Smithsonian launches Venezuelan folk CD - Parranda!

By Russell Maddicks
Folk group La Sardina de Naiguatá will be bringing all the feelgood fun of a Venezuelan street party when they tour the USA in June and July with a series of free concerts in Washington, Houston, San Francisco and Chicago to promote their new album "Parranda! Venezuelan Carnival Music", which is being released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings today, 19 June 2012.
As the name suggests, the group comes from the town of Naiguatá - located on the long strip of Caribbean coast north of Caracas known as the Litoral Central.
The town is not the most picturesque spot on the coast - many people only stop here to stock up with alcohol from the many liquor stores before heading off to the popular seaside sands of Los Caracas or the more attractive and isolated beaches of Osma, Caruao and Chuspa - but for those in the know Naiguatá is famous for celebrating the largest number of street festivals in Venezuela.
The party people of Naiguatá have preserved the tradition of Diablos Danzantes (dancing devils) during the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi, hold parades in honour of Saint John the Baptist on June 23-24, and dance madly in masks and costumes during carnival.
But the festival that most clearly marks the town as special is the annual procession on Ash Wednesday known as El Entierro de la Sardina (The Burial of the Sardine).
Amid much mock solemnity a man dressed as a priest leads a motley assortment of men in drag known as viudas (widows) in a funeral cortege for a papier mache sardine that is ceremonially cast into the sea while the celebrants, including a horned devil, lament the end of carnival and the the start of Lent.
Fundamental to the procession is the music, a shuffling merengue beat that can be adapted to cover virtually any popular song of the day and which has evolved dramatically thanks to Ricardo Díaz - a local fisherman, trumpet player and founder of La Sardina de Naiguatá.
Realizing that he could add more oomph to the traditional procession music provided by cuatro (four-string guitar like a ukelele), charrasca (gourd or metal scraper) and Afro-Caribbean drums, Díaz added brass, electric bass, electric keyboard, and a choir of female singers.
The group now lead local revellers around the streets of the town from the back of a truck, giving a real carnival feel to the annual procession, which was brought to Venezuela by the Spanish and mirrors similar festivities still celebrated in the Spanish cities of Madrid and Murcia and on the Canary islands.
Over the years La Sardina de Naiguatá have built up a repertoire of songs that draw on local folk styles such as parranda and fulía that tap into the Spanish and African roots that gave birth to these hybrid musical forms that are as unique to Venezuela as vallenato is to Colombia or bachata to the Dominican Republic.
The Smithsonian was so keen to capture the authentic sound of the group that Folkways director Daniel Sheehy, the musical director Alexander Livinally, and sound engineer Peter Reinier travelled to Caracas to oversee the recording of the album, which was later remixed in the USA.
Folkways Recordings is the most important repository of World Music in the United States and was founded in 1948 by Moses Asch to document "people's music" from around the globe.
To coincide with the release of the CD, the Smithsonian has produced a mini-documentary about La Sardina de Naiguatá.
Parranda! Venezuelan Carnival Music
TRACK LIST
1. Abran la puerta [Open the Door] (calipso)
2. Parranda calle [Street Parranda] (parranda)
3. Volveré [I Will Return] (fulía) - Audio clip
4. Pájaro amarillo [Yellow Bird] (parranda)
5. Guayana es [It’s Guayana] (calipso)
6. Potpourrí “Alí Primera” [“Alí Primera” Medley]
7. Tambores de Naiguatá [Drums of Naiguatá]
8. El pilón [The Corn-Pounder] (parranda)
9. Flor de loto [Lotus Flower] (vals)
10. Potpourrí del gallo pinto [Spotted Rooster Medley] (fulía)
11. Río Manzanares [Manzanares River] (parranda)
12. Bandido [Bandit] (calipso) - Audio clip
13. Carmela (fulía)
14. Potpourrí “Sabor a navidad” [“Taste of Christmas” Medley]


To buy the album, download it from Amazon or listen to audio samples, click here.

For details of other releases on the Smithsonian Folkways music label click here.

US Tour dates and details: 
Free places are limited to some of these events so reserve early to avoid disappointment

29 June - Washington - Smithsonian Folklife Festival - Free - 6:30 pm
1 July Houston, Texas - Miller Outdoor Theatre - Free - 8 pm
5 July Washington -  Embassy of Venezuela - Free
8 July San Francisco - Yerbabuena Gardens Festival - Free -1-3 pm
11 July Chicago - Chicago School of Folk Music - Free - 8:30 pm
13 July Chicago - Chicago School of Folk Music - See link above

Calypso is king of Venezuela's El Callao carnival

The 2012 Carnival has already kicked off in El Callao with beauty contests and calypso competitions but the big processions start Saturday 18 February - Tuesday 21 February, and end on Ash Wednesday with the start of Lent.

El Callao - A Calypso, Caribbean Carnival in the South of Venezuela

Venezuela is a country of countless parties, fiestas and dances, from individual celebrations of local patron saints to the gaitas and parrandas of Zulia state at Christmas, the Dancing Devils of Yare and Chuao during the Feast of Corpus Christi and the African drum dancing in honour of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June.

One small town that beats them all is El Callao, a centre for gold mining in Bolivar State that comes alive every year for four days during carnival to the vibrant sounds of calypso and soca and the copious consumption of rum, beer and aguardiente (fire water).

With over a 150 years of history, the El Callao carnival celebrates cultural traditions brought to Venezuela by French and English-speaking Caribbeans - including many Trinidadians - drawn to El Callao by a gold rush in 1853 that saw the town become the leading gold producer in the world. Gold production peaked by about 1885 and by the end of the century the big seams were played out and the town slipped back into obscurity.

Nowadays, it's hard to imagine this tiny, ramshackle town of tin roofs and small gold shops was once the source of so much wealth, but during carnival the population of 39,000 swells to four times that number and you get a sense of what the glory days were like.

The carnival in El Callao has a colourful cast of characters who accompany the comparsas (floats with a sound system and a themed crowd of dancers).
Las Madamas are women wearing colourful 19th century dresses and turbans from the French Caribbean.
The Medio Pintos are boys and men covered in tar or paint or any other black sludgy stuff they can get their hands on. The idea is that you give them a coin called a "medio" (1 Bolivar Fuerte will do these days) or they paint you with sludge and comes from the phrase "medio o te pinto".
The Diablos are men and boys in spiky devil masks who keep the crowds back from the comparsas along the carnival route by using their short latigos (whips).

This year the Callao carnival is dedicated to Cleotilde Stapleton de Billings (1911-2009), a singer and famous madama, who did so much to popularize the folk culture and calypso traditions of El Callao with her musical group Yuruari.

The El Callao carnival of 2012 will be celebrated from 18-21 February.

Dancing Devils of Chuao

Every year on the Feast of Corpus Christi, sacred brotherhoods in 14 Venezuelan towns and villages act out a centuries old tradition of devil dancing that was brought to these shores from Spain but which grew to incorporate the slaves' defiance and rejection of being left outside the church during the Sunday mass.

San Francisco de Yare, with its red devils, is the best known of these towns but the famous coastal cacao plantation of Chuao has the most interesting expression of the tradition due to the village's extreme isolation and its preservation of ancient traditions.

A former slave plantation once owned by the family of Simon Bolivar, Chuao is reached only by boat or after a two-day walk across the mountains of the Henri Pittier National Park along the mule track to Maracay, which is still used today to transport the finest cocoa beans grown in Venezuela.

The video shows the devils dancing in front of the church to the rhythm of the drum and later to the cuatro, after they have been blessed by the Catholic priest.

This is just the merest glimpse of a magical experience. In truth, the dancing devils of Chuao deserve an hour long documentary on the BBC.

Click here for an article on the Dancing Devils of Yare in literature

Click here for an article on how the Dancing Devils of Yare came to wear their distinctive red outfits

Chuao: In Search of World's Finest Cocoa Beans

Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory brings Venezuelan cacao to the UK

New Channel 4 Series: "Raising the Bar: Willie's Chocolate Revolution"