By More than 80 students, faculty and staff listened and danced to various styles of Caribbean music ranging from cumbia to sub-styles of rumba and religious music in the Multimedia Center Tuesday.
Enrique Ellis-Rios, a professor from University of Southern California, co-sponsored “A Caribbean Music Workshop” along with Cal State Long Beach professor Victor Rodriguez.
The goal of the event was to inform people about Latin heritage, Ellis-Rios said.
He added that the organizers tried to take it from the very beginnings of the music to more modern-day contemporary sounds.
A group of local musicians, including brothers Lorenzo and Sal Vasquez, Rosalin Rodriguez, Alfredo Ortiz and Ellis-Rios performed at the event.
The performance began with an introduction of Cuban religious music that included “bata” drums, which are drums that have two sides. Sal Vasquez said each rhythm is dedicated to a certain deity and has influences from African tribes, which eventually landed in Brazil and Cuba.
“There is a lot of improvisation and open sections in this style of music,” said Ortiz, one of the musicians who played in the workshop. “We follow the main drum and listen to him … he can play as long or as short as he wants.”
A performance that featured yamba music, a subset of rumba, followed the religious music performance. Yamba music is older, slower and has a mellower feel to it, said Sal Vasquez, who played alongside Ortiz.
Students who attended the event said they enjoyed the performance and historical background of the various styles of music and instruments.
“I really liked how they explained the progression of the styles of music from the way it was back then to the way it is now,” said Jorge Rangel, a sophomore Chicano and Latino studies major. “I thought it was really interesting.”
In the end, the crowd was on its feet, dancing and clapping to cumbia, a style of music from Colombia. The crowd demanded “otra” which in Spanish means “another,” a way of asking for an encore performance.
Sal Vasquez said cumbia is very regional and there are many ways to play it. He said there is a lot of improvisation on drums in the original cumbia.
Overall, the performance was well received.
“It was a great performance and it was really accurate with the Cuban history,” said Erick Torres, a senior human biology major. “It was a lot of fun, they really got the crowd into it.”
