Africa-America

And of course the transatlantic musical exchange continues. Colombian duo Bomba Estereo's Fuego (hugely popular across the Latin music world, but for some obscure reason unavailable on the UK iTunes store) references champeta, the music of the palenques - villages established by escaped slaves - which is itself directly influenced by Congolese soukous music.

In case you think this blog is digressing a bit, here's how you apparently dance to champeta.

African-Cuban music

Congolese singer Tabu Ley Rochereau, who I photographed at the 1985 WOMAD festival.

I mentioned a while ago how much I like Cuban-influenced African music. I got Gary Stewart's book Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos for Christmas and it's giving me some fascinating background - I'll post a full review when I've finished it.

I've also come across some great sources for Congolese music. A couple of weeks ago I bought the compilation Africa Boogaloo from Honest Jon's records which has some terrific tracks. I've subsequently found more (free) online sources of otherwise unavailable music: it turns out there is an internet subculture of world music obsessives who digitise obscure old vinyl and cassettes. Worldservice is one of the best - I'm currently listening to Jose Missamou's El Salsero de Brazzaville as I type. I particularly like the lyrics where he apologises in Spanish for his linguistic mistakes and says that the rhythm is what's important (in fact his Spanish seems fine as far as I can tell). Another good site is Global Groove where I've just downloaded a retrospective of Orchestre African Fiesta.

Finally, there's some great early Congolese music with historical context on Aboubacar Siddikh's YouTube channel, which also includes a lot of other African music.

Kizomba special

Thought it was going to be a dancing drought between tonight and New Year’s Eve, but Alain Hernandez’ Sunday night in Zync is open on the 17th - it’s a Kizomba special. 7.30 Beginners/Improvers, 8.30 Intermediate/Advanced, dancing until 2. Looks like quite a few people will be going - including me if I can get over this cold.

Haven’t tried kizomba yet. It’s one of those dances that looks great if you know what you’re doing. Andy put some zouk on in Risa on Thursday and I notice that everyone on the upper floor was dancing lambada and everyone on the lower floor was dancing kizomba.

Latin Music USA

Starting on 29th January, BBC4 is showing a four-part series on Latin music in the States over the past 60 years, from Dizzy Gillespie's Cuban-influenced latin jazz to salsa and reggaeton. Something to watch on Friday nights while recovering from Thursday's dancing.

The BBC4 version has been re-edited with a new voiceover, but you can watch the original online US version online on the PBS Latin Music USA site.

More Christmas stuff

Great that there won't be too much of a seasonal lull. Last nights for Andy's venues: Live Lounge next Tuesday (15th), Music Hall 17 Dec, Tasca 19th and Zero Degrees 20th. Tasca is open for a free NYE party and then again on January 2nd, and everything else starts back the following week.

Salsamania's Christmas party in Clifton is tomorrow night (Friday).

Christmas

Next Monday is the last O'Neills of the year, which will be a Kizomba special (reopens 4th January). As previously mentioned Misael's last Cardiff night is tomorrow - 9th - in Zync. His Christmas party is next Thursday, 17th, at the Fairwater pub in Newport. Salsabuena's Christmas party is on 22nd December in Las Havanas on City Road.

Change of plans

Just heard from Misael that next week's class is in Zync, not O'Neills, and there's no mention of rueda :(

Saturday

Saturday night was fun. Rendezvous in Las Iguanas: at one point we went downstairs into what was once probably Cardiff’s smallest dance venue (Than used to run a salsa night there). Next stop La Tasca: Abby and her friend Anna were down from London – great to dance with them again. Last time I met up with Abby was in London at a dodgy Cuban night, and to say that I wasn’t on form would be an understatement. This time dancing with her was great, just like old times.

I had a great time in La Tasca, one of those nights you don’t want to end. The rugby fans were good-humoured (and very impressed by the dancing). I’ll probably miss it this week (most people will be at Brean Sands anyway) and I think it’ll be a bit silly between then and Christmas. Looking forward to the New Year when the drunks stop coming and the dancers have the place largely to themselves.

It looks like the Christmas wind-down is starting. Misael's Wednesday class is going to be at O'Neills next week, and it'll be the last one of the year. He's doing improvers/intermediate rueda at 9, so I'm going to try and make it - his ruedas are great.

Ms Feisty is back in the country after sunning herself in Cuba. Looking forward to seeing her in Cardiff sometime soon.