Etelvina Maldonado Canto y Repique de Tambor
Corporación Cultural Cabildo del músico - 2006
Tracks:
1.Así Así
2.Déjala Dí
3.Camisola
4.A Piá El Arró
5.Juana Gómez
6.Llego La Cumbia
7.Dame La Mano Prima
8.Llorando
9.Ron Café
10.Que Se Quema El Monte
11.Déjala Llorar
12.Manuelita
Músicos:
Cantaora: Etelvina Maldonado De La Hoz Tambor Alegre: Orlando Oliveros, Tambor Alegre: Víctor Medrano (El docto), Gaita Hembra: Stanley Montero, Bombo: Luis Ramos, Guache: Stanley Montero, Coros: Cecilia Silva, Vania Gelabert y Luis Gonzalez (Luchito).
Colombian Folk Music Legend Etelvina Maldonado Dies at 75
By WMC News Dept. Saturday January 30, 2010
Her legend was solidified in 1996 when the Alé Kumá album by Leonardo Gómez came out. It was a fusion of jazz with traditional music and it included four cantaoras, two from the Pacific region and two from the Caribbean area, combined with a jazz group. One of the female singers was Maldonado.
Since then, Maldonado became known as one of the leading cultivators of Colombian traditional music. One of her highlights was her participation at the Gran Concierto Nacional held last year, where she showcased her talent.
Colombian music critics regarded her as one of the top folk vocalists in Colombia along with Totó La Momposina and Petrona Martínez. However, her fragile health prevented her from touring.
"Etelvina Maldonado was a legend of traditional Colombian music and one of the most important interpreters of Afro-Colombian song," said Kaisha S. Johnson, Director of Touring Artists at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance. "Of particular note, was her association with bullerengue, a musical style originating on the Caribbean coast of Colombia."
Singing was her passion, but also a way to escape poverty. "Every time I went to participate in festivals, I always won or was one of the best," said Etelvina. "In one occasion I sold several of those awards for an opportunity to register my son at school. I’ve always been ready to solve any problem to further their education."
Colombian folklore at its nuanced best.
Featuring the vocalists Etelvina Maldonado, Gloria Perea, Martina Camargo, and Benigna Solis, Alé Kumá fuses soulful singing with driving percussion in the styles of fandando, aguabajo, cumbia, currulao, bullerengue entao, tambora golpiá, canción afro, juga, abozao, bunde, guacherna, chalupa, and berejú. Highly Recommended. (BP, 2009-03-10)
Alé Kumá's name comes from a traditional Colombian dance, whose origin is indigenous (Guahibo community, located at the east of Colombia) and symbolizes the familiar union that could be translated as "union without rupture". Since its creation, Alé Kumá, has called to collaborate with some of the most interesting Colombian musicians. The greatest afro-Colombian percussionist, Paulino Salgado "Batata III" from San Basilio de Palenque, who already passed away, gave a big contribute to Alé Kumá's project.
The work of Alé Kumá explores the different musical styles from African influence that are largely played along the Pacific and Atlantic Colombian coasts, as for instance cumbia, fandango, bullerengue, currulao, aguabajo, tambora, paseos, porros. Leonardo and Freddy (piano player) met veteran country cantaoras that have been making circulate the songs from woman to woman and from generation to generation and a lot of master country percussionists who play this music. Their songs are full of regionalismos and what Leonardo and Freddy have learnt from them is not just its rhythms but its aesthetic and different ways of interpretation that change from one village to another.
What Alé Kumá does is pick up all the different styles of this music, traditional instruments and some of the best representative cantaoras from both Atlantic and Pacific Coast and join harmoniously in the piano and contrabass. The result is traditional compositions arranged with a contemporary touch. The unusual instrument combinations, the clear and pure choral styles and the deep and feisty cantaoras' voices give a magic soul sound that is the key to the success of Alé Kumá.
The experience, sensibility and respect of both traditional and urban musicians became the springboard for Alé Kumá's reinvention of the afro-Colombian musical style. In the Colonial period the Spanish brought European instruments that little by little were introduced into the traditional formats. Some of them as the guitar and the harp were transformed. Some others as the accordion, which later was introduced into vallenato music, and the piano remain intact but adopted the rhythms, melodies and modes from the music to which they were incorporated. The piano and contrabass never before have been introduced into afro-Colombian music but when the musicians and the cantaoras Etelvina Maldonado, Martina Camargo, Benigna Solis and Gloria Perea listened to Freddy's piano and Leonardo's contrabass they were charmed by their sound. All of them were opened up to this new format and immediately aware that they were going to sing and play in a not strictly traditional way.
Alé Kumá's music can't be marketed under the umbrella of straight traditional afro-Colombian music, despite the fact that it preserves the typical elements of the popular tradition. Alé Kumá is the result of a collective criterion, where each one of its experienced members furnishes ideas to the arrangements, which are based on the spontaneity and expressivity of these musical traditions. Alé Kumá is very much their own style and sound.
It is the Colombian's soul music!
Alé Kumá have recorded till now two fantastic productions. The debut album Cantaoras, declared the best year's traditional production by Colombian weekly magazine Semana, was a highlight of afro-Colombian music in 2002, selling in Colombia more CD's than any other traditional production. It got the gold album, becoming the first time that in Colombia a traditional work was awarded with a such prize.
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