An interesting future experiment with international roots music will someday feature a bluegrass rustic on the banjo, a Cuban guajiro on the tres, a Puerto Rican jibaro on the cuatro, a Mexican ranchero on bajo sexto, and perhaps a Tejano on accordion. Maybe such singers as Freddy Fender and Ibrahim Ferrer will contribute vocals. After all, country’s country, no matter what hill the billy calls home, and developments in alternative “insurgent” country music, for example, point to the continuity of roots folkways as they adapt to contemporary sounds, historical change, and, in some cases, cultural mix.
In a similar vein, the Symphony Center’s pairing of Orquesta Aragón from Cuba with Cuban expatriate Arturo Sandoval makes for an enjoyable evening’s focus on the lineage of Cubano folk-roots — heavily influenced by Spanish guitar and African multi-vocal chorus and rhythm — as those roots have transformed with time and turmoil in the native homeland and abroad. In this case, it’s the guajiro and the hipster together again. Orquesta Aragón largely stays true to its origins in 1939 Cuba and to its development of cha-cha in the ’50s, while Sandoval’s embrace of be-bop and jazz fusion makes for a Cubop sound that he pursued outside of his former homeland.
The Symphony Center provides an important context for Orquesta Aragón to open the night with demonstrations of danzon, rumba, cha-cha, and bolero from the oldest charanga orchestra around. The venue is a tacit recognition of the sophisticated compositions that make for the full, hot sound coming from seemingly basic arrangements. And though the auditorium makes for crisp acoustics to enjoy every nuance from the 12-piece group, the tight seating and distance quell the crowd from all but dancing in their seats. Many of the impeccable Latin couples in attendance are dressed to cut a rug, but they only look on as the Orquesta’s dancer, Armando Amezaga, gooses the conga patter and timbale flourishes with gyrations and spirited call-and-response improv with the percussion.
This is the only frustration with concerts at such venues that honor a musical group carrying the weight of history as something of an archival project — we don’t get to experience the original club, corner, or social gathering, but instead reverence for Orquesta Aragón’s cultural significance, though warranted, seems to put them at more of a distance than the physical layout of the stage. Nonetheless, this barrier is broken at various times when the combo gets the audience to clap along.
Arturo Sandoval recognizes the gulf between performer and crowd, and so he urges people to dance when he hits stage after an intermission. With incredible blowing chops that reach well into stellar regions of the trumpet’s upper registers, he also animates his public with a playful sense of humor between numbers. And during an extended, absurd scat session, he simulates a standup bass and classic jazz vocals with respectful pranksterism that breaks up the potentially stiff atmosphere of an orchestra hall. But old compositions and the musicians who have preserved and adapted them create an amazing event that interestingly obscures the simple, rural origins of popular pastime.
7 December 2001, Illinois Entertainer
