Seis, Bomba y Plena

Featuring Plena . Puerto Rico . Pleneros . Oye Mi Ritmo . Candido Reyes . Victor Emmanuelli . Charlie Pizarro . Rafi Falu . Gíbaro De Puerto Rico . Seis . Bomba . Dance . Rafael Cortijo . El Negro Bembon

Music of Puerto Rico : There are several theories on how and when the plena originated. The most popular theory on the origins of the plena is that it originated in the city of Ponce, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, around 1920

Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance : Bomba is a musical expression created in Puerto Rico at the end of the 17th century, by West Africans and their descendants who worked the colonial sugar plantations along the coast of Puerto Rico. It was at “Bailes de Bombas” (Bomba Dances) where baptisms and marriages were celebrated, and rebellions planned. For this reason, celebrations were only permitted on Sundays and Feast Days.

Mondomix : In the past 20 years, plena has been given a modern spin with the emergence of new groups that have added their own unique touch to the original formula. Foremost among them is the 12-piece, Grammy-nominated band Plena Libre, whose tasty brew fuses salsa, jazz, rock and plena.

The Puerto Rico Channel : Since its inception, the Bomba has evolved and grown. It still comprises of its hypnotic beats, but new generation artists have combined the original styled Bomba with reggaeton, to create a sound that is very unique. Puerto Rico has also seen a few very successful Bomba musicians, such as Rafael Cortijo and Ismael Rivera, who revived Bomba in the 1950’s

Robert Garfias : In its repertoire the music of the jibaros of Puerto Rico also shows its clear Andalusian origins. All the songs are sung and the frequent use of improvised couplets of ten syllables each, called decimas, links the Puerto Rican tradition to 16th Century Spanish poetic practice. Two of the most frequently encountered forms are the ‘aguinaldo’ and the ‘seis’.

Wikipedia : Plena is a narrative song from the coastal regions of Puerto Rico, especially around Ponce. Its origins have been various claimed as far back as 1875 and as late as 1920. As rural farmers moved to San Juan and other cities, they brought plena with them and eventually added horns and improvised call and response vocals. Lyrics generally deal with stories or current events, though some are light-hearted or humorous. Manuel A. Jiménez, or El Canario, is the most highly celebrated of the original plena performers.

Ismael Rivera “El Sonero Mayor” on MySpace : During his free time he would hang around the corner with his best friend Rafael Cortijo and sing songs. In 1948, Ismael and Rafael joined El Conjunto Monterrey, where Ismael played the conga and Rafael the bongos. Ismael was unable to work full-time as a musician, due to the fact that he worked as a carpenter.

The Latin Jazz Corner : Rafael Cortijo, as a musically inclined young man in Puerto Rico, he became deeply interested in his country’s traditional music, bomba and plena. After befriending some true pleneros, he learned how to build his own traditional drums and began forming plena groups that added trumpets and saxophones to the tipical instrumentation.