Jazz Articles about Grupo del Cuareim

Grupo del Cuareim: Candombe

by Jack Bowers
July 1, 2001

Candombe, we’re told in the liner notes to this delightful album, is an Afro–Uruguayan rhythm that extends beyond music to embody a way of life, one that was lovingly portrayed in the paintings of Pedro Figari (1861–1938), to whose memory it is dedicated. The picture here is one of pulsating Latin rhythms underpinning lambent group vocals (with the lyrics to each song inscribed in Spanish in the booklet that accompanies the disc). As I’m hardly an expert on this particular ...