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about

In March and May of 1952, in the great polyglot city of New York, under the auspices of Ansonia Records, fate brought together the Cuban singer-songwriter Maximilano “Bimbi” Sánchez and his much younger Colombian counterpart, singer and composer, Esther Forero Celis, “La Novia de Barranquilla.” Their recording sessions for Ansonia were unparalleled experimentations and cultural exchanges between Cuban and Colombian musicians and genres, paving the way for many future fusions and collaborations that would shape popular tropical music the world over, particularly in Colombia. This was the first time that the porro was recorded with an authentic Colombian singer from the rhythm’s home region while backed by a traditional Cuban trio instrumentation of acoustic guitar and percussion, and to top it all off, a pair of clarinets!

The traditional porros of Forero’s homeland featured various instruments of Afro-Colombian and Indigenous origins such as the bombo, llamador and tambor allegre drums, the marracones (big maracas) and the gaita flute. The big band versions, from orchestras like La Sonora Cordobesa and Climaco Sarmiento, featured full brass orchestration played in interlocking call-and-response patterns over the cumbia-like rhythm played as only Colombians can. Forero’s porro recordings with Bimbi deviate from the traditional and big band porros, particularly in the simplicity of the backing instrumentation and the slight variation in rhythm from the true Colombian form. It could be argued there is also a particular ‘Cuban feel’ to the execution, with the acoustic guitars and bongo/maraca percussion work bringing in that “son de Oriente” feel. And perhaps, most importantly, the small combo size backing Forero gives the sessions a more intimate sound than the big orchestras or municipal bands of the Colombian coastal cities. The only other contemporary Colombian artists that would really work in this guitar-led vein of taking the Cuban trio/conjunto approach to porro and other Colombian styles would be Bovea Y Sus Vallenatos and Guillero Buitrago, but it’s hard to say who might have influenced who first among the three – certainly Colombians were always fans of Cuban music and instrumentation, and there are other examples of guitar accompanying the porro, plus the fact that the Cubans and Colombians shared a common heritage and the Caribbean Sea between them means there were more connections than differences.

Whatever the case, the result was pure magic that remained solely available in the archaic format of a set of rare 78-rpm singles for decades until Ansonia decided to collate the six sides they cut with Forero, as well as four recorded on March 6, 1952, with just Bimbi y su Trío Oriental. The ten tracks were remastered and reissued in 1985 as the compilation titled “Porros Favoritos / Ecos del Pasado.”

The album may seem like a “mixed bag,” swinging back and forth between artists and genres, and mixing different rhythms and sonorities, but it actually holds together quite well, due to the consistency and simplicity of the backing band and the fact that it was all recorded at around the same time and in the same studios. The result is a lively and varied set that pendulums between porro and guaracha, with one son montuno thrown in for good measure.

Over all, the album showcases an interesting interplay between female and male point of view as portrayed by the voices of Forero and Sánchez and revealed in the playfully suggestive lyrics. With Forero’s tunes you get that dynamic within each song itself, as Bimbi and his trio sing chorus in counterpoint to her lead. Nowhere is this more evident than in Forero’s version of Colombian singer Luis Carlos “El Negro” Meyer’s “Micaela,” in which she uses novel discursive strategies to develop a new way of interpreting a song created from a male perspective. The original lyrics are sung by a man lamenting the fact that his jealous wife will not let him dance or flirt with other women the way he wants to, which must have represented a challenge for Forero when interpreting it from a female point of view. Forero very cleverly used her male choir to sing the parts of the song that have an obvious masculine connotation, while she sang the rest from a different vantage point, turning Latino masculinity on its head and upending the original trope of the jealous controlling woman. The result is, musically speaking, a powerful dialogue between two Caribbean cultures (Cuba and coastal Colombia), and verbally, a feisty interchange between a woman and her male counterparts about agency and the power dynamics of who gets to enjoy themselves, and how.

Thanks to Ansonia’s current program of digging deep into their archives to unearth obscure gems from the Caribbean and beyond, now this fascinating and historic encounter between Colombia and Cuba with Estercita Forero and Bimbi Y Su Trio Oriental has come to light for today’s digital audience and a new generation eager to learn more about Latin roots music of the past.

Bimbi Y Su Trio Oriental

Santiago de Cuba and the surrounding area in Oriente (the eastern part of Cuba) has been the cradle of Cuban song for more than a century. Two of Cuba’s most famous groups originate from there, namely Miguel Matamoros’ “Trío Matamoros,” and Ñico Saquito’s “Los Guaracheros De Oriente.” Although not as well known, Maximilano “Bimbi” Sánchez (Caobitas, Cuba, 1908 – Florida, US, 1991) is surely another worthy son of Oriente who deserves our praise, if not for his excellent and long-lived group, Bimbi y su Trío Oriental, then at least for his famous tune “La Frutabomba.”

Maximilano “Bimbi” Sánchez, whose nickname came from a tongue-twister nursery song his elder sister used to sing him as a child, grew up in the small rural town of Caobitas. He was poor but surrounded by song and rum. Determined to make his way as a musician, he founded his trio in 1935 in the larger city of Santiago de Cuba with his friends Pedro Filiú, singer and maraquero (maracas player), and Luis Bosch, guitarist and tres player. It was always said of Maximilano Sánchez (even when he was a bandleader of the Trío Oriental in the years of highest popularity) that his easy-going and ebullient personality, and propensity for laughter and jokes, never matched his imperious first name, so he adopted the far lighter nickname “Bimbi,” which is how students of Latin music history will always remember him.

Like all musicians from Santiago, and with the runaway success of Trío Matamoros foremost in their thoughts, the three young itinerant trovadores tried their luck in Havana. Not long after hitting the bars and bodegas of the big city, Bimbi Y Su Trío Oriental signed a recording contract with RCA Victor in 1937 and began to sing on the radio stations of Havana to some acclaim.

While Matamoros was known for the bolero and bolero-son, Bimbi excelled at the suggestive and humorous double-entendre lyrics of the guaracha, sung in beguiling harmonies, set to the beat and special stringed interplay of the son oriental. Without leaving aside other genres such as son montuno, son-bolero, son-afro and son-pregón, it is the saucy and somewhat salacious guaracha that constituted most of the group’s repertoire, with the majority of the compositions and arrangements being by Bimbi himself or his friend Antonio Fernández, aka Ñico Saquito. Saquito and Bimbi were such good friends that the two joined forces in El Cuarteto Compay Gallo for a short stint in 1940, with Saquito also becoming a member of Bimbi’s Trío Oriental briefly in the mid-40s and Sánchez’s trio then recording under the name Los Guaracheros De Oriente in 1946.

Bimbi traveled a lot in his first decade as a professional bandleader, spreading the music of El Trío Oriental throughout the Caribbean with a period of great popularity in Puerto Rico (1939) and Venezuela, as well as in Colombia, where he first heard the costeño sound of the porro (a Colombian cumbia rhythm that developed into its own subgenre). He also returned to Puerto Rico at the end of the decade and had several dates in New York in 1950, deciding to settle there in 1951.

The porro that Bimbi was exposed to in Colombia was just coming into its own in that era and remained popular in Colombia for many decades. Though it was largely a phenomenon in Colombia, several non-Colombian artists, like the Cuban Beny Moré and Mexican Tony Camargo, had hits with the style. While its earliest origins are debated (between African Bantú/Yoruba and Indigenous roots), what is agreed upon is that it’s a regional style of Colombian music and dance from the Caribbean coast that is related to the more well-known cumbia rhythm in 4/4 and 2/4, with its famous syncopated counterpoint between rolling hand drums and large maracas. It seems that the porro developed into its own subgenre with the addition of modern instrumentation such as piano, bass and a brass section. Most scholars believe that there were two variants of porro, one from the savannah region around Cartagena (called porro tapao or sabanero), and the other from San Pelayo, sometimes called porro palitiao for the way the bombo (bass) drum is struck along its rim to produce the sound of a cowbell. Often times, in its orchestrated big band form in its heyday of the 1940s and ‘50s, the porro pelayero was referred to as gaita (for a type of flute that was replaced in the modern urban setting by clarinets and soprano saxophones), made popular by orchestra leaders like Pacho Galán, Pedro Laza and Lucho Bermúdez.

While in New York, Bimbi formed a new trio with Cuso Mendoza (conga, vocals, 1951-1954) whom he had met in Cuba, and Neftalí Piñeiro (guitar, 1951-1954). Together, they recorded a series of 78 singles for various labels, as well as for Bimbi’s own label, Titan Records. In addition to his work with his trio, Bimbi performed and recorded merengues with an accordionist, as well as a set of “campesino” music featuring Cuban sonero Pio Leyva and a saxophonist, and some porros with two clarinetists accompanying the Colombian songstress Esther Forero (more on that later).

He returned to Santiago in 1954 and took a year off, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and taking a break from touring. The trio came back to life the following year and recorded four songs with Octavio González, guitar; Ramón González, percussion; Mariano Rivera, double bass; with Bimbi and Félix Castrillón on vocals. At the end of the decade, Bimbi increased the size of his trio to a “conjunto,” working and recording with Ñico Saquito and others in Santiago and Havana. After the Cuban Revolution, Bimbi returned to New York in 1963, releasing several records on small labels without much success at the time, retiring from performance in 1968, and ending his days in Florida. Though many different styles of popular Latin dance music emerged in popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, eclipsing and obscuring Bimbi Y Su Trío Oriental’s contribution to its roots, the jolly Cuban trovador from Oriente is certainly to be considered a forefather of salsa and his impact in Puerto Rico and Colombia are not to be underestimated.

Esther Forero

Colombian singer and composer Esther Forero Celis (1919 – 2011), better known as Estercita Forero or “La Novia de Barranquilla” (Barranquilla’s Darling), was considered an ambassador of Colombian music to the world. She shared the folkloric themes and genres of her Caribbean “costeño” (coastal) music, especially the porro, on the international stage. Forero can be thought of in the same terms as seminal figures of Colombian tropical song such as Guillermo Buitrago, Rafael Escalona, Leonor González Mina, Matilde Díaz and the like. Little Estercita began singing in public at the early age of four in her home city of Barranquilla, making her debut on the airwaves at fourteen on the “La Voz de Barranquilla” radio station. At eighteen she was touring throughout Colombia, performing to large audiences in Bogotá at theaters and on popular radio programs.

Making her first forays beyond the borders of her home country in 1942 during the Second World War, Forero would pick up inspiration, influences and sometimes songs through her travels, while also spreading her own folklore to enthusiastic audiences. She performed with success in Panamá with pianist and composer Avelino Muñoz who took her under his wing. Thanks to Muñoz, Forero learned of the song “Pegadita De Los Hombres,” a Panamanian tamborero written by the duo Nuñez y Ulloa, which would become a hit for her in 1950.

In 1945, she went to Venezuela where she was the first Colombian to popularize her beloved music of the Caribbean coast, later traveling to the Dominican Republic, where she wrote her first song, a bolero tribute entitled “Santo Domingo,” which is still popular today and has been covered several times. Landing in Puerto Rico in 1950, Forero recorded “Pegadita De Los Hombres” and “Santo Domingo” for Ansonia Records with composer Rafael Hernández and his orchestra, backed by the male vocal quartet Los Universitarios, a 78 that was her first hit record. The success of that Ansonia release, along with Forero’s various live concert engagements in Puerto Rico, contributed to her beloved Colombian music (as well as other South American sounds) finding an opening among the other more established Caribbean genres popular in the islands at that time.

Although Forero performed with Pancho Portuondo’s orchestra in Cuba, she became disillusioned as the Cuban public did not receive her with the same enthusiasm as she had been blessed with in other countries during her tour of the Caribbean. She had traveled to Cuba believing that it could be another Puerto Rico for her, but Havana was basically closed to her as they did not enjoy the porro and tamborero the way they had in San Juan. A short time later, in 1952, Forero made a trip to New York where her reputation and success with Rafael Hernández had preceded her and she was able to make a number of important recordings that helped define her career; ironically, despite her disappointments in Havana, these New York sides were made with Cuban musicians, proving that at least she was able to make a bridge with that country’s people and music through its expatriate community in El Barrio.

Once in New York, Esther Forero kept very busy, waxing ten sides for the Seeco Record label between July 1952 and June 1953. The songs were initially released on 78-rpm records, subsequently reissued by the Seeco subsidiary label Tropical, compiled on the LP Ritmos Bailables. The recordings were directed and arranged by Cuban pianist and composer René Touzet (who, in a way, was Esther’s musical godfather while she was in the US), with other legendary musicians participating in the sessions, such as Mario Bauzá on clarinet and backing vocal, and Tito Puente on percussion. At that time, Bauzá was Machito’s musical director for his orchestra The Afro-Cubans and in this way the young Forero was able to work with some of the top mambo musicians in New York at the time, though she did not sing to their music, rather it was the other way around. That said, the Cuban influence definitely penetrated Forero’s Colombian porros in the Seeco sessions – New York was possibly the only place at that time where Forero would have been free enough to try this daring and revolutionary type of cross-cultural experiment and find a willing bunch of cohorts to help her realize her radical vision of disseminating her folkloric costeño sounds through a sophisticated urban Caribbean Latin lens.

In the same time she was recording for Seeco, Forero managed to cut a few new 78s with her earlier employer Ansonia Records, this time working with the Cuban singer/songwriter Maximiliano “Bimbi” Sánchez and his Trío Oriental for a more stripped down and folkloric sound. The sessions demonstrate a unique and unprecedented exchange between musical rhythms from Cuba and the Colombian Caribbean, with porros interpreted in the style of the traditional Cuban format of a guitar-led trio with minor percussion and clarinet (more on this later).

During this time of constant travel and international performance, which included a trip to Mexico where she familiarized herself with the sound of the mambo as practiced by Pérez Prado and Rafael De Paz, Forero had two children by two different men she met during her travels. Her son Iván would die tragically young in a stabbing incident (as would his own son Iván, Jr.), and Forero’s daughter Esther would become estranged from her mother for several decades as she was sent to boarding school while her mother pursued her musical career at the cost of family life. They reconciled in Esther’s latter years before she passed away at 91.

Leaving a doomed relationship with Jorge Artel, one of her lovers during this period, Forero returned to Colombia in 1959, after ten years of constant travel and spreading her costeño rhythms and playfully spicy lyrics across Latin America, the Caribbean and the cities of the United States as well as Europe. She spent some time in Medellín and began working with orchestras such as those of Nuncira Machado, Pacho Galán (who she recorded her anthem “Luna Barranquillera” with), Clímaco Sarmiento, Pete Vicentini and accordionist Aníbal Velásquez. She often joined the stage with vocal performers like Gabriel Romero and Joe Arroyo as well as accordionist and singer Alfredo Gutiérrez. For over four decades, Colombian artists recorded her compositions including her good friend Matilde Díaz, as well as Juan Piña, Alci Acosta, The Latin Brothers and Los Golden Boys.

Always active promoting the culture of her home city of Barranquilla, in 1974 Forero spearheaded an initiative to revive a long forgotten tradition of the yearly carnival, that of performing nightly folkloric parades featuring rhythms and dances known as cumbiambas accompanied by the tambora (a double-headed drum made of recycled wooden barrels, much like that of the Dominican Republic). This revived tradition became known as La Guacherna, which Forero paid tribute to with a song of the same name in 1978, becoming in turn a hit for the Dominican group Milly Quezada Y Los Vecinos in 1982. Throughout her life, Forero sang in homage to her native land in a charming and beguiling way that was often filled with nostalgia and alternating emotions of joy and sorrow. She also was somewhat of an amateur ethnomusicologist, often researching and collecting local material for her repertoire. People refer to her affectionately as “Esthercita” to this day, and it’s no exaggeration to say that her repertoire is part of the nation’s collective imagination, being integral to constructing the notion of what “costeño” culture is and the ways in which it is deeply bound up with the identity of Barranquilla’s citizens who recognize and revere her compositions as popular anthems, especially in times of celebration.

-Pablo Yglesias

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released January 16, 1986

Mastering Engineer: Dennis White

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