• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 10 / 10 / 2010

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The Cuban record label Bis Music has launched an album that has quickly become a diamond for its authenticity and patrimonial character it bears. "Parrandeando entre las Lomas" (Partying among the Hills) shows us how much spree there are in the Cuban country fields and which needs to be rescued to preserve our memory, our identity.

The product, carried out in situ with exquisite design includes a DVD with a documentary -on what is the spree in Cuba, its main characters, the key in which they play- and two audio albums of the groups of Florence and "Los Sanchez."

The spree is one of the musical expressions with more tradition in the Island; it's a spontaneous party where peasants meet to drink, dance, eat, and sing. The merrymakers are people who come straight from the furrow, the workplace, construction sites, their houses. and start partying for their own pleasure.

The musicians are empirical and they get together in families. They bequeath this tradition on their descendants, hence musicians and public are the carriers of this genuine expression of Cuban identity.  

It runs in the blood, that's why we inherit it from generation to generation. Almost all members in the sprees are related, it's a merrymaker instinct, assures the director of "Los Sanchez".

The merrymakers must be heard, know them, feel them with the heart because that's where the music comes from. They sing to their surroundings, their friends, the family, to what happens in the fields and Cuban peoples. The topics of the sprees tell anecdotes and popular expressions of the oral tradition and they are a reflection of their lives, their tastes,prejudices, and customs:

What I want is Bacardi, although I die tomorrow.

In Florence there is a dam in which an old lady takes a bath and comes out virgin.  

When the spree is bad the wild becomes sad / it's like seeing a mockingbird with a wound in the wing.

Let's sing all together / we sing like this / long live to free Cuba and long life to my flag /  

In many of the refrains you can feel the love for their homeland, almost all sprees say "how beautiful Cuba is". They also combine stories with the merrymaking tunes. For those of us who listen to them outside their environment it was as transporting us to where they live, to their town, any given afternoon enjoying from a seat.

Cuban rural music lives in every corner. You need to walk around to see what happens; these disks are the result of field investigation, commented Patricia Tapanes who had the original idea of the project.

To Spree well Ahead.

Los Sanchez come from the 19th century, it's probably Cuba's oldest spree. Their founders were relatives of the army general in the war for independence Serafin Sanchez who it is said was an innate merrymaker. They are from Arroyo Blanco, a small town to the north of Jatibonico in Sancti Spiritus. This is one of the oldest places where sprees are known.

The Spree of Florencia comes from there (in Ciego de Avila) but they are different, there is great musical wealth between both. Although they keep the same format diversity there are different ways of interpreting it, says Sonia Cassola, musicologist who worked in the project.

In the sprees of Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Avila the punto libre nor improvising are generally practiced but rather the essence is the spree key which is fixed and punto fijo/cruzado, although in the Florencia there are improvising poets.

Through the motivations of merrymakers in their songs, these disks help the specialist on Cuban music to understand what is not written in books. They play different from what is written in the theories, the punto is just different, you must listen to them to understand what we are talking. Sonia assures there are very interesting and new things here.

Each group has its style, there are details that differentiate them musically. Although the instruments can be the same (tress guitar, guitar, bongo, key, guiro, marimba and even buckets, and machetes that contrast with violins) the punto changes. The tunes differ, sometimes the singer of a place cannot play with the band of another area.  

 Let the Spree Go on

On Patricia's opinion "Partying among the Hills" was precisely born of the great absences in the products on the Cuban traditional popular culture. This album rises them to other levels, bring them out of anonymity, but there will be many more merrymakers and it is necessary that institutions open their doors to keep preserving the patrimony.

This is a necessary step because in each new project it will be evidenced how the musical expressions change, are recycled, reinvented, how every day Cuban music is made in a new different way.

The media don't reflect the true rural music, due to that ignorance people sometimes reject it, asserts Patricia. "When you have a true poet merrymaker before you must stop hear them and cry of pleasure. There were merrymakers who cried when they saw the final disk; for moments like those it's worth the effort."

Ela Ramos, Bis Music manager, recognized that the volume is the outcome of a dream. "These groups are patrimony of the Cuban music and few times the record houses dedicate some space to them. This is a commitment to keep promoting this genre. Commercially it is not usual in the production Cuban discography but it does have a public.

It's necessary to find it and work inside and outside Cuba. We are sure that we will be very successful.

By Elizabeth Lopez Corzo

Cubasi Translation Staff