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In1974,agroupofyoungmusiciansintheBronx formed a band that came to be called Conjunto Anabacoa. Amid the regular work that salsa required, their idea was to do nothing but get together and jam, to develop freely the music that they were most excited about. They had no pretensions to record, not even to have an audience, given how small the crowds were that turned out to listen to them. This was a private project, one of those groups that arose from the exclusive pleasure of the musicians themselves. Eventually, however, they were invited by Wesleyan University to give a series of recitals to illustrate, in a purer and fresher way, the characteristics of Latin music in New York. It was then that the González brothers, Andy and Jerry, having prompted this gathering of colleagues and friends, decided to give a name to the improvised group. They named it Anabacoa after an old son by Arsenio Rodríguez, a son that the group interpreted with special feeling. For the recitals, Andy and Jerry were joined by Nelson González on the tres, Frankie Rodríguez on the tumba, and Chocolate Armenteros , the veteran Cuban trumpet player and their former colleague in the Eddie Palmieri orchestra. Drawing on the enthusiasm triggered by the university recitals, the original group of friends began to expand considerably . René López, the musicologist who also performed as a singer, gradually emerged as the group’s leader. Already by 1975, interest in the group carried beyond their occasional Saturday jam sessions, and López took the initiative of recording the group in a serious way. He also coined the name by which the group would hereafter be known: Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorkino. Indeed, the group had been working with traditional folklore, combining it with experiments and contemporary innovations, and all with the shaping influence offered by the New York scene. The group took that approach into the recording studio, and what they produced surprisingly received unconditional applause from the entire Caribbean community. Before the end of 1975, the group had released its first album, a double one smartly titled Conceptos en unidad (Concepts in Unity). The cover showed a long line of congas alternating the old ones with the skin nailed on with the new ones that have the skin attached by keys. This image made clear the complete synthesis that the Folklórico implied: the music of the past with the vision of today and the music of today with the vision of the past. In other words, folklore and experimentation were combined solidly into one music. In addition, the New York position was not taken 239 ånot he r T hin g on exclusively as a Boricua or Nuyorican characteristic that had radically nurtured the salsa boom but, rather, as a rich blend of all of the Latino communities in the city. Thus, conceptually and musically speaking, the Folklórico adroitly transcended the perspectives of the commercial music of the moment. Recognizing that one of the principal virtues of this group was its spontaneity , López kept the musicians, once in the recording studio, from giving in to the modern technique of having the sections record separately, since this usually made the music sound sterile or cold. The Folklórico did its best work as a jam session, so when the time came to record, they would invariably have to go on jamming. López called in Fred Weinberg, a veteran Colombian musician and producer who, according to many, was the best recording engineer in the city. Weinberg immediately understood the nature of the group and their music, and he facilitated a collective recording method that allowed them to jam freely without getting in one another’s way. They used the immense Plaza Sound studio—the same studio that had been designed for Toscanini—and filled it with percussion instruments strategically distributed so that they could jam with the necessary freedom. The group’s large percussion section really stood out on this first album, and it challenged the usual structure of salsa orchestras that relied on a maximum of two drummers (on conga and bongo) and the occasional addition of a timbal player. The Folklórico, by contrast, included an average of six percussionists for each song. This clearly made for a music that not only was innovative but also had a much fuller, more complete and substantive sound. The group’s most prominent percussionist was Manny Oquendo, the timbalist for the original Conjunto La...

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