Afro-America Project - Venezuela comes to London

UPDATE: Tonight 10 May at 7:30 p.m. - Free Concert by Wilmer Sifontes & his Afro-American Project at the Venezuelan Cultural Centre in Bolivar Hall - 54-56 Grafton Way London, W1T 5DL

There was a time in the UK when it was impossible to find Venezuelan folk music, either live or on CD, and you had to rely on friends to burn off some tracks for you or travel to Venezuela to hear it for yourself somewhere warm and exotic like Choroni.

Thankfully, those days are over with the arrival on the scene of an exciting new band led by the Venezuelan master percussionist Wilmer Sifontes.

Called the "Afro-American Project", the group is made up of professional musicians and talented newcomers who are determined to bring the full-on experience of a Venezuelan folk fiesta to the people of the UK.

The clip shows Wilmer and his group playing a medley of Afro-Venezuelan songs, including calypsos from the southern gold-mining town of El Callao, and the kind of tambores from the coast that you can hear in Choroni on a typical Friday night.

If you want to know how true tambores is danced in these small fishing villages watch the girl with the curls swinging her hips at the end of the video.

Wilmer is already well-known on the Latin-London music scene as the percussionist for Conjunto Sabroso and the The Charlys Orchestra.

But now he is determined to spread the news about Venezuelan music to a wider audience and sees the Afro-American Project as a way to get more musicians interested in learning and performing Venezuela's rich legacy of African and Afro-Caribbean roots music.

For more information about the band or to book them for a Venezuelan, South American, or Caribbean themed event contact Wilmer Sifontes

Tambores - San Juan Bautista Fiesta in Choroni

Every year on the 24 June coastal towns and villages celebrate the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, described locally as "the saint of the blacks", or the "party saint". This is clearly a syncretic fusion of African traditions brought over by slaves and Catholic iconography. In Choroni and Chuao the statues of Saint John the Baptist are taken down from their places in the church, washed and dressed, offered rum to drink and carried in procession. Devotees carry red flags, the colour associated with San Juan, which adds to the colourful spectacle. Every couple of years there is a "meeting of the saints", when fishing boats take the various statues out to sea to meet and then go in procession to one of the coastal villages for drums, drinks and revelling. A true fusion of the sacred and the profane, folk music does not get more Venezuelan than this. For the drummers, it is a great honour to take part in the exhausting all night, all day celebrations, which generally start on the 23 June and can last up to three days or more.

Tambores in Chuao

This is a good introduction to Venezuelan tambores music. The two guys on the ground are playing cumaco drums made from hollowed avocado tree trunks with deer or cowhide skins. Behind them are two other drummers playing on the trunks with hard sticks called "palillos" or "laures" that give the distinctive taca-ta-taca-ta sound that drives the dancing. The singer or cantor is accompanied by a chorus, as is typical with Afro-Caribbean call and response drum music. The male dancers try and get as close as they can to the muchachitas, while the ladies spin away to avoid them. Anybody, male or female, can cut in at any time and take over. Tambores is popular in all the old plantation towns along the coast and harks back to slave days. Chuao is a historic plantation where Venezuela's finest cocoa beans are produced. It is reached by sea from Choroni .

Read the article - Chuao: In Search of World's Finest Cocoa Beans
Read the article - Choroni: Tambores, guarapita and midnight dips

Choroni - Tambores on the malecon

The best party in Venezuela has to be Thursday or Friday night in Puerto Colombia, Choroni, where if you're lucky the Afro-Venezuelan drums will be playing, setting pulses racing on the seafront malecon. Try some of the local hooch - guarapita - a deadly cocktail of passionfruit and cane alcohol. Sweet.

Read my travel article - Choroni: Tambores, guarapita and midnight dips