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Matanzas, Cuba, ca. 1957: Afro-Cuban Sacred Music from the Countryside

from the historic recordings of Lydia Cabrera and Josefina Tarafa

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Recorded in Matanzas in 1957, these ritual rhytms provide a direct link to the music of 19th-century colonial Cuba, and provide a window into the religious life of the first generations of Africans who worked the sugar mills. Collected by Lydia Cabrera and Josefina Tarafa, these recordings preserve extremely rare bembé lukumí ritual drumming, used by practitioners of Santería to summon the gods or salute Cuba’s African nations. It is remarkably different from the urban style heard today in Havana, although some of the same songs were sung in both city and countryside. With origins in the Yoruba religion in West Africa, this music reveals the roots of today’s Afro-Cuban ceremonial practices.

32-page booklet, extensive notes, photos, 69 minutes.

(P) © 2001 Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

For enlargement of the reverse cover, song list and selected download samples, Click Here

“Clic” por aquí para ver la lista de los cantos y para escuchar los ejemplos musicales.