Music
of Panama
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Panama is a Central American
country, inhabited mostly by mestizos (persons
of mixed African, European and indigenous ancestry),
with a large population from the African diaspora
(especially from Jamaica, Barbados, Martinique and
Trinidad) descended of those who came to work on
the French and North American canal projects between
the 1880s and 1910. Only independent from southern
neighbor Colombia since 1903, Panama's national
identity has been quick to assert itself.
View "El Punto" and professional
dancers at the Festival de la camisilla at Chiriqui
Mall.
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With salsa, vallenato and other imported genres
often dominating the charts, Panama's main folkoric
popular music has had to struggle to survive.
A distinctive vocal style dominates the music,
which is said to derive from Sevillians of African
descent who arrived in the early 16th century.
The most important native instruments are the
mejoranera, a five-stringed guitar used to play
songs called mejoranas, as well as torrentes,
and the rabel, a violin with three strings,
used to play cumbias, puntos and pasillos in
the central provinces of Coclé, Herrera,
Los Santos and Veraguas.
Enpollerada
shows mejorana guitar.
Panama
Tipico dance at Las Tinajas Restaurant
From
left to right Ulpiano Vergara, Dorindo
Cárdenas, Osvaldo Ayala y Victorio
Vergara Batista(r.i.p.)
Popular
Panama folkloric music is generally
called música típica or
pindín, which since the 1940s
has included instruments such as the
guiro, conga and especially the accordion,
among others. Some famous Panamanian
artists in this genre are Ulpiano Vergara,
Dorindo Cárdenas, Victorio Vergara,
Roberto "Papi" Brandao, Nenito
Vargas, Yin Carrizo, Nina Campines,
Abdiel Núñez, Manuel de
Jesús Abrego, and Samy y Sandra
Sandoval, just to name a few.
The word típico is different from
música típica, in that the former
is the general name of the native dance styles
of the central provinces.
A folk dance
called tamborito is very popular.
Danced by men and women in costumes, the tamborito
is led by a cantalante, a female lead singer,
who is backed by a clapping chorus (the "estribillo")
that sings four-line stanzas of copla (a lyrical
form related to Spanish poetry) as well as
three drums. A somewhat similar genre called
congo is popular among the black communities
of the northern coast in Costa Arriba, which
includes Portobelo, province of Colón;
it is distinguished by using upright drums
and wild, lascivious movements and lyrics.
Jamaican immigrants have brought mento and
calypso music as well. Closely related to
its more well-known Colombian cousin, Panamanian
cumbia, especially amanojá; and atravesao
styles, are domestically popular. Another
important music is punto and the salon dances
like pasillo, danza and contradanza.
Gorgeous Panamanian Pollera
Colon Congo dancers
Ruben Blades Salsa Legend
Panama's
leading salsa musician, Ruben Blades,
has achieved international stardom,
after collaborating with other local
musicians like Rómulo Castro
and Tuira. Other world famous musicians
from Panama included Luis Russell, who
played with Louie Armstrong in the 1920s,
Mauricio Smith, a noted saxophone and
flute player who played with Chubby
Checker, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie,
Machito and Mongo Santamaría,
among others. Victor "Vitin"
Paz, a pillar of the Latin jazz trumpet,
was a cornerstone of the Fania All Stars
for many years.
Ruben Blades con Fania
All Stars in Colon sings: "La Palabra
Adios"
Meanwhile, Panama has a long history
in jazz: by the 1940s the port city of Colón
boasted at least ten local jazz orchestras. Legends
of Jazz in Panama included pianist and composer
Victor Boa, Bassist Clarence Martin, Singer Barbara
Wilson and French Horn player John "Rubberlegs"
McKindo. This Jazz legacy was recently reinvigorated
when the US-based Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez
organized the first Jazz Festival in January 2005.
Watch "Pasame La Botella" International
Video
Panama also boasts a vibrant
history of Calypso and Mento music sung
by nationally well-known musicians such as Lord
Panama, Delicious, Two-Gun Smokey, Lady Trixie,
Lord Kitty, and Lord Cobra and the Pana-Afro sounds.
By the 1960s, local doo-wop groups
were evolving into what became known as the Combos
Nacionales, five to ten musician groups using electric
instruments and incorporating the diverse sounds
of jazz, calypso, salsa, vallenato, doo wop, soul
and funk. Famous Combos Nacionales included the
Silvertones, the Exciters, the Fabulous Festivals,
the Soul Fantastics, Los Mozambiques, the Goombays,
Roberto y su Zafra and Bush y sus Magnificos. By
1970, the dynamic Combos Nacionales sound dominated
Panamanian popular music, only winding down toward
the late 1970s.
Spanish Reggae performed
by rappers is also very popular among youth,
and spawned the Spanish language reggae-rap style
known as Reggaeton, which originated with such artists
as El General, Aldo Ranks and Kafu Banton, before
becoming popular in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic
and eventually amongst youth in the United States.
Famous "El General"
Kafu Banton Reggae Singer
A thriving Rock en espanol scene has
produced such groups as Los Rabanes and Os Almirantes.
Source: Wikipedia. This article is
licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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