Notes
Chapter 2. Rival Grooves (c. 1910–1929): El Tivolí and Los Hoyos
Sources
Mililián Galis Riverí's groundbreaking book La percusión en los ritmos afrocubanos y haitiano-cubanos [Percussion in Afro-Cuban and Haitian-Cuban Rhythms] is the most authoritative source available on the conga's early history. This work draws on interviews with prominent musicians who performed in carnival as early as 1913. All transcriptions of the “early” conga presented here are adapted from La percusión. Galis also discussed his research with me in extended interviews. Another significant source for this period is an annotated hand copied reproduction of Registro Municipal De Comparsas Carrozas Y Máscaras [The Municipal Registry of Carnival Troupes, Floats and Masks] in the personal collection of the late Yoel Rodríguez Lamarque “Yoel Quimona” (“the Rodríguez Lamarque collection”).[1]
The Rodríguez Lamarque collection, Galis' book, Millet and Brea's Grupos Folkloricos de Santiago de Cuba, and most other sources agree on most important issues, including the primacy of the Tivolí, Los Hoyos, Guayabito and Mejiquito neighborhoods in the formative years (c. 1910–c. 1925) of the conga genre. The most important discrepancies between Rodríguez and Galis are the founding date and musical origins of La Conga del Tivolí, which I discuss below.
Galis' version is based on first-hand accounts of musicians, while the Rodríguez Lamarque collection does not explain or cite sources. If I am to preserve this project's claim of being “musician centered,” I must give preference to Galis' version, which is based on vast experience with Afro-Cuban music and lifelong personal ties to the Santiago's Black musical communities. The following chronology is based on Galís' meticulous research and a broad consensus of other sources.
c. 1913: La Conga del Tivolí's Golpe de Columbia
In 1913, a new ensemble that would become known as La Conga del Tivolí emerged in Santiago’s Tivolí neighborhood under the direction of innovative comparsero (comparsa organizer) Feliciano Mesa. According to Galis and local oral tradition, the group was influenced by the conga dance and music genre its members had seen while serving in the Cuban army in Havana and Matanzas (and perhaps by El Negro Bueno's 1911 success, mentioned above).[2] They incorporated that style into their carnival parade, bringing sartenes (percussive frying pans) a bombo (bass drum), and hand drums (very similar to modern tumbadoras or “conga drums” ) from Matanzas. The group also included two instruments from the neighborhood Carabalí comparsa: a tamborita or requinto (small tom-tom sized bass drum), and a pico arado (a farm tool with a resonant bell-like sound).
La Conga del Tivolí included several ex-soldiers from Matanzas who taught the groove to neighborhood musicians.[3] Their title for that year's carnival parade was “Los Matanceros.”[4] They dubbed their style golpe de columbia “the columbia beat,” which I will refer to as columbia or “conga-columbia” to distinguish it from other variants of conga. The group's unique rhythm, novel choreography and impressive farolas (paper lanterns), all adopted from Western Cuban conga parades, combined to amaze the audience and win first prize in the carnival competition. La Conga del Tivolí scored an even bigger victory when visiting its rival in Los Hoyos, the tajona Los Songolotinos; most of the crowd joined them as they marched away (Galis Riverí 186–88).[5] Galis' transcription of the 1913 columbia is reproduced and adapted in Musical Example 2.1:
The conga-columbia's emblematic bombo pattern [x...x...x..o....], which was directly adapted from the Western (Matanzas-style) conga, clearly alludes to the 2-3 quaternary hemiola pattern; the former can be easily generated by omitting the last note of the latter.
Both patterns share a strong sense of orientation. The first half is stable or “straight,” aligning directly with the first two beats, while the accented “bombo note” on 3a anticipates and elides the fourth beat, creating what David Temperley calls a “syncopation shift” (84).[6] Musical Example 2.2 juxtaposes the bombo pattern with the hemiola pattern, the 2-3 rumba clave, and the “123” archtype (a “reverse” or re-barred version of Burns' “341” archetype—a “bare bones” version of the hemiola pattern):
Musical Example 2.3 shows what David Peñalosa calls the “primary and secondary bombos” and their relationships to the tresillo and clave (93):
The higher-pitched requinto in conga-columbia plays a two-beat tresillo figure [o..x..o.], creating a melodic conversation between its open strokes and the bombo's single open stroke. The sartenes, whose orientation I have corrected in my adaptation of Galis' transcription to conform with general practice for Western conga, play a dense four beat pattern. The most syncopated element of the columbia is the caballito (“little horse”) pattern played on several hand drums [..xx..oo], an ostinato that elaborates on what Burns calls the “ups” archetype (13).
c. 1914: Los Hoyos' Golpe Pilón[7]
In 1914, in response to their rivals' success, musicians in Los Hoyos were determined to innovate; that year's comparsa was led by Julian Garvey “Suñita” and included members of the Hechavarría family (known as “Los Makindó”). They debuted El golpe pilón or golpe quirina (“the pilón beat,” “quirina beat,” or “conga-pilón”), a distinct conga groove with far less Western Cuban influence than El Tivolí's columbia (see Musical Example 2.4). The group's title that year was Los Hijos de Quirina (“the children of Quirina”), in homage to Quirina, an enslaved woman from the Congo region who had belonged to the local cabildo congo (Larduet Luaces 51).While the requinto and sartenes parts are identical to and probably copied from those in columbia, Los Hoyos began to define its sonic signature with the pilón (a large tambora [bass drum] from the Carabalí comparsa) and several bokús (conical hand drums which sound like tumbadoras) playing in unison. The pilón drum plays a very “straight” (unsyncopated) “four on the floor” pattern with an open tone on the downbeat, working with the requinto to create a hemiola effect. The bokú salidor pattern articulates a simultaneous hemiola [o..xx.x.], also known as the “habanera” or “tango-congo” pattern. This early version of the conga-pilón strongly emphasizes main beats: every instrument (except the quinto, a bokú which improvises) plays the traditionally “strong” beats one and three, and all except the requinto also play on beats two and four. The requinto and bokús provide a secondary emphasis on the tresillo figure. This initial version of the pilón groove established an enduring hemiola-based foundation which musicians have creatively built upon for over one hundred years.
The bokú salidor: Congo roots?
Los Hoyos' 1914 bokú pattern and others like it have endured as essential elements of the groove. Many of these are uncannily reminiscent of other diasporic grooves which are widely believed to have roots in the Congo region: Congo de Ouro and Maculelé from Brazil, makuta from Cienfuegos in central Cuba, and others (see Musical Example 2.5). This similarity, along with the strong presence of the cabildo congo in Los Hoyos, suggest a link between this bokú pattern and the Congo region.[8] While the music of Santiago's cabildo congo has never been recorded, I am proposing the presence of a diasporic Cuban/congo musical aesthetic in Santiago which developed over hundreds of years among Africans from the Congo region, their descendants, and Santiago's broader Black community.
The Haitian connection
Galis asserts that the early pilón groove's strong emphasis on main beats was influenced by Haitian rara music (known as gagá in Cuba); this is highly unlikely for various reasons. The performance of gagá in Cuba has been consistently associated with Haitian agricultural workers whose migration to Cuba was legalized in 1913 (Casey 60; Galis Riverí 139; Pedro 58). Between 1913 and 1914, only around 1,500 Haitians arrived legally in Cuba; the vast majority lived on rural sugar plantations (Casey 52, Mcleod 608). To the extent that a few Haitians may have been in Santiago in 1914, either as residents or visitors, it is unlikely they would have had such an immediate impact on the musical culture of Los Hoyos.[9] As the Haitian population in Oriente increased between 1915 and 1931, the last year of legal immigration, so did the possibility that this community’s music was heard in Los Hoyos. The sound of the conga's campanas (brake drums, which were probably incorporated in the 1930s) is somewhat reminiscent of the bell section currently used by some rara ensembles. My general impression, however, is that the use of multiple bells in rara is not universal and that any similarity is due to a common musical aesthetic rather than a direct influence.
The corneta china: from China to Occidente to Oriente
In 1915, La Conga del Tivolí incorporated the suona, or corneta china (“Chinese cornet”), a piercing double-reed instrument that had been brought to Occidente (Western Cuba) during the 19th century by Chinese indentured servants.[10] Santiago de Cuba's first corneta china player, the teenaged Juan Bautista Martínez, practiced at the remote Loma Colorada, (“Red Hill”) to hide El Tivolí's upcoming “gallao tapao” (the traditional “secret surprise” of a carnival performance) from rivals; Bautista was often accompanied by bodyguards due to threats of violence (Brea López 26–27). As in 1913, El Tivolí stole the show: when they visited Los Hoyos, the crowd followed their piercing corneta as they marched away. In the official carnival parade, Bautista performed on horseback and the group won first prize (Galis Riverí 186; Millet and Brea 46).
The corneta china was quickly adapted by other conga ensembles, and its piercing sound became emblematic of the conga and the Santiago soundscape; its main role has been to state popular refrains which arrolladores (parade participants or revelers) take up in a massive communal chorus.
1915–22: The completion of the “conga triangle” [11]
In 1915, Victoriano Palacios “Vitué,” a native of Matanzas, aided by Nando Cruz and Che Mena, founded a conga ensemble in the Guayabito neighborhood; each of the city's three traditional comparsa communities now claimed its own conga. This group's toque (beat) was never transcribed or recorded; Galis believes it resembled that of Conga del Mejiquito (see below), while Vitué's great grandson Carlos Guerra describes it as a hybrid of tajona and conga. La Conga del Guayabito performed sporadically until the early 1950s due to a lack of funding. In 1922, Vitué relocated to the nearby Mejiquito (“Little Mexico”) neighborhood, starting a conga group there and shifting one of the corners of the conga triangle; see Figure 2.1.
Galis' transcription, which is reproduced in Musical Example 2.6, is notable for its lack of sartenes, instruments still used in Los Hoyos and El Tivolí at that time. El Mejiquito's “hierro” timeline pattern [x...x.x.x..xx.x.] may have set a precedent for the maní tostao bell discussed in Chapter 3.
In “Vitué: los inicios / Vitué: The Early Years,” Carlos Guerra Pimentel recalls his great-grandfather Vitué's role in the founding of conga ensembles in El Guayabito and El Mejiquito:
La Invasión (The Invasion)
Between roughly 1900 and 1920, comparsas (paseos, tajonas, and later congas) from Los Hoyos began to visit various rivals on the same day, a tradition which became popularly known as La Invasión (“The Invasion”).[12] This title was adapted by La Conga de Los Hoyos for its 1925 carnival parade in homage to the rebel army's invasion of Western Cuba in 1895. The unique and enduring connection between Los Hoyos, the founding of the Cuban nation, and La Invasión will be further discussed in Chapter 6.
1928: Matamoros: Representing Oriente (and El Tivolí?)
While “Los Carnavales de Oriente,” recorded in 1928 by Septeto Matamoros, could easily be considered a “Western” conga (Havana/Matanzas style), the presence of the corneta china, the prominence of La Conga del Tivolí, and the performers' backgrounds justify the track's status as the first recording of conga santiaguera.
Miguel Matamoros, the group's leader and one of Cuba's most iconic singers and composers, was born in Los Hoyos in 1894; surely, he heard his neighborhood's conga as a youth. Siro Rodríguez, who played maracas and sang second voice with group, grew up in El Tivolí (Rodríguez Domínguez 35). Corneta player Agérico Santiago Coroneaux, probably the Septeto's most experienced conga musician, performed with La Conga del Tivolí in the 1920s and 30s and then went on to play in various conga ensembles until 1965 (Rodríguez Lamarque). Rodríguez and Santiago's presence probably led the Septeto to emulate El Tivolí's columbia, which was virtually identical to the Western conga groove. As Pérez Fernández points out, Santiago's corneta improvisations are almost exclusively pentatonic, perhaps an “Orientalist” effort to evoke Chinese music (82).
“Carnavales” is probably the closest we'll ever get to hearing La Conga del Tivolí. Matamoros' verse evokes the imagery and hyperlocal soundscapes of Santiago's carnival, referring to a Carabalí woman (presumably part of this cabildo's comparsa) and the city's traditional cabildo/comparsa triangle: Los Hoyos, El Tivolí, and El Guayabito:
Verse:
Los carnavales de oriente
Son cosas tradicionales
Cuando suenan sus cantares
Arrollan al continente
El barrio del Tivolí,
Los Hoyos y El Guayabito
Los payasos que bonitos
La negra Carabalí...
Chorus:
Al carnaval de oriente me voy
Donde mejor se puede gozar
Verse:
[The eastern carnivals are traditional (well-established, deeply entrenched)
When their songs ring out
They sweep up the continent
The Tivolí neighborhood,
Los Hoyos and El Guayabito
The clowns are so beautiful
The black Carabalí woman...
Chorus:
I'm going to the eastern carnival
Where you can have a great time.]
I discuss the Rodríguez Lamarque collection in more detail on pages 14–15 of my Capstone Project White Paper (“The White Paper”).
The Rodríguez Lamarque collection proposes 1909 as La Conga del Tivolí's founding year and describes influence and instruments from two local cabildos congos. While the level of detail in this account lends it some credibility, Galis' account is based on musicians' testimony and confirmed by several other sources (Millet and Brea's Grupos folklóricos and others), and widespread oral tradition in Santiago's Black community. The collection's association of “tambores congos” (“conga drums,”) with cabildos congos is probably a misconstrual of El Tivolí's adaptation of the tamborita from the nearby Carabalí cabildo, and/or its use of tumbadoras (rarely called “conga drums” or “congas” in Cuba). There are many similar examples, including the mislabeling of a Tumba Francesa drum as congo in Figure 1.2, of outside (usually white and elite) observers confusing and oversimplifying Cuba's complex array of neo-African ethnic groups.
The 1909 founding date, if true, would weaken any causal connection between the events of 1912 and the conga's arrival in Santiago.
According to Galis and Millet and Brea, these Black soldiers from Matanzas had been sent to Oriente as part of the Cuban government's 1912 campaign to violently repress an armed protest by the Partido Independiente de Color (Independent Party of Color); this tragic event must be considered a key factor in the conga’s arrival in Santiago. For more on the events of 1912, see Helg, Our Rightful Share. For the impact of Matanceros (natives of Matanzas) on Afro-Cuban religion and culture in Santiago see Larduet, Hacia una historia de la Santería Santiaguera y otras consideraciones.
Most comparsas, including conga ensembles, adopt a title or theme which incorporates costumed dancers for each year's desfile (official juried parade); in Santiago, this is the time when congas (conga ensembles) become comparsas. For salidas (outings) when conga ensembles spontaneously accumulate followers, the group is traditionally considered a conga rather than a comparsa.
Rodríguez Lamarque lists two congas from Los Hoyos from 1913: Los Songolotinos and Quirina.
The term “bombo note” is often used to emphatically describe the timepoint where the bombo's accented open stroke and the clave pattern coincide: 3a in 2-3 clave or 1a in 3-2 clave. As David Peñalosa expounds upon in the Clave Matrix, the bombo note is structurally significant in many Afro-Cuban and African styles. He describes ternary and quarternary versions of a “primary” bombo which coincides with the clave, and a “secondary” one which does not (93). Julian Gerstin notes that the bombo note serves as a “stand in” for the tresillo, which, I will add, is essential to the hemiola pattern's two-sided orientation (22).
Los Hoyos' leadership currently celebrates July 25, 1902 as its founding date. The Rodríguez Lamarque collection lists the 1911 comparsa El Bachatero as the first conga ensemble from Los Hoyos. Galis' account is supported by his 1963 interviews with Suñita, the director of the 1914 group. Clearly these disputed dates hinge on differing definitions of “conga” (both the ensemble and the genre) and “founding.” See Chapter 6 for further discussion of this issue.
Abelardo Larduet Luaces describes an enduring “hegemony” of congos (Congo-region descendants) in Los Hoyos, wherein this group often got involved in cabildos that were supposedly exclusive to other Black ethnic groups (71–75). The Cocoyé tumba francesa society lost is charter in 1878 because a plurality of its members was of Congo rather than Haitian descent (77). While the search for “influences” and “African retentions” has rightly been critiqued, we must remember that culture bearers throughout the Diaspora continue to cite connections to African ethnic groups or “nations” when discussing their music and dance. I do not wish to imply, as some critics of the “African retentions model” tend to suggest, that these practices have “survived” as a link to an allegorical “African past” (García; Allende-Goitía). I discuss this issue in pages 9–10 of the White Paper.
The 1907 Census lists 2.6% of Santago’s population of color as natives of “Other West Indian Islands” (islands other than Cuba and Puerto Rico, presumably mostly Haiti and Jamaica); 95.7% were Cuban-born. By 1919, this figure was 2.5%; this year “Other West Indian Islands” meant islands other than Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica.
For a thorough discussion of the corneta china's origin story and Bautista's career, see Brea, “Carnaval y Corneta China,” Pérez Fernández, and Galis Riverí 192.
I borrow this term from Millet et al., Barrio, comparsa y carnaval Santiaguero (169).
↑The Rodríguez Lamarque collection mentions an official request by Los Mambises Gloriosos, a 1910 paseo from Los Hoyos, for authorization to conduct an “invasion” in memory of the mambises (rebel soldiers) who had invaded Western Cuba fifteen years earlier. Galis associates the early “Invasions” with visits to Mejiquito and El Tivolí in the 1920s (196). As with many other “firsts,” the exact beginnings of The Invasion are ambiguous and contested; there is little doubt, however, that this tradition began in and is unique to Los Hoyos.