Music from the Coffee Lands
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CD Details
Edition: Music CDCD Release Date: 1997-10-07
Music Label: Putumayo World Music
Soundtracks:
- Guajira Bonita - Julian Avalos and Afro-Andes
- Soltarlo - Claudia Gomez
- Wasuze Otya? - Samite
- Maria Lando - Susana Baca
- Noites Claras - Luiz de Aquino, Ernest Ranglin
- Below the Bassline - Ernest Ranglin, Raimundo Sodr?
- Hanzvadzi - Thomas Mapfumo
- Dilema - Los Tradicionales De Carlos Puebla, Los Tradicionales De Carlos Puebla
- Esa Noche - Caf? Tacuba
- Gabby Kai - James Bla Pahinui
- Kothbiro - Ayub Ogada
- Este Son - Juan Carlos Ure?a
- Milonga de Ricardo en Cha-Cha-Ch? - Ricardo Lemvo, Makina Loca
Music reviews of Music from the Coffee Lands
Music Review: Once you've seen the world, then you want to hear it....
Rating: 5 Stars
"Music from the Coffee lands" is a compilation of music from areas of the world that reflect "multi-cultural connections that music and coffee share."
This partial quote comes from CEO/Founder Dan Storper of Putamayo World Music, who both researched and compiled the music in this CD. "Along the way I learned that scores of countries grow coffee," with many in South America and Africa. Just as Africans were "imported" to what is now the United States, so were they to Caribbean and South American countries. To each locale, Africans brought their music, merged it with the rhythms they found, thus creating a new music: spirituals, blues, and the upbeat rhythms that came to be reggae, rhumba, samba, and more. As time turned slaves into freemen and women, these carried their music back to the homeland for further creative enhancements, exemplifying syncretism at its best.
My point is that each song selected for this CD has a history that often reflects the workings of syncretism (melding disparate parts into a new whole). When I was in Thailand, I met a woman of Chinese ancestry who called herself Thai. I asked how? Although born in China, she came with her parents to Thailand for freedom (she was Dean of Students at the Baptist Seminary in Bangkok in 2003. I don't know about 2009.) My point is clear in her context: Chinese ancestry and language, Thai citizen and language, Euro/American religion and dress, politics of freedom. She is a good example of the concept of syncretism.
So, too, are the songs of this CD. The first song is by Julian Avalos with his Afro-Andes band. When I first met a person with dark skin who was French, I asked how he was French. (This was many years ago, just a dozen years after American integration, when I was still growing out of puerile attitudes toward race and into maturity as a human being.) This Frenchman laughed at us and told us he grew up swinging in trees in Africa--I've forgotten his native country) Some people in my group believed him, including a dark-skinned American woman. He spoke English with a perfect British accent, as you will find with many dark-skinned people, particularly Africans who learn their English from actual English speakers. Another example of syncretism: A Japanese student, a "foreign exchange" student, came to the high school where I taught. He spoke no English when he began (he could read it somewhat). What was so amusing to me was that by the end of the year, not only did he speak "English," but he spoke the Southern dialect of English, including those long vowels: here to he-yere, or pen to pi-yin.
Back to Julian Avalos: He says: "I'm mixed. I have Indian, Spanish and African blood, and grew up in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and other Spanish speaking countries, so all these influences go into the music." Furthermore, he says, "I call the band Afro-Andes because the Andes are like the spine of ... South America, and although most of the music is original, it includes styles from the city, traditional music from the countryside, some Afro-Peruvian rhythms, some salsa from New York (where he now lives)....[M]y aim is to present a good mixture of songs from all of the cultures of Latin America."
Although the above is a long quote, it defines what I mean by syncretism and how the music of South America and Africa reflect the back-and-forth influences of the music on each culture. A sentence from the liner notes takes the listener further into syncretism. "Guajira Bonita," the song by Julian, "is, unexpectedly, a guajira (a form of Cuban 'country music')....before slowly transforming itself into a cha cha cha."
A fantastic song (actually all the songs are fantastic---read other reviews for support of this opinion) is the third song, "Wasuze Otya?" by Samite, a native Ugandan, who grew up under Idi Amin's regime. Yes. The family was able to leave the country for a Kenyan refuge camp, later in Kenya itself. One of Samite's songs was highlighted in a "Good Morning, America" segment, with royalties paying for his own recording studio.
"Ugandan music, like jazz, is improvisational. In my music I use everything I've ever heard, traditional African music, jazz, classical, American country music," says Samite. His song on this CD "extols the value of society's elders," another African tradition.
One other singer I want to mention is Susana Baca. Please listen to her voice (in the sampler). She spent a decade researching the music of her ancestors, Peruvians of African descent. Her songs represent her "life work, to document, record and celebrate the culture of African Peru." Her song, "Maria Lando," represents a lando, or "mournful Afro-Peruvian rhythm that sounds like a cross between a samba and a cha cha cha." (If you are an aficionado of "Dancing with the Stars," then you know what is meant by samba and cha cha cha.) Baca's voice is described as having "sufferation," or "soulful feelings of the underclass who work too hard and too long for almost no money."
As you can tell, the liner notes are almost as good as the music itself. No, the music is much better, but you will learn great information about the music from the coffee lands, and hear its excellent music. If inclined, you can delve into complete CDs from particular artists, or even try Music from the Coffee Lands, Vol. II. I do highly recommended Vol. I.
(Footnote: I first discovered Putamayo recordings in the gift shop at the New Orleans Museum of Art (MOMA) a number of years ago and now have several. If you are interested, click on this CD to go to that page, or type Putamayo music in the subject bar, and go through page after page of its recordings with a staggering variety! One is Music of New Orleans, which I plan to order.)
Description of Music from the Coffee Lands
The artists gathered together here hail from nations and cultures noted for the growing and export of coffee. As with this CD's companion release, Music from the Tea Lands, one senses the possibility of lucrative product tie-ins, but part of the proceeds from the album are earmarked for charity and any catchy idea that gets the music out there is a good thing. Like the luscious drink itself, the tunes come in many intensities and flavors, ranging from a light-as-air ditty from Peru, to the more complex vocal stylings of Colombia's Claudia Gomez, to Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca's earthy Afro-Cuban Congolese rumba. The album is a lively and fascinating travelogue, making landfall in Cuba, Kenya, Brazil, Uganda, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, Hawaii, and Peru. As with many other Putumayo projects, aside from its musical pleasures, this set would make an entertaining and educational experience for younger family members. --Christina RodenGeneral CDs
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