El Pescador
Imagen: Plaza de San Nicolás, Barranquilla, Colombia
Image: Plaza de San Nicolás, Barranquilla, Colombia
Origin: Brazil / Brasil
Language: Portuguese
El Pescador
Música por José Barros
Va subiendo la corriente
Con chinchorro y atarraya
La canoa de bahareque
Para llegar a la playa.
El pescador... habla con la luna
El pescador... habla con la playa
El pescador... no tiene fortuna
Sólo su atarraya.
La luna espera sonriente
Con su mágico esplendor
La llegada del valiente
Y del alegre pescador.
Regresan los pescadores
Con su carga pa' vender
Al puerto de sus amores
Donde tienen su querer.
Y esta cumbia que se llama
"el alegre pescador"
La compuse una mañana
Una mañana de sol
The fisherman
Music by José Barros
The tide is rising
With a rowboat and a net
The canoe made of bahareque
To arrive to the beach
The fisherman… talks to the moon
The fisherman… talks to the beach
The fisherman… doesn’t have any fortune
Only his fishing net
The moon awaits, smiling
With its splendous magic
The arrival of the valiant
And the happy fisherman
The fishers return
With their wares for selling
At the the port of their lovers
Where they have what they want
And this cumbia*, it is called
‘The happy fisherman’
I composed it one morning
One sunny morning
*See write up of cumbia below
A song of a simple life
This song talks about life as a fisherman in the Carribean region of Colombia. It's not a glamorous life and the work is hard, but the fishers are happy nonetheless because they can have whatever they want.
I was introduced to this song by a Christopher Clarke, a friend of mine from school and a theorbo player in the Red Dot Baroque Orchestra. The version I was introduced to was by Banda Magda, which is an innovative interpretation of El Pescador itself.
El Pescador was composed by José Barros (1915-2007) who, according to Totó la Momposina, left behind a legacy of 978 songs across various genres. Barros mentions in the song that El Pescador was composed on a sunny morning.
This introduced me to the genre of cumbia, a syncretic musical style that has origins on the Atlantic coast of Colombia but has now spread across the Americas.
The version of El Pescador I was introduced to, performed by Banda Magda from their Yerakina album
The more well-known version by Totó la Momposina
Cumbia: Cultures coming together
El Pescador belongs to a genre called cumbia. Cumbia has a layered history with influences from African, Indigenous, and European musics. The word cumbia is of uncertain Bantu origin, and is likely to be related to the Kikongo word kumba, meaning to make noise, or to be boisterous.
Cumbia originates from Colombia back in colonial times at the height of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Some slaves managed to escape their masters and built their own community along the Magdalena river. This community still survives today, and goes by the name of San Basilio de Palenque, or just Palenque for short.
The escaped slaves brought with them their music, especially their drums, and this is where the heartbeat of cumbia lies.
Region where cumbia originates from (Credit: Wikimedia)
Layers of Cumbia
Traditional cumbia is usually made up of three layers:
1: An African base of traditional drums and the basic cumbia rhythm (see image on the right)
2: Music of people indigenous to the Magdalena river region
3: European influences, namely singing and imported instruments, such as the accordion.
The basic rhythm of cumbia can be seen in the topmost diagram on the right (I will include an audio sample soon for it soon).
One instrument associated with old traditional cumbia is a flute known as kuisi or gaita. These flutes are made of dried, hollowed-out cactus stems, and the head is made of beeswax and charcoal. Since it has a fipple, it works similarly to other instruments like the recorder, or the whistle.
Nowadays the scope of cumbia has expanded even further, and instruments such as the accordion or clarinet are now firmly a part of cumbia, but the underlying rhythm is always constant.
A documentary on cumbia
Basic cumbia rhythm
Two men playing flutes of indigenous origin, known as kuisi or gaita (Credit: Wikimedia)
References
Garsd, J. 2015. Cumbia: The Musical Backbone Of Latin America [Online] NPR. Available at <https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2013/09/30/227834004/cumbia-the-musical-backbone-of-latin-america> Accessed 25 August 2022.
Labarrera, R. B. 2015. La historia de José Barros, el Gran Cantor del Río [Online] El Heraldo. Available at <https://www.elheraldo.co/cultura/jose-barros-el-de-la-piragua-188506> Accessed 25 August 2022.
Masterclass Staff. 2022. Cumbia Music Guide: Origins of Cumbia and Popular Artists [Online] Masterclass. Available at <https://www.masterclass.com/articles/cumbia-music-guide#5-popular-cumbia-bands-and-artists> Accessed 25 August 2022.