Vol. 51, No.

3 Ethnomusicology Fall 2007

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Recording Reviews 6
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Tambora: Baile cantado en Colombia. 2003. Recorded by Guillermo Carbó 9
Ronderos. TAMBORA-YAI Records, Bogotá, Colombia, website: www.tam- 10
boramusic.com, YAI-CD 909603–1011. One compact disc. Booklet (28 11
pp.) in Spanish, French, and English by Guillermo Carbó Ronderos, with 12
musical transcriptions, color and black-and-white photos, maps, and bib- 13
liography. 14
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Known foremost for the cumbia and vallenato, genres popular today 16
throughout Latin America and beyond, the Atlantic Coast of Colombia is also 17
home to a tremendous variety of more locally-circumscribed musical genres 18
and practices. The music on this CD, recorded in the early 1990s in a cluster 19
of small towns along the Magdalena River some 150 miles upstream from 20
coastal Barranquilla, represents one of these lesser known traditions, a style 21
of music and dance known as tambora. Performed by a vocal soloist and 22
responsorial choir with percussion accompaniment, tambora is musically 23
and choreographically similar to other music and dance genres in the region, 24
including the bullerengue and, stripped of its melodic instruments, traditional 25
versions of the cumbia, all of which bear the unmistakable imprint of the 26
Atlantic region’s strong African heritage. As such, though many of tambora’s 27
musical and contextual specifics will be new to listeners of this disc, the 28
overall sound and musical aesthetic will be familiar to anyone with a passing 29
knowledge of much Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Colombian music, particularly 30
fans of roots cumbia and worldbeat star Totó La Momposina, who recorded a 31
version of the lead track heard here,“La Candela Viva,” on her breakout album 32
for the Realworld label (1993). 33
Tambora’s relationship with other musical traditions of the region is 34
perhaps most vividly evident in its instrumental ensemble, which features 35
percussion instruments found widely in Afro-Colombian communities of both 36
the Caribbean and Pacific Coasts. The core of the ensemble is a drum duo, 37
played by two different musicians, consisting of a cylindrical double-headed 38
drum played with sticks (the tambora proper), and a conical, single-headed, 39
wedge-tuned hand drum, referred to as a currulao here but elsewhere in 40
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© 2007 by the Society for Ethnomusicology 42
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 544   Ethnomusicology, Fall 2007

1 the Atlantic region as a llamador or alegre. The use of the term currulao is
2 striking, reflecting the broader colonial-era associations of the word with all
3 Afro-Colombian dance drumming, in contrast to its more specific contempo-
4 rary associations with Pacific Coast marimba traditions (Birenbaum Quintero
5 2006). Beyond these drums, one may also hear the guache on some tracks,
6 a metal cylindrical shaker that has largely replaced the maracas in recent
7 decades, and the sound of the performers’ unison clapping, marking tempo
8 throughout all songs.
9 Beautifully recorded by Colombian musicologist and composer Guillermo
10 Carbó Ronderos, himself a native of Barranquilla, this CD reflects a decade
11 and a half of his research on tambora; Carbó has also published a book on the
12 genre, Musique et danse traditionnelles en Colombie: La tambora (2003).
13 In scholarly respects, this CD may function best as an audio accompaniment
14 to that book, which presumably lays out in far greater detail the history and
15 contemporary practice of this music than the relatively brief liner notes are
16 able to do. The text of the accompanying booklet (in Spanish, French, and
17 English), in fact, constitutes the weakest element of the CD package, offering
18 mostly normative descriptions of the music/dance and taxonomic informa-
19 tion on genres and instruments, with little concrete contextual information
20 about these particular recordings, or how and why tambora is performed
21 more generally today.
22 The contrast between the normative descriptions and actual practices
23 heard on the recording is striking at times. Carbó Ronderos notes, for in-
24 stance, that tambora is traditionally performed at Catholic festivities during
25 the Christmas season, and that many tambora songs are thus “dedicated to
26 the Virgin Mary, Baby Jesus, and other related subjects of the Catholic Faith”
27 (22). Such themes are not, however, representative of the selections on the
28 disc, which focus instead primarily on secular pursuits and other aspects of
29 life in the area. The lack of any transcribed song lyrics is problematic for this
30 same reason; the relevant section of the notes describes thematic concerns
31 of the genre as a whole but contains no information about the particular
32 songs on the disc. Certain selections, like “Rescate del Magdalena” (“Rescue
33 of the Magdalena”), a call for the protection and revitalization of the Magda-
34 lena River and a protest against government inaction, virtually begs further
35 explanation, both of the lyrics themselves and the context for which they
36 were written.
37 Indeed, Carbó hints briefly that performances of tambora music in its
38 traditional context are rare today in many communities, and that the genre
39 is far more likely to be heard at, for instance, regional folklore festivals—an
40 assertion buttressed by the small photos in the text of staged performance
41 groups. Further discussion of this kind of institutionalization of traditional
42 music and dance performance, and its relationship to the changing discourses
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over culture, race, and heritage in Colombia’s complicated contemporary 1

political landscape—explored recently by Peter Wade (2000) and Ana Maria 2
Ochoa Gautier (2003)—would have greatly strengthened listeners’ under- 3
standings of the potential meanings of this music in its creators’ lives today, 4
as well as deepened the pedagogical usefulness of the CD notes. 5
These observations should not, however, discourage scholars or more 6
casual listeners from acquiring the CD. They will find plenty to enjoy in 7
the universally strong and spirited performances captured on its nineteen 8
tracks, which offer a tremendous introduction to the buoyancy and joy of 9
the music itself. 10
11
Jonathan Ritter University of California, Riverside 12
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References
15
Birenbaum Quintero, Michael. 2006. “Ethnological Histories and the Ethnographic Present in 16
Ethnomusicological Research.” Paper presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Society
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for Ethnomusicology, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Carbó Ronderos, Guillermo. 2003. Musique et danse traditionnelles en Colombie: La tambora. 18
Paris: L’Harmattan. 19
Ochoa Gautier, Ana María. 2003. Entre los Deseos y los Derechos: Un Ensayo Crítico Sobre 20
Políticas Culturales. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología.
Totó la Momposina. 1993. Candela Viva. Compact disc. UK: Realworld CAROL 2337–2. 21
Wade, Peter. 2000. Music, Race, and Nation: Música Tropical in Colombia. Chicago and London: 22
University of Chicago Press. 23
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West Indian Rhythm: Trinidad Calypsos on World and Local Events— 26
Featuring the Censored Recordings—1938–1940. 2006. Reissue 27
produced by Dick Spottswood and Richard Weize. Edited by The Classic 28
Calypso Collective. John Cowley, executive editor. Bear Family Records 29
BCD 16623 JM. Ten compact discs. Book (316 pp.), including illustra- 30
tions, notes, transcriptions of song texts, bibliography. 31
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On February 11, 1938, two representatives of Decca Records—Ralph
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Perez (recording supervisor) and Munroe Wayne (engineer)—arrived in Port
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of Spain, Trinidad, to record calypsos and a variety of other types of local
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music. Decca had been recording Trinidadian calypsonians in New York since
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1935, but this was the company’s first venture to the music’s source. With
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the pre-Lenten Carnival less than three weeks away, the calypsonians were
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already busy performing for audiences in Port of Spain’s seasonal calypso
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“tents.”Arrangements for the trip were coordinated by Decca’s Trinidad agent:
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Eduardo Sa Gomes, the owner of Sa Gomes Radio Emporiums (“The Five
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Palaces of Good Music”). Sa Gomes set up a temporary recording studio in
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the heart of the city, a shipment of new recording equipment arrived, and
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