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Lara Bello’s Flamenco-Inspired ‘First Yellow, Then Purple’

Betto Arcos — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:00:44 +0000

Lara Bello grew up surrounded by Flamenco music and dance. Granada is one of the cradles of this emblematic Spanish tradition. As a teenager, Bello studied voice and violin at a conservatory. But before that she learned how to sing and dance Flamenco.

“Before I started as a musician I was a dancer,” Bello says. “I love very much to connect the sounds with the movements of the body. So I trained in Flamenco and contemporary dance and Arabic dance because the Arabic culture there is very strong.”

Bello’s new album is called “Primero Amarillo, Después Malva” — “First Yellow, Then Purple.”

She says the title refers to the changing colors of springtime in Granada.

“The beginning of the springtime, the flowers are yellow, and with time, those flowers die and in purple ones appear in their place,” Bello says. “So that’s why I dedicated that title to the cycles of life.”

Bello says she used to see these colors on the road from her house to her Flamenco teacher’s studio.

Bello’s Flamenco dance teacher was an American woman nicknamed ‘La Presy.’ She moved from San Antonio, Texas to Granada about 30 years ago to learn Flamenco.

“And that means she came into a very, very strong community, very closed,” Bello says. “It’s not easy, even for people that are from Granada, which is a city where we all know a little bit about Flamenco, even people that don’t play or are not musicians or dancers, they know about Flamenco. And it’s difficult for us, so imagine for somebody who is from the other side of the ocean.”

‘La Presy’ became a well-respected figure in the Flamenco world. She died in 2011. But Bello says she continues to be an important influence in her career. In fact, she dedicated her album to ‘La Presy.’

“So for all of us, all the students, she gave us a lot of power and also she taught us that your home is where the heart is,” Bello says. “It’s not a question about where you were born, or where you belong or the name of the city on your passport. It’s where your heart is.”

Bello moved to New York two and a half years ago. And she found a new home in the diverse community of musicians from Latin America.

“When I was living in Spain I didn’t know anything about Peruvian rhythms,” she says. “I started to work with them. I met great, not only musicians, but composers like Samuel Torres. And with two years in the city I wanted to put these strong roots into my music. And that’s how this CD has a little bit of rhythms and colors from Latin America, but also from New York.”

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Jenni Rivera: Queen of Banda is Remembered

Betto Arcos — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:20:44 +0000

Fans of Mexican-American singer and actress Jenni Rivera are in mourning.

The Mexican-American singer and actress died after her plane disappeared early Sunday morning.

Rivera was killed when the Learjet 25 went down in Nuevo Leon state.

She had just given a concert in Monterrey, Mexico.

Also on board were four members of her entourage and two pilots.

She was born in California in 1969 to Mexican parents, sold more than 15 million records of norteno and banda music.

She was a judge in the popular television program “La Voz,” Mexico’s version of “The Voice.”

Veracruz, Mexico Celebrates the 100th Birthday of Singer Toña La Negra

Betto Arcos — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 13:00:46 +0000

Antonia del Carmen Peregrino Alvarez was born into a family of musicians in the port city of Veracruz, on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. She started singing at social events, music competitions and carnivals at an early age. The name “Toña la Negra” came later.

In 1932, when she was 20, she moved with her husband and child to Mexico City. It wasn’t long before she was discovered by the star-maker of the day, radio station XEW.

Veracruz writer Rafael Figueroa just published a book on Toña La Negra and he says, “she began singing at a place called “El Retiro,” that was like the ‘hip place’ to be for bolero in Mexico City.”

Soon after, Toña La Negra met one of Mexico’s biggest songwriters, Agustin Lara, and her career took off. Legend has it that Lara was the one who named her Toña La Negra.

Rafael Figueroa says Lara found his muse in Toña La Negra. And she became the vehicle for his musical exploration of the black contribution to Mexican culture.

“And he acknowledged that,” Figueroa explains, “Not only by naming Toña La Negra, Toña “the Black one or the Black Woman,” but also by composing a lot of music based on the black Caribbean influence on culture in Veracruz.”

From the early 1930s to the mid-50s, Toña La Negra focused on performing, making records and radio shows. But she also appeared in more than 20 films, as a performer and as an actor. Here she is in a nightclub scene in the 1943 film “Maria Eugenia.”

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Spain’s Serrat & Sabina: A Music Appreciation by Betto Arcos

Betto Arcos — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:00:21 +0000

“La Orquesta del Titanic”, the new album by Joan Manuel Serrat and Joaquín Sabina, is in the style of Lennon & McCartney.

It’s hard to know from the credits who wrote which song. But I’ve followed the careers of these two singers for more than three decades, so I can usually tell whether it’s a Serrat or a Sabina song.

Serrat has a warm, melodious voice, while Sabina has a raspy, growly one. Serrat is 68, from Cataluña, and Sabina is 63, from Andalucía.

Serrat has released more than 35 albums in a career spanning more than five decades. Sabina has put out more than twenty albums, in three decades.

They started touring together in 2007.

Both of them are considered major figures of Spanish pop music.

I first heard Serrat when I was eight-years-old. My older sister used to bring albums from Mexico City when she’d visit us in my hometown of Xalapa, Veracruz.

I remember the voice of this young, emerging Spanish singer.

As soon as I started getting into music in my teens, I bought every album I could find. That’s when I began to understand and identify with his touching lyrics.

These are the lyrics to Serrat’s song, “Hoy por ti, mañana por mi”

“I’m tired and you’re lost
Let’s cure the wounds with spicy chilies
Today for you, tomorrow for me.
If you walk, I will follow,
If you get tired, I will make a nest on the shoulder
Today for you, tomorrow too.”

I heard Sabina later, when I was in college, in my early twenties, after a friend introduced me to his music.

His lyrics are racy, filled with raw humor and biting irony, as in this song titled “Después de los Despueses.” It’s a story about an affair with a married woman.

The lyrics to the song “Después de los Despueses” go like this:

“…Agony, a bottle, a night of indigestion,
There were times I woke up early at dawn
Behind the bottle and the siesta,
I confess that your kisses deserved
A much better song than this one…”

Both Serrat and Sabina like to comment on the issues of the day. So it’s fitting that the album’s title, “La Orquesta del Titanic” (The Titanic’s Orchestra), is a kind of metaphor for the state of affairs in Spain.

During a press conference earlier this year, Sabina said he knew the economic crisis in Spain was big and the Spanish people were desperate. And he added, “To sing is all we could come up with, so that the people have a song to laugh or to cry.”

I had a chance to see Sabina in 2011 while he was on tour with his band in the United States. But even after all these years, I’d never seen Serrat in concert.

They played for more than three hours.

One of the last encores was a song I used to sing when I was a teen. It’s called “Cantares”, written by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado. I sang along with the thousands of fans from Spain and Latin America at the concert.

Here’s a video of Serrat and Sabina singing “Cantares” at a concert in 2007:

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Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto Play to a Traditional Cumbia Beat

Betto Arcos — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:00:48 +0000

Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto take their name from the “Gaita.” It’s an indigenous wooden flute, about a yard-long, from Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

The group has played Colombian Cumbia since the late 1930s.

Gabriel Torregrosa is one of the youngest members of the group.

He’s in his late-30s and is the band’s musical director.

Torregrosa says, “You can hear three ethnic traditions in Los Gaiteros’s music. There’s the indigenous influence of the Gaita and the maracas, the African polyrhythms on the drums and the Spanish lyrics.”

Cumbia is one of Latin America’s most popular dance forms. The Cumbia beat is essentially the same played in every country. But the instruments that play it can vary, from accordion to keyboards, electric guitar or acoustic bass.

But no matter the trends, Los Gaiteros continue to play with the original indigenous instruments.

Gabriel Torregrosa hopes that by teaching young musicians their traditions, Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto will keep the fire of this music going for years to come.

“The Seventh Chieftain”: Celtic Superstar Carlos Núñez

Betto Arcos — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:00:56 +0000

When he was only eight-years-old, Carlos Núñez started playing the bagpipes. The “Gaita,” as the bagpipe is known in Galicia, opened a whole world of music around him.

“For me, the magical thing about the bagpipes, it was to discover that other countries, like Scotland, like Ireland, like the Bretons in France, all the Celtic countries, we play the same music but we speak different languages,” Nunez says. “But the music makes us only one nation. I think Celtic music is a sort of Atlantic nation and we are part of the same family. I think this is what I really love it when I was a child.”

Núñez says during the dictatorship of Generalissimo Franco, Galician music was forbidden – Celtic musicians could only play underground. After Franco died in the mid-1970s, there was an explosion of Galician music. Nuñez says he’s the direct result of this energy that had built-up over decades.

In the late 1980s, when he was still a boy, he met the masters of traditional Celtic music, The Chieftains.

“And I had the opportunity of start to play with The Chieftains when I was 13-years-old,” Núñez says. “And with 18-years-old I was playing with The Chieftains and then they invite me to come to America. My first concert in America it was with The Chieftains in this tribute to The Who. Roger Daltrey, we played with Alice Cooper, with Sinéad O’Connor. Wow!”

Núñez launched his solo career, built on a long list of collaborations. He’s played with artists as varied as Laurie Anderson, Ry Cooder, Compay Segundo, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Jordi Savall. But Núñez says it was The Chieftains who had the biggest impact on his life.

“They always said to me, ‘Carlos, don’t think in your little country, think international, think that the world is all connected and all the traditions are really the same, are really connected.’ This is the idea The Chieftains gave me.”

For his first album, “Brotherhood of Stars” Núñez invited musicians from all over the world. And at the suggestion of The Chieftains, he also invited musicians from Andalusía’s flamenco world, to collaborate with musicians from the north of Spain. He says during the Franco dictatorship, Galician and Flamenco musicians never played or recorded music together.

“Never, ever. Because of the flamenco, it was the enemy for the music in the north,” he says. “Think that for 50 years of dictatorship with Franco the Flamenco was the official music of Spain. The only possible music of Spain, the official Spain. And well, for us, the democracy was a liberation.”

Today, Núñez says he’s on a musical mission. He wants to explore the links between the music of Galicia, and by extension, the music of Spain, to the diverse musical cultures of Latin America and beyond.

“I think Latin America is like a cathedral with many traditions at the same time. So absolutely, I want to connect, to make all these connections, in the same way so many people as The Chieftains, Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt, all those people. They gave me the opportunity of playing with them one day, and to learn.”

Carlos Núñez just released a double CD, “Discover.” And this week, he starts his first major tour of the US.

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From TV Theme Song to All-Spanish Album, Guatemala’s Gaby Moreno

Betto Arcos — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 12:00:27 +0000

The theme song for the TV show Parks and Recreation was co-written by Guatemalan singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno.

But Gaby Moreno does more than TV themes.

She’s got a new CD out called “Postales”.

Now, I’ve known about her music for a couple of years, but it never really touched me until I got her new record about three weeks ago.

It’s as if she’s come home with this new album.

She’s found her voice.

CD Cover to Gaby Moreno's "Postales" (Credit: Warner Music Latina)

On “Postelas” Gaby Moreno sings all the songs in Spanish; the songs on her previous album were in English and Spanish.

And I have to say, she’s equally good in English as she is in Spanish.

“Ave que Emigra” means “bird that migrates.”

It’s a song all about coming to the United States, but it’s not the typical immigrant song.

It’s just a very subtle song about coming to a new country.

She’s beautifully arranged it in a kind-of American folk tune.

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Musicians Gather for the 11th Annual Son Jarocho Festival in LA

Betto Arcos — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 12:00:20 +0000

Son jarocho is played in many different ways.

There are groups that take a traditional approach and those that mix in different influences.

Today, I’m going to talk about four different groups who will play this weekend at the Son Jarocho Festival.

First, here’s the amazing group Pa’sumecha.

They’re based in Mexicali Baja California, just across the border from the .S.

Musicians from Mexican and southern California come together to play at the Son Jarocho Festival.

Quetzal, from Los Angeles, will be there as well as the seven-piece ensemble Las Cafeteras.

Las Cafeteras are one of the newer groups to play son jarocho.

They mix it up with hip-hop and other stuff.

Las Cafeteras put on an incredible show.

Finally, Patricio Hidalgo will be there.

He’s from a family of son jarocho musicians that goes back generations.

Patricio Hidalgo is one of the great Soneros.

And I’m so happy to tell you I’ll be at the 11th Son Jarocho Festival in Los Angeles.

I hope to see you there!

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Remembering Legendary Singer Chavela Vargas

Betto Arcos — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:00:44 +0000

A mariachi band played a somber set Monday morning out front of the hospital in Cuernavaca, Mexico where Chavela Vargas passed away last night.

The beloved singer was 93.

Vargas based her artistic and public profile around her unique reinterpretations of traditional Mexican “rancheras,” songs traditionally sung by men about love and their power.

The diminutive woman would appear on stage in pants and often sang in a rough, husky baritone while smoking a cigar and swigging from a bottle of tequila - a transgressive statement in the conservative era of the 50s Mexico when she began.

In the late 1960s, in a battle with alcohol addiction, Vargas disappeared from public performance. She reappeared in a small club in Mexico City in the early 90s and her career was renewed after the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar championed her life and music in his films.

In the last 10 years of her life, Vargas was busy. She debuted at Carnegie Hall at the age of 83 in 2003.

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Alfredo Rodriguez: Cuban Pianist Produced by Quincy Jones

Betto Arcos — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:00:59 +0000

Alfredo Rodriguez was offered a spot at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland in 2006.

One night, the Festival’s director invited him to play at his house. That’s where Rodriguez met Quincy Jones.

“I remember I played a Cole Porter song which is called ‘I Love You’,” Rodriguez says. “That was how I met Quincy and Quincy was very happy to listen to my music at the time. So I just took that experience as something positive in my life. I had the opportunity to play one song for Quincy Jones.”

And Quincy Jones remembers when he heard Rodriguez.

“He blew me away. When we heard him that day, Herbie Hancock says I’m not going anywhere near that,” Jones recalled.

After Montreux, Rodriguez went back to Cuba. A month later he got a call from Quincy Jones Productions offering to produce an album. But to do that he would have to move to the US.

A few years later, Rodriguez made the difficult decision to go.

With his debut recording called “Sounds of Space”, produced by Quincy Jones, Alfredo Rodriguez is now on a constant world-wide tour, waiting for the next surprise.

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Mexico’s Carla Morrison Speaks the Language of the People

Betto Arcos — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:00:51 +0000

Carla Morrison grew up listening to Patsy Cline records in the small border town of Tecate, Baja California, a place known for its beer and its bread.

“I actually was born right next to the most famous factory of good bread over there,” Morrison said. “And it’s nice, it’s a nice place, but right now I can’t be there because I have too much demand on singing and traveling, going throughout the country and sometimes the world to show my music.”

Morrison moved to Mexico City six months ago and she’s been selling out concerts across the country. Morrison says she has been overwhelmed by her success and her fans’ response to her songs.

“When I talk about love and when I talk about not being loved and when I talk about my own issues in life and all that, I feel like I’m really honest,” Morrison said. “And I try to be as clear as I can and I speak the language of the people.”

She said she is not trying to be a really well-spoken person and intelligent person who only speaks all these great words, but more like the people in the street.

“I’m from a little town, I’m from a pueblo,” she said.

Morrison said she has been able to tap into an emotional aspect of Mexican music that’s not as common now as it was decades ago. She refers to songwriters like Jose Alfredo Jimenez who poured their hearts out in rancheras with lyrics addressing all kinds of intimate feelings.

“Morrison’s ability to connect with Mexico’s young audience has to do with her personal approach to making music,” said Enrique Blanc, a music critic based in Guadalajara.

Blanc said Morrison symbolizes the opposite of all the other pop stars, built by television emporiums or multi-national labels. “She’s real,” he said. “Carla Morrison has an indy attitude that makes her songs so convincing.”

Morrison has gotten involved in the student movement called “Yo Soy 132,” participating in a massive rally in Mexico City two weeks ago. The movement was started by university students protesting against the resurgence of the former ruling party – the PRI – and the mainstream media’s support for the PRI presidential candidate. The students view the PRI as the embodiment of old style Mexican corruption.

Morrison said as a musician, she has to support her fans and make sure that just as they are free to decide on their feelings about life love and about a certain person, they should be free to decide who is going to lead their country.

“They can’t make us have this leader that we don’t want,” she said.

This week, Morrison will send out a new song to her fans. It’s an anthem written by a friend, who produced her first album – pop singer Natalia Lafourcade. The song, “Un Derecho de Nacimiento-A Birth Right,” is meant to encourage Mexican youth to make their voices heard and their votes count in Sunday’s presidential election.

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Remembering Spanish Singer Montserrat Figueras in New Tribute Album

Betto Arcos — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:00:37 +0000

A new double CD released is a tribute to the late Spanish singer Montserrat Figueras.

Figueras died in November at the age of 69.

The CD is called “Montserrat Figueras: The Voice of Emotion” and was compiled by the singer’s husband, the composer Jordi Savall.

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Boleros to Serenade on Mother’s Day in Mexico

Betto Arcos — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:00:37 +0000

I grew-up in Xalapa, Mexico, listening to boleros.

Every night, my father used to tune-in to his favorite radio show “Trios Famosos” in the late 60s.

Of course, back then, I could care less about this music.

It was only in my late teens when I began to appreciate the meaning and the practical purpose of boleros.

Songs like “Decidete” or Make Up Your Mind would prove useful in my late teens, when I learned to play the guitar.

Every couple months, I’d get together with a few friends and we’d pick songs to sing to our girlfriends, in the wee hours, by their bedroom windows.

Believe me, there are songs for every emotion and we knew most of them: from sugary love to heartache to splitsville, there are boleros for all matters of the heart.

These are lyrics to the song “Locura” or Madness.

“Everything has been a dream, you deceived me, I was not your owner. Only your perfume, like a cruel martyrdom, brings me the distance. When I dream of you at night, I live that moment of ours. I want to remember it as a diadem of my misfortune, because to go looking for it, to revive it, is madness.”

Ahhh. Those adolescent years…

Among the most popular boleros are those made famous by Mexico’s trio Los Panchos, the group credited with popularizing the genre.

The trio Los Tres Reyes has a new album that pays tribute to the legacy of Los Panchos with a few of the boleros from their vast repertoire.

This one’s called “Contigo-With you”.

Their song “Contigo” or With You is the kind of bolero you’d sing in a serenade to your beloved.

It could also be a good song to play on this “Diez de Mayo”, “Mother’s Day” in Mexico.

Just make sure you remember who you’re serenading.

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Pasatono Orquesta: Ethnomusicologists and Performers

Betto Arcos — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:00:25 +0000

Pasatono Orquesta is a musical group from Mexico.

The band plays traditional music from the Mixtec region of Oaxaca.

The group is lead by a couple who are not only performers, but also ethnomusicologists.

Betto Arcos reports.

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Argentine Singer María Volonté on ‘The Blue Tango Tour’

Betto Arcos — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:00:57 +0000

Argentine singer María Volonté fuses her love of tango with the blues on her new album “Nueve Vidas.”

Volonté is in the midst of a world tour appropriately titled “The Blue Tango Tour.”

Reporter Betto Arcos has her story.

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