Musical Evenings in Barranco

After starting our evening last Wednesday at the Barranco Beer Company, Jacho, Diego and I, headed around the block to the La Noche cultural center to take in an evening of Urban Singer-Songwriters.

We had such a good time that we returned the next evening to catch a one-man show by Daniel F.

Daniel F (ne Daniel Augusto Valdivia Fernandez) is a singer, composer, and poet (though he rejects that label because, he says, poetry is something higher that what he does), who's been instrumental in the Lima punk/rock scene particularly, and in Peru generally, ever since the he was the frontman for Leuzemia, a seminal Lima band.

While in Leuzemia he wrote songs such as Al colegio no voy mas (I ain't going back to school), Asesino de la ilusion (Killer of hope),  and El hombre que no podia dejar de masturbarse (The man who couldn't stop masturbating) which became well-loved classics.

On Thursday he performed all of those, as well as other older pieces and newer compositions.   The crowd, generally, seemed to know the songs and often sang along during the choruses.

As for me, it was my first time seeing Daniel F on stage and I rather enjoyed it even though I could sing along like 'most everyone else seemed to.

La Tarumba!

Near the very end of our stay in Lima Willy, Elba, Toya, and Orlando invited us to the La Tarumba circus show in the southern district of Chorrillos.

La Tarumba is a locally developed circus that seeks -and manages- to combine circus with music, song, and dance.  Among its directors and performers, for example, they count Amador "Chebo" Ballumbrosio, of the famous musical family from the city of El Carmen.  Ballumbrosio, son of his much-admired namesake, brings an Afro-Peruvian musical sensitivity and rythm to La Tarumba.   

La Tarumba started in the 1980s as street performers.  In the early 1990s they managed to establish an HQ in a house in Miraflores, and in 2003 they were able to purchase their tent.   According to their website they felt at  then that they were finally "a real circus", and committed themselves to putting on a show a year, every year.

So far, they've kept their word.

This year's installment was Quijote, based, of course, on  the story of Don Quixote de la Mancha written by Miguel de Cervantes.  It is a story that is well-known in Latin America, Cervantes holding a similar place in Spanish-language literature as Shakespeare does in English.   Moreover, Quijote's tenacity of struggle against all odds and his daring to dream of a better world resonate with Latin American's own history of struggle.

The windmill scene

La Tarumba did a wonderful job at creatively bringing the elements of the story to life in the circus ring

Don Quijote

By the end, the audience was visibly moved by the show and Quijote's longing for love and a better world.  It really was quite moving and sad, but La Tarumba was not about to let people leave on a down note:  Ballumbrosio led the musical ensemble in a rousing number drawn from traditional Afro-Peruvian music celebrating the harvest and celebrating life.

This was my second time attending a La Tarumba show, as I had also gone with Willy and Elba during last year's season.   I loved the show each time.   I do have a hard time, however, deciding whether first place in the audience's hearts is taken by Ballumbrosio and the musical ensemble, or by La Tarumba's troupe of trained horses.

Cusco: Celebrations

While we were in Cusco there was celebrated the 100th anniversary of Hiram Bingham's announcement of the existence of Machupiqchu.   As part of the celebrations -aside from a ceremony and concert in Machupiqchu itself- there were musical acts and a concert in Cusco's main square.

Some of the acts were folkloric dance groups, called comparsas.   The first of the below is from Cusco's Paucartambo province, and the sencond, from Puno.

In Cuzco

We´re in Cuzco.  Did the Sacred Valley tour yesterday, and after climbing all those stairs my knees and thighs are complaining!

Right now I´m at a cafe overlooking the Plaza in Cuzco, getting ready to listen to a concert by legendary Peruvian rocker Miki Gonzalez staged for the 100 anniversary of Hiram Bingham´s finding Machu Picchu.

La Noche

On the night before the wedding, a bunch of us went to the "artists" district of Barranco to catch a show at the La Noche club.   

This is the same club at which I saw Magaly Solier, Masacre, and Area 7 perform in August of last year.  Playing on this Thursday night was an old school mate of Carla's at the school in San Felipe, Lucho Quezquezana (known to old classmates as "Keke").   

Arriving a tad early, we found a table on the second floor balcony, ordered some water and a bottle of pisco, and settled down to chat and await the 11 o'clock show, which -in typical hora peruana (Peruvian time)- started promptly about 45 minutes late.

 

 

Quezquezana has made a longterm project of gathering musicians from diverse traditions and instruments and bringing them together to play Peruvian music and his own compositions, which draw heavily from jazz and Andean musical traditions. (I noticed that one of Quezquezana's percussionists was the same bald guy who was Solier's musical arranger and percussionist.)   On this night his ensemble was performing a set consisting of his latest album Kuntur ("condor" in Quechua).

The music was good, but I think that to really appreciate it one must be able to watch the musicians play the instruments and switch from one instrument to the next, particularly someone like Quezquezana, who himself plays over 20 wind, string, and percussion instruments.   Unfortunately, he is so popular that we were unable to consistently view the stage without craning our necks or staring between people's legs at the stage below us on the ground floor.

Conscious that we were to stay up late on the following evening, and that some of our group did have to work in the morning, we decided to call it a night around 2 a.m. and went home to get some sleep.

Area 7 and Masacre

The night following the Magaly Solier concert, and my last full night in Lima, Jacho and I returned to La Noche, this time for something a bit different.   On Thursday night there were listed two acts of a more subte nature: Masacre and Area 7.

Masacre was the headline act.  I didn't remember this at the time, but Masacre is a metal band that has been around since the 1980s, and is a mainstay of Peru's metal scene along with bands such as Kranium.   Instead, I had half-expected a punkish-type concert.

Masacre is an accomplished band and is likeable enough, but truthfully I found some of their music to be pretty standard metal fare.  I was more impressed with the opening act, Area 7. 

Area 7, it turns out, is a band that was started in 1999 by lead singer Diana Foronda, as a metal cover band.  As the lineup changed, the band began to compose their own songs and evolved into an example of Peruvian "Nu Metal"  (i.e. 'new metal').  

 Area 7 stands out for being one of the few all-female Peruvian rock bands, and they're quite good at what they do, to boot.  They were a lot of fun to listen to.  I'm sure, however, -in fact I know- Jacho would disagree.

It was actually kind of an amusing scene.  We two forty-somethings posted at the end of the bar with an expensive bottle of pisco, surrounded by disheveled teens and twenty-somethings drinking beer out of 1-L plastic tumblers and whirling about the mosh pit.  Jacho's such a good sport for having gone with me!

Here's a video of Area 7 in action that I found on YouTube:

The quality on videos of them on Youtube generally is fairly poor, but good recordings can be listened to here. I specially like "Fuerte, Intenso".

From the stage Diana announced that they'll have an album coming out for download by the end of the month.  I look forward to getting it.

Magaly Solier

On Wednesday night Diego, Jacho and I went to Barranco to see Magaly Solier, who was appearing the La Noche nightclub.    We thought that she might just perform a few songs to prommote her album, Warmi, but were pleased to find that she performed basically the entire album, plus a couple of other songs, including a rendition of Ricardo Dolorier's "Flor de Retama" which was among the nicest Ive heard.

"Flor de Retama" was written about the brutal police repression of a popular strike for education in Huanta in 1969, but it regained popularity in the 1980s as an oblique protest against the police and military repression endured by the population of Ayacucho during the civil war.     Solier's own songs also reflect her experiences and those of the region's populace during the war years, expressed -in Warmi- through the voices of several female characters (warmi means "woman" in Quechua),  like those of "Citaray", who lost loved ones to political violence, and of "Maribel", the main character and a "young woman who dares to help other women who are determined to not let themselves be abused by their men".

All three of us were impressed with what a nice, simple person Solier seems.   She's famous, with a several movies out, a musical album, and her face on Nescafé adds all over the place, but she's still able to confess that she gets "very nervous" whenever she steps on stage to sing for an audience.  The audience was small, but the space was also small, which lent the event a bit of intimacy, and there were some people she knew among the audience and she seemed comforted and pleased by their presence.

Nonetheless, she didn't seem to let her nervousness affect her performance:

Magaly Solier performing 'Ripu Ripusajmi' at La Noche, August 4, 2010

All in all, we were very impressed and glad that we made the effort to go to the concert, and I made sure to buy the album the first chance I got (in fact I'm listening to it as I type).

Ayacucho, Carnaval 2008

Here are two short videos taken by Diego of Liz and Co. dancing in the streets and plaza of Ayacucho during Carnaval. If you keep your eyes open you'll also be able to spot Danny and Juan Ramon in the comparsa. They did this for three days and on into the nights, and though it rained often, "it didn't dampen any spirits, just our clothes." The semi-official estimate is that 150 such groups took part in this year's Carnaval festivities.

Liz is in Peru

Yep, Liz is in Lima to enjoy some sun and leisure for a bit. Tomorrow she journeys to Ayacucho for Carnaval.

As a preview of what awaits her, I offer this video by Ayacucho singer Kiko Revatta, featuring some of typical street dancing in traditional dress (It also has some good views of the historic downtown streets):