4 posts tagged “nueyorican”
Mack the Knife, aka The Ballad of Mack the Knife, originally Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, is a song composed by Kurt Weil with lyrics by Bertold Brecht for The Three Penny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper). the song has enjoyed popularity for almost 80 years, being covered by many, many performers.
Ruben Blades, the Panamenian singer and composer (sorry, Drude for making you homesick for Panama), recreated "Mack the Knife" as "Pedro Navaja" in 1970s Bronx. it is a great song.
the lovely Ella and the Duke
*sorry for the lack of cover art. I've had this for ages and can't locate the album it originally came from
Aguanile (literally nile water, i.e. "water from the Nile", "holy water") is used in Santeria rituals. Santeria is derived from religious practices of African slaves in the Caribbean.
Willy Colon's arrangement of the song begins with African animal and human sounds - recalling the African origins and traditions prevalent in Latin America.
my favorite part of the song is near the beginning when the singer namechecks the Catholic latin mass by calling Kyrie eleison, Christus eleison.
salsa music originated in the Puerto Rican enclaves of New York.
on this my third year playing along with National Blog Posting Month - yes, hotrod, the name sucks. whaddaya gonna do - thought I'd try something a bit different, blogging on a theme. quite different from my previous nablopomo attempts, and hell, my blog overall, which is all over the fucking place.
so for this theme approach, I'll be digging into the side of my music collection that is not seen much in VOX: music from several Latin American countries, from different periods and musical styles.
again, I don't much trust to be successful at doing this, but the rough outline is four weeks with a different focus each:
week 1 - traditional Cuban son, boleros, Puerto Rico big bands (mostly 1940s-1960s)
week 2 - salsa, Nueyorican sound (1970s-1980s, some later and current)
week 3 - protest songs, the Nueva Trova de Cuba (1970-1990s, some later)
week 4 - Brazil - Tropicalia, samba, bossa nova (1950s-current)
things that don't fit anywhere else - tango, for example
we'll see what happens
