Notes
Chapter 3. The Transitional Period (c. 1929–1939):
Campanas, Tamboras and “Paan;” the Demise of La Conga del Tivolí
Campanas: Building a Sonic Identity
In the late 1920s and 1930s, conga ensembles began to replace the pico arado and sartenes with three extremely resonant iron automobile brake drums, usually called campanas (bells).[1] With this pivotal innovation, the conga santiaguera incorporated one of its essential sonic signatures and further distinguished itself from its Western Cuban counterparts. The unrelenting legato “clang” of the bells added a layer of reinforcement to the groove's foundation: two of the three bells (mani tostao and un y dos) play on all four main beats, all three play on beats one and three, and the high-pitched salidora (the essential emblematic bell commonly known as maní tostao), collaborates with the requinto and pilón bass drums to reiterate the hemiola figure (see Musical Examples 3.1 and 3.2).
Nanano: Unsettling the Groove
Santiago Guibert “Nanano” was born around 1912 in Los Hoyos; for most of his life, he lived on calle Moncada, across the street from the historic home of General Guillermón Moncada. Several testimonials confirm Nanano's exceptional skill at quinto and bokú and his participation in the neighborhood's tumba francesa and Carabalí cabildos (Galis Riverí 24 July 2023; Millet et al. 92).
In 1935, Nanano added a momentous innovation which permanently altered the groove: a prominent tambora accent just before the downbeat which he described onomatopoeically as “paan” (Galis Riverí 200-201; Valerino Giro 19 December 2023). According to Lázaro Bandera, Nanano was motivated by a sense that something was lacking in Los Hoyos' groove at that time; perhaps this was the absence of a prominent accent analogous to the columbia's bombo note (Bandera Malet 21 December 2023). Nanano is also sometimes credited with adapting the masón of the tumba francesa to the conga, a practice which soon became essential to Los Hoyos' sonic identity (Galis Riverí 11 December 2023; Herrera Nordet).
A few years later, Nanano was convicted and imprisoned for his alleged involvement in a horrific crime which made national headlines in 1941.[2] After his release in 1960, he participated sporadically in La Conga de Los Hoyos and Conga El Guayabito while earning a living shining shoes at the corner of Callejuela y San Ricardo in Los Hoyos (Beltrán Carvajal; Galis Riverí 12 December 2023; Valerino Giro 19 December 2023; Zapata Romero). Nanano died around 1987.
While conducting research I met about a dozen people familiar with Nanano; only three mentioned his imprisonment, and the true extent of his involvement in the 1941 incident remains unclear. I now turn to a Nanano's lasting musical contribution: the “paan.”[3]
“Paan” in the Clave Matrix
Galis' transcription of the paan tambora accent appears in Musical Example 3.3. Although Galis does not include an accent mark, it is worth noting that the “paan” stick stroke on 4a is much louder than bare hand stroke preceding it on 4and. The following year, the group added a second tambora, which played a similar pattern and began adding variations (Galis Riverí 200).
The paan's prominent accent on 4a is analogous to the columbia and Western conga's bombo note. As Gerstin and Peñalosa point out, the latter (1a in its 3-2 clave orientation) evokes the tresillo (Gerstin 22, Penalosa 94; see Musical Examples 2.3 and 3.5). Similarly, the paan evokes the displaced tresillo—it is a displaced bombo note. It anticipates the 1, the clave's first stroke (see Musical Example 3.4).
When combined with the deep pilón bass drum and its cohort of resonant sounds that reiterate the 1, the paan reinforces and leads into the downbeat rather than completely eliding it, as the bombo does with the 4 in columbia. Lázaro describes the paan as “strengthening” the pilón/requinto combination (21 December 2023). The paan/pilón (4a and 1) combination is often vocalized with two syllables and two pitches: “aaum,” while the bombo's vocable is the singular “um” (Bandera Malet 21 December 2023; Milstein “Toward” thesis ch. 4). This combination, emphasized with circles in Musical Example 3.5, also marks a new cycle of the quaternary “standard pattern.” It is one of two “transition points” where the pattern shifts from prime to displaced tresillos and back.[4]
The paan is “strategically interwoven,” falling between the 4and and the 1 of the tresillo; it superimposes a contrasting “wave,” which unsettles but does not topple the groove's hemiola foundation. This is consistent with Burns' and Peñalosa's models of a “continuous interweave” between triplets/tresillos and their displaced complements. As both authors point out, much of the momentum of A/D rhythm results from the interaction of “primary and secondary beat cycles” (main beats and triplets/tresillos) and their displacements (see Musical Example 3.5). The conga is no exception.
c. 1936–39: Los Hoyos' Groove Conquers Santiago; The Triangle Shifts
With the addition of the campanas and the paan tambora accent, La Conga de Los Hoyos had developed a distinctive and appealing sound. While early versions of the conga had borrowed sartenes and El Tivolí's bombo pattern from Matanzas, Los Hoyos' reinvigorated groove was now thoroughly Santiaguero.
After La Conga del Mejiquito moved its rehearsals to the corner of San Agustín and Santa Rita in 1937 and adapted Los Hoyos' conga-pilón groove, it became known as Conga San Agustín. (Galis Riverí 203, Rodríguez Lamarque). The following year, Bernardino “Nino” Videaux, disappointed with El Tivolí's losing streak, left the group and formed Conga Paso Franco, which rehearsed at the corner of Trocha and St. Felix in the Trocha Sur neighborhood. Most of this group's musicians, including its jefe de tumba (chief drummer or musical director) Victor Hechavarría (“Víctor Makindó”) were from Los Hoyos; they brought the conga-pilón groove with them (Galis Riverí 204). While Conga Paso Franco is generally considered El Tivolí's direct successor, the two groups competed in 1938. With the demise of La Conga del Tivolí after that year's carnival, the “conga triangle” shifted once again: its apex continued in Los Hoyos and its other two corners were the new home bases of Paso Franco and San Agustin; see Figure 3.1. With its essence clearly defined and its popularity thoroughly established, Los Hoyos' conga-pilón groove was now synonymous with conga santiaguera.[5]
In “Part 2: Nurturing the Tradition,” I discuss the development of the modern conga (c. 1940–c. 2010), emphasizing ways that competing conga ensembles have expressed their sonic and institutional identities and the innovators who propelled this process.
While most accounts attribute this innovation to Conga San Agustín, which was founded in 1937, Galis and Lázaro Bandera insist that the brake drums were introduced earlier in Los Hoyos. It is also possible that the campanas were introduced in the 1920s or 1930s by Conga El Mejiquito, the precursor of San Agustin. In Galis' own account, El Mejiquito is the first group to use a timeline like the now ubiquitous maní tostao (see example 2.6). ↑
Press coverage of the incident clearly seeks to link conga processions to danger and Black criminality (“El crimen del campo rojo,” 34).
Very few musicians in Santiago use the term “paan.” I use it to concisely emphasize its importance as an essential and definitional part of the groove.
Peñalosa also points out these transition points in The Clave Matrix (73).
Los Hoyos' groove was adapted by new conga ensembles San Pedrito in 1936, El Guayabito in 1952 and Alto Pino in 1954 (Galis Riverí 202-204; 213). See Chapter 6 for a discussion of the “modern” columbia.