 2010 Pasión De Buena Vista@The Lyceum, Sheffield

2010-02-20T11:52:00.016Z

Although Sheffield ranks as one of England's largest cities, its status on the Latin music circuit is best described as 'provincial', averaging just one concert by the Buena Vista Social Club franchise and one Cuban show at its theatres per year; so the appearance of any such performance company is hugely anticipated, and normally sold out well beforehand.

News of the 'Pasión De Buena Vista' show rattled along the local salsa grapevine a good three months before the performance date, but work had me wriggling on tenterhooks until the weekend preceding. Fortunately there are certain advantages to attending shows unaccompanied; the best of which is the likelihood of securing good "late return" single seats, and my slightly-worse-for-wear ticketer helped find a great one in Circle.

I knew little about this troupe when I parked myself in the plush chair, so I made a start by ogling the stage layout. It looked promising: keyboard, bass, a trapset-timbale combination, a conga-bongó combination, a microphone setup for a four or five piece brass section, a tres on a stand, and a full trinity of batá drums; plus there was ample stage-front for at least four dancing couples to do their rumba thing. Then Meinl logos on the congas caught my eye and my hunch was confirmed by the souvenir programme: this was a German production.

The glossy booklet was filled with attractive earthy-toned action shots of dancers and singers captured mid-performance. It exuded dynamism. Delving deeper, the supporting texts of introduction and biography of the star vocalists came across as stilted and typographically challenged. This was an uncommitted effort through a patent lack of attention.

I sincerely hoped this wasn't an indicator.

A solo female dancer opened the show, moving to the sounds of the batá. Dressed in red and black and clutching a crooked stick, she was clearly the representation of Eleguá, Orisha of pathways, who is traditionally invoked at the beginning of all Afro-Cuban occassions. While her circular shrugging movements were correct, the stillness of her spinal axis showed me that sacred dance was not her bag - this was a rendition purely for the commercial world.

Eleguá's invocation gave way to the introduction of four other figures dressed in green and black; gold and blue; red and white; and blue and white, representing Ogún, Ochún, Changó, and Yemayá respectively. They symbolically enacted a pataki [Yoruban fable] capturing their sometimes tumultuous relationships with each other, although it was not clear which fable (or combinations of fable), and which version was being told.

Advertently or not, this act set out the entire premise of the show: the conjuration of a 'Fantastical Cuba' as escape, and one that host Knut Gambusch's stilted narrative tried to reinforce again and again. Otherwise, there was no overarching structure of storytelling that I could discern.

The two setlists punctuated by an intermission comprised of some very Latin standards: 'Bésame mucho', 'Quizás, quizás, quizás', Benny Moré's homage to his birthplace 'Santa Isabel de las Lajas'; 'El Manisero'; 'Píntate los labios María' complete with a Michael Jackson dance tribute; and 'Changó 'ta vení' interpreted as a pilón.

Modern classics also had their place, such as Francisco Repilado's 'Chan Chan'; Celia Cruz's popular interpretation 'La vida es un carnaval' where the dancers were appropriately dressed in the blue and white of her patron Orisha; and Gloria Estefan's 'Mi Tierra'. The latter struck me as unusual; that a Resident Cuban band would choose to play an Exilic Cuban composition.

There was one little treat - an original number by tresero/trombonist Yuilie Velazquez-Guerra, arranged as a songo con marcha. Although bringing in the kick drum in on the downbeats bogged down the rhythm somewhat (I suspect it was meant to imply the bomba) the highly compact show band 'La Ideal' negotiated complex timba, and the other genres demanded of it, with flair. You'd have to go a long way to find a more professional support band; you noticed them only when they wanted to be noticed, because La Ideal knew what the true star of the show was.

The Singing.

I once thought that Ibrahim Ferrer was one of a kind. But that night I was entranced with the voice of someone cut from the same cloth - Inocente "Pachín" Fernandez-Jímenez. His phrasing, his attack, and his vocal texture was so similar; and yet so authentically individual, that they could have been brothers. I gave silent thanks for the chance experience. While it's true that Maida Castaneda-Cordovi and Tomás Sanchez-Aguilera have the strong voices we have come to expect in the Cuban vein, Inocente's lyrical qualities place him very much in a league apart.

I could have listen to him 'til dawn.

In that light, the dancing was disappointing; the lackadaisical nature marked it as the afterthought of the production. Although a myriad of genres were attempted, from conga de comparsa to chachachá, their navigation lurched from placidly mid-stream to dangerously rocky. There were three prominent weaknesses:

The dancers lacked the stagecraft to draw in and engage their audience.
The angular velocities of their movements were constant but too slow. Whilst it gave their execution the characteristic Cuban smoothness, the manoeuvres were never properly finished. The result was a great deal of jarring and rushed transitions as dancers played 'catch-up' with their routine elements.
The choreography emphasised quantity and not quality, the dancers always pulled up one iteration short of demonstrating virtuosity.

'Just good enough' seemed to be the mantra of Pasión de Buena Vista's production company. It extended to the sound system, where only one pair of 15" low-frequency units was used to move the mass of air in the auditorium (most companies would have specified three pairs); and the sound did suffer for the decision.

Pasión de Buena Vista feels as if it started life as a business plan as opposed to a burning desire to entertain. The mimicry of concept places it as a fast follower to "Lady Salsa" but without the cohesive storytelling nor attention to detail. Both have tried to leverage off World Circuit's Buena Vista Social Club brand, with the German production more blatantly so - the attempted linkages via the artist biographies border on the barefaced and read as tenuous at best.

For me, the frontispiece collage of the souvenir programme is the perfect identity for Pasión de Buena Vista. Some people would either not notice or be ambivalent out its patchwork character. Others might be sensitive to the artistic contrivance and feel the jarring of its elements.

These people would feel the same respectively of the show.

I'd go to it again. For the luscious singing and the music. The dancing can wait.

Loo Yeo

13th February 2010 Stomp@The Lyceum, Sheffield

2010-02-13T17:13:00.017Z

On a brisk winter's Saturday morning, I sauntered into the Box office of the newly re-fitted Crucible theater. It's the Eve of the Year of Tiger, which I thought was a fantastic reason for an unplanned matinee ticket - I'm quite the impulse shopper when it comes to Shows, and a decadent afternoon sounded like a perfect way to usher in Chinese New Year.

"And I'll have one for Stomp as well, please," I heard myself say after securing a seat for my intended target, 'Pasión de Buena Vista' on the day-after-tomorrow.

Stomp are a performance company of percussionist dancers, and their acts unfold in the setting of an urban street, which gives what they do a modern yet accessible context. The eight protagonists assume delight in using everyday items as drumming surfaces; masking, or more appropriately bridging the gap between the drummer and the layperson - using a disposable lidded cup with straw as a friction drum instead of a cuíca; halved plastic storage drums as surdos; matchboxes as pandeiros; and brooms as, well... brooms.

I'm still wondering how they managed to tune the brooms, or maybe was it the floor panels?

Stomping: Drum and Bass

The structure of their story-telling began with the simplicity of a headed broom: its bristles on the floor as scraper, its head on the floor as drumstick, and its handle against another as woodblock. There was a restrained elegance about the opener - as if to draw in but not to overwhelm; to engage and gently challenge the assumptions of the audience, causing them to think again about what everyday objects mean; to see the humour of invention.

This was the theme as the rhythms and use of ordinary items became increasingly complex - the cheeky, almost impertinent delivery kept the seated enthralled, warding off the clutches of technical estrangement.

The Lyceum's spaces swelled with rhythm: I noticed flavours of Brazil's batucada; Bali's gamelan; the sartenes of the comparsa; hints, perhaps, of the Dahomey; to the gumboots of South Africa. Not that it matters. Stomp succeeds because it understands that the minutae of names and techniques of rhythms aren't important, but that in the grandest scheme of things, our most primal selves understand and respond to rhythm.

Gumboots: This is how ya do it!

The Energy of their performance spans the continents. And the maturity of their company can be seen in the slickness of their delivery; geographical reach from South Africa (gumbootland) to the United Sates; demographic independence of young and old alike; and diversity of activity in entertainment and education sectors.

Stomp uses the narrative of rhythm to show us how much fun we could let into our daily lives if only we'd wear different eyes .

"This is comedy, but its music too" (The Independent)

As a percussionist, the show was a reassurance of how far my understanding of rhythm: its power, types, and strategies; has come along. But I received the most counsel in the aspect of the dancer.

Analysis of salsa class levels reveals the convention that dancers are judged to be better according to their ability to execute complex combinations - that criterion is the prime class differentiator, clubs and congresses alike.

Stomp demonstrably validates an alternative premise: that someone can make him or herself instinctually understandable by another, at a level which transcends abilities and conscious command, by quieting the extraneous that the rhythms may speak.

A polyrhythmic expressionist who can command the silence.

Loo Yeo

24th January 2010 Latin Music USA concerts (Part 3): Epilogue

2010-02-07T08:37:00.008Z

There's a scene from '80s sitcom "Bosom Buddies" (starring a young Tom Hanks) where boss, Ruth, looks agog at Henry the copy-writer, who's innocently confessed to editing one of her reports before sending it upstairs. She rallies heroically and declares, "Well of course! A diamond's only a diamond when you cut it."

Stephanie McWhinnie and Mark Cooper must be proud of their team, having fashioned the concerts into two gleaming gems to add to the BBC's crown. The visual rhythms, created by the pacing and angles of the cuts, perfectly complement the feel of the music - successfully capturing the essence of what happened on stage and around it.

They made it look easy.

Although two hours of the Big Three Palladium Orchestra's (B3PO) performance was shot, only a small number of songs were played on account of their extended instrumental solos - the combination of long songs and a low degree of freedom makes things tricky. Thankfully transitions between songs were dilated, which accommodates edit points; songs were performed as discrete units; and there was plenty of B-roll like establishing shots and pre-concert interviews with the artists.

La Excelencia would have presented the converse challenge: plenty of material, but less freedom for edit points. The results however were just as seamless, and complications of continuity were avoided by keeping to set order.

In both instances the broadcast audio was head-and-shoulders above that in situ; the mixing engineers had brought their A-game to the studio. But even the best exercise of their craft couldn't compensate for lack of audio data entering the desk. It's a shame that the same kind of microphones used on the trumpets (Sennheiser MD 421) weren't been deployed up-close on the timbales and bongó bell; it would have made for a world of difference in capturing the bounce, verve and drive of both performances.

These minor points aside, I'm thankful to the BBC for its generosity.

Mamboniks and Salseros, thanks to the Beeb

The Latin Music USA campaign has provided a rare chance to assess the whole process of live music production from the marketing tie-ins, advertising and promotion; the two performances qualitatively by juxtaposition; the actual performance experience with its post-concert production for television; through to critical media response.

I looked to the broadsheets for the latter:

All three articles were titled as regarding with the Big 3 Palladium Orchestra and not of the Latin Music USA concerts. La Excelencia's presence there as support act was assumed, which told me two things:

that the reviewers had been exposed to the same promotional material that I had had in the run-up; and
that scant research had been done on the opening band itself, otherwise they might have come to the Barbican unprejudiced for an equal double-billing and their prose would have reflected accordingly.

The FT's reviewer seemed the best informed, with the insightful comment about the big-band duels at the Palladium (it was an evolution from the "War! War! War!" campaign between bandleaders Coen and Socarrás). The B3PO's inconsistency of performance was tactfully hinted at, through saying that the televised form might prove better for the editing. But those were small morsels of substance in articles largely bereft of qualitative assessment and contextual comprehension.

What was curious from all three was the inconsistent mention of front-line guests Jimmy Bosch and Gabriel Fonseca who are both Latin stars of international stature, contrasted with their unanimous gushings of tenor saxophonist Peter Wareham. Perhaps their attention wouldn't have seemed so partisan if they had also unanimously credited the unsung hero Guillermo Edghill, whose bass solidly anchored the groove when the metalles suffered a Dizzy Gillespie-esque "where's the one?" moment as demonstrated in 'Avisale A Mi Contrario'.

The journalists used personal shortcomings of stamina as a device for expressing their opinion that the concerts went on too long. There were signs displayed prominently at the entrances to the auditorium stating that the sessions were being filmed - anyone beyond novice level would expect proceedings to be conducted at deliberate tempo. But the Guardian's reviewer went so far as to imply that the B3PO were unable to play 'Babarabatibiri' because La Excelencia over-ran their set!

Let's be clear about this. The focus of a band is to engage, perform and entertain. Schedule-running is in the hands of the House Manager.

Whatismore, Mario Grillo opted to play the instrumental 'Sunny Ray' over another number, sending his singers off stage; and that other number was not 'Babarabatibiri' - there was nothing to indicate to the ordinary public that it was ever on the set list.

If there was a case to be made for informed disgruntlement, it should have been that Larry Harlow is not one of the Big Three by the Palladium definition, and that his set should have been been taken up with Tito Puente's songs - the only one was 'Oye Como Va' as the finale. But unless one is spoilt or has paid a private commission, one can't expect an artist to play one's personal favourite piece; it would be unreasonable to berate El Judio Maravilloso or La Excelencia for the lack of 'Ran Kan Kan', 'Babarabatibiri' or 'Caminando'.

I found Larry Harlow's set to be the most invigorating of the three - a delicious irony.

Had they been better prepared, the reviewers would've had more than just one "throw-away" line to say about La Excelencia. They could have picked up on any one of a number of things that night, for example:

Salsa Dura's declaration of musical intent, or its truthful phrasing to the earliest forms of salsa;
Boogalú Pa' Colombia's rather clever circular reference - a pre-salsa genre originating from New York City (NYC), played in Colombian-style as homage complete with modern inspiraciónes, by a NYC band;
La Lucha's guileful incorporation of boricua riffs and rhythms, the singing trombone and brass build-up a la La Perfecta, the fundamental difference in emphasis away from harmonies (as favoured in jazz) to that of rhythm and attack (in salsa);
the qualitative contrast in approach to brass performance between La Excelencia's 'La Lucha' and B3PO's 'Avisale A Mi Contrario';
El Salsa Y El Guaguancó's Cuban contra-clave pattern or the use of trumpet as modern diana before the traditional vocal one;
El Loco's management of power and drive by counter-weighting shifts in vocal power and attack through different applications of the metal shells - a very Puerto Rican salsa device;
American Sueño's metamorphosis from a campesino genre of Guantanamó into a truly urban statement complete with salsa metaphors, or as a maturing thematic development from La Lucha, or the use of triplets interpreted on Willie's piano as modern dialogue to those played in traditional fashion on maracas and timbales;
Añá Pa' Mi Tambor's opening evocation in folkloric 6/8 time with the beseeching of permission from the masters and the ceremonial washing of hands before drumming - a barracks practice of sugar slaves, or Charlie Limonet's rare ability on the bongó bell including a crazy 16th-note solo;
Ahora Que Te Tengo Aquí as the night's best vocal showcase with Ismael Miranda's tonality and Cheo Feliciano's phrasing, reminiscent of Tite Curet's 'Anacaona';
Unidad's theme of unity as expressed through dance (pa' los rumberos) - a deep-seated Latin American symbol of cultural identity and resistance.

Sadly, what the reader got was, "the set was short on subtlety or nuance".

Oh dear.

Although I might agree with the three-and-a-half out of five star rating given for B3PO's performance, I do so for different reasons. On the quality of the reviews, I'd give the broadsheets a one-and-a-half out of five. I'm disappointed with their lack of honesty.

There is one more incident that should not go unanswered.

During an interlude on B3PO's set, trombonist Jimmy Bosch felt the need to say that that he dressed smartly (he and his band-mates were similarly garbed in sharp grey suits) out of respect for the music. The comment struck me as out-of-place, and I can sensibly locate it only as a reference to the casually attired musicians who played before him. While I respect Mr. Bosch's artistry on the trombone, I'm more than a little dismayed to discover a person without the grace to remain above needle onstage.

'Deja De Criticar.'

Collectively, the B3PO were in the embarrassing position of being out-played by their 'support' act. And whether the House Manager had allowed the set to over-run or not, I would expect an ensemble as highly billed as the B3PO were, to be able to take anything that minor in its stride.

La Excelencia displayed their respect for Latin music by the way they played it.

Ovation: La Excelencia and the Barbican after the rumba

Polling the people I know: musicans, dancers, laypersons, mamboniks and salseros alike; they were unanimous in their preference for the performance of the opening band, live and broadcasted.

If I were in La Excelencia's position, I would take Steve Rapson's advice from his book "The Art of the Soloperformer" (see later blog post) and produce a media press pack for distribution, in acknowledgement that today's reviewers are expected to report like subject matter experts over an impossible breadth, and that the most professional of them would welcome any support and assistance from the artists they review, that the both of them can be portrayed in the best possible light.

Loo Yen Yeo

24th January 2010 Latin Music USA concert (Part 2): Big Three Palladium Orchestra@The Barbican, London

2010-01-27T12:21:00.011Z

The Barbican Centre is no stranger to Latin music. Constructed along brutalist lines, its squat hard-edged demeanour has housed more than its fair share of beauty; a place where Oscar D'León 'El sonero del mundo' and the late great Celia Cruz have fashioned rapture from the stage of its main hall. The Big Three Palladium Orchestra (B3PO) would be the next to join that illustrious pantheon, once again to a sold-out crowd nineteen-hundred strong at Europe's largest performing arts centre. I think sometimes Latin artists are astounded by the level of support their endeavours can garner in Britain.

I'd done my homework before arriving...

On A Flying Walkway Journey To The Barbican's Main Hall

I knew that the B3PO had been formed by Mario Grillo, son of Frank "Machito" Grillo and named after Mario Bauzá, as a one-off project nearly a decade ago. With approval from the Puente and Rodríguez estates it was conceived, by what has been described by the New York Times, as a "Latin repetory orchestra" playing music derived from the original charts of the three original bandleaders of the New York mambo era: Machito, Tito Rodríguez, and Tito Puente.

Reception at its debut was overwhelming, such that the ensemble was obliged to continue.

B3PO boasted pianist Gilberto Colón Jr. and conguero Eddie Montalvo in its line-up, both having played with the original big three at some point in their careers. Four trumpets, four saxophones (alto, tenor, baritone), bass, bongó, and three vocalists surrounded a centrepiece of two glimmering sets of timbales - one for Tito Rodríguez Jr. and the other for Mario Grillo.

For the BBC's celebration, they were joined by three heavy-hitters: pianist Larry Harlow of the Fania era; trombonist and bandleader Jimmy Bosch; and the Cuban virtuoso violinist Gabriel Fonseca. Frightening stuff.

My curiosity was two-fold:

whether both 'Juniors' could live up to the expectations that their marketing had been based on - that is, a talent for performance worthy of comparison with their uniquely gifted namesakes; and
whether the Big Three Palladium Orchestra would live up to its billing as "The most brilliant large Latin Jazz ensemble this side of Havana" (Chicago Tribune), or be more than that and capture the vibrant essence of the mambo.

It was the intermission and these thoughts were running through my mind. La Exelencia had just finished, and I would have not relished following that act.

The limelight illuminated the slender frame of Machito Jr. who, as a highly charming public speaker, began in the role of Master of Ceremonies and bandleader. The B3PO concert structurally assumed the form of three contiguous sets: first was Tito Rodríguez Jr. on timbales interpreting his father's music; second, Larry Harlow playing his own salsa and Latin Jazz numbers; and finally Mario Grillo with Machito's compositions on the other set of timbales.

Heavy hitter: Jimmy Bosch's trombone
launches a rasping mambo solo during
"Avisale A Mi Contrario"

They opened with the infectious classic "Mama Guela", again one of their strongest numbers, before inviting Jimmy Bosch on board as a soloist for the second piece. Listening to him play throughout the sets, I was struck by his ability to adapt his improvisations to suit the mambo, Latin jazz and salsa idioms - here was a rare performer, a person who fully understood the contexts of his art.

And then there was Gabriel Fonseca. "El Conde", as he is sometimes known, chose to play in a way that leaned more on his tenure with Original de Manzanillo and Candido Fabré underpinned with his philharmonic training, than toward the route of Alfredo de la Fé. It was the perfect decision which counterpointed the Latin Jazz essence of the orchestra; think Rubén Gonzalez on strings.

Soneros receiving the solo from
Cuban violinist Gabriel Fonseca

Joe was up and at it again to Larry Harlow's "La Cartera", warbling "ya no tengo más dinero" and hot-stepping his salsa thing (I would be regaled to that in spontaneous bursts on the homeward leg the rest of the night). He later revealed that he used to have that song on a cassette of salsa classics; that he must have flipped it over hundreds of times in his FIAT, driving from latino party to latino party growing up in D.C.

Joe never knew the name of the song, nor the artist, until this night.

And that as a teenager then, he would never have guessed that he'd be listening it again, live, to the original performing artist (Larry Harlow's verson was on Joe's tape; "La Cartera" was originally written by Arsenio Rodríguez), sitting next to a Malaysian Latin ethnomusicologist salsa-friend. I'll take a compliment any which way it comes.

"Oye Como Va", a rightful tribute to Tito Puente, was the Big Three Palladium Orchestra's finale. For me, it only highlighted the project as an incomplete endeavour with the absence of Tito Puente Jr.

In the end, I found the presence of 'Machito Jr.' in the position of band director largely superfluous during Rodríguez's set. He made the motions of conducting the rhythmic breaks, but the brass section was already playing them; it told me that the 'cues' were illusionary. And the time when a conductor was needed, when the brass were slipping ahead of the rhythm section, it was the more accented playing and hard stare of Gilberto Colón Jr. that brought them back into line.

I think if he wanted to complete the mirage and marketing image of bearing Machito's baton, Mario would be a more convincing stage presence during the first part as a maraquero. He had a defined space during the third set at the timbales; his strokes, although more awkward looking, were cleaner than those of Tito Rodríguez Jr.

In answer to my curiosity, neither of the Juniors played in a way that approached the virtuosity of their illustrious fathers. But there is no shame in that - a century would consider itself lucky to be blessed with one, let alone three such gifts.

And yes, the Big Three Palladium Orchestra is identifiably a Latin Jazz orchestra, to be distinguished from the mambo orchestras. The difference? Exuberance. You can hear it in the mambo. Latin Jazz is more given to introversion, the biggest culprit of this was the brass section which performed in a manner, being so attached to their charts, decoupled from the rest of the band. The biggest improvement, if it wanted to go down the extroverted mambo route and engage more with its audience, is for the brass to do the really tough thing and play without music scores in front of them.

Dancing is what made the Palladium famous. A colour-blind dance floor in an age of racial discrimination. A scintillating atmosphere attracting Hollywood's brightest stars, thereby sparking social acceptance.

Larry Harlow's "La Cartera" draws everyone to their feet

We owe Mario Grillo a huge debt of gratitude. For having the vision and commitment to negotiate and forge this orchestra together; for the opportunity to remember or experience anew the music of the Palladium's best-known years.

That the Spirit of 53rd and Broadway live on beyond its mortal shell.

(On to Epilogue.)

Loo Yen Yeo

24th January 2010 Latin Music USA concert (Part 1): La Excelencia@The Barbican, London

2010-01-26T08:06:00.018Z

Joe, my partner-in-crime in the Big Smoke, and I looked about ourselves at the throng milling in the lobby and voiced our thoughts simultaneously, "this is a strange crowd." By 'strange' we didn't mean weird nor grotesque, oh no. I mean unusual or unanticipated. We were queueing, waiting to be let into the main auditorium where the promise of Latin Music heaven beckoned. A stellar collection of musicians had been assembled, in the words of the publicity blurb, "to coincide with a major BBC Four TV series exploring the incredible story of Latin Music in the USA." To set the record straight, the series "Latin Music USA" is a PBS production which will begin airing on BBC4 this week.

And that explained the cast of ticket-holders: predominantly British, very few Latinos, of a higher average age than one would see at a salsa club. I call them the Buena Vista Social Club (BVSC) gang: silvering haired, non-dancing (not salsa at least), world-music lovers of a previously alternative-lifestyle bent. Joe was hugely disappointed, poor thing - I'd goaded his delinquent imagination with the prospect of gorgeous Colombian eye-candy... but my conscience remained as still as a Zen Buddhist monk on Musical Statues day. I knew ultimately that he'd get the biggest kick out of La Excelencia, who were billed to open the concert.

Yes, you read that right.

I couldn't believe it myself when I read the sketchy prelim blurb weeks ago: the Big 3 Palladium Orchestra, Larry Harlow, Jimmy Bosch, and La Excelencia; with the ivory talents of Gilberto Colón Jr. announced at the eleventh hour. It had always been a regret of mine that I hadn't been able to introduce Joe to their music, which is one hundred percent up his alley; so when the chance came along, I pounced.

As the hubbub quietened under the flare of lights, I perched forward on the edge of my seat. When it comes to performing to club salseros, La Excelencia are Giants, no doubt about it. But being a display band to a largely non-dancing audience is a different cup of tea altogether - the proscenium can be a yawning gulf to reach out across without the energy of a receptively gyrating audience to assist you.

'Take your strongest song and put that at the end. Then take your next-strongest and put that at the beginning.' That's an old performing adage that held true when they struck up.

Salsa Dura, brassy and unapologetic. I looked around to see some quizzical expressions; adrenaline was proving to be an long-unfamiliar experience to the BVSC gang more used to the likes of Omara Portuondo's "Dos Gardenias".

"So... you think you can just sit back and
enjoy our music with a comfy cuppa tea eh?
Take that, you crumpet-eaters!"

The spectacle was there, filling the whole stage: three singers, piano, bass, congas, timbales, bongó, two trumpets, and two trombones. It was clear that the crew of La Excelencia knew there was a whole lot of reaching out to be done, and they played with the intent of 10-tonne semi ploughing through the stalls; as well practiced and as slick as I remembered them. It was ninety minutes of high-octane stuff drawn mostly from "Mi Tumbao Social".

Joe's feet started tapping. Then he clapped clave. He used to be our conguero in 4 de Diciembre. Then came the stomping. With the percussion solos in "Aña Pa' Mi Tambor" he mimed the complimentary gestures of wheels falling off a cart (previously reserved only for Edwin Bonilla). By the time "Unidad" came along, Joe was already on his feet; and I had an eye out for an emergency defibrillator.

Any honest live performer will tell you that there is no such thing as a perfect gig.

On a night filled with gorgeous display, my only tinge of disappointment came from "Aña Pa' Mi Tambor". Normally it's my favourite number, but something happened that felt like a drop in tempo during the rumba clave unison break - it bled energy from the song which took until the percussion solos to restore. Perhaps it was an intentional shift in dynamics; I personally preferred the sense of abandon with which they played in Leeds. La Excelencia's best renditions of the night, for me, belonged to "American Sueño" and their closing number, "Unidad". It's by no coincidence that these songs came from the latter part of their set...

The sound engineers could have done more to rise to the band's quality. No graceful band would ever dream of publicly commenting on its sound support, but as a member of the paying audience, I can.

It took Front-of-House (FoH) three songs alone to dial out the ponderous bass boom in the mid-to-upper tiers; and two more to alleviate some of the vocals' boxiness. The timbales should have been close-mic'ed; the single overhead narrow condenser picked up mostly the cymbals and hardly the crucial timbale/mambo bell and shells. Normally an engineer would be scanning the stage thinking, "what instrument can't I hear?" but this one obviously wasn't, as bongó bell and clave were never in the mix. Onstage monitoring was possibly better, judging from the interactions of the musicians - I saw just the expected amounts of gesticulation at the start.

The Barbican should consider giving their sound engineers sabbaticals at JSS or BlastPA.

The proof of the pudding will be when the two concerts are aired this Friday (for Big 3) and the following one (for La Excelencia) after the episodes of Latin Music USA. Then, I'll be able to tell just how much data had entered the FoH desk, and compare it to what I recall issuing from the PA. It'll also tell me just how good the BBC's production team are.

Even in the midst of adversity, the young musicians managed to bridge the distance; there were pockets of dancers mushroomed amongst the seats. The Killjoy of Health & Safety quashed any prospect of dancing in the aisles, that is until right at the very end. At the climax of Unidad's montuno, José Vázquez-Cofresí upped his congas and raced his cohort down the stairs to the stalls; there to enjoin everyone in a taste of an impromptu street rumba.

José's conga smack-down, egged on by his wicked cohort

How do you ambush the proscenium? You render it irrelevant by taking yourself across it, naturally!

That move, as they did when the brass played their way through the dancefloor in Leeds, reinforces what was once one of salsa's central tenets: that there should be no distance between musicians and dancers. In doing so, it indicates the young band's mature understanding of tradition. The little get-together also paid heed to yet another stage adage: "always make sure the last thing you leave is a smile." They certainly did.

José's facebook status later read:

"Originally the BBC was going to air a small portion of La Excelencia's performance along side the Big 3 after the first episode of Latin Music USA. Just announced !! The BBC has decided to air our entire performance at the Barbican in London after the second episode. The broadcast will air on Friday, February 5th at 10pm on BBC"

I'm so pleased, and relieved, that someone at the BBC has not only been capable of recognising quality, but also been in a position to exercise creative and executive power in getting the decision through. Let's make no bones about it, this is a big break for a hard-working band on an independent label. It would have been a gross oversight, based on the relative performances of La Excelencia and the Big 3 Palladium Orchestra, not to have done.

Como se forma una rumba: La Excelencia showing the
Brits how to party, New York street-style

Make sure you watch it. Or get someone to record it. Do both.

Some hours later, on the way home, Joe said, "Loo, you were right."

"Of course I was," I replied. "What about?"

"How you described La Excelencia in one line."

Fania, on Steroids.

(On to Part Two).

Loo Yeo

12th Night Extravaganza 2010

2010-01-11T09:33:00.010Z

The North's first regional shin-dig of 2010 re-adopted the shape of an all-dayer with a pre-event party; a format which had served it well two years ago when the Extravaganza was located at St.John's. This time, it was spread across two sites: the salsa hotbed that Wetherby's Engine Shed has become; and the facilities at the University of York.

I'd hatched plans to inflict myself on the Pipers this whole weekend, arriving with a salve of aged rum and delectable chocolates. Stepping over the threshold, I piled into the bustling activity of pulling the paperwork, equipment, and comestibles together for 'Shedding'; the new popular verb that the region's salseros of the region have come up with. Uncertainty lingered in the air held aloft by the harshest winter in three decades - the same stretch of weather which had affected 4de12's gig in Yarm, had put paid to a vast number of salsa-related events in what would normally be peak lesson season.

As it turns out, consternation need not have creased their brows.

A great number of salsa faithful braved icy conditions to dance at Wetherby, filling the Shed to comfortable capacity. The pre-event party began with chachachá lessons for a change: beginners on the upper floor led by George 'Dr. Salsa' and Vicky; 'improvers' on the main floor with Lee and Nuriye. I was very interested to experience how U.K. mainstream salsa teachers approached the teaching of this dance 'club-style', and so spread my time observing the two classes.

Both of them were conventionally routine-based. The primary emphasis of the beginners class was on the rhythm and then in the context of a short sequence; the timing stresses were ballroom On2 instead of Cuban contratiempo. The content of the intermediates class drew from International Latin (I saw a fan and a natural top) with little tweaks brought in from Cross-body salsa. As the foremost objective of any club teaching is engendering the confidence to use the material within a limited time, it was a mark of success to find chachachá on the floor throughout the evening.

The Engine Shed was everything I remembered it to be when 4 de Diciembre last brought it live salsa: everyone is welcoming and accommodating, the atmosphere suffused with a warm vivid energy. The night sped away, powered of a myriad of fine and sometimes barely-decorous dances. By the time the Pipers and I returned to Base Camp to grab some shut-eye, the clock had ticked perilously close to 05:00.

Four hours later, Tony and I were unloading kit in front of York University's Roger Kirk Centre. This year, having found my feet around the event, I eschewed attending the sessions in favour of being organisationally more useful. What time there was in between, I spent caffeinating and socialising in part as barometer to the success of the event.

Then late in the afternoon, I spotted Alex Wilson and made his acquaintance.

Apart from his band being the main attraction that evening, Alex was at 12th Night with Lee Knights to run an evening session promoting their newly-released endeavour "Find the Rhythm". The pedagogy of Latin rhythm is a matter very close to my heart and we experienced no uncommon ground; I found Alex to be a man hugely talented, yet unassuming and disarmingly engaging.

He invited me to the soundcheck, an opportunity I could not have passed up.

It was highly educative. Here was a performer who knew exactly what he wanted, and the sound crew were all the more appreciative for it: from how he laid out the stage, listened to the individual instruments, the verbal expressions used in describing the sounds he was after, the meticulous attention to detail. With the whole band together, he did as I do; use the soundcheck to hone specific sections of the playlist.

Alex Wilson engaging with Front of House during soundcheck
(Public Address provided by JSS Audio)

I must mention Elpidio Caicedo, the bassist from Buenaventura after whom the number Sabrosón is written. He's an irrepressible ray of Colombian sunshine (seen above in the woolly hat) blessed with a great set of pipes: playing Latin bass and taking lead vocals simultaneously commands respect. Talking drums and music with the rhythm section over dinner made me late for Alex and Lee's class. After leading the band back to their dressing room, I slipped into the main hall to find the class of fifty split into three groups doing vocalisations for tumbao moderno (congas), martillo (bongó), and cáscara (timbales) - Alex dubbed them the 'Human Salsa Orchestra', and it was an attendance that only someone of his musical standing could have inspired.

The objective was to open the band's second set with staggered entries of the three sections and the session closed with a practice of these entries. This was the second time that this workshop had been run by Lee and Alex, and I can't help but think that Alex missed a trick here. Percussion, though crucial, can be pretty dry on its own - it would have been a little bit of magic for the attendees if Alex had jumped on to stage and accompanied the Human Salsa Orchestra on the piano for a few bars, just to tie the class up with a pretty contextual bow.

The last time I saw Alex Wilson and his band was at the Derby Assembly Rooms in March 2007 when his cover of Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody" had stormed the salsa floors. This time they were even better: then, the orchestra leaned definitively towards Soul; at the Extravaganza, Soul was artistically counter-balanced with a more profound expression of Latin rhythm. But I'd already expected this after hearing a dynamite güajira influenced snippet at soundcheck.

Among an evening littered with highlights, one of the brightest has to be sharing a dance with Lee to Alex's "Inglaterra" with Elpi hooting at us over the montuno.

It was daybreak by the time the Pipers and I had finished undoing the ravages of the Extravaganza. Sunday afternoon lunch was a leisurely affair, and Tony tells me that the day after 12th Night is always his most relaxed in the year. It was dark by the time I stepped off the train at Sheffield station.

Casting back a year ago, I remembered thinking that Tony was risking an awful lot by considering booking Alex; Palenke were unavailable, and he didn't want to bring 12th Night down the value chain by not booking a band. The Extravaganza has always been a labour of love for the Pipers, and I'm thankful in the end that it still is.

Loo Yen

Act of Creation

2010-01-05T10:19:00.013Z

Bloom's Taxonomy describes a hierarchy of learning achievement which educators might use to benchmark the progress of a student. As a self-learner, I use it as a core tool to classify, quoting from the above link, "the different objectives that educators (i.e. myself) set for students (i.e. myself)." Not only does it chart my movement through a hierarchy of development, but it manages one of the greatest hurdles to self-instruction - the NOT knowing of what's missing.

Being aware of what's missing means you know what it is and can go looking for it - you've already identified the outline of the absent piece. NOT knowing what's missing, however, is more akin to being unaware that a colour is missing from the spectrum. It means pockets of blissful ignorance that can spring up and bite you in the developmental derrière after you've passed them by.

Bloom's taxonomy goes some way to delimiting Unknown unknowns by asking questions from the developmental end-point, illuminating the darkness of the unknown from the perspective of a hypothetical subject-matter expert. The pinnacle of Anderson and Krathwohl's modification of the cognitive domain published in 2001 (my preferred variant) is 'Creating' - where the learner is capable of synthesising new knowledge within the domain. By asking myself all the time, "what pieces do I need in order to be able to create something?" I simulate the existence of a mentor. It goes a long way to protecting my delectable derrière from the Unexpected's fangs of ignorance.

On the second day of 2010, I entered that tier with the congas.

Gettin' It Together is a song that I penned four years ago, and it has since become one of 4 de Diciembre 's go-to numbers. By 'go-to' I mean that it's a frequent denizen of our playlist as the perfect get-out-of-jail-free card:

it has a modern instead of traditional salsa vibe, great for varying the feel of a set;
the lyrics are in English, so the British audience relates well to it; and
we play it well with very little practice.

That last point is significant for two reasons: it indicates that Gettin' It Together must somehow connect with each band member at a personal level; and we've come to treat it with benign neglect like we might an obedient child, spending our energies on those seemingly more exciting or unruly.

As author of its lyrics, co-creator of its piano montuno, and originator of its bass tumbao, it would be fair to say that I would be the one with most insight into Gettin' It Together - how it is and what it could grow to be. Its conga marcha [rhythm] is based on the tumbao moderno and, while that was appropriate to my level of understanding at the time of conception, there was always a feeling unrealised potential. The dissatisfaction of "there has to be something better, I know it" gnawed more and more, until I at last gave my uncomplaining original its due care.

Scouring the pantheon of AfroCaribbean rhythms from comparsas to batucada, songo to plena, no delicate ankle could be found for the glass slipper. But the search was not fruitless; each step along the road led to a greater understanding of the ideal marcha's form: the movement of songo con marcha; the voicing of mozambique; a pocket of variability like the guaguancó's; accents on the rumba upbeat on the 3-side and the bombó; an option to accent the son or rumba ponché.

I wanted it all, because Gettin' It Together deserved a marcha with groove and freedom. More than that, it needed it. Time and again I've stood witness to how one single inspired change can unlock entire vistas of understanding in an ensemble.

It started as an 'Eureka!' moment of mental, then physical, vocalisation; followed by interpretation on the congas; and then an evaluation of its fit to a pre-recorded montuno and a mentally-modulated bassline. The new rhythm ticked every box on the ideal's wishlist. Looking up from the evening's solitary venture, my companion the minute hand had travelled but a quarter the clock's face. I've impudently dubbed the new rhythm Luzambique con marcha and can't help but feel that it's the herald of many good things to come (wait until my band-mates get a load of this baby).

Then came the realisation that I'd engaged with all the upper-level tiers of the cognitive domain...

Perhaps as a musician you might point out that being able to solo already falls under 'Creating', and that I'd already visited the pinnacle. Who am I to disagree? I would go further and contend that there are qualitative aspects within each tier. Starting off as a novice conguero I still recall the wonder I felt after playing the luscious Cándido's tumbao, thinking "such a divine talent he must have to create something so beautiful."

The transient, spontaneous Creativity of a solo is different to the articulate, immortal Creativity of a tumbao.

And in that, perhaps, is another act of knowledge creation: the idea that 'Creating' (and by logical extension every tier) broadly encompasses acts that may be qualitatively differentiated.

As for Bloom's taxonomy on dancing salsa, I'll leave that for another day.

Yeo Loo Yen

Retrospection: 4 de Diciembre's Course Through 2009

2009-12-23T12:04:00.010Z

The critical success of our final concert in 2009 was the culmination, and validation, of painstaking analysis and committed team effort in what has been one of the most turbulent years of 4 de Diciembre's history.

Two singers (Ferret, Nathan) and a timbalero (Dan) moved on at the beginning of the year; while at that same time our brass section, Mike and Thom, expressed a desire for greater involvement in the musical direction of the ensemble. I was very pleased to hear this, relishing a wider range of inputs; and it was the ideal time to do so, as 4de12 would have to re-arrange most of its numbers and repetoire to reflect the strengths to our changed line-up.

We started putting the brass in more central positions: cueing openings and breaks, carrying the main harmonic lines, and setting out more areas for improvisation. But a combination of factors cropped up that affected the ability of both horn players to attend regularly; by the early second quarter of the year, the pursuit had stagnated. Knowing that we couldn't be prepared in time, I had no alternative but to disappoint Tony by informing him that we would not be able to play for him at the Engine Shed.

4 de Diciembre had featured so well in the year before, that a high performance level had become associated with our name - I knew we could only take to the stage again if we could satisfy or exceed that standard; and as prodigiously talented as Catie is, the ensemble needed a strong and regular musician to complement her magical flute.

That person turned out to be Jan Rens.

Being a founding member of 4de12 through its previous incarnation, he agreed to return and play - his violin in partnership with the flute completed us as a charanga sextet. In truth, we'd all never stopped playing together: I'd set up the Conjunto Laloma acoustic quintet in November '08 with Ana (bass, vocals), Catie (flutes), Jan (violin), Jeremy (tres, vocals) and myself (guitar, lead vocals) as a vehicle for the exploration of AfroCuban music from the fundamentals upwards.

My promise to them was that I would develop 4 de Diciembre's music on the same principles that had worked so well with Laloma. It was an easy one to make, as I believe to my core that it is the best way to play; and an easy one to keep, because every musician in the ensemble now felt the same.

The rebirth of 4de12 began over the summer, built on a conceptual foundation laid down by Laloma where each song was played, analysed, disassembled, rearranged, and prepared for public performance. It was painstaking work. To raise the stakes further, I also selected several covers for case study and as potential candidates for our playlist.

When I returned from the Far East at the end of September, we had a mountain to climb and three months to do it in. Group practices grew to thrice weekly to account for absences due to commitments to other bands (and in my case, teaching). It was my responsibility to plan the schedule to be ready on time; work with Whib in articulating new percussion rhythms; determine breaks, ensemble arrangements and sectional changes; support Catie's genius and Jan's moments of inspiration; and maximise Ana's practice times, as she was personally bearing a mammoth teaching load.

The result?

Cuatro de Diciembre delivered two highly articulate sets as a heavy-hitting sexteto, punching well above its weight. The successful strategies were based on those of Arsenio Rodríguez, whose conjunto commonly took on the Big Bands in 1930s Cuba.

We played not four, but five new covers to counterpoint our vast original material: "Buscándote", "Muévete", "El Reloj de Pastora", "Talento de Televisión", and "Ya Lo Sé"; which were all enthusiastically received. Many musicians will acknowledge how much of a challenge some of these numbers are to interpret well.

Every song featured new arrangements, some to within an inch of their lives.

It's considered poor form for an artist actively to solicit the views of his or her audience after a performance, so I didn't. But what was volunteered from the lips of those who had seen us last year, was that 4de12:

played engaging songs at comfortable dance pacings;
had beautiful arrangements; and
possessed as full a sound yet was all-the-more dynamic.

I'm happy, and I'm satisfied.

Happy that that mountain of effort all of us put in, made such a noticeable difference. I'm satisfied that the music direction we're taking, building from AfroCuban first principles, is the right one.

Cuatro de Diciembre in its moment of truth

We're now back at the performance level of where we were a year ago.

Scratch that, we're better - as individual musicians, as ensemble players, with deeper roots. It is a special feeling to be sharing the stage as friends, ready to play at the drop of a hat. Few bands can cope with what many would regard as a seismic change in line-up, but it's a shining testament to the quality of 4 de Diciembre's musical core to come back and play better than before - in less than a single year.

Normally that would be enough, but through my teaching and this remarkable band, I got something more for Christmas... I got the chance to introduce good people to good people: Marco and Lina to Chris, Sue, Tony and Mary.

It's been a year to remember.

looyenyeo

19th December 2009 Cuatro de Diciembre with SalsaYarm@Tower Club Ballroom, Middlesborough

2009-12-21T10:08:00.016Z

Our first anniversary return to Yarm coincided with one of the most highly disruptive snowstorms to grip the United Kingdom in many a year; and we'd kept our keenest ears pinned to the weatherman's lips in the run-up, wondering if our best preparations might be for nought. Ultimately, the band opted for an early start and was rewarded with a straight run to the tower ballroom, but by the time we alighted in the late twilight, flurries were chasing themselves over shoe-deep snow at the foot of the old church tower.

Things were looking a wee bit on the uphill side... especially more so after we'd set up onstage and the sound reinforcement crew were still nowhere to be found.

Whib, our congüero-bongocero.
30 seconds later, he was making snoooozy-sounds

Decemberists busied themselves reading, chewing, or snoozing (in Whib's case); and I reacquainted myself with the dancer's delight of a floor, stretching out with a solo effort of a slow foxtrot to the tune of 'oohs' and 'aahs' from one of the windows. Sadly they weren't for my trottings - Ana and Catie had discovered front row seats to an iconic English winter wonderland scene: that of an arterial motorway grinding to a rather spectacular halt.

Emerging from a fall-away slip-pivot, I turned to be greeted by Mary Piper's winning smile; Tony Piper and Chris Hields weren't far behind. As well as a firm friendship, we all shared, in that moment, a strong disapproval for the churlish behaviour of the weather gods. We unwrapped Christmas contingency plans and I briefed the band on the worst case scenario of having to perform semi-acoustically. I'd no sooner finished than the lads from JSS audio drew up, hefting a veritable mountain of P.A.

Muévelo: JSS Audio really shifting

Is that a silver lining I spy before me?

Soundcheck stretched past 'doors open' and the determined revellers who'd bravely made it in were treated to an extra rendition of two of our numbers. That was all it took: a couple of songs on top of individual mic checks, a total of fifteen speedy minutes. Peachy's the word! JSS were as competent and well equipped as BlastPA - the only thing that foxed the two young engineers was the Markbass amp which Ana was playing through.

Sue, Chris, Mary and Tony chose to delay the onset of the party salsa lesson to allow for latecomers; and when they finally did get underway, Chris cheerily warned me off sharking around in his lesson after the antics of last year. Tail between my legs, I skulked off to sulk... that is, until I caught sight of Marco and Lina's arrival (from Red Hat Salsa in Reading, see previous posts). That they made it at all was a touching act of dogged determination, despite being back just up the road for Christmas. SalsaYarm would not countenance my covering their entrance, and had generously them put on the guest list.

Just before we were due to play, Chris asked whether we would shorten our sets to accommodate the dance performance at the interval as things were running late. I happily acceded; we were there to provide a service after all. My fellow Decemberists were inclined to drop our more recent songs, reasoning that our more established numbers would allow us all to perform with more punch. I very much understood their point.

However, I felt that we shouldn't let the chance to blood our new songs slip by because:

it's only in the furnace of a live performance where one properly understands a song's substance and how it could be performed better;
all were unusual covers that many people on the floor could relate to; and
the playlist order was set out with very deliberate changes in texture, where the covers and originals combined in a way that complemented each other.

The guys decided to trust my judgement.

4 de Diciembre opened with the pacey original "El Gallo" [The Rooster], a crowd pleaser and band favourite - the third song Ana and I ever wrote. Being a sexteto, we all fitted neatly onto the small stage with me alternately being dazzled by a bright green spotlight or inadvertently 'Glasgow-kissing' the Christmas bell decorations on either side. The set flowed every bit as well as anticipated, from "En La Sangre", through "El Reloj de Pastora", "Bilongo", "Tempest", "Buscándote" and ending on a high with the Cuban classic "Pintate Los Labios, María".

Tony slapped a couple of stonking tracks on the decks before inviting the Encuentro Latino student troupe onto the floor in what would be their penultimate display before they disband. They broke On2 to the rat-a-tat percussion of Tito Puente's "Ran Kan Kan", much to the appreciation of the collected party-goers. Two songs after that and I had a face-full of green once again.

Shrek the halls with riffs of salsa

Ana opened up with Bembé's bassline groove, and it was as if we'd never left off. That's the best way to be. "El Hechizo del Montuno", "Hijos de Cam", "Talento de Televisión", and "Nueva Generación" powered by, and all too soon we were closing with "Ya Lo Sé" and "Muévete" - a most magical live pairing. All that remained was a belated introduction of Catie, Jan, Whib, Ana, and Jeremy to the audience, and heartfelt thanks to all who were there including Sue, Mary, Chris and Tony.

The responses to 4de12's performance were all overwhelmingly positive, unsolicited and corroborated: from friends Lina, Marco and a sundry others; the dancing audience including Richard, himself a leader of a Latin band, who fondly recalled last year's gig; and my promoter-friends who tell me like it is. By the time I'd tripped some fantastic light with the revellers and packed down, the anniversary was over and we bade our season's goodbyes.

Sitting on the front passenger seat and watching the dark snowscape pass us by, I thought on all that had transpired in the year since 4de12's debut at SalsaYarm.

(On to 'Retrospection: 4 de Diciembre's Course Through 2009'.)

Loo Yen Yeo

4th December 2009 Mambo con Rumbo @Slug and Lettuce, York

2009-12-07T07:50:00.019Z

Once a month, on its opening Friday, the great and the good of York's salsa community congregate in the farthest corner of Swinegate to indulge in an unseemly display of dance solidarity. Gyrating together in a travesty of good-two-shoes libertarian behaviour at the Slug and Lettuce watering hole (not to be confused with the identically named one next to the river, to which the unknowing are cunningly misdirected), 'On1ers' from Mary and Tony's SalsaYork and 'breaking On2ers' from Lossie and Gareth's Encuentro Latino do nothing at all to reinforce the convention of market segmentation gripping the commercial salsa world.

This author turned up to cast disapproval at such brazen proceedings...

Actually, I turned up because I'd been hearing from Tony about how this night was going great guns and to support the North's latest live music debutantes - Mambo con Rumbo (yes, it's rumbo, not rumba), featuring people whom I'd become increasingly acquainted with via Twelfth night and the Engine Shed, reinforced by a strengthening social network both corporeal and electronic. It was also the 4th of December, and such alignment of the planets could only be ignored at one's peril.

"It's all very much last-minute as usual" I thought, as I clutched my overnight bag on the train to York post-work. Dinner was an intimate affair with Mary, Tony and myself at a busy and cosy brasserie in the middle of the historic city a stone's throw from the Minster; an ideal way to update each other on our lifestyles' circumstances. Come nine o'clock, we forsook our tables for the Slug and Lettuce to unload the gear and set up. Steve Carter (timbalero, vocalist), Gareth Roberts (conguero), Phil Moores (bass, songwriter), and Adam Parnell (flautist, saxophonist, music director) were already on-site preparing for soundcheck; and after the jovialities, I removed myself from underfoot to evaluate the venue.

The Slug and Lettuce is a chain of modern pub-eateries whose physical premises are pleasantly less 'busy' in decor and arrangement than their web-image suggests. Their menu is somewhere in-between as regards coherence, but their bar offerings are accurately targeted. Staff morale was solid, and the supervising management was good-natured and accommodating - it was clear that both parties, the promoters (Gareth, Lossie, Mary and Tony) and venue management, had put effort into cultivating a good business relationship. It bodes well for an enduring salsa night.

With the fading of the last meal sitting, a cord barrier was put in place to partition off the dance area. The polished wooden flooring throughout is a nice surface to move on, although the split-level nature of it, in effect, divided the available space into two long-but-slim stretches, aside from the spot occupied by the band. Nevertheless, the Slug could (and did) cheerily accommodate a hundred and sixty grooving souls with a band in place.

The main event was Mambo con Rumbo playing to a friendly crowd; there was plenty of home-town support for its band members, many of whom have been long-term protagonists on the salsa scene. Its single set of about eight numbers, half of which were instrumental, were well chosen to suit dancers. There is an obvious difference (in the U.K.) between the music of bands that comprise dancers and those that do not, and Mambo con Rumbo decidedly belong in the former. The nine person line-up comprised: congas, timbales/vocals, hand percussion/vocals, piano, bass, alto saxophone/flute/vocals, tenor saxophone, trumpet and trombone; and their interpretation style struck me as salsa dura with a hint of romántica arrangement and dose of jazz. It was NYC, despite cover version nods to Venezuela with Llorarás and Colombia with El Preso.

Adam's hand as a music teacher with arrangement experience was evident with the assuredness of the horns; Gareth and Steve's backgrounds as enduring aficionados of percussion presented its flavours strongly; and the instrumental number penned by Phil comfortably withstood scrutiny by the dance floor. Mambo con Rumbo as an ensemble displayed all the ingredients for the realisation of potential: creativity, crucial for developing a unique identity; musicality; organisation and arrangement; direction, in the band's navigation of salsa genres; and most overlooked of all, grounding i.e. persistent contact with the needs of the target audience.

I was the most impressed with Gareth's tumbaos. His phrasing is as authentically Latin as I've ever heard - a benchmark for any aspiring salsa musician; there is a guile and subtlety in his touch which belies a deep-seated, seemingly innate, understanding of the essence of salsa.

Before the gyrating hordes:
Mambo con Rumbo at soundcheck.

As a debut it was more than just commendable, and I shall be keen to follow their progress with interest.

The powerful things about bands are, that a good one can establish an atmosphere like no other artefact. The warm glow of salsa was carried through the rest of the night with Gareth, George a.k.a. 'Doctor Salsa' and Tony as torchbearers on the decks. It was particularly touching to have Tony announce the significance of El Cuatro de Diciembre and dedicate one of our favourite tracks: 'La Candela' by Yerba Buena, that most Cuban of New York bands, to the occasion.

No-one minded that, by then, the clock had struck well into the fifth.

Yeo Loo Yen

El Reloj de Pastora

2009-12-01T12:18:00.003Z

There are times when, as a musician, you can feel the potential in a song. It's a feeling of great promise as yet untapped, where every ounce of effort poured in will be rewarded in kind, now matter how much your own abilities grow. Such pieces are rare, gems to be treasured, nurtured even, and this classic composed by Arsenio Rodríguez is one. The example I selected for us to learn from is Sierra Maestra's fine interpretation; first for Conjunto Laloma, and lately for 4 de Diciembre.

'El Reloj de Pastora' is proving to be an inspired addition to our playlist. Its unusual key and lulling hypnotic quality of its harmonic progression; moving from B flat minor to A flat major, then transiting through F major on the return to the root, creates an interesting harmonic space for soloing - something the Decemberists have very much enjoyed. The challenge has been, and continues to be, the song's revealing simplicity and how we adapt it best to our instrumentation.

The lyrical theme is based on iteration and misdirection, and as such places heavy demand on a singer's ability to interpret and phrase. The high tessitura of the original key is a chance to develop the upper section of my vocal range, and thankfully 'El Reloj de Pastora' can accept a singing style slightly more laced with overt classical technique than most salsa numbers. The thematic subtexts; the metaphorical meanings that inform the phrasing, are taking a little more time to understand, because it's not literally about "The Shepherdess' Clock" - I read it as being about a something-someone's time.

As a personal journey, 'El Reloj de Pastora' is opening the way to a better understanding of the son and the son montuno. Yes, 4 de Diciembre are charanga-salsa in lineup, and I wanted to preserve that son montuno lilt despite the move to salsa instrumentation, but with a contemporary edge. Strangely enough, it was a stubborn desire both to play the slow rhythm on the güiro and to dance contratiempo while singing that provided a flavour of authenticity.

Nothing worth learning comes cheaply.

I found that the upper body güiro rhythm (one cycle per bar) and the lower body contratiempo rhythm (one cycle per two bars), provided the independent reference points necessary for rhythmic triangulation to solidify the vocal phrasing in the son montuno style. Managing the attacks of the vocals (early), güiro (middle) and dance (late) is awkward for now, but getting less so every day.

At least there's a clear course of development for this singing-güiroing-dancing escapade: moving to son montuno and then chachachá footwork.

Manuel Güajiro Mirabal's version hasn't yet found its way into my lap, but it will once we've got a stronger handle on the groove - I've got a feeling that the trumpet ideas could well propel our playing of the song to new heights. After we've built up the basics that is. Until then, it'll have to twiddle its thumbs impatiently on my wishlist.

Santa... ¿porfi?

looyenyeo

6th-9th November 2009 Salsa Workshops @Red Hat Salsa, Reading (Afterword)

2009-11-16T10:47:00.008Z

A week has passed and with things having settled down a bit, I can make a more detached assessment of the workshops. Although I'd prepared feedback forms for use after each session, it transpired that there wasn't a chance to deploy them. Instead I've had to rely on anecdotal responses collected from Red Hat and corroborate them with my own observations.

Taking the positive points first, as every educative critique should:

Most attendees said that they learnt a lot, from a really different, interesting and refreshing perspective.
They felt it was good to hear from someone of my background and experience.
Even self-confessed non-instructor dancers learned more than they thought they were going to.
A number would attend my workshops again.

Great! On the downside... :

There were a few who felt it was a little biased towards my way of teaching and therefore not sufficiently relevant to themselves.
Many felt the Saturday was too long.
A couple said there was not enough dancing.

Thoughts on Point 1
It's clear from the title, schedules and course blurb that the 'Year In A Day' is exactly what it says on the tin - progressive over one year and skills-based.

But I surmise that the comment comes from a different place: from those who conduct mainly stand-alone combination-based sessions. I'd sensed that a few couldn't see the relevance in possessing a Hierarchy of Development plan which extended beyond a discrete one hour lesson.

I would have to disagree on the basis that such lessons would still be reliant upon returning students in the short-to-mid term, and that therefore a Hierarchy could be applied to the benefit of the individual at remedial level. Such a treatment would add value to the learning experience, augmenting it above commodity level and convert returners into the mid-to-long term. However there would be an increased effort cost that some instructors might be unwilling to pay.

Thoughts on Point 2
In terms of duration, the Saturday was advertised as beginning at 10:00hrs and ending at 18:45hrs; it actually ran from 10.30hrs until 19:00hrs.

I suspect that this comment was more in response to the sustained cognitive load generated by the session; "long" is an expression used commonly by students to describe learning saturation. The onset of saturation could have been delayed if the stream of concepts had been broken up with assimilation practices, but that was not an option available.

I have, however, already taken this under advisement and will make much firmer recommendations regarding session content in future.

Thoughts on Point 3
Again, this I would interpret as being an alternate expression to Point 2 - the desire for more assimilation time at the expense of content. It's a piece of feedback that I'd anticipated, and one that I wholeheartedly agree with.

In Conclusion
The dryness of the feedback shouldn't be allowed to overshadow what a pleasurable experience it was; to meet so many engaging instructors who take their own personal development, to the benefit of their students, so seriously - Ali, Penny, Sharon, Chunky, and Marco to name but a few. It's been invaluable to keep apace of the challenges they that face in an increasingly competitive arena.

Also reassuring, to me personally, was the affirmation that there is indeed an audience for an alternative skills-based approach; and that I had all the facilities at my disposal which allowed for effective delivery of content, by way of literature, music and instruments. Special mention must be made of the LP compact congas which really came into their own that weekend.

"Some people have been really raving over how great they were", said Sharon.

That's good to know.

Loo Yeo

6th-9th November 2009 Salsa Workshops @Red Hat Salsa, Reading (Part 2)

2009-11-09T09:57:00.004Z

Mercifully, Sharon had scheduled a mid-day start and I spent a relaxed Sunday morning preparing the musical examples, making notes of time codes, and refining teaching points for the first session: 'The Route to Improvisation'.

This workshop on improvisatory dancing required the most attention, not due to a lack of familiarity with the material, but because I wasn't as fluent with the structure as I would have liked - the Hierarchy of Development of a stand-alone session is chalk and cheese to a long-term progression. Also, I was concerned with the management of expectation; where the only exposure that the majority of dancers have to improvisatory dancing is through the routine of shines.

Bar Risa on Friar Street was only six minutes' walk from the Mercure St.George, and I stepped through the tradesmen's entrance well ahead of time.

There were just eight takers for this session, but reassuringly they were all dance instructors from yesterday. It told me that the material from 'A Year In A Day' had resonated with two-thirds of the teachers present there; strongly enough for them to want to know more. Fantastic! I quickly adjusted the delivery to suit educators, cut out the redundant material, and obtained their permission to take the session into greater depth.

The couple of hours passed as an eye-blink and it proved an unqualified success: there had been plenty of discussion, practice, and sharing of little-known hard-won material. But it must be said that this was could not have been possible without the tremendous amount of hard work invested the day before.

Two non-teachers, an interested musician and journeyman dancer, joined us for the final workshop: 'Dancing Beyond The Count'. This was potentially going to be difficult, what with 80% of the class already being so far ahead in terms of development and groundwork information. I discreetly sought Sharon's advice, as the promoter, as to whether she wanted me to deliver focused on the incoming duo. We decided to continue targeting educators as the primary audience and that I would address the newcomers at remedial level and during the breaks.

Once again, we proceeded well beyond the original schedule and I tied it back in the content of the workshops before, culminating in the dancing of the son montuno to Sierra Maestra's cover of Arsenio Rodríguez's Dundunbanza. I'm fairly certain that this was the first time the son montuno had ever been danced in Reading.

And then my weekender was all over.

I book-ended my trip by attending Red Hat Salsa's Sunday evening session at Jongleur's upstairs of Bar Risa. It was a nice way to unwind, meet more of the dancers and say my goodbyes.

Well, now it's time to pack up. There's a train to catch.

Loo Yeo

6th-9th November 2009 Salsa Workshops @Red Hat Salsa, Reading (Part 1)

2009-11-09T08:55:00.018Z

It's Monday. The salsa weekend is hours passed and I'm in my hotel room packing for the return trip to Sheffield. With a belly-full of breakfast, there's no better time than now to get a first-impression assessment of the workshop sessions.

My introductory glimpse into Reading's salsa scene began with dinner at Sharon and Ed's on Friday night. It was the ideal way to make our personal acquaintances, talking about how Red Hat Salsa came to be; the regional salsa scene; and for me to understand why they left the beaten track in engaging me to run these far-from-typical sessions. Sharon's genuine appetite for knowledge is vividly striking; something reinforced, unsolicited, over the next days by teachers who've had occasion to work with her.

For dessert, we hopped into the car for a trip to Bracknell.

It was their monthly shindig at the Hilton Hotel where I was at various times during the evening an irrepressible beginner in Sharon's lesson; tripping the fancy stuff with the local salseros; trading wit with the two other teachers that evening, Penny and Chunky; taking in the happenings on the floor; and listening to the kinds of tracks coming over the PA. It was a precious chance to assess the Latin dance scene, at ground level, ahead of time.

Saturday dawned beautifully, but its promise was marred by a tardy taxi which landed me thirty minutes behind and starting on the back foot. The wintry community room was filled with two dozen dancers; half of whom were instructors, some having flatteringly travelled from near three hours away. It was never going to be easy - the extensive content and the compressed time-frame of delivery made sure of that. But having to make up more than thirty minutes, AND re-pitch the specification from a secondary to a primary target audience of teachers on-the-fly without losing the non-teachers... okay, this was going to be a robust test of preparation and experience.

The detailed nature of the workshop specifications were the biggest safety net there could ever have been. I kept to the schedules as much as I could because of the coherence already built into them, omitting or skimming over the less significant; and in so doing increased their value as post-session reference documents. Sadly a portion of the time allotted to the practical exercises, the most valuable aspect of any workshop, was sacrificed in lieu of content coverage. The day had a feel more akin to a seminar than a workshop and I've braced myself mentally for that as feedback. To avoid the delivery becoming dry, I made use of plenty of musical examples, including an impromptu rendition of 'El Carretero' as a son element.

The Saving Grace came in the latter part of the day as dancers and teachers warmed up to exchange their experiences in free-flowing discussion. That, arguably, is THE greatest benefit of any well-facilitated session. It told me that despite the less-than-ideal combination of factors, a true workshop-style learning environment had been established. I adjusted the content and presentation at every moment of the day, taking on the feedback articulated or expressed through body language, and making sure to solicit the opinions of the silent during the breaks. The vast majority was positive and helpfully constructive.

Nine-hours of high-intensity delivery left me depleted, and I dropped off my things at the hotel with relief before venturing out to the Oracle, Reading's rather snazzy shopping district, in search of food.

I'd spotted a 'Yo Sushi' bar on the way through, and decided to salve my spirit with some Japanese food. I never eat alone at these places because the hypnotic conveyor-belt of morsels seems to open the gateway to conversation. With Dave the visiting American, we chatted about a Brazillian restaurant we both frequented in Singapore; with the Nepalese sushi chef it was knives, especially the 'kukri' - the knife of the Gurkhas; and the English and Nepalese waiting staff, about the dishes they favoured at the establishment.

What the Oracle looks like after a Japanese fish dinner

Retreating sated to the stillness of my room, I began rallying for the challenges of the Sunday ahead.

(On to Part 2)

Loo Yeo

A Weekender At Red Hat Salsa

2009-10-31T15:58:00.016Z

"That's a whole weekender" remarked Christophe.

I hadn't thought of it that way. It was that dwelling period that we have over coffees just after lunch - one of the little luxuries we to afford ourselves as we catch up. The inimitable man from Biarritz had just asked me how much teaching I was to do in Reading next weekend. Christophe knew my nose had been kept firmly to the keyboard; organising material for the workshops, and having to put plenty of salsa-related items, like the updating of this blog, on hold.

It happened a while ago when Sharon, who runs the successful Red Hat Salsa in the Reading/Bracknell area, contacted me by email after happening across the salsa-merengue.co.uk website in a bid for more words on salsa's history. We kept the jungle drums beating while I was in the Far East, and together finally arrived at a date, times, and topics for things she wanted me to cover for Red Hat.

Although I'd already sent outlines to her whilst in Penang, I decided to make a rod for my own back and go further by preparing indicative schedules, just as I'd done for Tony Piper at 12th Night.

I regard this as simply 'best practice'.

A well prepared schedule questions the best order of priority for the learning points, identifies aspects that might otherwise be overlooked, and forces the design of flexibility into its structure.
A primary factor affecting the performance of a guest instructor is an understanding of local learning culture. Treated as product specification document, the process has given us both (with me being the provider and Red Hat Salsa the client) a chance to prepare something suited to the purpose.
It informs parties of what to expect, that way only those genuinely interested in the topics will attend. Sometimes this can be a source of tension for promoters who want as strong an attendance as possible, but thankfully most acknowledge that a successful workshop is of better long-term value than a well-attended disappointing one.
Detailed documents are a source of strong marketing support to the promoter, and having been on the receiving end more than just a couple of times, I make sure I do my utmost to help.
A schedule also provides an educator (i.e. me) with a performance benchmark against which feedback can be used to identify areas of success and improvement.

I also took it as an opportunity to do some long-overdue house-keeping of my learning materials.

A question which posed some internal conflict was, 'should I restrict circulation of the documents or not?'. All know-how is hard-worn, and certainly in the case of Verdant, the more important the information, the more qualification is required of the potential recipient.

But salsa is different.

For better or worse, I don't instruct in the same arena as most social salsa teachers so there is no need to indulge in competitive defensive practices. But there is something more fundamental at heart - when I first started teaching, I made a personal promise not to hold back; this was after experiences, with myself as student, of teachers who did. When I emailed the files to Sharon, I made no mention of any restrictions in distribution - they've since passed through her mailing lists.

So here it is, the workshops for Red Hat Salsa next weekend:

That's a whole weekender alright!

Loo Yen Yeo

Latin Percussion's Compact Congas

2009-10-26T15:45:00.015Z

I've got a not-very-salsa-street-cred confession to make...

I've been lusting after a set of LP compact congas for a while; since they first appeared and won the 2003 Musikmesse International Press Award (MIPA) as a matter of fact. And six years is an awfully long time to wait, but finally the time was right to let a set into my front room.

The main driver is the sexteto format of 4 de Diciembre. I've had, with the agreement of Ana, Catie, Jan and Jeremy, to suspend Conjunto Laloma practices until the new year; giving over the time slots to 4de12 instead. This is to make sure we can be ready for our Middlesborough concert with Chris and Sue's SalsaYarm. In return, I gave my assurance that our ground-up approach to musicianship and arrangements embedded in Laloma's practices would persist into 4de12 sexteto.

The compact congas and bongo have come into play because it gives a wider palette of percussive sounds with a very small footprint. Since I've now taken a structural approach to playing güiro and bongo bell, it has allowed Wib to play more freely; the addition of more soloing surfaces goes a long way into offsetting the absence of a timbalero. There is also the opportunity for increased dynamics through the incorporation of contrasting son and pilón-style passages.

Future expandability's looking bright: without the presence of full-sized shells, there's room underneath to deploy pedal percussion (something Wib is very fluent with) like jamblock, cowbell, bass drum, triggered samples, hi-hats; and played with sticks, we could re-incorporate timbales with a bass drum and move to a songo-style sound. We'd have to move to practice rooms if we went down the latter route, but the set-up is very portable.

All this would have been for nought had the sound from the compact units had been of poor sound. There were some reservations: I figured that the open tones would lack sustain, body and warmth; biasing the way one played towards the dry slap strokes - my discussions with Karl of Electromusic (from whom I eventually purchased them) seemed to confirm that. However, Jeremy had played on them when he was in the States, and they had Giovanni Hidalgo and MIPA's endorsement on their side.

Latin Percussion's compact bongó and congas.
AfroCuban drums, but not as we know them

The promise of so much flexibility proved too much to endure, and so it was that the big LP stork placed the new baby into my arms last Friday. Tuning started that day and continued through most of 'Strictly Come Dancing' on Saturday, ready for use in anger on Sunday's practice. I took the time to settle the skins, made sure all the heads were tuned to each other, and most importantly of all, tensioned the heads for the fullest open tones.

Ana, Catie, Jan and Jeremy were mightily impressed. Catie called them 'space-age' thinking it weird that such a full sound could emanate from what was effectively a frame drum. I'm just as baffled. They play more like fibreglass drums: not a lot of warmth, but loads of projection and easy on the hands. The stands, although heavy-duty and double-braced, still flex a bit compared to a wooden shell under compression; and I had to adjust my strokes accordingly. They're so good that when it came time to discussing our transportation needs for Middlesborough, we all agreed that the compact units were the best choice for sound and space-saving.

My personal Brucie bonus is that bringing congas and bongó my salsa workshops is greatly facilitated. I'm looking forward to the greater liberty, spontaneity and interactivity that being unfettered from the CD player brings.

Long live innovation.

Loo Yen

Salsa Looming

2009-09-28T07:45:00.004Z

This intrepid explorer's just barely touched down and already it's back into the fray. Five weeks have passed with just a slightest hint of Cuban rhythm and I'm faced with a full-on schedule preparing workshop materials for a weekender at Red Hat Salsa, and getting sexteto 4 de Diciembre fully lined up for a repeat Christmas concert further up north.

Sharon, the engine driving Red Hat in Reading, has yet to finalise a date - but it's going to be in about five weeks time when I make my way to deliver four workshops: two half-day ones and two 2-hour ones. It's all content that I'm consummately familiar with, but the key is in the structuring of it to minimise mental saturation. Sharon certainly doesn't lack ambition: the two half-day ones cover the entire extent of a full training-year of my teacher development programme (hence the concern over saturation). No doubt there'll be more blogging about it between now and then.

At the same time, I've got to prepare 4 de Diciembre, in sexteto format, for public performance. That's Ana (bass, vocals), Catie (flutes, vocals), Jan (violin, vocals), Jeremy (piano, vocals, clave), Wib (congas, bongó) and yours truly (lead vocals, hand percussion). The easy way would be to re-jig our set-lists slightly and gloss over the horn parts. The best way would be to lengthen each set by a song to account for shorter montuno sections; introduce the equivalent of a whole set of new material; and re-arrange the existing ones to make full use of the charanga format.

Where's the challenge in 'easy', eh?

Whatismore, we've chosen to cover some great but tough-to-interpret songs. Thankfully the guys have been plugging away at their individual parts, so we're quite some way down the road already - all this music director has to do is bring it all together. Piece of cake...

Loo

A Depth of Latin Culture: The Meaning of an Accent (Part 4)

2009-09-12T13:34:00.003Z

Afterword
To a native Spanish speaker, it's usually possible to place the origins of a person by the accent he or she carries. Salsa is no different, but it seldom occurs to my students to think 'what does my manner of dancing speak of me?'

What accents inform the Colombian, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Nuyorican and Venezuelan schools for example? Which of these are geographic, to be distinguished from the personal? What does the ungrounded the heel of the North American back-step actually mean (and it's not necessarily to do, as often professed, with not wanting to step on someone)?

Everything in the earlier parts can be distilled into one point: to achieve cultural depth, salsa dancers would need to learn more than salsa. Because how someone moves tells me plenty.

Maybe:

the angle of your foot says you're quoting from urban Cuba;
the shimmering quiver of your hips driven upwards from the knees is the voice of Puerto Rico's bomba;
a certain stillness of your upper body hints at class distinction, perhaps from Caracas;
your movement, inspired more by shells or skins, clues me to the kind of salsa playing in you car - or if you have any playing at all.

It's easy once you know where, and how, to look.

And for many, salsa is all they know and any accents I express pass them by unnoticed. It's a shame, because the subtext of a dance adds much to the whole enjoyment of it.

So leaping several logical steps ahead, perhaps the more pertinent question is, 'what would I want my dancing to say of me?'

looyenyeo

A Depth of Latin Culture: Boogaloo (Part 3)

2009-09-03T12:33:00.000Z

Then he hit me with another! His keyboard must've been afire that night.

[begins]

José María Bustos:
Why do DJs play boogaloos when nobody can dance to them, the beat is almost impossible to follow, unless of course you abandon training and just disco down?

[ends]

Now that's what I call 'a quiet-looking sentence with a big stick'. One could write reams of pages about beats being difficult, 'abandoning' training, boogaloo, and the relevance of the disco era to salsa. It IS a good question, so I owe it to the both of us to have a run at a considered response.

An impossibility of beats
Boogaloo's rhythm structure contains African American as well as Nuyorican elements. Salsa dancers are used to the latter which has much of Cuban origin, although the placement of the accents varies with region (see later post). But the heavily obvious hand claps on the back-beat and the different language rhythm of lyrics in English obscure the traditional elements with prominent ones unfamiliar to the Latin genre. In many recordings, the instrument balance of the arrangements are tilted towards the soul layers; and even the Latin rhythm mainstays of piano and bass were altered, diffusing their clave feel.

I ear-train others for boogaloo by putting on a chachachá and get participants to dance salsa clapping to the backbeats. I then introduce the concepts of 'call-backs' and 'call-and-response' using participant-led exercises. Half-an-hour is the average it takes to become consciously competent with the transitions - a rather good time investment if you ask me.

'Abandoning' training
Good training is transparent and eminently adaptable - it allows one's dancing to be configured anywhere in the spectrum from looking 'natural' to standing out. In the question's sense, the dancers are either unwilling or incapable of adapting to boogaloo.

I haven't yet found a magic charm for the unwilling, but the latter is most effectively addressed via a parametric approach to skills-based training while instilling an appreciation for the context of the boogaloo. The so-called 'Latin crossover' movement musically involved the incorporation of the then mainstream elements, and its physical expression does the same: the onlooker, being more familiar with movements in the popular vernacular, interprets this visually as being 'free-form'. Hence Bosco's reference to...

Discoing down
Here, a breadth of training goes hand-in-hand with a depth of culture. To establish the vernacular vocabulary, I typically introduce three simple modes of movement plus a sprinkling of short motifs (more accents than shines) drawn from the cakewalk family of dances, as evolutionary starting points.

Participants get exposed to jive (French and ballroom); twist, swing and lindy hop movement; and maybe a touch of the hustle if there's time. The scheme is to learn first how to characterise and compartmentalise each, and then learn how to let them 'bleed' through into salsa selectively. That's my favourite definition of 'letting go': the deliberate relaxation of boundaries surrounding a dance.

The obvious question is, 'why would you teach ballroom jive over the hustle?' I acknowledge that the hustle is closer in cultural context to the boogaloo in NYC. However within the limitations of a workshop, the practice of ballroom jive develops skill-sets more pertinent to the other boogaloo.

Boogalooing
Boogaloo and salsa are little differentiated in Colombia, of which her Cali step is iconic. Sometimes perceived by onlookers as being danced in double time, the rhythm on the foot remains the same as 'On1' found elsewhere, but the swiveling of the hips accents the upbeats. This means that practitioners of the Cali step plough twice as much kinetic energy to a partnership system than the average dancer, so you'd better be prepared - if you've got one of these pocket dynamos on your hands, you really know about it.

A fine exemplar of Cali steppers dancing to colombian salsa/boogaloo

Ballroom jive's body position, action, and especially its toe-heel-swivel step provide the most successful starting points in getting to grips with the fleetness of foot and lateral hip motion accentuating the upbeats.

Which boogaloo are you boogalooing to?
The New York City one, or the Colombian one where Caleños played NYC boogaloo records produced for 33rpm at 45rpm? I reckon Cali's energy-burning style should come with a mandatory Surgeon General's health warning attached to every one of her dancers.

(On to Part Four.)

looyenyeo

A Depth of Latin Culture: Bolero and Bachata (Part 2)

2009-08-23T12:01:00.000Z

Whilst I personally agree that Tito Rodríguez, Daniel Santos, and Vincentico Valdés sing heart-moving boleros, if one is unable to discern the lyrical content, then are bachata and bolero equals?

I feel it's necessary to ask this since they:

share a common ancestry, being descended from what is sometimes referred to as trova (troubadour) music in Cuba, and música de guitarra (guitar-based music) in Spanish Dominica*;
owe much to the work of one man - Sindo Garay;
rely on the martillo (hammer) rhythm of the bongó, not the conga, as their main propulsive element; and
are slow to mid-tempo, of broad sweeping phrases with a late attack.

The main difference, over that bolero was danced contratiempo (on2, accent4) whereas bachata is not (on1, accent4), and that the latter is slightly more up-tempo with a faster attack; is that bachata is what's happening now.

Each dance is of its time - that is the social, political, economic conditions must be right for it to thrive. For example, salsa would not likely have occurred in the courts of King Louis XIV despite the Sun King's penchant, nay, necessity for dance:

Individual partner dances did not arise until later in the colonies, when plantation owners did so to express their independence from the crown. Until then, people kept step with one another in court.
Military defeats in Islamic Africa and the fear of slave revolt led to suppression of influences from the 'heathen' Dark continent - including extensive syncopations and polyrhythms in music.
Overt hip movements were considered lascivious and publicly indecent.

(Gawd! I'd've been thrown in the Bastille.) On the other hand, salsa arrived in Venezuela and Colombia right at a time when there was no indigenous expression for the cosmopolitanism their burgeoning cities were experiencing**. Bachata enjoys the dissemination rights of the Youtube Generation: globally reaching, and yet with its music and dance undivested of each other.

And as for the romantic musical expression, well... would people still dance to its soft soothing tones if bachatas de desparecio (thematically disparaging of women) were played? Maybe not in the Spanish-speaking countries, where women have begun to take some stand against similarly misogynistic expressions in reggaetón. But plenty of others are indifferent, and would dance anyway. They'd dance in Asia, oblivious. The attribute of being romantic would seem to owe its weight to music, with lyrical content as modifier. So how might one physically interpret this as a dancer?

The bolero does not have the same chequered past that the bachata has - its cultural history is clothed with more gentility and thematic consonance musically and lyrically. In places lived in by both, the bolero holds its own; described indicatively by Bosco as 'In America you play when the lights go down and the floor is packed with young and old alike.'

At least for now.

But are the people on that floor executing a series of movements to a rhythm; in a manner discrete enough to qualify as the ritmo of an actual genre? Or are they just shuffling about as they do in 'smoochie' sessions here? Could the latter form be the definition a social bolero - simply swaying to bolero music as opposed to dancing contratiempo? I suspect that the answer lies towards the easier end of in-between.

I got a hurry-up from him:

[begins]

José María Bustos:
Hey, my man!? Check out my pics of the MWSC and when you have a minute try to reply to my question about why Asians don't dance boleros and do they in Europe? In NYC its the most romantic thing about Salsa!! Y gue Dio's te tenga en La Rumba! B.

[ends]

Bro, I hope you've gotten your answer.

I myself can't say how long the grace of bolero will last in a space that bachata means to fill. With no premier bolero dancers of international repute to show us how, it can't be far away. But isn't it interesting to see how a cultural insider considers the bolero to be a part of salsa?

(On to Part Three.)

Loo Yen

*yes, a 'History of Bachata' is being planned for the salsa website.
** yes, there will be mention of this when I update the 'History of Salsa'

A Personal Journey With The Guaguancó: Basic Step

2009-08-16T09:03:00.003Z

Something I bear foremost in my mind when understanding rumba is the significance of the rooster in Afro-Cuban culture. More than just a key source of protein in the Sub-Sahara, belief has it that a five-toed chicken was instrumental in raising land from water in the creation of the world. Thus much of the guaguancó as a pursuit-and-capture dance involves movements symbolising that of a gallo (rooster) circling around a gallina (hen).

I use the whole-part-whole approach as much as I can when instructing myself; one of self-education's greatest weaknesses is lack of context, so I do everything that I can to protect what little that's there; to preserve the validity of the exercises.

Eyeballing the demonstration of the basic step on the DVD, I observe that:

it resembles (what I call) salsa's basic cucaracha step;
the dance rhythm is complementary to that of the African drumming cycle, being what Europeans would describe as on1;
the posture is a semi-inclined torso with softened knees;
initiation of the basic is with a physical preparative drop of the body's centre of gravity on the verbal cue of 'y' [ Spanish for 'and'], functioning like a musical 'pick-up';
foot placement is ball-flat, without rise, soft and deliberately percussive;
weight distribution on the side step is 50/50, that is, weight is not fully committed onto the stepping foot;
males: the head does not face the centre-line, but orients to the outward-stepping foot;
males: the contra hand (opposite to the outward-stepping foot) is held on to centre-line as a loose fist, acting as counterweight;
males: the hand on the same side of the outward-stepping foot is held to the hip where it impacts least on stability, and creates an angle of the arm that resembles a wing;
females: the scarf opens out on the sidestep - the hand on the same side of the outward-stepping foot extends to its instep, the contra hand remaining on centre-line;
females: the scarf closes when both hands are brought together at the hip above the closing foot.

I choose to learn both roles: to glean more context, and understand the nature of interaction between them.

The role of the rumbero as a percussionist dancer is clear: rhythms of the foot placement and the weight transfer combine to establish the framework in which the accents of the arms, head and isolated body-parts are housed; it is the same principal relationship that the tumbadora/seis por ocho drums have with the quinto. So I've chosen to approach learning to dance the guaguancó the same way I'd teach the drumming of it - framework first.

Practicing the foot placements and weight transfers, I noticed a sluggishness in my out-bound side-step signified by a lack of definition on that beat of the dance rhythm. It was a combination of two problems:

not getting weight over the foot quickly enough; and
the muscle conformation around the hips required a higher level of tone to maintain stability, so I wasn't perceiving a high enough contrast in tension-release around the joint.

Thinking on it, I solved it with one exaggerated practice: dancing the basic with a deliberate feeling of toe-in (which is quite a habit to break after a lifetime of work developing a foot turn-out). The lateral weight transfer increases load to the front of the foot, then the knee/instep, then the heel, allowing weight to be controlled/located toward the heel-side of the instep upon completion of the action. The shins become vertically parallel to each other with a decent-sized step, legs now bearing equal load properly in tempo.

But most valuable of all is the improvement in the quality of kinesthesia, making the feeling of the rhythm unmissable. It's probably the greatest boon to auditory and movement synchrony. I'm happy enough, at least for now, for this to be the making of the foundation to my guaguancó.

Loo

A Personal Journey With The Guaguancó: Prelude

2009-08-07T19:22:00.001Z

Rumba Guaguancó has long been an aspiration of mine, both to the drumming and its dancing. You could say that they're one and the same thing, when you get right down to it.

Although I've been able to play the structural Havana and Matanzas variants for several years, the subtleties of the quinto drum have yet eluded me - something I've put down to not having enough depth of experience in its Cuban cultural context. What's been clear for a while is the need to strengthen my ability to dance it and make better sense physically of the accents and phrasing; to inform my hands on skin.

A couple of guaguancó dance workshops were only enough to add some dimension to my salsa, helping me keep up with a Cuban rumbera absolutely born to the art currently living in Sheffield (I have to leave out the vacunaos, which the doormen would very much misconstrue). The only regular lessons nearby are with Santiago-born Guillermo in York, at times which I'd have to clone myself to make.

But I knew that the dream of the guaguancó would only realise itself through a concerted effort to dance it. So I decided on learning from recorded sources, mainly out of necessity but also as a golden opportunity to assess currently:

the range, distribution, quantity and quality of material available - this would inform the strategic direction of the website;
the status of my teaching skills as applied to myself - primarily observation and interpretation;
my learning abilities - speed of assimilation, adaptability, synthesis, key areas of immediate development; and
my physical abilities - particularly fundamentals of movement from previous training which might be negatively prejudicial to rumba.

I've opted for the material from José Alfredo Carrión's rumba DVDs to establish my foundation because:

it offers a broad base of understanding of Cuban rumba by addressing both yambú and guaguancó;
the performers (from Ballet Folklórico Cutumba) and producers (Academy of Cuban Folklore & Dance) deliver with a credible authenticity, free from overt marketing intent;
the pedagogy favours qualitative learning over quantitative with deliberate pacing;
the structure is logical and preplanned;
demonstrations incorporate multiple angles where necessary;
explanations are pre-scripted, concise and succinct; and
musicians are present with the dancers throughout.

It's easy to recognise the voice of a seasoned educator.

I may not be sure how this journey will go, but one thing is for certain - it's time it was begun.

José Alfredo Carrión's rumba DVD is also available from Descarga.com
http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/21627.20

Loo Yeo

A Depth of Latin Culture: Bolero and Bachata (Part 1)

2009-08-01T09:19:00.004Z

Bosco gets around a bit, not only in his day-guise as mild-mannered leading exponent of visual merchandising, but also by night as delinquent DJ extraordinaire. I find his take on the transnational Latin scene in the Far East, as a Nuyorican who'd 'been there' at salsa's genesis, illuminating. Oftentimes, it's the questions he asks that inform me the most. Here's an edit of a recent one:

[begins]

José María Bustos:
Why do Asians not dance boleros? They enjoy dancing bachata and no doubt enjoy the close physical contact and the romantic nature of the songs, although many cannot understand the words. Yet nothing is more romantic to Latinos as the bolero and when you hear someone like Vincentico Valdés sing 'La Montaña' or Tito Rodríguez sing 'Un Cigarillo, La Lluvia Y Tu' there is nothing quite as romantic... when dancing bolero... Latin schools in Asia don't teach boleros either? Is it danced in Europe? In America you play when the lights go down and the floor is packed with young and old alike.

[ends]

'Wow,' my mind boggled. Pana had managed to cram a whole horde of ideas into one innocent-looking paragraph. I looked around suspiciously... 'was he doing this on purpose?'

Well, Asians don't and yet they do dance boleros.

Bolero is a much older genre than bachata and salsa, and unlike in Latin America where the same word 'ritmo' refers to both the music or the dance, the coupling between them is not so tight in other cultures. When the bolero had already attained its cultural zenith, radio (and not yet television) had only just started to become commercially relevant as conduit of the mass media. Bolero music that did reach Europe and the Far East was largely consumed in the same social space as that of easy-listening crooners (note the word 'listening') - take, for example, the career dimensions of Machín when he chose to settle in Spain.

Radio allowed the sounds of bolero to stretch out and impact significantly, parts of the world where visuals of its dance could not. Compare that to the effects of talking pictures and television on the chachachá later. The dancing of the bolero, requiring the visual form of communication, was restricted to the physical human migratory patterns out of Cuba by the predominant mode of transport - shipping. Hence the strength in reach of bolero's dance was limited to around the Caribbean basin and the port of New York.

But bolero the dance DID reach Asia, albeit in a different guise.

The ballroom rhumba, developed to conform to European mores, is danced to bolero music. International ballroom's codification of the chachachá and its rhumba serve as historical snapshots of the European, mainly British, interpretations of these genres; just as its own tango relates or not to tango argentino. This very British institution spread its influence throughout the colonies and eventually the Commonwealth; my mother remembers dancing the ballroom rhumba and its chachachá socially (i.e. on1) as a young girl in the 1950s under a grand estate-house in Butterworth. And let's not forget that Bruce Lee, aged eighteen, was Crown Colony chachachá champion of Hong Kong in 1958.

A 17-year-old Bruce Lee dancing the chachachá with Leung Bo Ling in the 1957 Hong Kong movie 'Darling Girl'. The next year he won the Crown Colony Cha-Cha Championship.

The dance studios where international rhumba may be learned are legion: across an expanse including Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Lithuania, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Australia and Japan. But the practice of this dance occurs in a far different social space than the bolero referred to by Bosco.

To my partner in crime, it is the bachata which now appears to occupy the place internationally that bolero once did locally in the Americas...

(On to Part Two.)

Loo Yeo

Musical Directions - 4 de Diciembre and Conjunto Laloma

2009-07-20T09:43:00.009Z

It's been nice to get back to the business of playing music again... in a more committed fashion I mean. For the last few months it was a case of trying to keep things ticking over as much as I could, while chipping away at the mountain on my plate. The effect of my being torn between projects was felt more keenly in Conjunto Laloma (than Cuatro de Diciembre) for three reasons: the smaller line-up is more transparent to the impact of an individual's effort; we practice more often and at a skills-based level; and because I fulfil two central roles as singer and as provider of the rhythm stream.

During this period of time, Jeremy's progress as tresero has been very impressive; I told him the other day that he seems to speak more freely through the voice of the tres than the piano (and he's no slouch on the keyboard!) If anything it's been a relief to pick up the guitar in anger once again and do justice to their efforts - although like the true friends that they are, Ana, Catie, Jan and Jeremy have been the very ideals of support and understanding.

Yesterday, Conjunto Laloma gathered at Ana's place for a change; to practice and to share a meal together delivered from our favourite Chinese dispensary. There, I outlined what I saw as our starting set: American Sueño, Caminando, Chan Chan, El Carretero, El Reloj de Pastora, Lágrimas Negras, Montón de Estrellas, Ya Lo Sé and Yo Soy El Sonero; plans to solidify our arrangements and playing to a performance standard by the end of the year, and the strategy for improving our fundamental musicianship a lo cubano. The latter involved a launch into changes of rhythmic texture using of triplet motifs; it's been on the cards for months and I sensed that a convivial Sunday afternoon provided hot enough iron.

4 de Diciembre presents a differing range of challenges. Since the proportion of our line-up now leans more heavily towards the melodics than percussion compared to any point in our history, many arrangements are still being worked through. However with respect to the Latin style of playing, the knowledge-base which informs these arrangements comes from Catie and myself. Ideally Mike and Thom would be equally fluent with salsa idioms, and to that end I took the decision to recommend that we augment our playlist with more covers, which would add more textures and serve as case studies. Both our horns agreed that this was something they'd very much enjoy doing, so we spent the last practice session dedicated to finding which of my recommendations they found inspiring. As chance would have it they selected American Sueño and Caminando by La Excelencia; as well as Vacilar by Orquesta Gitano and Talento de Televisión by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades.

As music director, I'm very much anticipating the prospect of interpreting the same song with different line-ups; it seems a natural progression for someone with an interest in music arrangement. There are a couple of things in the periphery that we might try our hand at - a translation of Yerba Buena's El Burrito from a cumbia into a songo con marcha; or Calle Real's Ya Lo Sé into a full salsa arrangement, for example.

Time to stop with the words and pick up the action.

Hasta next time.

Loo Yen Yeo

'Situating Salsa' edited by Lise Waxer

2009-07-15T07:55:00.016Z

is a collection of thirteen essays by twelve authors, with two of them being written by Lise Waxer and another two translated by her. It strikes me that the intent of the volume is to let salsa be spoken of by many voices, and as such the content shifts significantly in perspective: from the socially scientific, the musically analytical, the weightily philosophical, to the personally meaningful.

Through the book's myriad of tonal textures, salsa is presented as a multifaceted entity - an approach which challenges, informs, and encourages the reader to (re)define what salsa means to him or her. It is a mature collection allowing differing opinions to be expressed, simultaneously keeping them discrete by chapter so as to avoid dissonance.

'Situating Salsa' achieves its overall coherence despite its international scope by organising the contributions into three sections of progressive themes:

Locating Salsa in its mainspring environments - geographically, sociologically, musically;
Personalising Salsa through biography; and
Relocating Salsa in its diaspora;

hence the book's subtitle 'Global Markets and Local Meaning in Latin Popular Music'. I particularly noted the use of both 'salsa' and 'Latin popular music' on its front cover; since there is considered treatment as to whether salsa has evolved from a catch-all marketing term to a legitimate genre, and treatment of the boogaloo as its precursor. There is something here for everyone: from the interested hobbyist dancer or musician to the career musicologist, and it will reward you upon every revisit. What it does not have is the single thread of one storyteller. Instead think of its broad compass as akin to what you might encounter at an animated dinner party, you'd not be off the mark - because you'd take your leave satiated from all the variety, having learned something new, and with plenty to ruminate on.

'Situating Salsa' is recommended reading if you're beginning to wonder about what salsa means to you.

Loo Yeo

3rd July 2009 La Exelencia @Rumberos, The Wardrobe, Leeds

2009-07-04T10:05:00.018Z

If any concert laboured under the weight of expectation, it would be this one. As I descended the red-walled stairs into the cauldron that is The Wardrobe, I spied many of the region's great and good: Mary and Tony of Salsa York, Lossie and Gareth of Encuentro Latino, Amos de Roover of Salsa Sin Limite, Dave Fenton of Mambo Collective, and organisers Fabio Bahia and Lubi of course; gathered together for what we anticipated to be the gig of the year. The floor was just getting packed under the exhortations of Simon Taylor, the Midlands-based Flip and Bounce salsa instructor, as his lesson got underway - an apt 'New York' style prelude to the main event.

Hanging with Tony Piper

I'd been aware of La Excelencia's progress, notified mainly by Facebook's photo updates, and knew that this was the last date since their arrival via the Channel Tunnel: a hectic schedule which took in Brighton, London and Glastonbury. A small part of me felt trepidation on the band's part; 'Mi Tumbao Social' had raised the bar so high, and I wondered how much there was in the tank after a grueling world tour. And there was the added consideration that artists can be good musicians, performers or entertainers, but very few are blessed with the complete package.

I busied myself with dalliances and a spot of not-very-clean dancing. Before I knew it La Excelencia had sprung out of the woodwork, giving us the CD's opening track 'Salsa dura' full-bore!

My initial impressions were good, but not sensational. There was a mismatch between what I saw on stage and what I heard: La Excelencia were playing tighter than a proverbial pit-bull's behind with its proverbials in a vice; and yet the music lacked sparkle - the sound pressure levels were too high for the room; the cymbals lacked 'air' because of a high frequency cut; the piano, central to their album's sound, was imperceptible; and the lead vocals sounded forced as if battling fatigue. I tuned out the audio preferring to emphasise the visual spectacle instead, waiting for the sound techs to get their act together.

I was right.

Giving it the beans: La Excelencia's vocal dynamo

At the end of the number the singers wanted their stage monitors on, not just up! That explained the 'forced' quality. As the sound improved, La Excelencia lengthened their stride and ramped up the atmosphere. In my review of their album, I'd failed to mention the herculean lead vocalists Edwin Pérez and Gilberto Velázquez. I couldn't do so here. As the band's front men they are phenomena to be reckoned with live: dominating presences at the front-of-stage who just exude tremendous energy during performance.

Their set-list was a well chosen sequence of dynamics and so deliberately made for dancing, seamlessly marshaled through the hand of music director and pianist Willy Rodriguez. That they executed it all with such seemingly deceptive ease made me lime-green with envy, but more with admiration. During 'Aña pa' mi tambor' the dance floor, normally filled with oblivious-to-live-music salseros, had eyes for naught but the stage - there is NO greater compliment in this country.

When Looey met Willy - finally, in person

The culmination of their startling gig was a climax where the brass section paraded through the audience playing moñas drawing the involvement of the dancers. On stage was a virtuoso dance solo in the urban style, the rumba columbia from New York City. I mentally willed La Excelencia to play every song from the album. But that wasn't going to happen. I would have liked to hear them play a good ole Fania classic like 'Todo tiene su final' or 'Mi gente', just so I could assess that dimension of their prodigious ability. That didn't happen either.

But what I had was enough.

La Excelencia are a band of irrepressible youth, yet they possess the maturity to play with the fuerza (power) and afinque (cohesion) of their paragon forefathers. That makes them rare. That they record and entertain magnificently to boot...

La Excelencia givin' it their salsa thing!

That, makes them unique.

Loo Yeo

The Challenge (Part One)

2009-07-01T06:47:00.032Z

If this post were spoken word, you'd hear the relief in my voice.

It's been a lazy evening and a patchy night's sleep since pressing the 'send' button, but the listlessness that accompanies the completion of a large project (you know, the big ones that make themselves a part of your life) is still with me.

I received an email ten weeks ago via the salsa-merengue.co.uk website asking whether I would be willing to accept a commission for an article. Dubiousness was the first pang I felt; my inbox pays unflinching witness all sorts, including some interesting uses for meringue. I responded with a cautious expression of interest and began my due diligence. Some email tennis and surfing later it turned out that the query was legitimate, and from a top-end publisher.

The Mission, should I have chosen to accept it, was to write about the globalisation of salsa as an entry for an encyclopaedia, in the house style, to a whale-bone corset of a three thousand words, and have it peer-reviewed by some pretty august peers... in two and a half months.

I exhaled slowly and leant back in my chair.

It's a tough ask for any professional; not any single factor, but all of them in combination. The whole world in two months, allowing for the unforeseen. Daunted was the second pang. There were plenty of reasons, excuses all, I could think of not to step up to the mark. On the other side of the balance scales, well, financially let's just say that people accepting this kind of commission do so to enhance their standing. But with a peer-review system that's never a guarantee; so if I did it at all, it would be for other reasons and publication would have to be the icing on the cake.

I wrote back accepting the challenge. Because I knew above all that if I didn't, I'd forever be thinking 'What if?'

And so it began.

The first three weeks, I started a master document of possibly-relevant points, mapped out a coarse structure and had a stab at the introduction. The points alone came up to four thousand words. Oops! And the draft intro didn't speak clearly, and the run into the section following felt like blocked circulation telling me that the framework was weak. Difficulty in coming up with a convincing working title simply confirmed it.

But by this time, thankfully, I had a pretty good idea of what I didn't know.

Although I could now hear every tick of the clock, there was no alternative but to track down more sources and put extra mileage on my eyeballs. Another precious four weeks passed, but as they progressed a shiny new structure emerged with the working title 'Transnational flows of salsa' and there came an opening section that flowed. The downside was that the increased knowledge made the master document tip over seven thousand words.

With well less and a month to go there was a culling of points with some frantic biro action and a rather tired-looking laptop, working on a combination of paper and keyboard. The rest of life was put on hold - practice sessions, nights dancing, and sleep were sacrificed on the tall altar of penmanship. In return I had the benedictions of more caffeine, eating out in restaurants where I could put paper to work, and more trips to the gym to pair mental tiredness with the physical.

It was a strange but nonetheless welcome consolation to hear from friends that I was being missed.

The last fortnight passed in a blur: the first draft was finished with seven days to go at just over four thousand words; then came five cycles of editing as I chopped off successive layers of literary fat. Editing was painful but necessary, serving to focus on what exactly was the core of the subject. Close to the end, the structure looked like this:

Introduction describing transnational salsa as a music and dance genre;
Origins of the word, from flavour term to stylistic label;
Properties of the music including the psychoacoustics for dance;
Structural elements of a 'typical' salsa song;
The five main schools of salsa performance with a comment on corroborating dance movement;
Historical perspective on the development of each school;
Other areas of production including the re-Africanization of salsa;
References and recommended reading/listening/watching.

It's over, at least for now.

Unlike patronage during the Renaissance, this is 'try-before-you-buy' and I have to await the outcome of the editors' review. Until then, there's a more than a little reflection to be done.

Loo Yeo

20th June 2009 4 de Diciembre @De La Salle Grounds of Beauchief Hall, Sheffield

2009-06-21T13:44:00.011Z

It was at a practice session one Thursday evening not long ago, that Thom asked if we might play on an occasion for one of his long-time friends. We were in the throes of preparing for Mike's, and it would have been just as convenient to run the same set again two weeks later - the audience profile was going to be similar. The only reservation I had as music director was that we were going to be without Catie, who would be away touring Scotland with her folks; it might have meant preparing a further song for the set, as the others would have been shortened from the lack of her flute solos. Then Jeremy put a question mark over his availability with a potentially clashing family engagement.

That would've normally have put paid to it, since the absence of our melodics section leader (Catie) AND our pianist would have left us with a pretty ginormous mountain to climb. Investigating our options, it transpired that the event was to celebrate the life of someone terminally ill.

That was it. I had to say 'yes' - if you can't music for times like these, you shouldn't be playing music at all.

My mind raced, thinking about what I needed to do on guitar to provide the stream of notes in place of the piano, and the playlist we might offer. It was starting to look as if a 4 de Diciembre-Conjunto Laloma hybrid was the most viable answer and my fretting fingers tingled with dread...

Jeremy, feeling exactly the same way as I did about playing on this occasion, pulled out all the stops and confirmed his place there not a day later. My digits silently thanked him (I admit it. I'm a wuss).

Beauchief Hall is set in a picturesque part of Sheffield, and it was a gorgeous summer's afternoon when we idled past the 12th Century Beauchief Abbey up the leafy single track to the former outbuildings of the Manor House. When we drew up to unload, the barbecue had already been in full swing for several hours, and the cricketers had just finished and retired to the idyll of the clubhouse. It struck me that this was a most surreal setting for some blazin' Afro-Cuban tunes, and El Diablito inside me looked gleefully to launching a fervent Caribbean assault on this very picture of English gentility. The Caribs were, reputedly, a bunch of marauding boat-pushing cannibals...

I kept that image in mind.

Not long after we'd set up finished setting up, Thom appeared ruddy-faced from his exertions at another festival in Heeley. Again like at Mike's party, we shared the billing with another band but this time we elected to go first: Thom wasn't sure how much longer he could last, and Mike and I wanted the time afterwards to mill about and enjoy the rest of the evening's entertainments.

Jeremy, not content with playing on his Roland, singing vocals, and tapping pulse and clave, gets greedy and takes on the acoustic piano as well. Bonkers!

We played well, but I still felt a shade disappointed that we didn't quite have the same lustre of our best performances: maybe because both gluttons-for-punishment Whib and Thom had separately played gigs just hours earlier, probably because Catie's sure hand was missing. I look upon it as an opportunity to rampage missed. Nonetheless, the packed clubhouse was gobbling up the salsa invasion of their quaint little barbecue. If only I'd had some dancing girls handy...

When the final strains of montuno died away, the Guest of Honour spoke, thanking the hundred plus souls present for being there to celebrate, saying how flattered he had been by everyone's efforts, apologising for his retirement because of his ebbing energy, and wishing all a wonderful remainder of the evening. A poignant moment. It took a lot out of him to stay until the end of our set; I saw it in him, in his wheelchair, even as I sang.

The party picked up again with the blues band that followed. And they were good! Well they should be, given that many of them were old bandmates of Thom's. Munching on a much deserved hot dog, I distracted the pianist and rhythm guitarist as best I could from outside a window - all the musicians I know like a bit of levity when they're playing (apart from tango that is, where a pained expression is de rigueur). It was a real hoot.

The evening ended over a curry flavoured with satisfaction and a dusting of sobriety. Salsa might be for dancing but music, at least for tonight, was for living.

Loo Yen

Epilogue (dated 16th July 2009)
I heard today from Thom that the person for whom we performed passed away the following week. We're honoured to have been the last band he saw. This is to the memory of dedicated youth worker and Champion of their rights, Tom Collins.

Commentary: 13th June 2009 Joe Bataan @Rumberos, The Wardrobe, Leeds

2009-06-14T14:30:00.017Z

When I found out that Joe Bataan was coming to my neck of the woods, there was nothing for it but to get my grubby mitts on a ticket. New York City's boogaloo 'crossover' period presaging salsa's birth is an epoch in Latin music that I am least familiar with, so I took this as Chance's blessing to witness one of its main protagonists in action.

The timing could not have been better as I needed to plug the gap for the sake of a commission I was undertaking (see later post). That was why I'd decided to do a 'J.K.Rowling' and checked into the rather swanky art deco Queens Hotel in Leeds, dedicating myself to pushing on with the first draft despite the invitations of a lovely day beyond the windows. Come ten 0'clock, I let myself outside and made the light summertime evening walk to the Wardrobe.

The downstairs concert venue is small with an optimistic capacity of four hundred. Marketeers would probably label it 'intimate', I call it a toaster-oven - even at partial saturation, you'd better be prepared to keep hydrating and bring spare changes of clothes. Like all sunken floors with gallery-style seating around it, the main dance area attracts more than its fair share of the attention-seeking with the awkwardness of restricted mobility at its edges. It is nevertheless a place which holds landmark memories after the trauma of Casa Latina's move from the Underground: namely the joys of experiencing Los Jovenes del Barrio, Wayne Gorbea and Ricardo Lemvo's Makina Loca.

It was a surprise to see only a handful of salsa regulars, especially when there weren't other big events going on. This region's scene is dominated by the North American-styles, countless exponents' lips of which have professed a love of salsa and an irresistible compulsion to dance to its music. And yet the only notable teacher of this school present was Dave Fenton, long-time stalwart of live music and founder of the Mambo Collective. Actions speak louder that words.

Or perhaps, to give the benefit of doubt, none of the others are partial to the music of Joe Bataan... a man whose music eclipsed that of Eddie Palmieri and Tito Puente for three years, leading into the rise of New York salsa.

The event's main sponsor, Red Bull Music Academy, promotes collaborative efforts between artists of dissimilar backgrounds. Well, you won't get more dissimilar than this billing... Curiosity had me by the scruff of the neck wondering how on Earth James Pants, 'purveyor par excellence of that unmistakable “fresh beat”: 80’s Soul, Electro Boogie, Early Rap, New Wave, & Post-Punk Disco' was going to mash with JoeB.

Mr.Pants opened with his voice-effects processor backed by Grupo X and I began to see how there might have been some common ground; the Latin boogaloo did after all coincide with the substance-enhanced 'Psychedelic goes Latin' movement. Don Jaime Pantalones did two numbers before inviting Mr.Bataan to take his place behind the keyboards. All credit to James who admitted that the sonic experiment hadn't quite worked out and that he was going to stand to one side and just smack the cowbell for the rest of the evening. Which he duly did. Energetically.

Joe Bataan was hungry and evangelical. He performed like a person whom, having squandered a priceless opportunity and lived to regret it, was unexpectedly handed another one. In truth, I think he had. Joe spoke heartfully in-between songs using the narrative as a glue to hold the set-list together - tonight was his musical biography. During one such interlude he described his teetering on the brink of oblivion, the changes it wrought in his life, and the support he had through the episode from his wife Yvonne (there on vocals) and long-time friend Peter 'Chuckie' Quintero (on timbales). Playing on stage clearly meant more to him than just performing.

Being only superficially familiar with the body of work he presented, it'd be disingenuous for me to attempt a blow-by-blow account - that's why I consider this more as a commentary than a review.

What I got from the concert were priceless insights that I could not have obtained had I chosen to languish at home in my (rather attractive) carpet-slippers:

You can do a lot with very little. Many of the songs started with just two or three instruments: perhaps kick drum on beats one and three, hand claps on two and four, and some call-backs (see earlier post); or piano montuno and vocals. And yet the musical groove that came out was highly infectious.
Boogaloo is a Performance Art. Of the boogaloo recordings from the original NYC era, only a small handful succeeded in capturing my imagination. After experiencing it live, I understand better that it's an art more for stage than it is for disc. When I revisit them, it will be with that in mind; and I'll go as far as imagining the performance in front of me as I listen.
The Rationale for 'Crossing-over'. The reasoning for Latin music's use of lyrics in English, an attempt to engage with the larger mainstream music consumer market, was much clearer - on evidence of the enthusiastic response from the mainly non-salsero audience.
Audience Engagement. Joe gave the concert-goer a chance to see what it was like to be on the other side of the fence as a performer; something I have to ponder in my role as vocalist for 4 de Diciembre.

The role Grupo X with its line-up of 'British Jazz, Funk and Latin' musicians is also significant food for thought. Having backed Jimmy Bosch the last time he was in the United Kingdom (UK) and now Joe Bataan, the formation of a generic ensemble as 'body' onto which a big name 'head' can be plugged into (like statues in the Roman Empire) is recognisably a response to economic and regulatory pressures. Firstly, it's cheaper generally to bring just one artist plus a couple of key personnel than an entire ensemble from overseas. Secondly, and perhaps more pertinently, approval for entry into the UK by Border Control is not guaranteed hence the risk has to be suitably managed.

As needs must.

Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of something in live music that has existed in salsa's record production for three decades: the drawing from a small pool of musicians, inadvertently giving rise to a geographically identifiable sound. Perhaps it will be through this route that the UK finally achieves its own salsa style. Perhaps...

That's just pure speculation for the moment.

What isn't, on the other hand, is that Joe Bataan is a true ambassador of the boogaloo art.

Loo Yen Yeo

6th June 2009 4de Diciembre @Millennium Hall, Sheffield

2009-06-08T10:42:00.014Z

Millennium Hall is one of my favourite places for a social: there's plenty of room to dance or sit and chat, yet small enough to have a warm atmosphere; the floor though unsprung is an even, predictable surface; acoustics are good; and temperatures are comfortable when the air-conditioning works, which is most of the time. The last time we played in the venue was a touch over three years ago at Nicola's 40th - 4 de Diciembre's debut. This time it was for Mike's retirement party.

With it being local, logistics were much simpler but we still needed to provide our own sound reinforcement. I took it as a good opportunity to road-test equipment that we hadn't used in a while, and to put the information I'd acquired over the last two years as regards setting up a PA to good use. 4 de Diciembre has downsized to a conjunto-ish format and I was keen to see how much of the setup we could manage ourselves.

So with everything packed into respective cars, we drew up to the place at 6:00pm last Saturday. I did have a twinge of trepidation as things didn't run particularly smoothly the last time we used the Soundcraft M12 desk a year ago, but I'd learned a lot since then. One of the advantages of working with supremos like Blast PA is how much you can pick up just by experiencing how they approach their work. Jeremy and I went about it the same way and thanks also to our recording project, we both knew our way around the mixer much better.

It took us forty-five minutes to put everything in place, and less than ten to soundcheck satisfactorily. Then there was the hidden catch... there were to be three other acts with different line-ups, and they expected to use our PA. Note the word 'expected'. Some of our hard work had to be undone and it looked like I was going to have to play the role of sound engineer to boot. I admit I was piqued, but there was no sense in taking issue with it; after all, everyone was there to give Mike a proper send-off from the world of work.

Mike, host of honour, being serenaded by his partner Kate
as part of an a capella duo

As 4de12 were 'headlining' the programme and due on at the end, I spent the first part of the evening juggling mics and gains: there was a guitar and flute duo; an a capella duo featuring Mike's actress partner, Kate; Thom and his rhythm & blues ensemble complete with backing choir; and a melodion and folk guitar couple as well. It felt as if I'd had a backstage pass to a Jools Holland variety show. The DJ took over for a bit. This was my chance to grab a bite; being more than just a little peckish for the past couple of hours, I was in danger of becoming a bear with a sore head - not ideal for the evening's plans.

A couple of mini-quiches later and I was up on stage giving a salsa lesson. Given the time, the occasion and the audience, I adjusted the approach so that it had a bit of everything, a taster: the vocabulary was three basic steps, side-to-side, latin basic, and opening-outs; the bit on ear-training was to vocals and conga; the principles were on walks to salsa rhythm. There was even an impromptu demo with Ana to Celia Cruz's rather pacy 'Quimbara'; and all of it was wrapped up before the clock hit the forty-minute mark.

Teaching with an unruly member of the audience:
Thom's better half, Adele

With me still panting from the demo, the band opened up with 'Bilongo'. 'El tambor' and 'Nueva generación' followed suit, we were joined by Mike's sister and her spouse on flute and electric guitar on 'Oye como va' and 'La bamba'. It was all judged to perfection in terms of length and execution. By a quirk of fate, three of 4 de Diciembre's former violinists: Bea, Jan and Willie were at the party. It was only when I mentioned it that they realised we didn't have a timbalero in our line-up; the new arrangements had worked so well that they hadn't noticed! Instead they were remarking about how rich we sounded. Score one to Catie and the gang.

I think the most genuine compliment came from professional musician in the audience who said, 'you deserve to be playing to a bigger audience' - very flattering indeed. But having been around the block a bit, I find I enjoy the warm intimacy of a smaller occasion as much as the electricity of a jam-packed dance hall.

Oh, and it also happened to be Jan's birthday so I hi-jacked Mike's do for a few seconds and made a deal out of it. The Belgian remained unruffled. Must try harder.

Cuatro de Diciembre in relaxed mode

In the final analysis,

everything we did: the equipment; the lesson; the set was entirely suited to purpose. That's a good thing because we're due to perform again in a fortnight, sadly under less jovial circumstances (more on that later).
as a sound tech I got lucky: the room didn't give me any problems at all; if it'd been like the one in Darlington... I shudder to think. Our microphones: Neumann KMS105s; Sennheiser Evolution 945s; Shure SM57s and 58s hardly needed any EQ on the desk and were great for feedback rejection. The only awkward one was the AMT Roam on Catie's flute. Two additional pieces of equipment would give us more versatility - a pair of powered speakers like the JBL EON 15 as a minimum spec, and at least one Sennheiser HD421 for the congas.
as an instructor, I need to develop a broader vocabulary of teaching points for the opening-outs if I don't intend on going via the back basic. An engaging way of presenting each basic as highly user-configurable at beginner level would be useful, to act as a bridge the salsa walk.
for the set, 'Oye como va' would be way stronger with more dynamics in its energy; and aesthetically I'd like to beef up the cuerpo of 'La bamba' and add a call-and-response section in the montuno with a theme to reconnect it to its folkloric roots.

All in all, it's been a good day. And Mike's send off was a resounding success, made all the more special as it was the first time Mike and Thom's family and friends had had a chance to experience 4de12. Now on to the next gig.

Loo Yen

The End Of Wage Slavery

2009-05-16T11:28:00.020Z

is the name of the event that Mike, our trombonist, has arranged to commemorate his pending retirement from Linguistic Academia. For that he's booked the Millenium Hall on Ecclesall Road for an evening of joyous, if not raucous celebration on the 6th of June. Friends and family will be in attendance and a good number of very highly proficient musicians will be amongst them.

He asked the band whether we'd play a few numbers, and me personally whether I'd be okay to step on stage and do a little salsa lesson for the party-goers. A delighted "yes" was the answer on both counts. Mike wanted very much for everyone there to hear what Cuatro de Diciembre was about, and also to give his musician friends the chance to jam with the gang.

He and I decided that five numbers would be sufficient and agreed that two of them, the ones at the end of the mini-set, should be the jam numbers. Understandably we had to choose two Latin songs that non-Latins would be familiar with, and picked 'Oye como va' and 'La bamba' out of the shortlist.

There's been a sense of deja vu as we've been preparing these standards; I remember performing both of them nearly a decade ago before leaving them behind as our playlists matured. And I must confess to being internally conflicted at the outset, in returning to songs which I associated with the 'cheesy' end of the salsa band market.

Then I brought myself up short.

Firstly, we were doing this for musically legitimate reasons; foremost of which were audience accessibility and audience participation.

Secondly it was up to us, Cuatro de Diciembre, to interpret any song in an honest and distinguished manner. It fell on my shoulders as Music Director to rise to the challenge of ensuring that 'Oye como va' and 'La bamba' could speak in the manner that we all believed in. As usual there wasn't to be much time.

The descarga format is meant precisely for these purposes, and that formed the basis for the structure of both songs:

a simple fixed opening consisting of intro, verses and choruses;
a closing consisting of a break, chorus reprise and outro;
both sandwiching an extended montuno section of uncomplicated harmonic progression where the guests might descarga [improvise, lit. 'unload'].

However that the guest musicians might not be fluent with the forms and conventions of the descarga, was an important consideration. Two additional moderation structures were put in place:

Catie (flute), Mike (trombone) and Thom (trumpet) would perform solos - one at the beginning of the improvised section, one to bring us out at the end, and one to fill in should any guest soloist not be ready in time. There's also the possibility of a percussion and a vocal solo if necessary.
a short instrumental bridge was put together to be played by all the former three, to act as an interlude between one soloist and the next. I'd like to think of it as the sorbet which refreshes the palate in between courses.

For Oye como va, we've drawn inspiration from the startling arrangements of Ernesto Estrada a.k.a. Fruko and the augmented lyrics of the great Celia Cruz's ultimate version.

For La bamba, we've eschewed Richie Valens' electric guitar-based vibe for the easy Mbalax-tinged feel of 'Sabador' by Africando - the latter an interpretation much better suited to 4de12's way of playing.

There has been some element of reassurance needed to be given by me to my colleagues in the band, particularly the founding ones who remembered playing these songs the first time 'round. I had to make sure that there was plenty of opportunity to express the maturity of our musicianship - so that the reprise of these songs would not be interpreted as a retrograde step.

In the end, it was the elegant simplicity of our groove which spoke most clearly of our growth during the intervening years.

And it was the tasteful use of a limited pallete of motifs, as simple highlights to let this groove shine through, that told of my personal development as director of this great band's music.

I learned something new along the way: that La bamba has a folkloric heritage of Mexico that is centuries old; and that I myself had been labouring beneath prejudices that rightfully needed to be overcome.

Loo Yeo

A Place Or A Name?

2009-05-03T18:10:00.023Z

I've been using Facebook as a research resource for a project I'm working on: looking at salsa all over the world, with an especially keen eye on communities where salsa is not indigenous like Asia and Australia. I signed in one morning to find that Bosco had left me a question about an experience he had in India which triggered a flurry of dialogue. Here's the (edited for brevity) wall-to-wall:

[begins]

Jose María Bustos:
Loo, as a musician I gotta ask you, while playing in Mumbai a woman walked up to me and said she loved my music, but why was it 'all on two' ? I glared at her and explained that there is no such thing as 'on one' or 'on two' music its all the same, but you can choose to dance it on one or on two.

Who has started this rumor that muscians actually sit down and say 'oh, lets write an 'on one' or an 'on two' track today. Its mambo, cha cha, timba whatever but never one or two. Can I get a witness on this!? or an I missing something here?

Loo Yeo:
I don't go out to write songs for 'on1' or 'on2', I don't know of any artists who do. However, you can certainly take a song and interpret it in a way that certain 'clans' of dancers would associate with. I'll be brave and say that the association occurs at the dance pedagogic end.

Very interesting experience you had there! What music did you play?

Also, I'm able to give you a more thorough response via a blog article. Mind if I address it by opening using the below (above in this case) as a quote?

Jose María Bustos:
Please do, by all means! Frankly I see it being bad for salsa if dance school perpetuate this notion and bad for music sales as well. You are correct it is a dance school notion and should be nipped in the bud!

Jose María Bustos:
Johnny Cruz, Bobby Valentin, Cheo Navarro, Willie Rosario, Issac Delgado, Hector Ramos, Mulenza, Eklan...

Loo Yeo:
hmm. You kept to Puerto Rican/Nuyorican salsa mainly? Was the Issac material pre-timba?

Jose María Bustos:
Dude, I play NYC style and the Issac is post Timba, as he's now amercianised himself with a more Miami sound, beat and arrangements. But I can mix it up with the best of em! Which brings me to Soneros All Stars 'La Timba Soy Yo' This is... ...my kind of Timba!!

Loo Yeo:
I think I understand more about the context of the lady in Mumbai's question. NYC salsa could have been associated with On2 purely on a geographical basis; instead of understanding which musical features should be significantly prominent (irrespective of source location) which might best suit an On2 style.

[ends]

NYC style. NYC salsa.

If we're talking dance then are we referring to Eddie Torres On2? Palladium or Power 2? How about Boogaloo? That's a style born of the great city. And Pachanga too. Both the last two are ostensibly On1...

And is the concept of synchronising a movement with beat two specific to NYC? Is "{anything}2" a NYC trademark? What of contratiempo or en clave which have been Cuban phenomena for more than a century?

What sort of music is New York salsa best danced to? Is it that which simply comes from New York? Fania, RMM, salsa dura, salsa romántica, DLG, Yerba Buena, La Excelencia, Orquesta Broadway, Wayne Gorbea?

What about El Gran Combo or Sonora Ponceña if they'd recorded in Puerto Rico?

Reading Mary Kent's biography of Eddie Torres featured on http://www.eddietorres.com/salsa.html

[quote]
"With no concept of timing, technique or theory, his instruction consisted of rudimentary pointers: "You hear that accent? That means you break forward with the left foot and when you hear it again, you break back." This is known as dancing on two, Eddie would soon find out.
Breaking on two meant that of a four beat measure, you stepped forward with the left foot on the second beat and on the second beat second measure you stepped back on the right foot. According to Eddie's mentor, Tito Puente, that's why beat two is so popular, because it compliments the tumbao of the conga and the rhythm section."
[unquote]
©1995 Mary Kent. All Rights Acknowledged.

It's exactly consistent with what he and I talked about in '96 when I first started dancing his style: then branded "Street 2".

I've played a lot of Latin percussion since, and realise that the accent Eddie's talking about is the slap stroke of the tumbao moderno on the conga. It's played on (what European-trained musicians recognise as) beat two. New York-style mozambique, a favoured rhythm of Eddie Palmieri, also has slap strokes on beat two; as well as on the 'and of 1' and 'and of 4' every other bar.

A caballo, also interpreted on the conga for pachanga, has slap strokes on beats one and three, with a hardly-audible ghost stroke on beat two. Slap strokes are generally optional in another New York favourite, the guaguancó originally from the West Cuban ports of Matanzas and La Habana (the slaps would precede the open tones to add definition, and work a fill in the phrase).

This means that if we were slavishly to adhere to the raison d'etre of Street 2, we would mainly be dancing only songs containing a tumbao moderno and NYC mozambiques. And hence any defensible critique of a DJ playing mainly "On2" tracks would require the critic being able to distinguish the likes of mozambiques, chachachás, and guarachas from the other likes of pachangas, guaguancós and songos.

Referring again to the first line of the quote from Mary Kent - I seldom come across On2 dance instructors, or On1 ones for that matter, who have a strong enough understanding of: the rhythmic structures of salsa, and the purposes which the On1 and On2 time-steps are meant to achieve, to be able to communicate this clearly to their students.

Sadly, the gap in this knowledge is papered over with the dogma 'NYC-style salsa dance is danced to NYC salsa music'.

More regretfully, this façade hides the richness of the basic time-step and how it may be varied to interpret the breadth of salsa's music. How many dancers think that there is only one way of executing the basic time-step, and that they've learned it already?

I know first-hand that the charismatic creator of "Street 2" emphasises adaptability, not rigidity. What makes him great to this very day, even when there are others who are flashier, younger and faster, is his desire to understand the Whys and to make sure that he fulfills seriously his responsibilities as an educator - that his students are informed to the best of his ability.

An educator empowers his students to choose, and eventually to own their knowledge. I stopped dancing On2 years ago. My partners now dance with me.

I should like that the rising stars of the salsa dance-teaching scene remember that there is more to it than just the excitement of travel, glamour of performance, and the adulation at the congresses. There is the very real task of being an educator, which unarguably requires more commitment than any prolonged training for a stage show.

And I should like that their young charges continue to ask the 'why?' of them, to release their ultimate potential.

Yeo Loo Yen

24th April 2009 Conjunto Salsonito @Salsaworks, Roger Kirk Centre, York (Part 2)

2009-04-27T09:36:00.021Z

Conjunto Salsonito dishing out New York-style Salsa Dura

The Galleria of the Roger Kirk Centre comfortably hosted five hundred and fifty salseros at Twelfth Night, whilst the Engine Shed would pack out at slightly over two hundred with the overspill moving to the floor upstairs. Seasoned promoters would spot straight away the potential danger of a significant leap in venue size and the impact that might have not just on cost, but also in atmosphere.

With a lot at stake and a number of competing events on that night and that weekend, Tony, Mary, Alfredo and Christine pulled all the stops out mobilising their considerable salsa-base, inviting two performance shows, putting on the band, and designing a rather interesting warm-up lesson (more on that later). The attention to detail was relentless. That's what the "none of that jazzy bollocks" quip was about, jazz musicians are occasionally given to an introspective mode of playing with robs a salsa performance of its typical exuberance; it was a reminder to remain extroverted and engaged with the dancers.

Well, it worked.

Conjunto Salsonito delivered recognisably New York-style salsa dura tracks well, and the progression through the setlist did point to some measure of Lubi's hand in the selection; I've known him for long enough to make out his style of music. I can see why the band could be marketed as in the mould of La Perfecta, mainly with the deployment of two trombones. But though they played well, they weren't committed enough to be put in the same league. Let's face it, few groups ever will be.

As an ethnomusicologist and salsa historian, it's easy for me to see why.

In Mary Kent's interview with Eddie in her definitive 'Salsa Talks', Mr.Palmieri talked of how La Perfecta was made special because each and every member was unified in an "unbearable" single purpose. That phrase is permanently seared in my mind as a benchmark for any ensemble performance, be it my own, any other band, or dance troupe.

There is only one word - Intensity.

I think that's the nub of it, if the rumours be true. The performers didn't come across as believing completely in the music they were playing - it's a problem if numbers are selected without getting enough 'buy in' from the people interpreting them. Don't get me wrong, it was a competent rendition that could have been blessed with a little more flair; perhaps a few shamelessly extroverted face-melting solos a la Jack Black's 'School of Rock'.

'Restrained' would be the fairest word that I could use based on what I experienced. One number, ironically their cover of Eddie Palmieri's 'Muñeca', showed off Conjunto Salsonito's full potential - they laid it out absolutely brilliantly. It was the clearest instance of the musicians united in purpose. If I were music director for the band, I'd strengthen the setlists by trialling thirty to forty shortlisted songs, selecting for the ones that spoke to every musician in the same way that 'Muñeca' did. It's harder work, but it's an approach that's paid dividends for 4de12.

All that said, it wouldn't be unrealistic of me to expect great things of them when I see them next; and I wish Jonny every success. Few guys deserve it more.

The other formally scheduled diversions of evening were two amateur dance troupe performances: one from York-based Encuentro Latino, the other from Jimmy SA's school in Newcastle. Both troupes were large, about ten couples each. Whilst not having the precision and polish of a professional one, they both had something that pro groups sometimes lack: enthusiasm and... you guessed it, Intensity.

Striking Pose: Newcastle Amateur Performance Troupe
choreographed by Jimmy SA

I always, always, watch the faces of first-time performers - it reminds me of much and keeps me honest.

With all of the performances over, I set about spreading myself out a bit: dancing contratiempo with an ETOn2 salsa newbie here, a chachachá there, some bachata thrown in.

Which reminds me... Alfredo and Christine's lesson earlier on. It was a combination of bachata and tango, that is, 'bachatango' danced to Gotan Project-style music - a movement currently being promoted by well-travelled bachata instructor Tony Lara. I thought it was fun. And yes, I know the purists of both would have been giving the above two lines the evil stare, but the two genres have at least two things in common: the Caribbean rhythmic motif of the cinquillo; and their histories as suppressed musics and dances of the underprivileged classes. I just don't know how the defining hip movements of the Dominican dance can be squared with the stringent lack of one in the Argentine tango. And surely in terms of spirit, isn't the kizomba a more mature and better resolved system? Bachatango can't even boast the advantage of ambidextrous movement changes that tango has over the kizomba.

Sounds like an attempt at product diversification to me.

Meanwhile back on the dance floor, I espied an East European stunner and resolved to find out if she could dance as well as she looked. She would have been hard to miss: red dress, carefully coiffured highlighted hair, pearly white teeth, plenty of foundation, matching lipstick and accessories. I gave her every opportunity to express herself and valiantly got as far as a little honest smile behind her broad display one. Part of me felt extremely tempted to put her through her paces to see if I could get her blusher could run from her perspiration, but thankfully I managed to suppress that Chingis Khan portion of my psyche and decorously returned her to her table unmussed at the end of the song.

The contrast with the next dance, a salsatón with an uninhibited power-pack of a partner could not have been more stark. Urban movements, rhythmic tensions, sexuality... drew an impromptu round of applause from those seated nearby; likely for the sheer bravado.

By the time I hit the sack at the Piper's, the birds were tweeting. Again. It's getting to be a bit of a disturbing habit.

Salsaworks with Conjunto Salsonito was an evening plum-full of enjoyment. And from the looks of every salsa dancer there, there was plenty of the stuff going around.

Salsonito are a solid band, and I very much enjoyed dancing to them. But their management, whomever they might be, should exercise more care when marketing them in the same breath as the words La Perfecta.

Loo Yeo

24th April 2009 Conjunto Salsonito @Salsaworks, York (Part 1)

2009-04-26T10:36:00.022Z

The salsa community in the North of England is a small one, and its grapevine had been rattling for several months with talk about a new band. Actually 'rattling' is a bit on the gentle side, think hooting lemurs.

Conjunto Salsonito is billed as a seven member ensemble featuring two trombones, keyboards, bass, congas, timbales, and Cuban singer Kike Sire on lead vocals and doubling up on bongó. All the musicians have a Latin or jazz background, previously being part of other Northern salsa bands like Grupo X, Descarga, and Raices Cubanas, ably led by trombonist Jonny Enright of the former.

Conjunto Salsonito 'bringing it' to York,
playing New York-style salsa dura

That's the objective line.

I found the undercurrent on the grapevine much more interesting. Scuttlebutt had it that DJ Lubi Jovanovich was the backstage force behind the band, assembling it, designing the playlist, determining the playing tempi, and opening the doors to the various promoters with whom he had the professional relationships. In other words, Lubi was informally credited as the manager and music director behind the band, and that he played a greater role on the music direction than Jonny. Whilst that might have explained a few things, I knew better than to listen to rumour and speculate upon its implications.

Conspiracy theorists dance salsa too.

And neither should it matter. I was simply very, very keen to experience "New York-style salsa dura in the style of (Eddie Palmieri's) La Perfecta". The simple thought of it alone had me drooling in anticipation - surely the scene could be enriched with another top-notch band playing frequently in the area? What's more, I'd already booked the day off since 4 de Diciembre had been tentatively billed to play this slot (4de12 eventually had to decline as changes to our lineup haven't been completely worked through yet). Personally, I felt a mixture of happiness and relief that Salsaworks promoter and friend, Tony Piper, had booked such a strong alternative in the form of Jonny & Co.

The early Spring weather was Britain at its vibrant best. Even the machinations of an inconstant ticket-vending machine, and a shirty teller with a customerserviceectomy failed to dampen my mood as I caught the train to York.

Tony picked me up at the station, his latest salsa acquisition blaring from the stereo, and we soon alighted at his place where he and Mary were preparing the nibbles for the evening. That's the sign of their attention to detail, might I add. The breaking of bread together is fundamental to building a community, and I can't think of many promoters in salsa who go to such lengths. I'd brought gifts as usual, and duly presented Mary with a fine bottle of aged Cuban rum and Tony with a rather delicate bouquet of yellow roses.

Then it was to the business end, Tony and I set off to the Roger Kirk Centre at the University of York where Salsaworks is now in residence. The event's found a new home there after the shock passing of Dave, owner and licensee of the Engine Shed. Sadly, contention of ownership have kept the Shed's doors firmly shut for the last four months (and for the foreseeable future) hence the move to 12th Night Extravaganza's venue.

I helped rig up the lighting with Tony and made a nuisance of myself with the sound reinforcement guys, one of whom was sporting a rather fetching pink "mohican". You know you're gonna get good sounds from a confident individual like that! Then Jonny Enright arrived, and he and I were finally formally introduced. What a nice soul, gentlemanly and understated; he struck me as someone good to work with.

Tony and the 'Neers: a light moment during setup

A short conversation later, Tony and I were off to pick up more stuff, grab dinner, and tart ourselves up for the evening, leaving Tony's now-famous exhortation of "none of that jazzy bollocks" lingering in the air and Jonny's poor ears.

(On to Part Two.)

Loo

You Dancing? I'm Asking

2009-04-02T08:47:00.014Z

Putting yourself 'out there' is kinda tough.

I'm not referring to the act of stepping out on the dance floor. I talking about that more important act beforehand: going to and asking someone for a dance. It's something that fledgling salseros, believing me an old hand, quiz me about a fair bit. Usually this happens at the edge of the floor, so I only have a few seconds to reply.

The short answer, at least for beginners and males, is that if you don't ask, you don't dance. The question then really becomes, "how much do you really want to dance?" After that, growing the rhino-hide and the self-assurance not to take rejection of a very personal act personally, becomes academic.

Sometimes I sugar-coat it a little, but if the fledgling finds it difficult to take an honest answer, well, then he or she only tends to hang around the edges of the floor for a few more weeks before disappearing.

Salsa has a brutal underbelly.

Appreciating this, I never turn down a request to dance unless my would-be partner is obviously drunk beyond the point of my being able to navigate her safely about the floor (think 'listing galleon'). It likewise holds true for those who might have serially turned me down in the past - life's too short to indulge in point-scoring; and that, for me, isn't what salsa's about. Partaking of Nottingham's generous salsa scene is a strange role-reversal where women outnumber men dance-wise (it reminds me a lot of what Sheffield was like fifteen years ago). It was there that a partner used exactly the same words I'd used, "you don't ask, you don't dance".

But clearly the more experienced you get at reading people, the better you maximise the chances of someone agreeing.

Which brings me nicely to what prompted me to this post. A salsera friend wanted to know what I looked for in the sort of person that I would ask.

"Easy!" I said. She looked at me as if she understood that I was simply after partners of negotiable morals.

"Just three things" I interjected, avoiding a clip around the ear.

"The most important is to see laughter in her eyes. This tells me why she's dancing.

"The second is whether she tries to use floorspace considerately, partner allowing. This speaks to me of her generosity.

"The third, and least important of the three, is the quality of her back-step. One unstressed backward step tells me more of a dancer's ability, training and persistence than a fancy triple spin with sauerkraut ending. It's the most overlooked probably because it's unsighted, even the so-called professionals seldom get it right."

I've long since given up the empty calories of eye-candy. Why people dance, who they are, and how they dance - that's what makes me decide. What they dance doesn't even get a look-in.

And then I asked her to dance. Strange... her back-step's feeling a bit lumpier than usual...

Loo