We are closing this blog from the Vallenato Festival 2011 with a beautiful encounter we had with Leandro Díaz the day after the closure of the festival. The blind, now almost deaf, composer and poet has not given up creating vallenato songs - or on life. He sang for us his latest composition, not even two months old: No le temo a los años (I am not afraid of the years)
We dare not attempt to translate these wonderful lines, be it enough said that he makes fun of the 50 year olds that fear becoming 60; he himself has passed 80 and is fortunate to still be able to sing the woman's praise. In the next verse he adds that in the garden of life the last flower that withers away is the woman...
Thank you for always sharing your wisdom and courage, Maestro. And thank you for the music. Keep it coming!
(Please note that the Maestro at this stage of his life is severely hearing disabled, and does not sing in public any longer)
In the little park outside his house, Golden Colombia found the new Vallenato King, Almes Granados, celebrating at a typical parranda with vallenato music and Old Parr whiskey. Surrounded by journalists and with his cell phone ringing all the time, we managed to exchange a few words with him:
Golden Colombia was invited to an exclusive parranda (vallenato jam session with stories and anecdotes) by the composer Adrián Villamizar whose song Ciegos Nosotros (The blind ones are us) won this year's Best Song Contest. The son is a hymn to Leandro Díaz' poetry, the blind vallenato composer to whom the festival is dedicated this year. Leandro himself sings in one of his songs that God instead of giving him eyes to see the physical world, gave him los ojos bellos del alma (the wonderful eyes of the soul), and Villamizar is alluding to this in the chorus that goes: We are the blind ones/who do not see/the image of God in man.
The song was performed at the parranda by the composer himself (guitar) and Carmen Gonzales, the blind 15 year old girl who also performed the song on stage in the competition with her fellow sightless Juan David Atencia (12).
The Golden Colombia Foundation organized a Scandinavian Tour in August 2009 with this year's accordion King Almes Granados, singer Ivo Díaz and the composer who is being celebrated at this festival, Leandro Díaz.
To say that the crowds went wild is almost an understatement. Scandinavia had not seen aconjunto vallenato at this level since Los Hermanos Zuleta and other vallenato friends of Gabriel García Márquez accompanied the author to Stockholm for the Nobel prize seremony in 1982.
Here are some photos from the six concerts that were held in Norway and Sweden, and some from a day off fishing in a Norwegian fjord!
Almes Granados Durán from Mariangola, Cesar, won the most prestigious crown in the 44th Festival Vallenato - that of professional accordionists - and is now the ruling Vallenato King.
Almes Granados belongs to the Granados dynasty of accordionists, and this is the 8th crown that their family has won, among them the legendary Ovidio Granados and the latest King of Kings, his cousin Hugo Carlos Granados. (Every ten years the kings from the last decade compete for the King of Kings title).
See two of songs Almes' performed at the stage Francisco El Hombre in the qualification rounds on Thursday here:
This picture was taken in Oslo in 2009 on the Scandinavian tour that the Golden Colombia Foundation organized with Almes Granados and Ivo and Leandro Díaz.
Ciegos Nosotros (The blind ones are us) is one of the favourites in the Best Song Contest in this year's Vallenato Festival. Both music and lyrics are by Adrián Villamizar, and the song was sang by two blind children.
The medical doctor Villamizar is a defender of the classic vallenato and the guitar-based vallenato in particular.
In Ciegos Nosotros he attempts to show the audacity of the blind vallenato poet Leandro Díaz (who is receiving a well deserved tribute at this year's festival) as he told the world about his suffering in his now classic songs. And he attempts to show that the ones of us who haveour vusual sences intactare really the blind ones, not seing all that the world really has to offer a seeing person.
Among the five finalists in the infants' accordion contest were the girls Merida Galvis and María Fernanda García. Here we present their presentations Morenita and El Hatonuevero, respectively.
El Hatonuevero is a song Leandro Díaz wrote on the occacion of the arrival of the telephone to his natal village Hatonuevo; "now my village can communicate with every other village in the world"!
Also the song contains the memorable lines from the poet - once a poor, blind child of Hatonuevo -that ended up as beloved artist speaking out against the social exclusion he experienced: "joyful will be my native land/when I tell them/that they have their children up front/to defend their rights"
Yesterday the children's accordion crown was won by José Camilo Mugno Pinzon (12) from El Difícil, Magdalena. In the gigantic vallenato stadium, Consuelo Araújo Noguera, he gave a blasting performance that proved both his extreme accordion skills as well as his love for the music.
As for his merengue (one of the four vallenato rythms the contenders have to perform) he had chosen to recover Leandro Díaz' La Descuidá from oblivion. Check out this amazing performance.
Almes Granados played the puya Mi Arte Musical, his own composition, in today's contest. The puya is a rythm inherited from the american aborigines. In the puyas, all the vallenato instruments - the accordion, the caja and the guacharaca - plays a solo part each. See this amazing presentation!
Almes Granados Durán is a great accordion player from the Granados acciodion dynasti in Marangola, Cesar. His cousin is the famous King of Kings accordionist, Hugo Carlos Granados.
Almes were among the remaning 25 finalists in today's contest. Each finalist interpreted one song in each of the four rythms ("aires") in vallenato: son, paseo, merengue (not the Dominican style!) and puya. As for his son, Almes chose to play La Niña Guillo by the legendary Alejo Durán, one of the greatest composers and interpreters of son ever.
Almes GRanados played a series of concerts with Ivo Díaz in Scandinavia in 2009, the photo is from the concert in Bergen, Norway.
At the parranda we dropped by last night (see former post), one of the persons seated in the circle listening was Luchito Daza, Accordion King 2010. Here's what he had to say about vallenato, his inspiration and his future plans.
We took this photo at the vallenato festival two years ago while Lucho was still just one of several dozens of contenders.
Last night we passed by a parranda - jam session, vallenato style - in one on the Valledupar streets. People sitting at the pavement, quietly listening to vallenato musicians and discussing the songs and the interpretations.
In this clip, the band plays La Primavera by Lorenzo Morales.
La Gota Fría (literally: the cold drop; an expression of being scared in Spanish) is one of the Colombian songs that has been a world-wide hit. Particularly it was made famous by Carlos Vives in a rock-vallenato version in the early 90s as it hit dance floors at both sides of the Atlantic. Julio Iglesias has recorded the song under the name "Moralito".
The song however was composed in 1938 by the late Emiliano 'El Viejo Mile' Zuleta. The background was the intense rivalry between the two men who were perceived as the two greatest vallenato musicians in the early 1930s, Zuleta and Lorenzo Morales (photo taken this week). The rivalry was related first and foremost to accordeon capabilities, but also to piquerias (similar to battling in rap music) and to the ability to write sarcastic, degrading songs about their rival.
During this battle that endured for more than a decade, Emilian Zuleta, unfortunately for Moralito, came up with what Gabriel García Márquez has called the perfect vallenato song: La Gota Fría. In the song he claims that he and Morales had agreed to meet for a accordeon duel in the village Urumita at a certain date, but that Morales had fled the village at dawn out of fear: "le cayo la gota fría".
Morales has had to live with this accusation for 73 years. Was it true?
What we do know, as Colombia's president Juan Manuel Santos said in his speech Tuesday, is that this was one of many encounters between the two in the first half of the former century. And that anyhow, it was a great way to settle one's diferences in such an artistic manner!
Lorenzo Morales told Golden Colombia in an interview three years ago that, no; he was in that village the day before, picking up some herbs his mother had asked ho to get. However, he did not know anything about any accordeon contest, as Zuleta mentions in the song.
Now a time witness being a close friend of both:
Leandro Díaz told us in 2008 that there is no doubt that Morales was the best accordeonist of the two. As for the battling and the song-writing skills, there is no doubt that Zuleta had the lead on Morales. And, most importantly, Zuleta had more, and more powerful, friends. Accord(eon)ingly, Morales had no reason to flee from the duel, and when Zuleta made his claims of Morales' cowardness, he had enough followers to believe him and spread the song's accusation.
The end of the story is, it seems, that Zuleta happened to make the best vallenato song ever written, and that Lorenzo Morales was the best vallenato accordeonist, certainly the best until 'El Pollo Vallenato' Luis Enrique Martínez entered the stage in the 50s but that is a different story.
However, it belongs to the story that the Zuleta and Morales engaged into a lifelong friendship later, and even ended up as compadres (godfathers). They made a vow that whoever died first, the other would put his accordeon to rest, a vow that Morales has respected ever since Zuleta passed away in 2005.
Leandro Díaz spent many years of his life living alone while he kept writing songs to the women he had feelings for in order to improve his chances...
Morenita (Little brunette) is one of these songs, where he tries to convince the object of his desire that a great love will be lost if they do not get together. Leandro Díaz te brinda dicha - Leandro Díaz will bring you happiness!
At the accordeon contest that started yesterday, the participants interpreted songs in the merengue and paseo rythms of vallenato. Leandro Díaz is known as the best merengue composer ever, and many of his compositions were interpreted by the participants. In this clip Christian Pérez plays a brilliant version of Morenita.
At the cafe where we have set up our operations center during the festival, these three children came to our table to entertain us. Little did they know that the son of the man who this song is about, was seated at the table...
The three young musicians represented Instituto para Niños Ciegos (Institue for blind children) and are participating at the accordeon contest for children at the festival. And surely their visit to Valledupar was inspired by the fact that this year's festival is a tribute to their great hero, the blind vallenato composer Leandro Díaz.
Lorenzo Morales (96) - here with the Golden Colombia team in Valledupar! - was the greatest accordeon player in vallenato from the late 1920's. In the late 1960's he retired from the musical scene to live as a farmer in La Serranía de Perijá. Leandro Díaz was disappointed that no one in Valledupar seemed to miss him or even wondered what had happened to him. So he wrote the song La Muerte de Moralito (The death of Moralito) reproaching the lack of interest in the fate of Morales in Valledupar.
Below Leandro's son, Ivo Díaz interpretes the song spontanically at a forum on the lives of the two Maestros Tuesday.
At the opening ceremony of the festival Tuesday night, Colombia's president Juan Manuel Santos condecorated the two Maestros of vallenato music being celebrated at this year's festival, Leandro Díaz and Lorenzo Morales. He also paid tribute to them in his inaugural speech, referring to their outstanding achievements during their long lives as vallenato musicians, composers and poets.
In his speech Santos referred to the intense rivalry between Lorenzo Morales and his main contender, Emilian Zuleta for the throne of vallenato in the 1930s. Read more on that piqueria and the world famous song that resulted from that battle, La Gota Fría here.
He also cited one of the most famous phrases in vallenato, "En adelante van estos lugares..." from Leandro Díaz' La Diosa Coronada, the phrase that opens one of the greates love novels of all times, García Márquez' Love in the Times of Cholera.
Today's conversatorio with the two legendary Maestros Leandro Díaz and Lorenzo Morales gave us material for many posts and we'll post more material from that session at this blog over the next few days. Let it suffice with these few points from the mouth of the blind (from birth) Leandro Díaz:
- I'm glad God made me this way, otherwise I would not have been the man that I am.
- Hardship makes a man stronger
and on the question from a young man who wanted to become famous as him:
You're on the right track, keep doing your thing, remember that the rainbows can start from any old tree but the gold is at the rainbow's end.
Tuesday was the opening day of the 44th Vallenato Festival. At 2 pm the city gathered around Avenida Los Cortijos to watch the parade Desfile de Las Piloneras. 65 folklore groups presented the Baile de las Piloneras, a traditional dance from the valley of Upar (where the name of the capital of the district gained its name, Valledupar). The Pilon is a tool that the women used to crush corn and the Pilon song was the song they sang during their work. As time went by, it developed into a dance, and today it is one of the most typical elements of the vallenato culture.
At today's event two Maestros of vallenato music, Leandro Díaz and Lorenzo Morales, were honored with a ceremony celebrating their lifetime achievements in the field of music. Many family members and close friends spoke regarding their feelings towards their loved one. Many spoke of stories and anecdotes of the Maestros' achievements.
The Golden Colombia Foundation started the ceremony off with a public anouncement whereby we are naming our future Cultural Heritage Center in Cartagena after Leandro Díaz. On the picture you see Leandro with a framed document he was given regarding Golden Colombia's reasons for naming the center on his behalf, see more on www.goldencolombia.org.
This blog goes out to all of you who are feeling ausencia sentimental (sentimental absence) just now (the name of the vallenato festival's anthem, a story of sad guy stuck in Bogotá at time of the festival). We can assure you that, as the song goes, "el mango sigue en la plaza igual" (the mango tree is still in the plaza) - see the photo from tonight's event!
The Golden Colombia team in the photo below - Jaime Molina (hijo!), Beatriz Ramirez, Peter Heptinstall and Øystein Schjetne - will cover the next days of the vallenato festival for all of you who wish to follow.
We are closing this blog from the Vallenato Festival 2011 with a beautiful encounter we had with Leandro Díaz the day after the closure of the festival. The blind, now almost deaf, composer and poet has not given up creating vallenato songs - or on life. He sang for us his latest composition, not even two months old: No le temo a los años (I am not afraid of the years)
