PRINCIPAL COLOMBIAN AUTHORS AND INTERPRETERS
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Due to its multi-ethnical and multi-cultural connotation, diverse folkloric
tendencies have arisen, producing a great richness in musical,
choreographic and literary expressions, conditioned by the different bio-
geographical regions, as follows: Andina, Caribe, Pacífica. Oririoquía y
Amazonia.
Important interpreters composers are the representation of this richness;
these artists have been able to transcend beyond the Colombian frontier,
and have exposed these musical tunes throughout the world. Because of
this, honoring the Colombian music and folklore, we highlight some of these
persons:
MATILDE DIAZ.
She went popular in 1943, just 19 years old, as interpretor of the porro
called Carmen de Bolívar, written by Lucho Bermúdez. Her rhythmical voice
has been considered as one the most beautiful in the history of popular
Colombian music. Although she was not from the coast –she was born in
Icononzo, Tolima – she adequated herself marvelously to tropical rhythms. In
1946 she married composer Lucho Bermúdez in Buenos Aires, turning, in
fact, in the official voice of his orchestra. Among her great amount of
records, some outstanding boleros are: Te busco, Añoranza, Fantasía
Tropical, Una Mujer, and Desvelo de amor. She has alternated with
international figures as Celia Cruz, with whom she keeps a tight friendship.
LUCHO BERMÚDEZ.
In a feverish activity during six decades of twentieth century, Lucho
Bermúdez got to compose one thousand songs, many of them recorded in
eighty long play records. He dedicated his porro Carmen de Bolívar to his
hometown, which turned into an anthem in the voice of his wife, Matilde
Díaz. The orchestra directed by him went over the whole country, first as a
group of importat radio stations, and then as invited orchestra to clubs,
hotels, grills, carnivals and fairs. The clarinet played by Lucho was the
pattern for the good tone in porros, gaitas, cumbias, boleros and pasillos,
which caused furor. Even though it is not widely known, his artistic
production started with tunes of the interior, region that he still did not know.
Bambucos, torbellinos, guabinas and sanjuaneros, are then in his
compendium. He was born in 1912 and died in 1994, in Bogotá. At an early
age he learned to play the piccolo, the pipe organ, the trumpet, the stick
trombone, the saxophone, and the clarinet. Marbella, Cadetes Navales,
Calamarí, Prende la Vela, Las Mujeres de San Diego, Joselito Carnaval,
Borrachera, El Veneno de los Hombres, Danza Negra, San Fernando,
Salsipuedes, Linda Caleñita, Los Primos Sánchez are some of his most
famous compositions. The 13th of June of 1954, day of inauguration of the
Colombian television, Lucho Bermúdez acted in the first transmission,
which was on-the-air. In 1968 he released a new rhythm and dance called
Patacumbia. Months before dying in Bogotá, the liberal leader Jorge
Eliécer Gaitán had made the following prediction to Lucho Bermúdez: "Your
music will be like me: everybody will love it".
RAFAEL ESCALONA.
Cotton planter, diplomat, folklorist and composer born in Valledupar in
1929, master Escalona, is a whole institution of vallenato music. Such
compositions as La casa en el aire, El testamento, La Maye, and many
others, have been hummed and danced by more than three generations of
Colombians within all the regions of the country. Bovea and his vallenatos,
Nelson Pinedo, Jorge Oñate, Colacho Mendoza and other renowned
interpreters have popularized their own versions of the original themes of
this great composer, who, curiously, never recorded by himself.
VICTOR HUGO AYALA
Is the official voice of the National Anthem of Colombia. Lyric tenor born in
Bogotá in 1934, he preserves the power in his voice and his excellent
register. He has recorded more than 25 long plays. He lived and harvested
success during six years in new York. His major triumph has been the
bolero called Camino Verde. He also made Si Te Vuelvo a Besar popular.
In one of his most recent productions, he alternated with the young contralto
María Isabel Saavedra, born in Valle del Cauca, recording a compact disk
in honor to the traditional Andean music.
CARLOS ALBERTO VIVES RESTREPO.
Born in Santa Marta (Magdalena) in August 7, 1961, married with Herlinda
Gómez, and with two children, Carlos Enrique and Lucía. When Carlos
Vives was starting his artistic life in the Colombian television, nobody
thought that he liked singing, neither that he would be successful with the
classical themes of the legendary vallenato. Many always saw him as the
ideal spruce for TV novels, but never imagined seeing him with a knapsack
and a guitar over his shoulder, gathering the steps of great composers as
Rafael Escalona, Leandro Díaz, Julio Erazo and Emiliano Zuleta, among
others of not lesser importance. For Vives, this experience, besides
meaning his re-encounter with his own ancestry, it was the jumpstart of his
artistic success. Carlos feels free while he can sing the verses taught by the
jugglers of Cesar during his adolescence. In them, he wants to express all
the love he brings from his homeland. Inside his knapsack, he carries the
madness of this feeling that he has taken across many countries in the
world. With his band, La Provincia, he has crowded sceneries as the Radio
City Music Hall of New York and the Plaza de las Ventas in Madrid.
Furthermore, he has received numberless gold and platinum records, and
prices as the Amigo, Globo, Ace, Billboard, and recently, one of the most
deserved ones, his first Grammy in the category of Best Interpretation of
Latin American Traditional Music, with his album Déjame Entrar, and with
the song equally called, he got to be number one in the lists of the most
popular Latin American songs in the United States. In 1991, the record with
which he started his successful career was released; later, in 1993,
Escalona released the Clásicos de la Provincia, La Tierra del Olvido in
1995, in 1997 Tengo Fe, in 1999 El Amor de Mi Tierra was released, and
in 2001, Déjame Entrar which has consecrated him and his group as one of
the best exponents and ambassadors of our Colombian music.
CARLOS JULIO RAMIREZ
He was born in Tocaima, in 1916. After singing opera and presenting in
various sceneries, he came back to Colombia and experimented with
boleros and the Andean string music, especially the bambuco. With his
baritone voice he successfully interpreted boleros as Frenesí, Perfidia, Un
Poquito de Tu Amor, Mala Noche, Acércate Más, Júrame and Granada.
PACHO GALAN
He was the creator of a huge variety of rhythms and mixes of those, among
which the merencumbé, chiquichá, tuqiu - tuqui, mece – mece are specially
remembered. Autodidactic, when he was young he learned to play the
trumpet and the guitar in Barranquilla, city where he moved to after finishing
his primary studies at Soledad, where he was born in 1906. When he was
thirty and until his death in Barranquilla in 1988, he went through the country,
as through the three Americas. In 1955 he moved to Medellín, where he
acted beside master Ramón Ropaín.
JAIME LLANO GONZALEZ
He was born in Titiribí (Antioquía) in June 5, 1932. The first music lessons
were taught by his mother, Magola González de Llano. In 1952 he arrived to
Bogotá, where he met master artist Oriol Rangel, who was his teacher for
many years. In 1986, the Colombian government bestowed him the "Cruz
de Boyácá", in recognition for his labor in behalf of Colombian music.
LOS HERMANOS MARTÍNEZ
Jaime, born in San Gil (Santander), gynecologist-obstetrician from
Universidad Nacional, is the first voice in the duet, and plays the violin and
the guitar. Mario, born in Barichara, dental prosthesis technician, is the
second voice in the duet and plays the tiple (small guitar) and the fife.
During 14 years, they integrated the famous "Nocturnal Colombiano"
directed by Oriol Rangel. Afterwards, they made part of the group "Los
Maestros", with master artist Jaime Llano González. They have received
numerous medals as one of the best duets of the national song book; they
have more than 40 recorded works.
ORIOL RANGEL
Nació el 12 de Agosto de 1916 en Pamplona, ha acrecentado
fabulosamente el legado artístico que dejara a su padre, el maestro
Gerardo Rangel, organista y compositor. Estudió en el Conservatorio
Nacional, más tarde entró como director de las orquestas de las emisoras
"Nueva Granada", "Nuevo Mundo" y "La Voz de Colombia". Continuó
organizando programas de música popular proyectados por el Ministerio
de Educación a gestar en la radio su programa "Antología Musical de
Colombia"
SILVA Y VILLALBA
It was year 1963, and the great trios and duets were dominating; the guitars
and tiples (small guitars) accompanied the beautiful lyrics of our Colombian
music. It was indubitable that the songs dedicated to love, landscape, and in
all the cases, to experiences lived by the authors, were taking the course
followed today. Not a week passed without hearing love serenades or
birthday celebrations for a loved one. It was the time when schools the
children how to sing, always having the most affectionate Colombian songs
in their song books. Year 1967 was about to start, and in a San Pedro party
in Espinal city, "Silva y Villalba", one of the most important duets in our
country, was born. They shyly played the Colombian tunes in private friend
meetings, and slowly reached maturity, acquiring an unbreakable
confidence playing the themes.
They participated in many and varied festivals, but in 1968 the attention was
turned towards the Phillips Silver Orchid, a contest that only had two
categories: Soloists and Groups. Success did not take much to come, and
the support for the duet was fabulous; Silva y Villalba turned into the new
idols of string music. In 1969, they recorded their first Long Play called
"Viejo Tolima", with themes that persist in the first Colombian Music
Catalog.
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