Candido’s poster the great baseball lover and Conchita

It is midday on Friday 19th October.   As I sat In Candido’s house in Manzanillo ,Conchita (Candido’s wife) kindly served us with my favourite food of all time;  Rice, Beans and freshly caught fish.

All morning I had been sitting  next to Travieso (Fabre jr.) in his studio/ bedroom and listening to the new recording that he has been putting together for the last year or so and now it was a relief to be away from the blasting sound of music for a while.  The house felt  more like Piccadilly Circus than a house with people coming and going and the news was coming in that Candido was finally getting up.   In the sitting room there were people queuing for interviews, video work..etc and meanwhile all the instruments had to be shipped from Manzanillo to Bayamo for the night event which quite to my surprise sounded a much bigger event than I had thought.

Travieso “Candido Fabre Jr.” during his recording session in the bedroom of their house in Manzanillo, Cuba. October 2012

Eventually I finished eating and Candido came down, after a big hug I left him to his interviews and went to the studio putting some trombone to one of the  Travieso’s song.

When we finished everything was rather quiet and once again the house converted back  into a family gathering with Candido Fabre’s grandson  from his daughter Muñeca  and his wife Conchita .  As we sat around we took lots of photos and talked about how 19 years had disappeared just like a night.

Mo Fini, Candido’s Grandson and Candido Fabre

Candido Fabre and his family in his house in Manzanillo, Cuba

I still clearly remember, our daughter Nina was around one year old and we had gone to Cienfuegos for our holiday.  It was early in the evening and I could hear music in the street.  I left my wife Lucy and Nina in the hotel and walked towards a crowd of people.  As I ploughed my way through mountains of people I saw this young charismatic black singer  communicating with his audience as I had never seen before, he was indeed improvising rather than singing. He went on for hours and I knew that he was very special indeed. As I had to go back I pushed myself behind the stage and left my name and Tumi Music details to his violinist who had come back for a glass of water and asked her the name of the singer and she said ” Candido Fabre” and I said please let him have my card and that moment was the start of a long and respectable relationship between one of Cuba’s greatest singers and myself and Tumi Music. We went on to record 4 CD’s, and he toured UK and mainland Europe more than a dozen times. Today I consider Candido more as a member of my family and a good friend rather than a musician on my label “Tumi Music”.

On the evening of Friday 19th. October 2012, we all turned up to Bayamo.  As we approached the venue “El guajiro natural” the police were chaining off the entire area. I was driving with Carlos who had been accompanying me during the journey on the Island. I drove towards the barrier and introduced myself with the passport in my hand. The officer in charge soon removed the barrier and provided us with a parking space. I was accompanied to the back stage when Candido Fabre received us  with lots of hugs and smiles.

We went to the back where special seats were reserved for us, but I wanted to be at the front and  after saying hi to many people I left the table and went to the front.  Arturo Jorge, the trova band was finishing their last song . They sounded really amazing too.

When the band finished Candido eventually appeared after his band played the first two songs and there they were all Candido’s old favourite hits as well as some new ones among them some of my favourite songs ” La Habana quiere guarachar contigo” and ” De Cuba vengo y Cubano soy”.

It was a truly memorable evening that I will never forget.

We stayed until the last song and then knowing we had a 10 hour drive to Habana, we left quietly!

Mo Fini (Managing Director)

CD Review: Taken from

Freegan Kolektiva

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEIPGT0LUQ8&feature=player_embedded

Genre: Bomba / Afro-latin / Roots / Puerto Rican folk
Region: Puerto Rico,
Artists’ Website: Hijos De Agueybana Facebook
Label: Tumi Music

Hijos De Agüeybaná spreading bomba
Agua Del Sol is the debut album of Hijos De Agüeybaná, however the band has been performing on stage and conducting workshops for more than a decade. Led by Otoqui Reyes, this 8-piece ensemble is committed to preserving their Afro-Caribbean heritage by researching their roots. Barril-Primo is played by Otoqui Reyes and his father and bomba guru Ángel Luis Reyes, subidor is played by Ramon Vazquez and Papo Aguilú while Naomi Vasquez, Minerva Rosa and Quique Hernández form the singing section of the group

The eternal vibration of African rhythms has enchanted the world. During the last years, more and more styles of music related to African percussions are coming to the fore – just think of kuduro, kizomba and afrobeat among others. Within this upsurge, Afro-latin music has been greatly exposed from Cuban and Afro-Peruvian artists to Colombian cumbia andlabels like Soundway, which specialize in tropical sounds. Now, it is the time of the Puerto Rican African community’s own music, Bomba, to reach all those world music lovers.
‘Agua Del Sol’ is loaded with percussions and group chanting, like in constant dialogue, a style of tribal origin. The multi-layered, recurring beats reinforce the message of the melodious voices and vice versa, delivering celebrated mantras to solidarity, community-life and local culture. Compared to its African counterparts, Bomba music is less rough, emphasising more the vocal harmonies and restricting tempo changes and rhythm shifts within a song.
Bomba – the language of freedom in times of slavery

Bomba, like it happened with other styles in other parts of the Americas, became the unique form of expression of the black slaves that were transported all the way from Africa to work in the sugar plantations of Puerto Rico. Working in slavery under dreadful conditions the ‘Bomba rituals’ (like during St. James festival) helped the people stay together and retain their African identity in the ‘new world’. Bomba’s drumming and dance became the common thread not only among all those different African peoples speaking different languages but also across generations to pass on the knowledge of rhythm and history to the youth.

This music thrived in communities like Ponce, Guayama and Loiza Aldea even after liberation and is still played with one large percussion, called buleador (or barril-primo) and a smaller one called subidor while it is accompanied by all sorts of rhythmic instruments like maracas and sticks thus three or more layers of percussions are woven together. However, buleador plays the main role of interacting with the dancers in a continuous ‘conversation’, where musicians and dancers challenge each other. Bomba is based on musical and lyrical improvisation, or ‘controversia’, which is the heart of much of Puerto Rican folk music. Songs often start with a ‘liana’, where the main singer is reinforced by the chorus in a call and response fashion before the drumming begins. Bomba groups are used to go from place to place performing in open air sessions on the beach, on the streets etc. in all night long rum-fueled sessions.

 
Welcome to  Latin Music Downloads  where you will find music from all corners of Latin & South America and African roots including the Andes, Cuba, Caribbean, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, Chile and Africa.

We will be blogging giving exciting news on Latin America on regular bases. Do come back and check us out.

As the founder and director of Tumi MusicI  have spent over 30 years recording, researching and writing on Latin America and It will be mostly myself bringing you first class news and blogs. Do give me your feed backs. I love to hear from you.

If you like to hear more about what I do and what I have done you can always check me out on mofini.com my personal webpage. Music, Love and culture go in hand!

Mo Fini (March 2013)