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  • Rumba clave blen blen blen by Arístides Falcón Paradí
  • Johnny Frías
Arístides Falcón Paradí. Rumba clave blen blen blen. Paradí Productions, 2013. DVD.

Rumba clave blen blen blen is a documentary dedicated entirely to the New York City and New Jersey rumba scenes. Written, directed, and produced by Cuban immigrant Arístides Falcón Paradí, the film provides an artistic portrait of the local diversity of the Afro-Cuban musical community, focusing on exploring the meaning of rumba for its New York– and New Jersey–based practitioners. Although the approach is broadly focused, the documentary nevertheless contains valuable information, primarily in the form of interviews with some of the most important rumberos in the New York metropolitan area, including Román Díaz, Pedrito Martínez, David Oquendo, and the now deceased Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos and Félix “Pupy” Insua. These are supplemented by numerous performance clips from the Central Park rumba (which takes place every Sunday during warm weather months), the Esquina Habanera (a restaurant in Union City, New Jersey, that hosted Sunday rumbas from the mid-1990s until a few years ago), stage shows from local groups, and local Afro-Cuban religious festivities.

The documentary complements the scholarly work of Berta Jottar and Lisa Maya Knauer on the Central Park rumba. While Jottar and Knauer focus on issues such as race, power relations, and transnational connections, Falcón Paradí’s approach is more general and artistic, reflecting his point of view as a writer and poet. The result is best described as a collage-like depiction of the local rumba environment that can serve to provide interested scholars with an audiovisual supplement to the existing literature on the New York area’s rumba scene. Another related work is the Routes of Rumba (2008), a CD produced by Berta Jottar, featuring Román Díaz and Pedrito Martínez, two of the primary interviewees in Falcón Paradí’s film.

Dedicated to the memory of Chano Pozo (as is evident in the title, which refers to Pozo’s song “Blen blen blen”), as well as to Orlando “ Puntilla” Ríos and Félix “Pupy” Insua, the film is structured around a set of inquiries put forth by Falcón Paradí as he interviews each musician, with the ultimate goal of understanding what rumba is and what it means to the performers. The broad focus seems to reflect the point of view of [End Page 123] the producer, a rumba fan who is attempting to grasp the fundamentals of the world of rumba. Hence, some of the musical information—such as the role of each drum or the differences among variants—will not be anything new for a rumbero or student of rumba. However, the inclusion of both Román Díaz and art historian Robert Farris Thompson—two experts well versed in the history of Afro-Cuban music—makes for an interesting contribution of details not always included in general histories of rumba. For example, Román Díaz explains that the columbia was particularly influenced by the pugilistic baile de maní (a dance-fight tradition popular among slaves in colonial Cuba). In addition, members of the New Jersey–based Raíces Habaneras provide some background on their group and the origins of the Sunday rumbas at the Esquina Habanera in Union City.

Rather than being narrated, the script consists entirely of interviews and is primarily in colloquial Spanish, with subtitles in English or Spanish available. No extra multimedia materials are included. The first section of the documentary explores the conceptual meaning of rumba for its practitioners, a popular theme in rumba songs that is rarely addressed in scholarly works or documentaries. In one clip, a couple of the rumberos at Central Park point out the emotional release and satisfaction that the Sunday rumbas represent for them. Robert Farris Thompson brings a musicological perspective to the various inquiries, for example, providing a brief explanation of the three variants of rumba. Clips from the Central Park rumba and various local performances are used as musical examples for each topic discussed. Orisha themes are also used as a structuring device, although they seem...

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