Jorge Luis Jasso, Vladimir Vukanovich, and Lalo Izquierdo--all on the CD.

We've produced a CD of the musical track of A Zest for Life which is now available.  It has eight tracks on it, including two sung by Jorge Luis Jasso, one of which he also wrote.  Jorge Luis Jasso, for those who aren´t that familiar with music produced outside of the U.S., is a very popular criollo singer in Peru.  He has six albums to his name which have sold a combined 50,000 + copies!  WOW.  I´m impressed.



And yes, he dances, too!

The musicians on the CD come from the San Francisco Bay Area group de Rompe y Raja, with some visiting stars.  In addition to Jorge Luis Jasso, there's Vladimir Vukanovich, the well-known guitarist from Peru and one of the best known musicians playing on the CD.



And of course, there's also Lalo Izquierdo, who performs a really cool cajón demonstration illustrating rhythms from five different countries.

Lalo Izquierdo on the cajón-literally.

So--if you want a copy, here´s the LINK to purchase.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about two former Afro-Peruvian greats, Amador Ballumbrosio and Caitro Soto.

A Zest for Life: Afro-Peruvian...a trailer and the CD with the musical track

Here's the new trailer for A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz.  LINK

AND the manufacturer has notified us that they´ve received everything they need in order to produce our CD, A Zest for Life Musical Track.  It's going to be available very, very soon!  We are EXCITED!

Just so you'll get to see, here's what the CDs front cover will look like:

The "checo," an Afro-Peruvian percussion instrument

The "checo" is a percussion instrument made out of a large gourd.  It was developed by Afro-Peruvians and had nearly passed into extinction.  It wasn´t known outside of the Afro-Peruvian community, and Afro-Peruvian traditional music itself was in danger, due to commercialization and the financial instability of the Afro-Peruvian community, which made it difficult for people to take the time to master their music and retain all of its flavor.

Even the seeds of the gourd out of which the checo is made were getting hard to find.

Couldn't find photo of a checo.  Imagine THIS gourd without the top part, just the spherical section at the bottom.

A town called Zaña in northern Peru has undertaken to help restore and popularize the checo.  To this end, residents have tracked down and conserved the seeds, planted them, and grown more of the gourds.  They have also established music classes to teach the use of this instrument, and participated in festivals both local and in Peru´s capitol city, Lima.  And now, they´ve made a video about it, explaining its history and demonstrating its use.

You might find this interesting.  Here´s the LINK.

The video, produced by the Museo Afroperuano de Zaña, is in Spanish...but the music and the dancing, well, everyone can enjoy those whether or not they speak Spanish.

The marvelous adaptability of Afro-Peruvians, their ability to make music and other forms of art out of the most mundane objects, is one of the hallmarks of the community.  May we all learn to make beauty out of the commonplace, and music out of  what's around us.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about the CD we're about to release.  It'll be the musical track from our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz.

Dance of the Devils--a traditional Afro-Peruvian dance

In doing research about Afro-Peruvian music and dance, I've learned about the Dance of the Devils (Son de los Diablos) and the Hatajos de Negritos.

We spend a certain amount of time on the Hatajos de Negritos in the documentary, A Zest for Life.  You should even expect to see some video clips from this celebration on the DVD, including some of the fancy  zapateo footwork.  It's a 300 year old set of dances accompanied by music intended to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus.  It starts on Dec. 24 and ends on Christmas day, but then there's another celebration on 12th Night (Jan. 6) to commemorate the arrival of the wise men at Bethlehem.  We'll talk about it more in another blog.

Watercolor by the 19th century Peruvian artist, Pancho Fierro

The Dance of the Devils (Son de los Diablos) is something we only have time to mention briefly in our documentary.  It also uses the fancy footwork that Afro-Peruvians developed called zapateo.  It's a dance done in a group, with a head devil and his devil underlings.  It seems to be performed mostly by men and is accompanied by musicians (or music on CD if you don't have enough musicians).  It's done as part of the Catholic religious celebration called Corpus Cristi, which comes in the early spring.  And it dates back to the time of slavery.

The dancers wear masks of devils.  The chief devil carries a large book in which are written the names of all the people he will carry down to hell in the coming year (or that he carried down the past year-I'm not sure which).  Traditionally, the devils would dance through the streets, showing off the book and at least in the old days, spreading a desire to be good--at least, good enough not to have your name in that book.

A modern performance.  Photo:  America Baila Dance Company (Austria)

Currently, the dance is mostly done as a performance presentation, although in 2004 it was performed on the streets of Lima, Peru, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the ending of slavery.  (Note that sources give two different years as the year that slavery ended:  1854 and 1856.  Again, I'm not too sure why,.)