Respeta mi tambó

Latin Beat Magazine, Dec, 1997 by Luis Tamargo

LOS NARANJOS

No longer restricted to Oriente, the easternmost province of Cuba, the son became very popular throughout the island in the 1920s, when the sound of a single trumpet was added to the son ensemble in Havana. The product of the blending of multiple elements from a wide range of sources (Africa, Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Castille, France, Haiti, etc.), the son came to be known as lo mas sublime (the most sublime) many moons before it gave birth to what we know today as salsa, humorously defined by Guillermo Cabrera Infante as the son's vástago vago (errant offspring, vagrant descendant).

Well, that's enough history for now. This review is about Los Naranjos, not to be confused with Jesús Naranjo (alias Jesus Orange), the efficient RMM West Coast impresario of Colombian descent. The unique thing about Los Naranjos, as indicated by Manny González on the album's brief but excellent liner notes, is that they have managed to maintain the same vocal and instrumental patterns since its formation, circa 1926, in the Cuban seaport of Cienfuegos, also known (for good reasons) as La Perla del Sur, or the Southern Pearl, a title disputed by the Puerto Rican city of Ponce. Despite the fact that most of the earlier Oranges are no longer with us, Cienfuegos' oldest group has preserved the true essence of the Cuban son.

Led by contrabassist Félix Molina, Los Naranjos' citric material includes a few originals (mostly composed by vocalist Pablo Jústiz), but most of the repertoire consists of Creole classics, from Miguel Matamoros' Nadie se Salva de la Rumba ( No one is safe from the rumba) to Rodrigo Prats' Amalia Batista (no relation to the late Fulgencio). Unexpectedly, the session ends with a tribute to the orisha of drumming (Pablo Jústiz Amala Pa'Changó) which blends popular and religious traditions of Cuban music. After all, a consistent (but often undetected) fusion of secular and liturgical styling has been taking place in Cuba since 1930, when flutist Gilberto Valdés wrote a piece which included music for the sacred batá drums.