INTERVIEW: Colombian band promotes Joropo music from Orinoco River Plains
Photo: Cimarrón’s new album is called Orinoco, which is a reference to the area where their unique folk music originates. Photo courtesy of the band / Provided by press brochure.
Cimarrón, a Colombian folk band, have had many highlights in their career, including being nominated for a 2019 Latin Grammy Award for their album Orinoco. As a group that has been recording and touring for 20 years, Cimarrón have brought their unique interpretation of Joropo music around the world, letting both Colombians and non-Colombians learn about the cultural richness of the Orinoco River Plains.
Audiences and critics have responded with enthusiasm for their infectious beats and rhythms. In addition to the most recent Latin Grammy Award nomination, they have also been nominated for a Grammy Award in the United States and won a couple Independent Music Awards.
Ana Veydó is the singer and Cimarrón bandleader. She and the band have traveled far and wide with the Joropo music. Their gigs have taken them to 38 countries and five continents, including concerts at prestigious festivals in Morocco, Malaysia, Switzerland, Abu Dhabi and the United States, according to press notes.
Although their current tour of the United States has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, audiences can still get excited for what the future might hold for this unique cultural band. Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Veydó about her band’s music. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
For someone who doesn’t know this folk music from Colombia, how would you describe it?
The music we make is called Joropo; it is a traditional music with Andalusian, Indigenous American and African roots, a music with great expressive force, with a high improvisation of singing, instrumentals and foot-stomping dance. Joropo is played in the Orinoco River Plains, a region shared by Colombia and Venezuela, and originally it was a cattle ranch festive dance music that included typical stringed instruments, dances and work songs of each country.
Since the 1950s, recordings and radio led to ‘standardize’ Joropo on both sides of the border, and the organology of this music in both countries ended unified with four main instruments: harp, a four-stringed guitar called cuatro, percussive maracas and bass.
We, as Cimarrón, are constantly looking to give an organic growing to Joropo music from its own original elements, going deep into its own roots, without mixing it with other styles of any other musical genres. The first thing we did was look into the rhythmic structures of the Joropo, and it seemed to us that the footwork had great potential to be exploited. For that reason we decided that the way to go to achieve Cimarrón’s own percussion proposal was to integrate the sound produced by the Joropo dancer to our music.
And then, when we realized that is actually impossible to keep a steady footwork on stage, we decided to bring an instrument of African origin, which is the Peruvian cajon (rhythm box), so our dancer could play on the cajon what he was doing musically with his feet. Then we integrated the Afrocolombian tambora and the Brazilian surdo, so we were able to make the presence of Afro more visible in our proposal.
We also want to put [at] the forefront the Indigenous contribution of the ethnic groups of the Orinoco, which have long been silenced by the Spanish heritage within Joropo music. One of the pieces from our new album presents to the world for the first time the sound of an old deer-skull whistle (cacho e’ venao) that is part of the ancestry of the Sikuani Indigenous people of the Orinoco, and its sounds under a cow-milking song based on old Sikuani tribes melodies.
What inspired you to create the album Orinoco?
Orinoco is an album that compiles Cimarrón’s musical exploration throughout our career, all the transitions between the purely traditional Joropo and the inclusion of all these new elements that enhance our Indigenous and African roots. But we also wanted it to be an album that reflected what Cimarrón is on stage: a big party from the Orinoco River.
We did it in the studio, but keeping the esence of the stage. It is practically a soundtrack to our show, which is also called Orinoco. With this album, our intention was to explore the limits of our roots until the point of making this traditional music touch the borders of so many other genres such as jazz, funk or rock, without actually even playing any of these genres, but from the same roots of the Joropo.
What was it like to be nominated for a 2019 Latin Grammy?
I think that awards for our musical work are heartwarming, and we welcome them with joy and enthusiasm. In some way, it reflects the way the public embraces our work. We had had the opportunity to be nominated before for an American Grammy back in 2005, making us the first and only Colombian traditional music band to be Grammy-nominated for Best Traditional World Music Album. We also won 2012 Independent Music Awards for Best Latin Album.
When did you first fall in love with music?
Joropo is the music that accompanied me since I was a little girl, but I always listened to it in men’s voices, with lyrics based on specific peasant work carried out only by men, the exploits of men and the relationship of men with their daily work. I quickly identified with Joropo because the strength of this music resembles my temperament as a woman, but also because many of the peasant work that the lyrics of the Joropo described had to do with my daily tasks as a little girl: milking cows, take care of the calves, make cheeses.
Where did you first experience Joropo music?
My first contact with Joropo and the first time I made this music for the public was at festivals and competitions held in the Orinoco. Then, on stage with Cimarrón, it was very amazing for me to realize that Joropo could have a great reach outside the Orinoco Plains, throughout all the country and even around the world. I firmly believe that Joropo can say something to the world and can represent Colombia as much as other music such as Cumbia, Vallenato, Bambuco. The world’s public believes in our music, and that is what inspires us to continue.
What’s the future for the band, especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic?
The coronavirus pandemic will change the way each individual looks at the world and also the way the world, as a collective, looks at the individual. We will understand multiculturalism in a different way and will give more value to the places where we come from.
I think that in the near future we will want to know the others and to know each other. This is a difficult time that affects all artists, and in the case of Cimarrón, which is a band with more international work than national projection, we had to cancel all the concerts we had pending until summer. I do not doubt for a while of our capacity as humanity to get ahead. Each of us will have to rethink our lives and careers from what remains after this experience. For Cimarrón, the future is to continue touching hearts with our music all over the world.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Cimarrón’s new album is called Orinoco. Click here for more information.
