MUSIC-CUBA: Vocal Sampling Brings Cuban A Capella to U.S.

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Nov 6 1995 (IPS) - A few years ago, the Cuban group ‘Vocal Sampling’ could not have been heard in the United States, victims of the long-standing U.S. “cultural boycott” against Fidel Castro’s government.

But the six-member a capella group is now making its first tour of the United States. Audiences, in turn, are delighted with getting their first taste of one of the more unusual treats around: a band capable of playing all the parts of a mambo orchestra or a guaguanco band, solely with their voices and bodies.

The members of Vocal Sampling are in the same a capella tradition as such popular U.S. jazz acts as ‘Manhattan Transfer’ and ‘Take Six’. The twist, however, is that Vocal Sampling is so deeply informed of Cuban musical traditions and can replicate virtually all of it — from singer Beny More’s plaintive crooning to bassist Israel ‘Cachao’ Lopez’s rhythmic innovations.

Appearing at New York University last week, Vocal Sampling constantly kept audiences thrilled and off-guard, mixing styles from romantic Cuban balladry to spiritual music, complete with santeria-influenced dancing, to rap. Along the way, group member Carlos Diaz, one of the band’s primary composers, vocalised his way through an entire percussion solo bandleader Tito Puente might envy.

The origin for such a chameleonic shifting of styles lies in the founding of the group itself in 1989, when most members where studying at Havana’s National School of Music, says Rene Banos, Vocal Sampling’s other primary composer.

The group came together as its six members — Banos, Diaz, Luis Alzaga, Reinaldo Maseda, Sergio Pereda and Abel Sanabria — tried to best each other at parties after class with their vocal arrangements, Banos says. “We used to have a lot of fun, and then we started getting responses that we could do it seriously,” he adds.

Over time, the group members filled out several distinct roles as a vocal band, with Pereda and Sanabria playing bass and percussion parts, and the other four mimicking trumpets, guitars, and vocal leads. In that set-up, Diaz often sings the more romantic tunes, Banos the up-tempo songs and Alzaga the more traditional Cuban styles, from rhumba to Yoruban-derived music.

Throughout, Banos says, the emphasis is on the blend of music heard everyday in Havana, with an accent on the wide range of Cuban styles. “People like to keep Cuban roots,” Banos notes about his home country, adding the group’s belief, during their U.S. tour, that “our music can help people here to know about Cuban music and Cuban culture.” (MORE)

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MUSIC-CUBA: Vocal Sampling Brings Cuban A Capella to U.S.

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Nov 6 1995 (IPS) - A few years ago, the Cuban group ‘Vocal Sampling’ could not have been heard in the United States, victims of the long-standing U.S. “cultural boycott” against Fidel Castro’s government.
(more…)