and over the ensuing years have proved enormously helpful in my understanding of Afro-Colombian music and culture within the national context. His book Music, Race, and Nation: Música Tropical in Colombia (2000) has stood as an inspiration and counterpoint to my own work here.
Deborah Pacini Hernández merits special credit as the fairy godmother of this project. Not only did she help with many practical suggestions before I left for the field, but she also provided me with several key contacts in Colombia. Finally, she gave useful feedback on portions of the material and facilitated the links that led to publication of this book with Wesleyan University Press. Thank you for guidance, inspiration and friendship, Debbie. I would also like to thank Gage Averill for providing me with my initial contacts in Cali, which made it possible for me to have commenced this project in the first place. Carlos Ramos and Marta Zambrano provided useful comments and insight when I returned from the field. Dario Euraque and my other colleagues at Trinity College have been of great assistance in helping me refine my notions of race, ethnicity, and diaspora. Wilson Valentín’s use of the concept of surrogation (2002) has been very useful for my work here. Especial thanks to Douglas Johnson for moral support and light. Paul Austerlitz made several invaluable recommendations on earlier versions of this manuscript, and Su Zheng and Frances Aparicio also provided helpful feedback on portions of the work here.
Heliana and Gustavo de Roux were my first hosts in Cali and became my adoptive guardians and mentors while I was in the field. As scholars themselves, their comments, observations, and guidance proved invaluable for my research. Shortly after I began my fieldwork, Jaime Henao and Gary Domínguez became my first key collaborators. Jaime introduced me to several important musicians in Cali and also outlined many musical concepts for me. Gary, the owner of the Taberna Latina, was my main link to the salsotecas and tabernas, in addition to providing key contacts in Cuba; his club became an important place where I met many music lovers. I am indebted to both Jaime and Gary, for without their enormous assistance I could never have realized this project. My deep gratitude also goes to Pablo Solano, who recorded several rare recordings for me to study and whose rooftop listening room is a place to which I always return on my visits to Cali.
This book is woven out of innumerable conversations and interviews with people in Cali and elsewhere in Colombia, not all of whose voices I have been able to include in the account here. Among them are Stellita Domínguez, Kike Escobar, Lalo Borja, Andrés Loiza, Toño Romero, Luisa and Jairo, Baltazar Mejía, Fanny and Jorge Martínez, Jaime and Rochy Camargo, Alejandro and Ruby Ulloa, Henry Manyoma, Rafael Quintero, Richard Yory, Art Owen, Ozman Arias, Gonzalo, Cesar Machado, Lisímaco Paz, Pepe Valderruten, Edgar Hernan Arce, Amparo “Arrebato” Ramos, Evelio Carabalí, Andrés Luedo, Miguel Angel Saldarriaga, Phanor Castillo in Puerto Tejada, Guillermo Rosero, Luis Adalberto Santiago, Fernando Taisechi, Timothy Pratt, Osvaldo González, Diego Pombo, Richard Sandoval, Isidoro Corkidi, Pablo del Valle, Orlando Montenegro, Fabio Arias, Memo Vejerano, Jaime at Zaperoco, Doña Marina de Borja, David Kent, Benjamin Possu, Jorge Mario Restrepo, and Alvaro Bejerano. These people showed great warmth and interest in my project, and it is thanks to their collaboration that I soon felt at home in Cali’s scene. A special tribute goes to Doña Stella Domínguez and Beto Borja, who are no longer with us in body but whose generous laughter and spirit live on.
My conversations with the musicians Luis Carlos Ochoa, Alexis Lozano, Cesar Monge, Wilson and Hermes Manyoma, Enrique “Peregoyo” Urbano, Julian Angulo, “Piper Pimienta” Díaz, Alexis Murillo, Cheo Angulo, Hugo Candelario González, Richie Valdés, Ali “Tarry” Garcés, Felix Shakaito, Santiago Meíja, Alvaro Granobles, John Granda, Hector Aguirre, Nelson González, Gonzalo Palacios, Jon Biafará, Elpidio Caicedo, Jon Granda, Henry, Jorge, Daniel Alfonso, Edgar del Castillo, Fredy Colorado, Jorge Herrera, José Fernando Zuñiga, Carlos Vivas, and others helped to clarify many aspects of the live scene. I am grateful for their willingness to let me sit in on rehearsals and plague them with endless questions. Among the members of all-woman bands, María del Carmen, Francia Elena Barrera, Olga Lucía Rivas, Lizana Mayel, Ana Milena González, Paula Zuleta, Cristina Padilla, and Doris Ojeda offered helpful comments and inspiration. Dorancé Lorza, Chucho Ramírez, and José Aguirre provided valuable information about musical production and arranging. Jairo Varela generously allowed me to observe several recording sessions at Niche Studios, and I had the opportunity to collaborate with him on translating “Solo tú sabes” for his album Prueba de fuego (1997). My conversations with the Puerto Rican musicians Edwin Morales and Ricky Rodríguez of Orquesta Mulenze gave me additional important perspectives on international styles.
Jairo Sánchez generously gave me access to the video archives at Imagenes TV Emilio Larrota cheerfully allowed me to observe recording sessions at Paranova; Carlos Mondragon was helpful at RCN. In Barranquilla, Gilberto and Mireya Marrenco proved to be solid allies; thanks also to Edwin Madera at La Troja. I am grateful to Antonio Escobar for allowing me to participate in the 1995 Festival de Música del Caribe; conversations with Daisanne McLane provided further insight into that event. I would also like to thank Luis Felipe Jaramillo at Discosfuentes in Medellín and Cesar Pagáno in Bogotá, who were generous with both their time and their knowledge.
My trips to Cuba were made especially enjoyable by the friendship and generous assistance of Adriana Orejuela and the Terry family. Conversations with Leonardo Acosta and Helio Orovio provided important information that consolidated my understanding of Cuban music and helped me to better study Cali’s scene. I would also like to give special acknowledgement to Cristóbal Díaz Ayalá, whom I met in Cartagena; he provided materials and important information related to my earlier work on the mambo and Cuban music during the 1940s and 1950s and continues to be a great inspiration and mentor for all of us working in this field.
My special gratitude goes to the following for their solidarity, their time, their insights, and their friendship in the field: Sabina Borja (my unfailing comrade-in-arms), my roommates and fellow doctoral researchers Kiran Ascher and Pablo Leal, the mosqueteros Elcio Viedmann and Kuky Preciado, and Daniel Chavarría and Dennis Pérez. Thanks also to Patricia Galvez; Larry Joseph; Umberto Valverde; Victor Caicedo and family; the Varela family and Catalina Malaver in Bogotá; María Ofelia Arboleda in Medellín; Sugey Moreno in Quibdó; and Cristina and Ramiro Velázquez in Barranquilla. Thanks also to the percussionist Memo Acevedo, my first teacher when I was a fledgling salsiologist in Toronto, who got me started on the long road to Cali and his native Colombia. My gratitude also to Gerardo Rosales, hermano and teacher in Caracas. An especial abrazo to my sisters in Magenta Latin Jazz—Amy Schrift, Luz Estella Esquivel, Dora Tenorio, Sarli Delgado, Alexandra Albán, and Ana Yancy Hoyos. Performing with them was one of the most rewarding experiences of my entire research.
Financial support for this work was provided by generous grants and fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the American Association of University Women, the Nellie M. Signor Fund, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all of which I gratefully acknowledge. I would also like to thank Trinity College in Hartford for institutional support through various phases of this book, and the junior leave that facilitated part of its writing. To the Wenner-Gren Foundation I owe an additional debt of gratitude for the Richard Carley Hunt postdoctoral fellowship that supported completion of this manuscript for publication. Some of the material appearing in this book was published in earlier versions as articles in Latin American Music Review (Colombian salsa; see chapters 4 and 5), Ethnomusicology (all-woman bands; see chapter 5), Popular Music (the viejoteca revival; see chapter 2), the anthology Sound Identities (arrival and impact of recordings in Cali; see chapters 2 and 3), and Situating Salsa (overall history; see introduction and chapters 1–4).
