Thursday, November 30, 2006

La Rumba: Part 1 of 3



Here is the first of 3 clips from a 1978 Cuban documentary called simply "La Rumba," directed by Oscar Valdes.

Some excellent historic clips here of AfroCuba de Matanzas, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, and Carlos Embale.

In the Muñequitos sequence, Diosdado is dancing like crazy, and from left to right I can identify (please correct me if I am wrong):

Saldiguera, Jesús Alfonso on 3/2, Goyito on tumbadora, Florencio Calle on maruga, Chachá on quinto... and then I am lost with the singers. Anyone know?

I am also curious to know the name of the group featured in the still photographs at the end.


Click here to download a HQ mp4 clip of this file (88.6MB).

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The coro singer second from the right, just to the left of the lead singer looks like Rafael Pujada Niño.

Anonymous said...

The other day I saw an observation which said that not many comments were made about your articles. Well, I think it has to do with the format. Take a look at tumiami.blogspot and see how they have short articles most of the time and very clear in the botton, a link to comments. I rather read your lenghty article than read comments, because your articles are just a treassure! By the way, Clave y Guaguanco's new CD is great!

Happy New Year!

Anonymous said...

Cannot thank you enough for providing a rich resource for rumba...I've been a long-time fan but have never seen such an informative and thorough website devoted to this genre...wow.

I've seen Muñequitos 3-4 times in L.A.—never cease to amaze. This particular clip (w/ Diosdado) was actually what inspired me to build my own cajón many years ago.

Can the complete documentary be found anywhere? On DVD? I'm about to purchase Rumbón Tropical, but would love to have La Rumba as well as any other films out there.

Barry said...

Thanks for your kind words.

"La Rumba" is from a VHS called "Rumbas y Comparsas," containing 4 short films. Look around on the net, I saw that someone on ebay was selling dvds, and VHS copies may still be available. See this reference:

http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu:2082/search/d?Conga+(Dance)&search_code=a

Anonymous said...

The dancer with the scarves is also Lazaro Galarraga

Fidels Eyeglasses said...

That's not Esteban Vega "Chachá" Bacallao playing quinto in the clip.
I don't know who it is, but it's not "Chachá".

Maybe Patrice would know who it is.