• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 09 / 23 / 2010

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I knew Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son would be good Sunday night at SOB's,but they exceeded my expectations.

Adalberto is one of the great figures of modern Cuban music (yes, there are a lot of great figures of modern Cuban music).

It's not a timba band, it's the still-burning flame of the black conjunto, post-Arsenio son and salsa.

The first thing Adalberto did when he took the stage was name-check Sonora Ponceña, Willie Rosario, and Oscar d'León. The first set, which included a Son 14 medley, was splendid. In the second set, when they played "El Baile del Toca-Toca," I was surrounded by people doing the toca-toca, which I haven't seen anyone do since sometime in the 90s in Havana (it was a novelty dance that was kind of like playing tag.)

But for the penultimate number, the transcendental "Y Qué Tú Quieres Que Te Den?" -- Adalberto's landmark contribution to the 90s wave of santería-themed songs, it describes a toque de santo in a rap (one of the first raps in Cuban dance music) and asks, "and what do want them [the santos] to give you?", and says, "voy a pedir pa' ti / lo mismo que tú pa'mi," I'm gonna ask for you the same as you ask for me -- Adalberto left the stage and the lead singer called out for los hijos de Elegguá to raise their hands and sang a song to Elegguá, and they stayed there: they went down the line santo by santo, singing a song for each, with instrumental buildups,jams, releases. It was a complete Oru (a sequence of salutes to the orishas) included as a parenthesis in the montuno. I didn't time it, but it must have been at least twenty minutes. Me despojó.

And now:

The website won't let me cut and paste easily, but here's a link to the schedule for the Bomplenazo 2010, from Oct. 6-10.
http://www.hostos.cuny.edu/culturearts/events.html

I regret that I will not be able to see every night of this tenth annual Bomplenazo, this year dedicated to Mayaguez, but I will hit at least one.

It's five days of concerts and workshops. People who make the commitment to do the whole five days will really get tuned.

Bomba in particular has been heating up slowly and steadily, year after year, in New York, and this year's schedule suggests it's reaching boiling point. In lieu of a major commercial renaissance of dance-band bomba a la Cortijo, instead we've been getting affirmation after affirmation that this knowledge is alive and well in a community that knows and teaches its root.

The website doesn't let me cut and paste easily, so I can't just put the schedule here -- go to the link -- but here's a description of the closing concert:

Ángel Luis Torruellas - Los Pleneros de la 21 -Los Tambores de Félix Alduín

The dean of Puerto Rican pleneros accompanied by a special ensemble under the direction of virtuoso trombonist Papo Vázquez - One of the bomba and plena world's great treasures under the direction of National Heritage Fellow Juan Gutiérrez and Direct from Mayaguez, the young and dynamic plena ensemble named for the legendary Félix Alduín whose bomba and plena troupe was an incubator for many great practitioners from the region, José "Macho" (grandson of Don Félix), director.

Everything in the rest of the lineup sounds good too. My pick: don't miss Alma Moya, but then, I haven't seen most of the groups that will be performing, so check them out and tell me what I missed. And just so you know it's right, on Sunday afternoon there's a pig roast.

Naturally, the concerts are at Hostos Community College in the Bronx (right by the train, easy access), which year in and year out has had the best music program of any college in the city.

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/117977