Collecting culture: collector's converge correcting & corroborating Latin Music History - collecting Latin American music-related memorabilia, sound recordings

Latin Beat Magazine, March, 2004 by Aurora Flores

At the dawn of the 20th century, North American labels began recording the first records of Caribbean artists, trios and orchestras. Before established companies such as Edison, Columbia and Pathe began recording Latin music in Cuba and Puerto Rico, Thomas Edison had already experimented with his new sound duplication device recording local groups on a barge off the coast of Havana around 1903.

The following musical recordings were either done on location in Cuba and P.R. or recorded in New York City and New Jersey. By 1925, Cuban and Puerto Rican musical interpreters and composers began emerging as a major musical force. By 1927, a demanding market for Latin music records prompted Puerto Rican composer/musician Rafael Hernández and his sister Victoria to open the first Latin music record store in East Harlem's El Barrio. 1931 saw the hit song El Manicero (The Peanut vendor) sell more than one million 78 RPM copies within two years of its NYC recorded release by Don Azpiazú and his Havana Casino Orchestra. By the late '40s, Dominican singer Alberto Beltrán popularized in New York the now merengue standards, El Negrito del Batey and Compradre Pedro Juan, through his collaboration with La Sonora Marancera, while Joseito Román and Napoleón Zayas put together authentic merengue big bands in the city. By the '50s, the accordionist Angel Viloria established the most successful merengue group outside of the Dominican Republic. Indeed, New York City became a mecca for Tropical/Latin music recording throughout the '30s, '40s and "50s.

Many of these early recordings featured music from Puerto Rico, spotlighting plenas, aguinaldos, trios and paso dobles, some simply done in on organic folk style while others featuring full orchestrations with jazzy brass phrases lacing the arrangements. While the fever pitched during the '30s for this type of music, ethnic labels, usually produced by Americans unfamiliar with the language or culture, recorded political lyrics and racy double entendres that went unnoticed. So did proper credit for composers, lyricists and even the musicians who played in these recordings. Until collectors began converging, swapping and sharing the information they had, many historical gaps would remained unfilled.

For example, a popular CD available on the market features Daniel Santos with La Sonora Matancera. The reissued CD, as the original album cover, is a plain white background with a black and white illustration of Daniel Santos. But upon hearing the recording, you'll notice an instrumentation in the band totally unlike La Sonora's conjunto, two trumpet style. That's because it's not Sonora Matancera but Sonora Boricua, according to information unveiled at one of the Collector's Fairs produced for the past 20 years in Puerto Rico.

Cultural activist or addictive horder

Collectors are a rare breed, part cultural activist looking for roots and identity while bringing unsung heroes/heroines, songs, arrangers, composers and events onto center stage, part addictive fanatic hording "stashes" while amassing what might one day be a gold mine. In any case, without these collectors to corroborate the cultural history of this music, provide resources for academics, journalists and even the musicians themselves, a lot of what we know today might have been lost.

"It's a matter of cultural pride," says Ralph Méndez who considers himself a Johnny-come-lately to the collecting scene. "For me, it's like therapy. I search out fairs, flea markets, anyplace where I can find a rare record, a 16-inch LP, a wax cylinder, a poster, a record discography, magazine or photo someone discarded without regard," he explains. "When I'm on the hunt for something in particular, everything else becomes a blank except for what I'm looking for. It's like a mantra in my mind, until I find it. And then I leave exhilarated."

Indeed, René L6pez, one of the better known collectors of Latin music (as well as producer and historian) explains, "collectors all have different specialties. Some may focus on Tito Puente or Celia Cruz and some will specialize in only Puerto Rican music, or just folk, or just boleros or salsa. It could be any variety or combination of the music. But one thing most collectors have in common is the lengths they'll go through to get what they're looking for," he points out. "I myself will spend hours, days, weeks searching through boxes in basements just to see what I might find. Someone should give the wives an award just for putting up with us."

Henry Medina has been collecting films since he worked at a library as a young man. Today, he has one of the most sought-after collection of rare films featuring some of the legendary, and not so well known, Latin music artists.

Richard Blondett sees the collector as "fitting the pieces to a musical puzzle that continues to increase in size as each generation passes on and fails to document their own history." For the 30-year old New Yorker, collecting was sparked through his own curiosity, fare and pride as in the case of Arturo Schomburg who became the world's largest collector of African American history when a teacher in his native Puerto Rico told him Blacks had no history.