You are on page 1of 11

This article was downloaded by: [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez]

On: 20 September 2012, At: 09:49


Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Emergences: Journal for the Study of


Media & Composite Cultures
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cemj20

Drum talk: sweet and tasty rhythms for


the orichas
a
Katherine J. Hagedorn
a
Pomona College

Version of record first published: 07 Oct 2010.

To cite this article: Katherine J. Hagedorn (2003): Drum talk: sweet and tasty rhythms for the
orichas , Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures, 13:1-2, 95-104

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1045722042000308255

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-


conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation
that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any
instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary
sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Emergences, Volume 13, Number 1/2, 2003

Drum Talk: Sweet and Tasty Rhythms for the Orichas

KATHERINE J. HAGEDORN
Pomona College
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

This article explores how the ‘drum talk’ of Santerı́a ritual drummers amplifies
a larger discourse about Afro-Cuban memorial geography. I examine territory
as a cognitive realm by comparing the way two batá drummers from different
Cuban cities talk about their rhythms in the context of a toque de santo, a
religious drumming ceremony in Santerı́a. When Havana-trained drummer
Alberto Villarreal and Matanzas-trained drummer Francisco Aguabella talk
about the way their respective batá rhythms sound, both use positively encoded
metaphors that gloss physically pleasurable acts such as eating, dancing and
having sex. ‘Sabroso’ (tasty), ‘calientica’ (hot) and ‘jı́camo’ (offbeat) are just a few
of the words they use to describe these rhythms.
Because many of Alberto’s and Francisco’s terms often refer to non-auditory
senses — such as taste or touch — they evoke the idea of synesthesia, whereby
the stimulation of one sense creates a response in another. Connecting the
drum talk about Havana and Matanzas rhythmic styles with the differences in
their respective colonial histories, I hypothesize that the quicker and more
insistent Havana style of playing emerged from a society in which more
Cubans of African heritage were free, economically independent, and willing
and able to succeed in small business ventures. Matanzas Afro-Cubans, on the
other hand, suffered greatly under the brutal sugar mill (ingenio) economy of
the nineteenth century, which rigidly circumscribed both professional and
social opportunities for that population. With this history in mind, I propose
that the ‘laid-back and funky’ style of Matanzas batá drummers has its roots in
a form of gestural resistance practiced on sugar plantations, in which working
and playing ‘behind the beat’ subverted the power dynamic of the ingenios and
encouraged survival.
The way musicians talk about music has long been a fruitful area for
ethnomusicological research (see, e.g., Seeger, 1977; Feld, 1990 [1982]; Monson,
1996). Talk about music reveals not only aesthetic preferences and norms of
performance practice, but deeply embedded ideologies about identity and
territoriality. My fieldwork with Afro-Cuban batá drummers from Havana and
Matanzas over the past fifteen years suggests that drum talk speaks loudly and
polisemically about race, gender and religion, and the various territorial
identities that these categories imply. Drawing on Judith and Alton Becker’s
(1981) idea of iconic metaphors and Paul Stoller’s (1989) work on synesthesia,
I’ll examine how Afro-Cuban drum talk implies a broader discourse about
Afro-Cuban memorial geography and local notions of authenticity.
ISSN 1045-7224 print/ISSN 1469-5855 online  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1045722042000308264
96 Katherine J. Hagedorn

The drum talk I refer to in this piece is the discourse about batá drumming
in two Cuban cities: Havana and Matanzas. Batá drums are essential for the
religious ceremony of Cuban Santerı́a known as the ‘toque de santo’. Santerı́a is
a polytheistic religious tradition with roots in the religious practices of Nige-
rian oricha and other West African religions, and with strong links to Catholi-
cism. Although the deities of Santerı́a, known as both ‘orichas’ and ‘santos’, can
be reached through contemplative meditation and verbalized prayer, they
respond most readily to the singing, drumming and dancing that occurs during
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

a toque de santo. In the same way that one can own an object or an idea, each
oricha is said to own many different songs, and even more rhythms, articulated
on three consecrated, double-headed, differently tuned batá drums. When these
songs and drum rhythms are performed well in the religious context of a toque
de santo, they evoke orichas through possession performance, sometimes re-
ferred to as ‘trance possession’.
Toques de santo are prevalent in both Matanzas and Havana, and the goal of
these ceremonies is always the same: to bring down the orichas. However,
Matanzas and Havana each boast different batá drumming styles, and a
drummer who is trained in the Havana style of playing may find it difficult to
sit in on a Matanzas-style drumming, and vice-versa. Sometimes these stylistic
differences are readily apparent, as in the rhythms for the orichas Ogún and
Ochosi. The rhythms that are played in Matanzas for Ochosi are structurally
the same as the rhythms that are played in Havana for Ogún: the same
rhythms, but for different santos. Sometimes the differences between the two
regional styles are more subtle as in a more syncopated voice for the iyá (lead
drum) in Matanzas, as compared to a more straightforward lead drum in
Havana. Compare the transcription of the iyá’s call for Ogún in Havana (see
transcribed Figure 1) with a transcription of the iyá’s call for Ochosi in
Matanzas (see transcribed Figure 2). The Havana call, though structurally the
same as the Matanzas call, is rhythmically straightforward, even given its
syncopation. The Matanzas call ‘swings’ a bit more than the Havana call, and
is behind the beat.

Figure 1: iyá call for Ogún in Havana

Figure 2: iyá call for Ochosi in Matanzas

Francisco frequently refers to the Matanzas style as ‘atrasado y funki’


(laid-back and funky), referencing a slow movement and a strong smell.
Alberto prefers the Havana style, which is ‘calientica’ (hot) and ‘adelante’
(pushing ahead). Susan McClary (1991), John Shepherd (1987), Simon Frith
(1996), Portia Maultsby (1990), Hagedorn (2001) and others have written about
the physical vitality and erotic pleasures of music. A prominent theme within
this literature is that rhythmic patterns and harmonic progressions are palpable
and induce or imply movement, and that the movement they imply (strong
Drum Talk 97

repetitive motion, moving toward release) is a reference to sex. As a compli-


ment, I have heard Havana batá drummers (bataleros) yell out to each other
‘dále’ (do it, give it your all) and ‘métele’ (get into it), both of which terms are
also used to encourage dancers as well as sexual partners. Matanzas bataleros,
in contrast, are more likely to call a certain rhythm ‘sabroso’ (tasty) or they may
yell out ‘jı́camo’ as a sign of encouragement during the most intense moments
of the toque (personal communications with Alberto Villarreal, 1998–2003;
personal communications with Francisco Aguabella, 2000–2003). Sabroso is a
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

positively encoded metaphor used to describe anything that is sensually


pleasing — from food to music to beauty to sex. A fair translation for jı́camo,
according to Francisco, is ‘offbeat or upbeat swing’ — another term easily
associated with dance.
Ultimately, these metaphors seem more related to the larger category of
how these rhythms make the drummers feel, rather than specifically how the
rhythms sound. Similarly, when the two drummers talk about competing
regional traditions (i.e., when Alberto talks about the Matanzas tradition, or
when Francisco talks about the Havana tradition), they rely on the same realms
of metaphor, but use negatively encoded terms. Furthermore, both Alberto and
Francisco often use double-barreled terms to describe batá drumming that are
associated with both oricha possession and sexual performance, such as ‘cógela’
and ‘móntala’ (from ‘coger’ [take, grab or catch] and ‘montar’ [mount or ride]),
which suggests a series of male-dominated heterosexual relationships: between
the drummer (male) and his rhythms (female); between the drummer (male)
and his drums (female);1 between the drummers (male) and the possession
vehicle (always coded as female during the possession process); or between the
oricha (always coded as male during possession) and the possession vehicle
(always coded as female during possession).
The polisemic realms of cognition suggested by synesthesia are explored by,
among others, Paul Stoller (1989) in The Taste of Ethnographic Things. In this
series of essays inspired by his ethnography of the Songhay of Niger, Stoller
writes of the power of sound in Songhay sorcery, such that sounds ‘crack’ and
‘weep’ and ‘whisper.’ Each of these metaphors works in at least two realms: the
auditory and the palpable. Working closely with the Songhay brought Stoller
to his senses, so that he paid greater attention to the senses in his own work,
something that he felt was missing from anthropological inquiry and ethnogra-
phy in general. Stoller’s sorcerers, like the Afro-Cuban musicians, speak in
metaphors about their performances; these metaphors are non-arbitrary, to use
Judith and Alton Becker’s (1981) terminology, and therefore iconic of culturally
specific referents and experiences.2 Francisco frequently refers to the Matanzas
‘laid-back and funky’ (atrás y funki) style that is missing from the ‘flashier’ and
more ‘forward’ (adelante) Havana-style batá drumming. Alberto, for his part,
also thinks of Matanzas-style playing as ‘slow’ and ‘behind the beat’ (atrasado),
preferring his faster, ‘hotter’ (calientica) Havana-style drumming. These non-ar-
bitrary referents not only suggest aesthetic and physical pleasure, but also
reveal concrete histories, geographies and ongoing negotiations of socio-re-
ligious identities.
Although they are of different generations (Francisco is more than twenty
years older than Alberto, who is now in his mid-fifties), Francisco and Alberto
98 Katherine J. Hagedorn

were trained by and played with some of the same master drummers, most
notably, Jesús Pérez and Trinidad Torregrosa. Francisco, however, thinks of
Matanzas born-and-bred Esteban ‘Chachá’ Vega as his mentor, and Alberto
considers Havana-trained Jesús Pérez to have been his mentor. Thus, the most
obvious difference between them is that Francisco plays mostly Matanzas-style
batá, and Alberto plays mostly Havana-style batá. Both, however, are familiar
with the other ‘competing’ performance style.
In several ways, Alberto and Francisco have parallel histories. Alberto has
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

lived in the province of Havana all his life (specifically the towns of Guanaba-
coa and Santos Suarez, both of which are on the outskirts of the city of
Havana), making his living as a folkloric and religious percussionist. A
drummer with Cuba’s premier folkloric ensemble, the Conjunto Folklórico
Nacional de Cuba, since the mid-1970s, Alberto has worked his way up to be
the head of the percussion section, a post he has held for more than fifteen
years. Alberto’s skill and knowledge as a religious batá drummer is well
regarded, and he and his group play several toques de santo a week in addition
to working as folkloric musicians. Francisco spent the first part of his life
learning Afro-Cuban religious drumming in Matanzas province, and then
worked in Havana as a percussionist and dockworker before he came to live
in the United States in 1957. Beginning in 1957, Francisco worked steadily as a
percussionist with Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz
musicians. Since then he has also maintained his reputation as a master
drummer in Santerı́a by playing four or five toques de santo a month in the Los
Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas, as well as several folkloric
performances each month (Fernandez et al., 1995). Both Alberto and Francisco
teach private lessons, and I have studied with each of them for about ten years.
Matanzas, where Francisco was born, is located just 100 kilometers to the
east of the city of Havana and is perhaps best known today for its beautiful
beach resort, Varadero. For musicians, however, Matanzas is the home of the
famous and longstanding rumba group, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, as well
as a first-rate folkloric ensemble, Grupo Afrocuba de Matanzas. In addition, the
aging performers of several rare and fast-disappearing genres of Afro-Cuban
ritual drumming, such as Arará and Iyesa, are now living out their last days
in the city of Matanzas. The province of Matanzas is often referred to as ‘the
cradle of Afro-Cuban folklore’ in Cuban sociological literature and tourist
brochures. Folklore, in post-Revolutionary Cuban terms, refers primarily to the
singing, drumming and dancing of the various West and Central African
polytheistic religious traditions brought to Cuba during its 350-year slave
trade, including Santerı́a, Iyesá, Palo Monte, Arará and the all-male Abakwá
secret society.
Not surprisingly, the province of Matanzas played a pivotal role in Cuba’s
brutal sugar mill (ingenio) economy of the nineteenth century, with the highest
number of steam-powered sugar mills, the largest total output of refined sugar
(601 metric tons per mill), the greatest area planted in sugar cane and the
largest total number of slaves on sugar plantations. Matanzas had 456 ingenios
with a total of 72,689 slaves, while Havana had 130 ingenios with a total of
19,404 slaves (Scott, 1985, p. 88). Cuba finally abolished slavery in 1886,3 and
Drum Talk 99

between 1887 and the end of the nineteenth century, about one-third of
Matanzas’ population of color (mostly from rural areas) migrated eastward in
search of better economic opportunities. During that same period, Havana also
lost about one-tenth of its rural population to eastward migration (Scott, 1985).
The urban dwellers of Havana remained in and around the capital, and the city
of Matanzas retained most of its urban population, as well. The relative
fluctuation in population between the two cities was caused primarily by day
or seasonal laborers from Matanzas seeking work in Havana — among them,
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

Francisco Aguabella. Not surprisingly, and due in part to this seasonal mi-
gration, Havana developed into a racially integrated and even cosmopolitan
city during the end of the nineteenth century and the first few decades of the
twentieth.
Fifty years later, in the 1940s and late 1950s, when anthropologist Lydia
Cabrera and her partner Josefina Tarafa began researching Afro-Cuban re-
ligious traditions in both Matanzas and Havana, Cabrera wrote that going into
rural Matanzas was like going back into the nineteenth century, into el tiempo
de la colonia (Bilby, 1998). Descendants of slaves still spoke bozal, the African-
ized creole Spanish of newly arrived slaves, and many were living on subsist-
ence wages in isolated, small, semi-agrarian homesteads. Even as late as the
1980s, Matanzas has been coded as more ‘African’ than Havana: it is ‘the
source of Afro-Cuban culture,’ according to numerous sound recordings and
travel brochures from within and outside of Cuba.
By contrast, before the abolition of slavery, the free population of color had
already been strongly concentrated in the cities, especially Havana. After
abolition and well into the twentieth century, Havana was a magnet for
Cubans of African descent who were hoping to break into the potentially
lucrative entertainment industry. From the 1920s through the 1950s, legendary
Afro-Cuban bandleaders such as Arsenio Rodrı́guez, Antonio Arcaño, Beny
Moré and Dámaso Pérez Prado were performing in the nightclubs and ball-
rooms of the Sans Soucı́ cabaret, the luxurious Hotel Nacional, the elegant
Hotel Plaza, the opulent Sevilla Biltmore and the imposing Hotel Riviera
(Moore, 1997; Schwartz, 1997). The city of Havana became the urban seaside
playground not only for the American mafia, but also for middle-class Cuban
and American vacationers for the four decades prior to the 1959 Cuban
Revolution (Schwartz, 1997, passim). Across the bay from the capital city, in the
smaller towns of Regla and Guanabacoa, Afro-Cuban religious culture contin-
ued to flourish.
Havana provided constant opportunities for ritual musicians from these
smaller towns to try their luck as percussionists in the bustling nightclubs and
cabarets. According to Alberto, who was born in the late 1940s, his teacher
Jesús Pérez, fellow lead drummer Carlos Aldama and several other original
members of the Conjunto Folklórico frequently gigged at these expensive
establishments as fill-in drummers and sometimes as featured percussionists.
The musical language of the danzón, the son and the mambo, according to
Alberto, had some influence on the religious drumming performances of
Santerı́a. Just as the rhythms of conga and batá drums were making their way
into Cuba’s big band music of the 1940s and 1950s, so were the sounds of
100 Katherine J. Hagedorn

Orquesta Aragón, Sexteto Habanero and Arsenio Rodrı́guez seeping into the
performance aesthetics of Havana-style toques de santo.
Yet Havana was not the only Afro-Cuban religious community benefiting
from the explosion in Cuban popular music. During a recent conversation,
Francisco mentioned that the slower, funkier Matanzas rhythms were more
likely than Havana rhythms to bring down the santo (evoke an oricha pos-
session) at a Santerı́a religious ceremony because people really enjoyed dancing
to those slow, sultry rhythms. The more people who dance at a toque de santo,
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

the more likely that a high level of communal divine intent will be achieved,
and thus the more likely that an oricha will come down. In fact, according to
Francisco, the batá drummers he played with in the 1940s and 1950s in the city
of Matanzas called their style of playing ‘Arcaño,’ after Antonio Arcaño, the
bandleader of the 1940s tı́pica orchestra that introduced mambo rhythms to the
danzón (‘Arcaño y sus Maravillas’) (personal communication with Francisco
Aguabella, 27 October 2000). People in Matanzas loved to dance to ‘Mulatica
Revoltosa’ (troublemaker, or rebel mulata) and other songs of Arcaño and his
band because his music was slow and sultry, not fast and flashy. Francisco and
his fellow drummers felt that the slower Matanzas-style rhythms allowed
people to really focus on their movements, and on the relationship between
their gestures and the music. This implies that people in Matanzas were
listening to recordings of Arcaño’s music not necessarily to crib riffs or to
imitate, but rather to reaffirm a pre-existing rhythmic style and aesthetic.
Francisco’s reminiscences are echoed by David Garcia’s (2003) and Robin
Moore’s (1997) research on Arsenio Rodrı́guez and the dance bands of the
1940s.4 The faster tempos and more energetic dance styles of Cuban music in
the 1940s perpetuated by such bandleaders as La Sonora Matancera and
Conjunto Casino were considered ‘whiter’ and ‘simpler’ than the slower,
‘blacker’ and ‘more complex’ styles of Arsenio Rodrı́guez and Antonio Arcaño.
By the mid-1940s, faster tempos were considered characteristic of the ethnically
and racially mixed New York ballroom, while slower, suppler tempos were
associated with more ‘authentic,’ ‘traditional’ and ‘blacker’ Cuban music.5
According to Garcia (2003, p. 208), ‘black Cuban dancers keenly listened to
musicians perform, expecting to engage in a dialogue between their bodies and
what and how the musicians played.’ Israel ‘Cachao’ Lopez remembers that
when blacks went dancing in Havana, ‘all you could hear were feet shuffling,
because the dancers were listening so intently to the beat’ (quoted in Garcia,
2003, p. 208). The faster the tempo, the harder it is to listen and move carefully
in dialogue, and the more tempting it is to transform dance into a test of
endurance rather than a rhythmic conversation. Although Arsenio had been
extremely popular in Havana, in New York and Los Angeles his slower tempos
did not attract large audiences. These North American urban dancers preferred
the up-tempo mambos of Pérez Prado and Machito, so Arsenio’s rhythms were
relegated mainly to Cuban-American audiences who already knew his music.
Garcia (2003) hypothesizes that the ‘blackness’ associated with these slower
tempos further ostracized Arsenio’s music.
During a drum lesson with Francisco in Los Angeles in October 2000, he
asked me to play a rumba guaguancó clave (a syncopated rhythmic pattern
Drum Talk 101

associated with the most popular form of the Cuban rumba dance, commonly
understood to be in duple meter). I did so (see transcribed Figure 3), but
Francisco kept correcting me, telling me I sounded ‘deje,’ which means that I
was making the rhythm sound clumsy and unbalanced. He then played a
version of the rumba guaguancó clave for me that was subtly different, and
which I could not imitate at first. It was only when I listened to my recording
of the lesson that I realized what he was playing: transcribed Figure 4, which
is played in a different time signature than Figure 3, and shares a rhythmic
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

structure with the ubiquitous West African bell pattern commonly known as
‘agbekor’ (see transcribed Figure 5) and associated with palomonte rhythms in
Cuba. Francisco had shifted the rhythmic structure from duple meter to
complex meter, thus correcting my mistake. In June 2003, during a lesson with
Alberto in Havana, I joined in a spontaneous rumba session with Alberto and
his friend Ramiro, during which I attempted to play the rumba guaguancó clave
(Figure 3). Again, both of them stopped me, saying, ‘You’re playing the white
clave (la clave blanca). We don’t play that. Play the black clave (la clave negra). It
sounds much better.’ At this point, Alberto started to play the pattern in Figure
4, shifting the rhythmic structure of the rumba toward the agbekor bell pattern,
as Francisco had done. His friend Ramiro breathed a sigh of relief and said,
‘Much better.’ In both cases, the ‘black clave’ was considered superior, more
complex, aesthetically desirable and simply ‘correct.’ The ‘white clave’ was
considered simpler, rhythmically awkward and ‘incorrect.’

Figure 3: rumba guaguancó clave

Figure 4: ‘la clave negra’

Figure 5: ‘agbekor’ or ‘palomonte’ rhythmic pattern

Alberto emphasized that people who grew up in Matanzas and learned batá
drumming there were considered to be Havana’s ‘country cousins’ — sweet
and well meaning, but out of step, and a little ‘behind the time.’ Interestingly,
Francisco often talks about ‘stealing time,’ whereas Alberto talks about ‘push-
ing the rhythms forward.’ In Matanzas batá playing, the goal is not to play as
fast and as complicated as possible, but rather to ‘hold back’ a bit on the
rhythms — jı́camo meaning ‘swing,’ but not ‘drive’ — to make sure that the
laid-back feel is maintained even as the ceremony gets more intense. There are
fewer viros (turns or rhythmic changes) in Matanzas-style batá playing, which
implies less overt effort and allows the possession performance to unfold
gradually, with the repetition of particular viros acting as catalysts for pos-
102 Katherine J. Hagedorn

session. In Havana, by contrast, the goal is to maintain control over a rhythmic


intensity and drive that becomes more complexly articulated and impelled over
the course of a toque, especially if a practitioner is on the verge of becoming
possessed. It is often the loudness and acceleration of a particular rhythm in a
Havana toque de santo that drives a practitioner ‘over the edge’ into the realm
of spirit possession. This speaks to different philosophies about possession
performance, and ultimately, about different socio-religious histories. Matan-
zas’ isolated and brutal plantation slave economy helped create performance
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

traditions that were segregated from the religious and popular music of white
urban Cuba until the early twentieth century, giving rise to a laid-back and
funky style that signaled gestural resistance in both work and in music.
Havana’s long history as a cosmopolitan, racially mixed hub for cultural
exchanges of all kinds led to the creation of polyvocal, multiply referenced
performance styles in both sacred and secular contexts, resulting in a fast and
forward-moving musical imperative.
Yet possession performances, like many religious experiences, are unpre-
dictable, and it is the relative ‘Africanness’ of the possession that often
determines whether the performance is ‘authentic’ — that is, whether an oricha
actually entered and spoke through the body of a devotee. For example, if an
adherent suddenly begins speaking in bozal, that possession performance will
likely be characterized as ‘authentic’ because of the indirect presence of an
African language. Similarly, if the lead singer chooses Yoruba song-texts for the
orichas that are increasingly obscure during the course of the ceremony, the
singer is considered to be more deeply involved in the ceremony because
obscure Yoruba texts require the singer to reach back farther into her African
heritage. And finally, when the drummers have to play for an exceptionally
long time to persuade a particular oricha to come to earth, that oricha is often
said to be ‘far away, across the sea’ (in Africa), and the redoubled efforts of the
drummers are said to represent ‘la fuerza del africano’ (the strength of the
African).
I end this work in progress with a series of continua that inform not only
the stylistic differences between Matanzas- and Havana-style batá drumming,
but also the larger cognitive territories in which batá drumming emerges and
flourishes: sweet — hot and spicy; laid back — pushed or driven; slower —
faster; rural — urban; blacker — racially mixed (or even white); isolated —
cosmopolitan; pure and traditional — diluted and professionalized; correct —
incorrect; authentic performance — commercially viable product; descendants
of black African slaves — descendants of free people of mixed race.

Notes
1. The deity that animates and consecrates the batá drums is known as Añá,
often understood to be a road or avatar of Ochún, the most feminized of
the orichas in the pantheon of Afro-Cuban Santerı́a.
2. Becker’s argument is fully in line with Lakoff’s and Johnson’s (1980, p. 19)
work on metaphors here: ‘no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even
adequately represented independently of its experiential basis.’
Drum Talk 103

3. The formal abolition of slavery came in February 1880 with the passage of
the ley de patronato (the ‘patronage’ law). This law, however, was meant to
provide a transition (beneficial to slaveholders) between the previous
period of slave labor and the coming era of paid labor. As a result, the law
obliged all ‘emancipated’ slaves to continue working for their former
masters until 1886.
4. Arsenio Rodrı́guez, the famous blind bandleader of Havana, was born in
Matanzas and moved to Havana when he was about 20 years old. Ro-
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

drı́guez was Arcaño’s main competition on the big band circuit, and the
two competed for everything from gigs to drummers.
5. Antonio Arcaño, while technically Afro-Cuban, was very light-skinned and
often passed for white. The ‘blackness’ of the music, then, was not
necessarily connected to the people who played it, but rather the memorial
geography of what it represented — that is, colonial Matanzas and its
sugar plantations. Perhaps as a result of his lighter skin color, Antonio
Arcaño and his band continued to enjoy access to the more exclusive (and
whiter) clubs, while Arsenio’s music remained popular mainly in working-
class Afro-Cuban establishments (see Garcia 2003).

References
Becker, Judith and Alton Becker (1981) ‘A Musical Icon: Power and Meaning in
Javanese Gamelan Music, in Wendy Steiner (ed.) The Sign in Music and
Literature, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Bilby, Kenneth (1998) The Yoruba/Dahomean Collection: Orishas Across the Ocean
(CD liner notes), Library of Congress Endangered Music Project, Rykodisc
CD 10405.
Feld, Steven (1990 [1982]) Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song
in Kaluli Expression, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Fernandez, Raul, Anthony Brown and Katherine Hagedorn (1995) Interview
with Francisco Aguabella, Smithsonian Institution Jazz Oral History Project,
Beverly Hills, California, 7–8 June.
Frith, Simon (1996) Performing Rites, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garcia, David (2003) From Son Montuno to Salsa: Arsenio Rodrı́guez, Race and
Latin Popular Music in Havana and New York City. Doctoral dissertation,
City University, New York.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Maultsby, Portia (1990) ‘Africanisms in African-American Music,’ in Joseph E.
Holloway (ed.) Africanisms in American Culture, Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.
McClary, Susan (1991) Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality, Min-
neapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Monson, Ingrid (1996) Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction,
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
104 Katherine J. Hagedorn

Moore, Robin (1997) Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revol-


ution in Havana, 1920–1940, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Schwartz, Rosalie (1997) Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba, Lin-
coln, NB/London: University of Nebraska Press.
Scott, Rebecca (1985) Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor,
1860–1899, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Seeger, Charles (1977) Studies in Musicology, 1935–1975, Berkeley, CA: Univer-
sity of California Press.
Downloaded by [Dartmouth College Library], [Elizabeth Perez] at 09:49 20 September 2012

Shepherd, John (1987) ‘Music and Male Hegemony,’ in Richard Leppert and
Susan McClary (eds) Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Perform-
ance and Reception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Steiner, Wendy (ed.) (1981) The Sign in Music and Literature, Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press.
Stoller, Paul (1989) The Taste of Ethnographic Things, Philadelphia, PA: Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania Press.

You might also like