Candombé

The candombe is a South American cultural manifestation, primarily related to drumming. It has played a significant role in the culture of the Rio de la Plata in the last two hundred years, with the Montevidean candombe being recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It is a cultural manifestation originated from the arrival of African slaves; constituting a fusion of musical, religious and dance features of the various African tribes present in South America at the time of colony. There are own manifestations of candombe, developed from the time of the viceroyalty until now, in Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil; in the latter country it still retains its religious character as seen in Minas Gerais.

History

Candombe emerged in the viceroyalty era as the main means of expression for the enslaved Africans who disembarked in the ports of Montevideo and Buenos Aires, as a form of communication, dance and religion.

The word candombe appears written for the first time in a chronicle by the writer Isidoro de María. Its origin dates back to the end of the XVIII century in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, in what is now Argentina and Uruguay.. Originally conceived as a pantomime of the coronation of the Congo kings, imitating the clothing and certain choreographic figures, it combined elements of the Bantu and Catholic religion. Although it is original from present-day Angola, from where it was taken to South America during the 17th and 18th centuries by people who had been sold as slaves in the kingdoms of Kongo, Anziqua, Nyongo, Luango and others, to mainly Portuguese slave traders. The same cultural carriers of candombe colonized Brazil (especially in the Salvador de Bahía area), Cuba, and the Río de la Plata with its capitals Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The different histories that followed these regions separated the original common trunk, giving rise to various twinned rhythms in the distance. It is of great importance to note that in their dance there is no imitation by the performers of their dance towards their masters (at that time) but rather they used their clothing on holidays as a commemoration of religious days of the culture.

Numerous researchers agree that the ancient candombe, through the development of the milonga campera, is an essential component in the genesis of Tango. Thus, the milonga, the candombe and the tango would form a musical triptych coming from the same African roots. But with different evolutions.

The Silver River

Uruguay Uruguay Candombe, oil on carton of Pedro Figari (1861-1938).

The Uruguayan candombe arises in Montevideo due to its natural port at the time that facilitated the constitution of Montevideo as the main commercial center for trafficking in enslaved persons along with Cuba.

Uruguayan candombe, over time, ends up acquiring its current physiognomy in the Barrio Sur and the Palermo neighborhood during the 19th and 20th centuries. Most blacks blended into what is now global culture. Their African rhythms and cultural traits mixed with the common cultural background of these countries. But in the conventillos of Montevideo such as Medio Mundo and Ansina, groups of extended families survived and became stronger around candombe. Thus, candombe became a representative emblem of "Afro-American" Culture.

Initially, the practice of candombe was carried out exclusively by Africans and Afro-Orientals, who had special places called tangós. This word originates at some point in the XIX century the word tango, although still without its current meaning. During the Great War in the mid-1840s, these Afro-descendants from Montevideo performed their ceremony with dances and songs to the sound of the drums at the "Recinto", located south of the city, in the extinct El Bajo neighborhood, between Yerbal street and the river. In the "Chronicles of a distant Montevideo" Domingo González (Licenciado Peralta), describes the "candombes" of the "Enclosure" as follows: "The monotonous singing, like the accompaniment and the dance itself, formed an original combination..."that resonated with these words:"Eculé...culé, lin...culé; Machubá...coloba minuet; Bigule, bigule...

Later, La Comparsa emerged, also called "Comparsa Negra" or "Lubola", which is the group that brings together typical candombe characters such as La Mama Vieja, El Gramillero, El Escobero and a large dance troupe represented by dancers of both sexes, who express a deep religious sense, vibrating to the rhythm generated by The drum string . They are also popularly called drums, although this reveals that whoever uses it is not knowledgeable about the subject.

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Uruguay Uruguay Comparsa playing in front of the Legislative Palace at the first celebration of the Candombe National Day.

Although candombe is played throughout the year in the Montevideo neighborhoods, in February the parade of calls is held in the Sur and Palermo neighborhoods of Montevideo, a competition that involves dozens of comparsas. Each one is made up of at least fifty percussionists, who are complemented by a group of dancers and the various characters typical of the genre. Numerous parades of calls are also held in the interior of the country, the most important being the parade of calls from Durazno, in the heart of Uruguay. It is there, in the Bertonasco neighborhood, the only monument to the drum in the world.

Candombe is also a rhythm that is used in Uruguay as a base for songs and compositions of different musical styles. His definitive introduction to the realm of so-called "academic" It was due to Jaurés Lamarque Pons, who incorporated the rhythm, the drum and the entire universe of candombe into symphonic music, ballet and opera. He also inspired the "popular", beginning with the authors of Tango and Milonga such as: Romeo Gavioli, Pintín Castellanos, Carmelo Imperio, Gerónimo Yorio, etc, leading to the milongón, a style that mixes milonga and candombe. Since the 1950s, he has been linked to Jazz and the tropical with groups and names such as: Jaime Roos, Enrique Almada, Manolo Guardia and his Combo Candombero, Pedro Ferreira and his Cubanacan, El Kinto, Negrocan and Totem incorporate the rhythm of candombe. Artists such as Eduardo Mateo, Rubén Rada, Jaime Roos, Rey Tambor etc. cultivate the candombe song, fusing it with rock and the Uruguayan murga. Also in the seventies, under the influence of jazz fusion in vogue at the time, the brothers Hugo Fattoruso and Osvaldo Fattoruso, together with Ringo Thielmann, formed Opa (also with the collaboration of Rubén Rada and the percussionist Airto Moreira), arriving in the United States with his candombe jazz. In recent years, some dance music groups of the so-called Uruguayan tropical music have also incorporated the "string of drums" from candombe to its production. It has also been adapted to the murga, another of the characteristic genres of Uruguay, with the name candombeado.

Today we are witnessing a resurgence, joining the tradition of the Comparsas and Carnival with the fusion of other rhythms (jazz, rock, beat, salsa, reggae, rap) and an expansion. The latter due, above all, to migratory movements from Uruguay to communities throughout the world, where they proudly display this expression of candombe in the most remote places. These candomberos play leather in Argentina, New York, Ibiza, Cuba, Paris, Barcelona, Japan, etc.

Argentina

Argentina. Afro-Argentinians playing candombe porteño on the night of Saint John of 1939.

Candombe originating from times of the viceroyalty, can be found in Argentina in cities such as Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Paraná, Saladas and Corrientes, among others.

The African influence was not alien to Argentina, where candombe also developed with its own characteristics. In Buenos Aires, there has been an enslaved black African population since its very foundation, in 1580, and since then there has been migration to the entire country. However, the visibility of the black influence in Argentine culture was reduced due to various facts. Among these we find the lightening of the skin color with the passing of the generations, due to the great influx of immigration, mainly Italian, and the consequent mixture. In addition, the concealment of the black, as a taboo subject, due to the imposition of a Eurocentric vision in Argentina, which led many Afro-descendants to deny their past. An example of this is the use, even today, of the expression "black" as a synonym for a person with a bad life, even for people without this inheritance. Other causes such as the yellow fever epidemic and the Paraguayan War have traditionally been cited as the cause of the reduction of the black population and the consequent reduction of their ancestral identity traits.

In the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), mainly in the southern neighborhoods today called San Telmo, Monserrat (within Comuna 1) and San Cristóbal (Comuna 3), all known in the past as drum neighborhoods, crowds of blacks congregated to practice candombe. It was decreasing in parallel with the invisibility that various national governments made of blacks since the second half of the XIX century, for reasons already cited and the immigration flow of European whites that displaced them from domestic service, craft trades and street vending.

Because of this, the Buenos Aires candombe suffered two fates, one part, the most traditional and that can also be performed as a parade, remained hidden from the surrounding society by the will of the Afro-descendants themselves for more than a century. In this way, currently the Argentine candombe can be found in meetings where the drums are played with dances and songs. On the other hand, mainly in carnivals, you can see the so-called porteña murgas, which despite their name of Spanish origin, perform dances and rhythms inherited from these candombes, due to the influence of Afro-descendants in their development.

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Argentina. Comparsa Negros Argentinos, from the Misibamba Association, playing Argentinean candombe.

Lately, some artists have incorporated this genre into their compositions and created Argentine candombe groups, basically the porteño one, and Afro-descendant NGOs, such as the Misibamba Association, the Afro-Argentine Community of Buenos Aires. However, it is important to note that Candombe from Uruguay is still the most practiced. Due to the immigration of Uruguayans and the seductiveness of its rhythm that captivates Argentines. For this reason, they not only study their music but also their dance and characters that they recreate in a similar way. It is played a lot in the neighborhoods of San Telmo, Monserrat and La Boca. While the Argentine variety had less local diffusion (compared to the diffusion that occurred in Uruguay); mainly due to the decrease in the population of black African origin, its mixing with white immigrants and the prohibition of carnival during the last dictatorship. Buenos Aires candombe is played only by Afro-Argentines in the private sphere of their homes, located mostly in the Buenos Aires suburbs. Recently, from its change in strategy to go from concealment to visibility, there are some undertakings to interpret it in the public space, such as stages and street parades. Among the Argentine candombe groups are Tambores del Litoral (union of Balikumba, from Santa Fe and Candombes del Litoral, from Paraná (Entre Ríos) Bakongo, Bum Ke Bum and the Comparsa Negros Argentinos; these last three from Greater Buenos Aires.

Brazil

In Brazil, the practice of candombe still retains its religious character and can be seen in the State of Minas Gerais.

Musical Features

Uruguay

Uruguayan candombe has a rhythm of four quarter notes per bar with a 3:2 key.

Candombe Instruments

Uruguay Uruguay - Candombe drums: reique (left), piano (medium) and boy (right).

Uruguayan candombe today is played with three drums: chico, repique and piano, ordered from highest to lowest. It merges with guitar, piano, and other instruments.

Boy

The boy is the smallest drummer with the highest register; It is the basis of candombe, the pattern that he plays would be like that of a maraca or a shell but on a drum. He plays the second sixteenth note of each quarter note by hand while the third and fourth with the stick, silently leaving the first sixteenth note of each quarter note. The chiming boy plays the second semiquaver with his hand while the first, third and fourth with the stick. The boy has a fixed pattern: each quarter note of the four-quarter measure is divided into four parts: boy 2

1. A silence — of semi-courteousness—
2. An accented, semi-open blow (like a snap (conga) but without leaving the hand on the leather), left hand.
3. Two stick blows, which hold on to the right.

Example:

Boy of 3 or 4

1. A sharp, semi-open, left-hand blow,
2. Three stick strokes, the last blow that some touch him accentuated (cae in the semi-cutchea number 1) which is held with the right.

Example:

Chime

The dimensions of the ringing place it in the middle, larger than the boy but smaller than the piano and, in terms of register, it is also located in the middle. Basically counts a rhythm of 2 cells of 2 quarter notes where the 2nd sixteenth note of the first quarter note and the first and fourth sixteenth notes of the 2nd quarter note are accentuated. Among these accents that are played with the hand the filler stick; this filling totally depends on the neighborhood and the toilet. The peal also fulfills the function of carrying the key (wood) on the shell of the drum and "converses" with the other peals and with the pianos. Normally it is the drum that calls both to raise or lower the tempo and intensity as well as to close and open the touch. The ringing is the one that improvises the most and its rhythm can hardly be described using technical language. An example database is:

Piano

The piano is the largest drum in the lowest register of the group of drums used in candombe, it is the fulcrum and the shaper of the candombe rhythm. The pattern he plays depends on the neighborhood and the musician who plays it. Not all piano players chime but it is something that occurs more and more in the different neighborhoods of Montevideo. The piano "calls", "answers", "grunts" and "has a conversation" with the chimes and with the other pianos. The piano usually improvises a lot, varying according to one or another area of Montevideo. In general, each group has its own piano rhythm that identifies it. The basic blows used in the execution of this drum are: Stick and hand hitting the drum in unison, dry and covered sound. Hitting the stick directly on the head, producing sounds that can be accentuated, open or covered, and that of the hand without a stick directly on the head.

Argentina

Argentina. Candombe porteño drummers, at a party of the Misibamba Association. Africa Community of Buenos Aires

Porteño candombe is played with two types of drums, exclusively played by men: “llamador”, "base", "tumba", “quinto” or “tumba base” - which is serious- and “answer”, “repicador”, “requinto” or "repiqueteador" -which is sharp- There are two separate drums, in turn, in two models: in an excavated trunk, which are hung with a strap over the shoulder and are played in a troupe parade; and with staves, taller than those and they are played while sitting down. Both types are struck directly with the hands. Two other drums are occasionally played: the “macú” and the “sopipa”. Both are made with a dug trunk, the first is played by laying it down on the floor since it is the largest and lowest drum of all, and the "sopipa" which is small and sharp, hanging or holding it between the knees.

Among the idiophones that always accompany are the “taba” and the “masacalla” (or “mazacalla”), being able to add the “quisanche”, the “chinesco” and the “quijada”. Whether candombe is played seated or in parade, it is a vocal-instrumental practice, with a large repertoire of songs in archaic African languages, Spanish, or a combination of both. They are usually structured in the form of a dialogue and are performed solo, responsorial, antiphonal or in a group. Although singing is generally a female practice, men also take part. In cases where there is more than one voice, it is always in unison.