1. El Mohan (Berroche) 3:36
2. Me Robaste El Sueño (Tambora) 3:46
3. Guataquí (Berroche) 3:15
4. Idilio (Guacherna) 3:35
5. Nostalgia (Tambora) 3:14
6. Compadre Salvador (Chandé) 2:52
7. Los Ñeques (Berroche) 3:02
8. La Tambora De Cayetano (Tambora) 3:58
9. Daily Karina (Tambora) 2:59
10. La Luna Hermosa (Chandé) 2:53
11. Mano Saye (Tambora) 3:09
12. El Caimán En El Almendro (Tambora Alegre) 3:06
13. Hombre De La Nacion (Tambora Redobla) 2:53
14. La Petronita Olivares (Tambora) 3:18
15. El Cumbion De La Clavada (Guacherna) 3:59
16. Barbudo/ Remangate La Pollera 5:29
Martina Camargo one of the best Colombian folkloric female singers with a strong and lovely voice from the Atlantic coast, she was also part of the very successful group Alé Kumá.
The greatest afrocolombian voice in traditional roots music. A sensitive and fun album of Tambora music, a tradition played only by native drums and happy voices.
01. Pan de Caracas
02. Corré morenita
03. Digan, digan
04. El playón de Santa Rosa
05. La pluma
06. Mi mamá se va a comprar
07. Tambora de palo y cuero
08. Samba llorona
09. La cuba e'
10. La muletilla
11. La Salamanca
12. La Pascua
13. Señora Colombia
14. La mina de los lobanos
15. Sombrerito blanco
16. Corocito
17. La pava echá
Martina Camargo to represent Colombia on world tour Monday, 12 July 2010 13:27 Tom Davenport
Martina Camargo
Colombian "tambora" artist Martina Camargo has begun her world tour. The singer from Bolivar is representing Colombia in Europe and the Middle East to mark the bicentenary of her country's independence.
The singer from San Martin de Loba in the Bolivar department has embarked on a journey which will take her to Barcelona, Cairo and Beirut. She was selected by the Ministry of Culture to represent Colombia on the world stage with her traditional brand of "tambora" music. Her tour is part of celebrations to mark the bicentenary of Colombian independence.
"Tambora", derived from the Spanish word "tambor" (meaning drum), is a folkloric musical style which originated in Camargo's home town San Martin de Loba where its lively rhythms can be heard in every street corner. Much like the Venezuelan Gaita and Colombian Cumbia, "Tambora" is punctuated by the rapid beating of hands against drums made from the skin of goats or deer. These percussion instruments were introduced to the Carribean region by African slaves brought there by the Europeans.
Camargo fell in love with music at a young age. Her father Cayetano Camargo, also a famous "tamborero", would sing to her as he rocked her and her five brothers in their hammocks. In 1987 she took to the stage with the "tambora" outfit Alé Kumá. Success was quick to follow for Carmago who went on to win the Tambora Festival in San Martin de Loba in 1988 with her "Las olas de la mar" - her favorite song and a composition of her father.
Later she worked with Aterciopelados-members Andrea Echeverri and Hector Buitrago, but her breakthrough came in 2009 when the magazine "Semana" ranked her album "Canto, palo y cuero" in the ten most important productions of the year.
Carmago, who has already toured in Italy and Mexico, is anxious to see how this international audience will respond to her traditional folkloric music which, she claims, makes Colombians themselves feel more Colombian.
"I want to make them shiver, I want to make them feel," she told El Espectador. "We are going to whip up a huge party with our drums."
This is the story of a town which hearts reside on its music, its relationship with the Magdalena river in the Colombian Momposina’s Depression, a place where all the “Magic sub-realism” of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books comes to life.
This town has an ancient earthly music tradition called “TAMBORA” a music the rises from the “BEATS” of the alegre drums, la tambora bass drum, las maracas, but mostly from the “BEATS” of the hearts of every son and daughter of this land, whose voices give melody to the “TAMBORA” and whose clapping hands sheer every second of this ground shaking music called “TAMBORA”.
This is the story of a struggle for surviving. A sound that does not wan to stop sounding; A people that does not want to let their ancestral traditions disappear in to the avalanche of globalization, A river that does not want to run dry for the contamination and deforestation of the industrial world; This is the struggle for keeping ones identity, for saving the soul of your land.
This land is called SAN MARTIN DE LOBA, and its heart “BEATS” because of the sound of the “TAMBORA” without it this town will surely die, and a part of every one of us as well.
Colombian folklore at its nuanced best.
Featuring the vocalists Etelvina Maldonado, Gloria Perea, Martina Camargo, and Benigna Solis, Alé Kumá fuses soulful singing with driving percussion in the styles of fandando, aguabajo, cumbia, currulao, bullerengue entao, tambora golpiá, canción afro, juga, abozao, bunde, guacherna, chalupa, and berejú. Highly Recommended. (BP, 2009-03-10)
Alé Kumá's name comes from a traditional Colombian dance, whose origin is indigenous (Guahibo community, located at the east of Colombia) and symbolizes the familiar union that could be translated as "union without rupture". Since its creation, Alé Kumá, has called to collaborate with some of the most interesting Colombian musicians. The greatest afro-Colombian percussionist, Paulino Salgado "Batata III" from San Basilio de Palenque, who already passed away, gave a big contribute to Alé Kumá's project.
The work of Alé Kumá explores the different musical styles from African influence that are largely played along the Pacific and Atlantic Colombian coasts, as for instance cumbia, fandango, bullerengue, currulao, aguabajo, tambora, paseos, porros. Leonardo and Freddy (piano player) met veteran country cantaoras that have been making circulate the songs from woman to woman and from generation to generation and a lot of master country percussionists who play this music. Their songs are full of regionalismos and what Leonardo and Freddy have learnt from them is not just its rhythms but its aesthetic and different ways of interpretation that change from one village to another.
What Alé Kumá does is pick up all the different styles of this music, traditional instruments and some of the best representative cantaoras from both Atlantic and Pacific Coast and join harmoniously in the piano and contrabass. The result is traditional compositions arranged with a contemporary touch. The unusual instrument combinations, the clear and pure choral styles and the deep and feisty cantaoras' voices give a magic soul sound that is the key to the success of Alé Kumá.
The experience, sensibility and respect of both traditional and urban musicians became the springboard for Alé Kumá's reinvention of the afro-Colombian musical style. In the Colonial period the Spanish brought European instruments that little by little were introduced into the traditional formats. Some of them as the guitar and the harp were transformed. Some others as the accordion, which later was introduced into vallenato music, and the piano remain intact but adopted the rhythms, melodies and modes from the music to which they were incorporated. The piano and contrabass never before have been introduced into afro-Colombian music but when the musicians and the cantaoras Etelvina Maldonado, Martina Camargo, Benigna Solis and Gloria Perea listened to Freddy's piano and Leonardo's contrabass they were charmed by their sound. All of them were opened up to this new format and immediately aware that they were going to sing and play in a not strictly traditional way.
Alé Kumá's music can't be marketed under the umbrella of straight traditional afro-Colombian music, despite the fact that it preserves the typical elements of the popular tradition. Alé Kumá is the result of a collective criterion, where each one of its experienced members furnishes ideas to the arrangements, which are based on the spontaneity and expressivity of these musical traditions. Alé Kumá is very much their own style and sound.
It is the Colombian's soul music!
Alé Kumá have recorded till now two fantastic productions. The debut album Cantaoras, declared the best year's traditional production by Colombian weekly magazine Semana, was a highlight of afro-Colombian music in 2002, selling in Colombia more CD's than any other traditional production. It got the gold album, becoming the first time that in Colombia a traditional work was awarded with a such prize.
