The African Components of the Folk Music of Venezuela
A Conversation with Jesús "Chucho"García – Part II

by Carlos Giménez

Jesús "Chucho" García is an ethnologist president of the Afroamérica Foundation in Caracas, Venezuela, and editor of the journal Africamérica, dedicated to the study and research of the contributions of the African peoples to the culture of the Americas.

In a recent visit to Washington DC, we had the opportunity to converse with Chucho.

Clave: Chucho, what is the influence of Jazz in the Afro-Venezuelan music?

Right now, for example, we linked our last percussion event in Barlovento, last year in May, with jazz. We invited the best jazz percussionists, the best jazz drum set players, one of the best percussionists on tumbadoras, an important vibraphonist, and people like Miguel Urbina. We then had an important discussion on the importance of Afro-Venezuelan percussion in jazz.

Almost all of the groups that play jazz in Venezuela have now been incorporating this kind of percussion. For example, a very well-known musician who is now a professor at Berklee, made a record working mainly with the musical structure of San Millán, using the culo’e puya drums from Barlovento. Andrés Briceño has done the same thing, as well as the group led by Alfredo Naranjo. Another group, called Naroa, led by a young man who also studied in Berklee, is also doing this work. In other words, Afro-Venezuelan music is enriching the language of Jazz.

Some time back, in 1989, I was an advisor to a jazz group called Cimarrón, with which I participated singing and playing in a few occasions, especially Afro-Venezuelan songs. I incorporated some instruments from Congo that I took to Venezuela. We were able to take part in the Jazz Plaza Festival in Cuba, and pianist Chucho Valdéz gave us some encouraging advice, which was that we should continue in that direction, because it was important to project Venezuelan music through jazz, which was a more universal language. He especially liked the culo’e puya drums, which just exploded during the Jazz Plaza Festival at Casa de la Cultura in Havana.

So it is in fashion now. We can also see the inclusion of other, less universal genres, like gaita, of which a few sections have been incorporated into pop and popular music.

Clave: That’s interesting, because gaita is one of the best-known genres within the country. Can you tell us something about its structure, where it comes from, how the furruco and the tambora became part of it?

There are two main kinds of gaita. There is the gaita margariteña, which is very Galician. The gaita de furro, however, from Maracaibo, in the Zulia state, is a whole different thing. We think it’s simply a creation from the town of Sulea, in Maracaibo. As you know, the epicenter of all that development was in El Saladillo, in Maracaibo.

There are many who say that the furruco comes from the Canary Islands, but we say that the furruco actually originates from the Congo, but with the difference that the furruco in Congo is played with the hand on the inside, like the cuica in Brasil.

The other gaita is the gaita de tambora, from the South of Lake Maracaibo. This is where the tamborera rhythm originates from, along with its basic structure of what we now call the Guaco rhythm. You can note that, for example, the gaita de tambora essentially carries its main beat using the tamborín.

Then the origins of the tamborera which everyone knows is based on the gaita de tambora, which is part of the holiday celebrations from the 26 of December until the January 6th in the South of Maracaibo. And, as you pointed out, there has always been a competition between the gaita de furro and the tamborera, or the gaita de tambora. In the end, the Guaco musical group held out and managed to open that space with the tamborera, which is why people often refer to the Guaco rhythm as such.

Then Guaco began to work, as far as harmonies is concerned, incorporating different Cuban piano styles, mainly using the style developed by Lilí Martínez, the pianist for Arsenio Rodríguez. Guaco takes all of these elements, as well as the way the bass drops in on the Cuban son, incorporating them into the tamborera rhythm.

Clave: Guaco also has added many Afro-Cuban elements.

Yes, and as an example, in one of their earlier records they brought in batá drums. They incorporated these elements from Afro-Cuban music, and of course the tumbadoras, but always maintaining the rhythm of the tamborera in the background. Listen carefully, and you’ll hear it. You’ll hear the essence of the gaitas de tambora.

Unfortunately a record I made with three gaitas, from the South of Maracaibo, on chimbanglé drums and gaita de tambora, is out of print. But we’ll figure out some way to send you something so that you can hear it. I’m still hoping to have them reissued, because the first three records sold out.

Clave: During the 1970s and 80s there was an expansion of groups like Un solo pueblo, Grupo Vera, and Madera, which did a lot of work to rescue the Afro-Venezuelan traditions and music from the coast, with a lot of research, and developing it even further. Where is that process now? Is there a re-evaluation? Is there a movement?

Above all, during the 1970s, there was a boom in Afro-Venezuelan music mostly because a sector of the cultural industry, the recording industry, understood that it could sell. When the recording company signed up Un solo pueblo, nothing happened with the first two records, but after the third record it exploded. Perhaps this was related somewhat to the nationalist sentiments emerging with the nationalizing of iron and oil industries. Around 1975 a National Law on Culture was passed, which used a term that is not correct, because it does not exist in social science. They used the term transculturization, when it should be transculturation. This latter one was a term created by Cuban researcher Fernando Ortiz in his book about the Cuban struggle against the demons of tobacco and sugar. The law, albeit badly written, referred to putting the brakes on cultural penetration and on the repertoire that’s a little tiresome at this point in the century. So, we could say that groups like Un solo pueblo and Madera —most of whose members lamentably drowned in an accident in the Orinoco river— reclaimed Afro-Venezuelan music as something significant and important during the period of the late 1970s to the late 80s, when it entered a period of decline. Why did it decline? Because after a point, those groups were only dedicated to rescuing a music that was thought to be dying, drowning. What didn’t happen was a creative process, a process of deep understanding as a point of departure for new horizons. That is that makes us different from, for example, countries like Cuba, Jamaica, or Brazil. Anywhere you are in the world, you can hear music and say "that’s Cuban" it’s either a son, or a guaguancó, or a yambú or a columbia; or you when you hear a samba you can say "that’s Brazil," or if you hear reggae, you say "that’s Jamaica." In the case of Venezuela, for lack of a vision, and in large part for lack of a musical formation that could place us to some degree on the world stage, our music has been ghettoized. A period came when there was nothing more to be expressed, trying to maintain the music with the same lines and choruses of ole-le-le-le or "María Washes the Clothes." Musicians were not composing. However, the masses of people did continue, unnoticed, to create, but the groups we mentioned were eventually exhausted and other groups attempted to imitate them, to outdo Un solo pueblo, while being only bad imitations. You then see a decline in the production, because new roads were not pursued, as they were in Cuba, Jamaica, and Brazil.

Before then, Aldemaro Romero had attempted to do something with what was called the Festivales de Onda Nueva, but unfortunately it had the imprint of Brazilian music, sounding a lot like bossa nova, and also did not last. There were other attempts to find some fresh air, and I’m talking about groups that projected what was national, that projected some kind of traditional music, like Un solo pueblo, or that called themselves groups with a folkloric projection, a different type of group with a certain musical formation. For example, Vitas Brener, who attempted to insert a Venezuelan cuatro and harp into its rock ensemble during the 1970’s, especially combining it with synthesizers.

The fact is that many groups tried to do something. There was also the case of La banda municipal de Caracas, working especially with the Caracas merengue, but they didn’t take the chance and stick to it. When something works it’s often a result of perseverance. When the mambo became popular in the 1950’s, while everyone was telling Pérez Prado that he was crazy, it worked because he persevered. When the tropicalia movement erupted in Brazil, with Gilberto Gil and all those folks, it became successful because of perseverance and believing in something and having faith in it. But in Venezuela, this process has not yet taken place.

Clave: But all this is closely connected to the political process of the country. When there is a current of nationalism in the country, there is a boom, then when nationalism collapses, the free market comes into play.

Yes, it could be, that could be a variable to take into account, but I think that it mostly had to do with the exhaustion of the project itself, because there has been no renewal. If you think about it, Venezuela possesses a tremendous cultural diversity, but it lacks something to weave it together like, as I said before, as in the case of Brazil or Cuba. Perhaps one of those genres that we can appreciate is Guaco. Guaco is a group that is danced all over the country. This is also because the composer must think about the dancer when is creating. The fact is, it’s really hard to dance a culo’e puya rhythm. That’s one of the discussions we’re having now, and we’re trying to lay the basis for a project based on how do we make a fusion of what is Afro-Venezuelan, something that even the Japanese can dance.

Clave: Then what is it that identifies this music? What is it that identifies the country? You mention Guaco, but what Venezuelan characteristics are represented in Guaco?

Well, as I said before, its essence is the gaita de tambora, the tamborera. By the way, this process can also lead to dangerous roads, to homogenize a single genre, or create a synthesis of all of the genres, and the others are then forgotten. Those are risks, but then there is a reservoir. It depends on the vanguard that carries it forward, on whether it is enriched little by little. That’s why all these genres and traditions have to be linked to an educational system.

Clave: What do you think needs to be done concerning not only rescuing but making known and re-creating popular culture, in particular in the field of music?

It necessarily has to be linked to the educational system. For example, Venezuela lacks a grand institute for teaching these genres, except for dance, as with the Bigott Foundation or the community workshops that we carry out. The only alternative is the oral tradition, transmitting them from generation to generation, but there is no research center, and our educational system has not taken on the task. Let me return to the Cuban experience. In Cuba there are two levels where this process takes place, the National School of Art and the Higher Institute of Art. In the National School of Art the students graduate at a middle level in some genre or instrument --in percussion, a wind instrument, etc., and later graduate at a higher level from the Institute. And, for example, when studying piano you have to know percussion, you have to know the batá drums, the different rhythms, the different genres. Right then and there you are reproducing, preserving and at the same time you are creating.

Clave: Because the new work is incorporated…

It’s incorporated within a formal educational system. In Venezuela, we don’t have it. That’s one of the discussions we had with Antonio Abreu, on the National Youth Orchestra. We said, Abreu, look, no matter how much you teach Chopin, or Beethoven, no matter how much you teach Haydn, etc., you’re never going to play it like the Europeans. You have to incorporate the experience of Heitor Villalobos in Brazil, for example, or Alejandro García Caturla and Amadeo Roldán in Cuba, who were classical musicians, but could write a score for bongó, for example. They played a fundamental role in incorporating elements of Afro-Cuban music into their Eurocentric compositions. But in Venezuela this process is totally rejected and we have to recognize that this educational element is lacking in the most important cultural movement in the country, the youth symphony orchestras.

Clave: Because it has the broadest reach?

Of course. What’s more, it has a genuine social base. Every state has a children’s orchestra, a youth orchestra, but this education is not a part of them, therefore we lack that access to reproduction by means of the formal education. The means of access are blocked.

Clave: Is there then a danger of disintegration?

I wouldn’t say disintegration, but exclusion, and through that exclusion the disappearance of all of these cultural expressions, many of which already have disappeared. For example, in Barlovento there were 120 different rhythms, according to what I learned from my two grandmothers, and now there are only 60 differentiated musical rhythms . So we can see that if this is not part of formal education it will be very difficult, no matter how hard we try. And we are trying. We have a percussion school in Caracas, and one in Barlovento, and now we are seeking to open one in Yaracuy, but it’s hard if you don’t have the resources.

Clave: Tell us about the Foundation: its origins, purposes, and plans.

The Afroamerica Foundation was launched formally in 1993 when we registered legally, following the acceptance of a project we presented to UNESCO called Africa-America: an Ancestral Re-Encounter. This was within the context of the 500th Anniversary of the so-called Discovery of America. From there we held a large meeting in the offices of UNESCO in Caracas. There were representatives from various countries of Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and this was the practical impulse to begin all of this.

In the Foundation we develop certain lines of work, including research. There is a line of research that goes directly to the study and ethno-historic reconstruction of the Afro-Venezuelan communities. Another line points to the African presence in the Caribbean, and another line runs directly to the African countries that had the greatest influence on the formation of our national identity: Congo, Benin, Zaire, Ghana, Togo, and Senegal. Those are three lines of investigations that refer specifically to the African diaspora.

We do research also on the current situation of the Afro-Venezuelan community and on how to overcome poverty. Within that, there are lines of research on culture as a factor of local development, on women, on racism, and on ethno-racism.

We pursue promotion and publicity especially through festivals, colloquia, seminars, forums, and talks concerning Afro-Venezuelan culture and the African diaspora in general. We have a line of publications, such as the magazine Africamerica, a tri-continental magazine with authors from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, as well as some specialists from Europe, and also local Venezuelan experiences. For example, we have the line of Barloventeñidad, publishing texts of reflection, and essays, and also texts for education, so that children can learn their own local culture. The latter are linked to the new guidelines for elementary education curricula calling for obligatory learning of local culture. So we’ve gotten somewhat ahead of that process and already put out some publications for elementary school children.

Our other focus is on the promotion and publicizing of the festivals, especially the percussion festival, the local festivals in Afro-Venezuelan communities, and, as to international relations, connecting with the Afroamérica 21 Movement, in which 13 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean -- including the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, and United States -- take part. At this time the Afroamerica Foundation is in charge of developing the cultural program of the movement, which aims to have achieved within 20 years a minimum standard of life among our black communities that are in critical and extreme poverty.