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Grupo los Santos: Noches En El Taller

Grupo Los Santos

Label: Santos Music
Released: 2000
Duration: 00:58:56
Views: 115

Tracks

Alumbanche; Noches En El Taller; Chan Chan; Canto Sem Palavras; Weird Latin; Piece Now (For Nancy); Genevieve's Regret; Lagrimas Negras; Simplicidade; Siguiendo Las Huellas; La Topa/Bata-Ria

Personnel

Album Description

Noches en El Taller (Nights in the Workshop) is the first album from Grupo los Santos. The evenings spent at El Taller were the genesis of our band and our group music. Santos' four members had worked with each other in various combinations since 1985, but never regularly as a quartet until the summer of 1998. Drummer Bausch secured a weekly engagement at El Taller Latinoamericano (a Hispanic Cultural loft space at 104th & Broadway in NYC) for the express purpose of workshopping ideas, concepts and material in the Cuban and Brazilian veins. The name 'Grupo los Santos' was soon coined; a multi-faceted joke from El Taller's director Bernardo Palombo, involving the saintly first names of its members and their generous spirit in "playing for the bucket". Central, too, for the name was Bausch's love and study of bata drumming from the Santeria religion of Cuba, in which devotions are performed to Orishas (gods) in sacred order--and in which Orishas, for their worshippers, are often fused one to the other with the Saints of Catholicism. The concerts at El Taller became our weekly ritual, providing the medium for experimentations in texture, color, material, form and feel. They soon became a ritual for our growing audience as well, who returned week after week to travel the path with us. An evening with GLS might range from a whisper to a scream, a traditional Cuban Son or Rumba to a salute. All of the above, some of the above, or a complete breakdown in the middle of any of the above became customary. In the same spirit as a night at El Taller we give you this album. Original compositions by all four of us are included here, as well as two interpretations of Cuban classics: Trio Matamoros' "Lagrimas Negras" and Compay Segundo's "Chan Chan". We frame the recording with salutes on solo drumset to Eleggua--the Orisha who opens and closes the roads--as the bata drums do in a Santeria ceremony. In this we humbly thank and acknowledge the vital source of music and inspiration as it guides our path, and most importantly thank those in Cuba, Brazil and the U.S. who have so graciously and openly shared the music with us. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy our first effort. - Grupo los Santos

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