Liner Notes

 

On a hot summer afternoon in 1990 I went to Felipe Garcia Villamil’s apartment in the South Bronx, NY, to take my first drum lesson. He asked what I wanted to learn from him and I answered: ‘Bata’.  He smiled at me as if we both knew a secret about the drums that neither of us would mention.  We didn’t talk much in general, but from the moment we began playing together, I felt I had known him all my life.

My interest was in secular performance and as a musician my first instinct was to isolate the musical aspect of the religion. Felipe was aware of this, however, the spiritual force that interconnected all his life activities was not as willing to disconnect. Because drumming played an integral part of his daily spiritual and personal life the most natural way for Felipe to teach the toques (rhythms) was by telling stories of the orichas, explaining how the dances and cantos (songs) guide or follow the toques, singing and interpreting the cantos, and talking about the religious life and family he left behind in Cuba when he immigrated to the US in 1980. A typical session for us may have consisted of one hour of drumming, an hour of story telling, an hour explaining how he constructed a drum or beaded a shekere, and ended with another few hours of drumming.

For the first year I played one drum while Felipe played the basic melodic hits on the other two. We had a difficult time finding another player until he asked one of his shekere students to complete our ensemble. Ethnomusicologist and musician, Maria Teresa Velez (known to her family and friends as Tona) was just beginning a series of interviews with Felipe for her book Drumming For the Gods: The Life and Times of Felipe Garcia Villamil, Santero, Palero, and Abakua, and learning the rhythms of the bata ensemble was right in line with her work. Tona was not only the player we had been searching for, but became my great friend. She helped me to understand many things about the Afro-Cuban religion.  

Once Tona and I learned the complete repertoire of an Oru Seco (a liturgical sequence of rhythms without chants) we reached the next level: internalizing the language of the drum. Felipe would say: “The drums speak a language and you have to learn this language if want to play this drum”.  We played for long stretches of time to synchronize the three voices into one consistent wave. We worked to develop the push and pull of the rhythmic question and answer and the ‘lead and follow’ movement of the overall conversation. Our sessions became increasingly demanding, physically and mentally…but once we began speaking this language.....it was truly SPIRITUAL.

Attending certain religious ceremonies where Felipe played with his group EMikeke was another opportunity for Tona and I to hear the sounds of this language, and to also experience the power of the bata ensemble in this context.

Over the years we became a family and saw each other through many personal challenges. Felipe embraced us as a father and showed us incredible love and concern. During my second pregnancy Felipe did not want me to sit and play the Iya drum on my lap. He worried that the vibrations of such a large drum would be too strong for the baby. When I reached my sixth month he built a three foot high horse type structure that supported the drum while I stood up and played it. Once I entered my ninth month, he begged me not to come and drum until after the birth of the baby. He feared I would go into labor while playing and would say: “I am a santero, I don’t know anything about childbirth”. I assured him that I’d be fine and drummed days before Olympia was born.

In 1996 Tona relocated to Sicily , Italy. This was a difficult change to manage as we had come so far in the drumming and so close as friends. Maurice took her place as omele player and learned all the toques in an amazingly short time.  Just as the group was getting back on its feet for the second time Felipe relocated to California.

It would be impossible to put my experience with this spiritual being into words. The Sacred Music of Cuba: Bata Drumming Matanzas Style represents a small part of it.

The Sacred Music of Cuba: Bata Drumming Matanzas Style documents an oru seco or oro de igbodu as played by master drummer/Santero Felipe Garcia Villamil from Matanzas, Cuba.

Recorded performance by Nanette Garcia

Transcriptions by Maurice Minichino

Text (all sections except The Sacred Drum) by N. Garcia

The Sacred Drum by Maria Teresa Velez

Edited by Martin Karlow

Recorded at Melantone Studios Pleasantville NY

Cover design by M. Minichino

Photographs by Alan Batt