Afro-Latino Music

( Michael Priest Photography )
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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, again, everyone. Now, we'll wrap up our Black History Month series on Afro-Latinos that we've been doing every Wednesday during February with a discussion and some clips from Afro-Latino music. If you're not driving, get your good headphones out because that's how much fun we think this is going to be. We've got a lively playlist of some Latino music, heavily influenced by the region's African diaspora.
Our guests to take us through this journey is Arturo O'Farrill, eight-time Grammy Award-winning pianist and composer, global jazz studies professor at UCLA, and the associate Dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and artistic director of the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance. Friend of this show, I think we can say, and former artist in residence at the Green Space where I've had the ecstatic delight of seeing him perform on two occasions. Arturo, so nice to hear your voice. Welcome back to WNYC.
Arturo: I am delighted to be back on WNYC and delighted to be on your show. I've listened to your show for years. This is a real treat. I'm very, very proud of this moment.
Brian Lehrer: It makes me feel so good. Before I get into some clips, I want the listeners to hear about you and your background and your family and your famous father a little bit. Your father was the iconic Afro-Cuban jazz artist, Chico O'Farrell. He referred to his music as Afro-Cuban, where from what I've read, and you and I have never talked about this, but he said Afro-Cuban, you say Afro-Latin. Is that a distinction that's meaningful?
Arturo: A very important one. At the beginning of the creation of the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, which we originally created for jazz, [unintelligible 00:02:02] at the behest of Winton, I said, "Listen, this is no longer just the purview of Cuba. The same forces that brought this music to Cuba, the same terrifying African diaspora that removed peoples from their native lands, landed them in Peru, and Colombia, and Mexico." It's really unfair to say Afro-Cuban.
Afro-Latino means that there's Festejo from Peru and a Cumbia from Columbia, and of course, [unintelligible 00:02:37]. For that matter, Son jarocho from what is called the part of Mexico where there's African Mexican music. In any case, my whole point with all of this was to say that jazz, Latin, none of it is possible without the blessings of Mother Africa.
Brian Lehrer: To that point, let's listen to a short clip from the track, The Afro Latin Jazz Suite, Movement 1: Mother Africa, off your album, Cuba. The conversation continues.
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Brian Lehrer: There's a little Arturo O'Farrill music, and we're going to keep going right to the next clip, music of some different genres that we're going to sample as we go here. Next up, we've got Son de los Diablos by Peru Negro. Arturo, you want to set this up a little bit maybe about the songs defining characteristics and why you brought it to the show today?
Arturo: There's a beautiful tradition of Afro-Peru and Afro-Indian music. Peru Negros is a group that is playing traditional, and that's a traditional, Son de los Diablos. We were actually able to perform Son de los Diablos with Gabriel Alegria at Roulette, but it's a traditional celebration that takes place throughout Peru.
It's a beautiful ritual in which, basically, folks dress up as Diablos. It's a way of casting out demons and a way of going into a very, very righteous celebration of everything that is good, but I think it's also really powerful Peruvian music. Every time I hear this, I laugh because it's so African. It reminds me so much of music of the Aruban people, it reminds me so much of the music of the Congo. It is just a beautiful, beautiful call and response and the chorus. It's filled with joy, this piece. I love this piece.
Brian Lehrer: Let's listen to a little of it.
[music]
Brian Lehrer: Is it African rhythms in there in particular that make it Afro and not just Latino?
Arturo: Very much so. Very much so, but what makes it Latino, and particularly, what makes it Afro-Latino is the usage of these African rhythms in a style called Festejo, which is very powerful. It is a style that really, really comes from the Andes. There's many, many different kinds of musics that are all African-inspired. There's Delando. There's all kinds of rhythms in Peru.
It's funny because I've been to Lima, I've been to Peru, and you can see that folks are playing traditional instruments, instruments that are traditionally found in Africa like the marímbula and then the Cajón, and, of course, obviously, the conga and bongo and all those hand drums. It's an interesting thing to me, Brian, that every nation in Latin America practices hand drums, plays the hand drum where hands are actually touching the skin. I think that that's a direct vestige of the African presence in Latin America, in the Americas.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, Afro-Latino listeners, in particular, does music connect you to your Afro-Latino identity? What songs or genres of music make you feel both Latino and Black? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer with the great Arturo O'Farrell. We were reading up on you a little bit, some things I didn't know to prepare for today.
You were quoted in this Wall Street Journal article back in 2008 about the different musical influences that you were exposed to as a child growing up in your father band leader, Chico O'Farrell's household, and all the musicians he knew, and how the variety confused you about your own identity. Can you revisit that a little bit and talk generally too about what role you think music plays in identity formation?
Arturo: It's really funny. I've been having discussions right and left about identity politics and what it means to be Latino, what it means to be African American, what it means to be Cuban, German, Mexican, Irish. When I first got to the United States, and especially in my elementary school and high school days, I couldn't quite figure out who I was. I wasn't quite accepted by the white kids, by the African American kids. I wasn't Latino enough for the Latino kids. I spent years of my life and the early part of my career feeling slightly othered. I didn't really understand identity politics.
It was only into my 20s, maybe even early 30s that I realized that I was really at a vantage point that most people couldn't be since I wasn't strictly this or that. My vista musically was limitless. I wasn't boxing myself into jazz, I wasn't boxing myself into Latin, I wasn't boxing myself to spoken word or hip hop. I had an incredible view because of all the disciplines that I had because of all the disciplines I'd had to develop to be a musician.
I realized at one point that the brilliant thing is you can connect the dots. You can see Africa in virtually every music that we love. There's a book called-- Oh my God. I'll think of it, but the book is really basically about how all the musics that we love. A Secular Devotion. It's called The Secular Devotion. The book is basically about how all the musics we love mambo, salsa, jazz, hip hop, rock and roll, how all of it can be traced to religious rhythms in African musical practice. I feel like sometimes, I didn't know this at the time, but just because I couldn't be fully accepted into any one clique, I actually had a tremendous blessing of being able to see everything from the same perspective.
That's why that music is such a polyglot of different languages and different styles, and I love it. I love it. I love to put reggae tone on top of spoken word, on top of Senegalese, and mixed up with a little [unintelligible 00:09:35]. That's my thing. I can see connections between all of it. It's beautiful, it's wonderful, it's a tapestry, and it's infinitely enriching to me and to us.
Brian Lehrer: Here's another of those genres. You were going down the list of some of the genres a clip of rumba music. Do you want to set this up a little bit before we hear here?
Arturo: I had the privilege of performing this. Daymé Arocena is one of our heroes. I had the privilege of performing this piece with her three weeks ago, town hall, sold out, and we played this rumba with Daymé Arocena. Rumba is a [unintelligible 00:10:11] word that means a lot of different things, but basically, a rumba is a word that means the crazy, discarded jam. It's also a word that encapsulates the idea that life is a crazy, discarded jam that every day we live. Especially with Daymé, her genius, every day is a rumba.
Rumba is a very specific kind of rhythm, by the way. It's a three, two. Most of the time it's [unintelligible 00:10:37] clave. It's fast, it's furious. They play it on cajons and drums. It's a music that is a celebratory music. When you go to Cuba, if you're invited to a rumba, do not fail to go. Make sure you visit the rumba in Cuba because your life will be altered. I remember taking one of my musicians, first time he went to Cuba, went to a rumba and the next day, starry eyed and he looked at me and he said, "Arturo, I just heard music for the first time last night."
Brian Lehrer: It was that fresh.
Arturo: I was so happy. It was that amazing. I was so happy because rumba is celebration, short and simple.
Brian Lehrer: When you say it's in three, two, for people who are not musically trained, can they get into this by getting ready to count for themselves and say, "Listen, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three?"
Arturo: No, it's very simple. Clave is not a rhythm. It's a way of listening and a way of feeling music. In other words, a lot of times in class-- I don't know if you can hear my clapping, but in classical music, we're taught in jazz, we're taught to feel the pulse. We're taught to hear bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
In Latin music, especially in Cuba, we're taught to feel the pulse in the grouping of three and a grouping of two so that you hear this, pa, pa. It goes one, two, three, one, two, one. Now, you recognize that as Bo Diddley. One, two, three, one, two, one, two, three, or on opposite side, one, two, one, two, three, one, two, one, two, three.
Now, the difference is that in rumba clave, [unintelligible 00:12:22] clave, the three, the third element is offset by an eighth note. It's one, two, three, one, two, one, two, three, one, two. It's funny because a lot of people think these are invaluable, sacred ways to listen to music. I asked Machito, I said, "Machito, what is clave?" He looked at me and he said, "Respect. It's that respect for the music you're listening to, caring about, understanding it from where it's coming from." It helps the people get up and dance if they know what clave it's in.
Brian Lehrer: Now you are even more primed, listeners, to hear this clip from La Rumba Me Llamo Yo by Daymé Arocena.
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Brian Lehrer: It's one of those moments where I'll say, "Let's just cancel the rest of the show. I'm going to go home and we're all just going to listen to music for the last 35 minutes here." [laughter] Luckily, we have a few more minutes with Arturo O'Farrill. If you're just joining us, listeners, and thinking, what is this? This is not what I usually hear on the Brian Lehrer Show. This is the last of our Black History Month series segments on Afro Latinos that we've been doing every Wednesday on the show in February.
Our topic today is Afro Latino music with our special guest, the musician, eight-time Grammy Award winning pianist and composer, Global Jazz Studies professor at UCLA, former artist in residence at the Green Space, Arturo O'Farrill. Listeners, anybody want to chime in? We have one more clip of music to play, but does anyone want to chime in with some stories or your own favorite genres or what the African influence is in any kind of Latino music that it's Afro Latin and that that term applies? Let's take a phone call from Agu in Queens. Agu, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in.
Agu: Thank you so much for having me, Brian. I listen to you every time I'm in the car. I listened to the last, that is before this song was played, there was a tune that was played that sounded more like a Congolese music, and your guest also alluded to it. I am a musician myself, a well-known Nigerian musician. When I came here, I used to teach music and I tell people the relationship between the African music and the music they play out here, especially the Latino, the Afro Cuban, the music they play, the similarity it has with the African music.
Hearing the first music you played, I heard a lot of chants. Somebody might think this group were a group of African artists playing. That really shows you that the influence of the African music that began, I think, way before the slave trade, that came with the slave trade to the Western world, it's still there for everyone to see that the music that we play is a universal language and that music originated from Africa. I think I will say that.
Brian Lehrer: You have just articulated the entire point of this segment, and in a way, the entire point of this Wednesday series that we've been doing. Arturo, anything to add?
Arturo: I couldn't agree with this gentleman more. The older I get and the more I play the music, the more I realize that everything, all the nutrition for my life comes from Africa, from my life artistically. Even though I've visited Africa many times, I would love to spend a year just visiting and spending time with musicians there. My friend, Bam Rodriguez, who's my bass player, tells a funny story. He was in Morocco and he was wandering around and he started hearing rhythms that he'd heard as a child in Venezuela. He didn't understand why.
He went over to a group of women in the market who were playing a shabby rhythm. He explained to them that this was a rhythm that he'd heard as a child. I've seen this happen on stage in Abu Dhabi. I've seen Kuwaiti musicians playing jam, and my Cuban and Puerto Rican percussionists recognizing the rhythms they were playing from the rhythms they were playing in their youth. It's amazing to me because Africa is a place through which all this musical information from Asia, from the Middle East, and from Spain, it all filters through Africa. We are the beneficiaries of an incredible tapestry and of a generosity beyond belief that comes from the African people.
Brian Lehrer: Agu, thanks again for your call. We were just playing a sample of and you were describing what goes into rumba music. Gabriel in Georgia wants to follow up on that. Gabriel, you're on WNYC. Hello.
Gabriel: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Professor O'Farrill. Professor O'Farrill, I'm a huge fan. I see you play many times. It's great to have you on the radio. I've got a question for you regarding the rumba that takes place in Central Park every Sunday in the summertime. Would it be possible for you to give us a rundown about that history and its cultural significance to the city?
Arturo: I would be happy to. As a matter of fact, I grew up hearing that rumba coming from Central Park. It came from many parks, by the way. There are drum circles in Marcus Garvey Park, there are drum circles in Prospect Park. There are drum circles anywhere that you go in the city of New York. It's funny because I wrote a piece of music called the Offense of the Drum, when during the Giuliani years, the drum circles were banned and drummers were arrested and their drums confiscated.
This was such an upfront to me that it was the first piece of political music that I ever wrote the Offence of the Drum against this idea of the drums. The drum is a metaphor for communication. It could be used to scare peoples as a marauding army comes at you, or it could be used to communicate with the Orishas. It could be used in religion. It can be used as communication. It's a metaphor for communication. Communication is either positive or negative.
The drum circles in New York were always a way for human beings to get together. They reminded me [unintelligible 00:19:52] and fandangos because everyone was encouraged to participate. If you had a drum, you could pull up to a drum circle in Central Park, and right there in the banjo. Also at, I forget the name of the plaza, but you would always find drummers there. Not just drummers. You'd find Jerry González there in those years. You'd find Giovanni Hidalgo. You'd find the greatest drummers in history just playing, just having a [unintelligible 00:20:24].
It was one of those things that made life in New York exquisite, just knowing that you'd walk into the park and hear that sound. I don't know what's happening with that now. I hear there's drum circles back, but it wasn't the tapestry. It wasn't a social setting. It wasn't the culturally important venue than I think it was back when I was a kid. Back when I was a kid, the drum circle was where you went, where you learned.
Brian Lehrer: You referenced Jerry González. Jerry González is in the Fort Apache band. You played with him, didn't you?
Arturo: I played with-- I have to say Andy and Jerry González are sacred heroes. They're the ones who created Fort Apache. Fort Apache was the first place that jazz and Latin music were equal partners. Neither eclipsed the other. It wasn't Latin jazz, it wasn't jazz Latin. They were seen as a sinuous blend of the same roots. For me, Fort Apache was the highest expression of, yes, these musics are not different from one other. They are same.
Brian Lehrer: Tess in Toms River has another music history observation. You're on WNYC. Hi, Tess.
Tess: Hi, good morning. This is a fantastic topic. It is absolutely my favorite genre of music is Afro-Cuban jazz. For me, growing up, I'm slightly under 50, growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey, my parents did appreciate music days on Sundays. We started listening to jazz [unintelligible 00:21:59] for sure. I was listening to jazz and the natural progression was, oh my gosh, who is this guy playing the trumpet? It's not Louis Armstrong. Oh, that's Dizzy Gillespie. A kid in the '80s Dizzy Gillespie was on The Cosby Show. We saw him in the Cosby Show. My brother and I were fascinated.
We pulled out all these records, and we absolutely were blown away. Our most favorite ones were Dizzy Gillespie and his United Nations orchestra band. Absolutely, he changed the face of what jazz music looks like, and who can play it, and how everything blends. For me, in the suburbs of Jersey, it was Dizzy Gillespie, Paquito D' Rivera, these guys, the sounds they made, and they didn't care where you came from. If you came and played-- It just blows me away every time.
We were just talking about Dizzy this weekend with my sons who are 11 and 9 and they're like, "Mom, he has everybody playing with him. All these rhythms are different, but they're the same." That's what music is. I think that the genre doesn't get the appreciation for jazz [unintelligible 00:23:07] that it should. Absolutely fantastic show.
Brian Lehrer: The Afro-Cuban genre. Arturo, how about that?
Arturo: Oh my God, so beautifully put. It's funny because I knew Dizzy. My father did a bunch of rounds with Dizzy Gillespie. Something about Dizzy was so genuinely lovely. He came into the room and didn't demand attention. He didn't wear a suit. He didn't hobnob. He came into a room of musicians and hung out with the cats. He hung out with the cats. He would start telling jokes and they'd be laughing. He would come into the room and be the embodiment of that acceptance, that universal acceptance that we all need to learn. He came into the room and loved you. That's it.
In fact, it was really a privilege to see him in our living room periodically from time to time, because he would always be joking. He'd always be laughing, he'd always make you feel good. Sometimes we forget that it's not about how you feel, but about how you make other people feel. Dizzy was such a-- What a beautiful person. That's what he did musically. He extended himself and his craft to everyone. He was, again, you're completely right, he was one of the first--
We did a concert three weeks ago, four weeks ago called Dizzy, Chano and Chico in which we played Dizzy Gillespie's Manteca which was composed by my father with Pedrito Martinez. It's funny. It was such a beautiful thing to remember that Dizzy was a revolutionary. He met Chano Pozo. They became friends. This was his famous, famous quote, "Chano does not speak English. I don't speak Spanish but we both speak African." That just says it all.
Brian Lehrer: Tess, thank you for such a great call. One final song and one final genre. This is bachata from the Dominican Republic called Dos Locos by Monchy & Alexandra. Let's listen first and then you'll talk about this a little bit on the other side.
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Brian Lehrer: What makes a bachata a bachata and what about its sound do you attribute to African influence?
Arturo: The striation of rhythm. It's very clear to me that the pattern between the electric guitar and the bongo is very much like a pattern that you would find in Colombo-based music, Marimbolo-based music. It's this pattern of breaking the guitar arpeggiation in a very specific manner. Bachata is an extremely beautiful music. It's truly Dominican. We don't take enough time. That's why I created the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra because we wanted to put Afro-Dominican music. We wanted to play Afro-Peruvian.
This bachata style, it's funny, people don't realize this in the United States, but bachata has become an international success. It's huge. You can go to Barcelona and hear bachata music on the radio. You can go to the Philippine Islands and hear bachata. We don't ever hear it, of course, because we're scared of things with foreign tongues and ethnic-sounding exotics. Bachata is by far and away some of the most popular music on planet earth right now. For me, it is clearly African.
You know what's beautiful, again, it's clearly African, the sounds, the striation, the rhythmic striation, the bongo, the guitar. This is the lesson, it's also associated deeply with the Dominican people. Here, again, is the lesson of all of this is that we do not dilute ourselves when we embrace global sources of information.
This is exactly where the United States is failing. Isolation is a no. If we accept that which we don't understand and embrace it, we become more American, we become more Dominican, we become more Mexican, we become more of a people united by a global culture and that culture cannot be filtered by anything, in my opinion, cannot be filtered by anything finer than music. Music is the ultimate, ultimate migratory force.
Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. Folks, that concludes our every Wednesday in Black History Month series on Afro-Latinos, ending today with Afro-Latino music. Just a reminder before we say goodbye to Arturo O'Farrill, that the podcast La Brega from WNYC Studios and Futuro Studios, is all about music this season. It gets right to the heart of what we've been talking about and how music shapes identity.
It's about Puerto Rican music, in particular, which includes Afro-Puerto Rican tracks, and you can find La Brega wherever you get your podcasts. Arturo O'Farrill is, of course, jazz pianist, composer, multiple Grammy winner, director of the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, professor of music at UCLA. Do you have anything coming up or coming out that you want to promote?
Arturo: I do indeed. We're having this incredible show at Chelsea Factory, which is on 26th, I think between 9th and 10th. It's an incredible show. It's a show called Whirlwind, where we perform with three dance accompanies, [unintelligible 00:28:31], Ayodele Casel who was recently named a Doris Duke artist, and [unintelligible 00:28:38] from Chicago. It's going to be an incredible show because these accompanies will be playing live to our music, to our orchestra, which is a rare thing to see.
They all choreographed music to the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, but they never have ever got to play live with us. On March 24th and 25th at Chelsea Factory on 26th Street, it's going to be crazy. The first time I saw dancers dance to my music, I cried because I realized that that's what I've been doing my whole life is writing dance music.
Brian Lehrer: Always such a treat to have you on the show, Arturo. Thank you.
Arturo: Thank you, Brian. It's been a privilege to be here with you.
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