Havana & Matanzas, Cuba 1957: Bata, Bembe and Palo Songs
Pre-Castro Cuba was not only about cigars, rum, and tourism. Even more than today, the countryside was a haven for practitioners of African-derived religions. These marvelous field recordings are a treasure trove of rare and thrilling material and still sound remarkably clear and immediate. They were the work of Lydia Cabrera, an anthropologist and writer of Cuban birth and Parisian nurture. She began gathering examples of music from slave descendants during the 1950s, often accompanied by photographer Josefina Tarafa. Using Tarafa's portable tape recorder and with help from engineers who later transferred her finds onto fourteen discs, this intrepid woman captured indelible examples of religious drumming, chants, and songs from the Yoruba, Angolese, and Dahomean traditions, back when the original languages and drumming styles were still relatively unadulterated. The accompanying booklet is chock-full of fascinating details and illustrated by examples of Tarafa's idiomatic black-and-white photographs. --Christina Roden