¡Eso!

This concert has been on my calendar forever!  Cimarrón is one of my favorite bands.  They play joropo.  Joropo is music that originates in the plains region of Colombia and Venezuela.

Cimarrón is a very important band in my musical development.  It was the fall of 2002 and I had just started working in the shop of the Old Town School of Folk Music.  The store was given a promotional copy of an album called Sí, Soy Llanero: Joropo Music from the Orinoco Plains of Colombia (you can listen to it there).  Cimmarrón is the band on the album.  Eight years later I still listen to this CD all the time.  I can't remember if it was given to me or if I just took it, but it was one of the first CDs of music from South America that I had ever heard.  It was my first step in an interest in the music and culture of Colombia, which is an interest that continues to grow. 

The band is made up of cuatro, arpa llanera (harp of the plains), bandola, bajo, maracas, cajón and a tamor (drum) which rests on it's side kind of like a dunun drum from West Africa.  The songs are super-fact, with the cuatro taking lead, rhythmic and harmonic responsibility.  They said during the concert that the cuatro is the most important instrument in joropo music.

I think I want to get a cuatro and learn to play it.  It's similar to a ukulele and jarana. 

A couple things that I like about joropo are the speed of the songs, the strength of the vocals, the incredible rhythms of the maracas and the percussive use of the harp. 

I also love the dancing.  It's very percussive and reminds me of zapateado from Veracruz, but has a different kind of kick to it.  The dancers in Cimerrón are incredible.  I've never heard percussive dance that fast before! 

Here is a video that represents their music pretty well.

Another thing I like about the music is the singing.  It's super passionate and the words come flying out of the singers mouths quicker than I can hear them.  From translations that I have read, most of the songs are about the life some the men raising cattle on the plains or about the animals on the plains.