HAVANA’S RUMBA ALLEY

¡Zumba, mamá, la rumba y tambó!
¡Mabimba, mabomba, mabomba y bombó!
Repican los palos,
suena la maraca,
zumba la botija,
se rompe el bongó.

José Z. Tallet
“La rumba”

Rumba is one of the most famous and well-known genre of popular Cuban music. Born, according to the majority of scholars, in the poor neighbourhoods of the province of Matanzas—approx 100 km away from Havana—it is characterized by the sensual movement of hips and shoulders while dancing, with an aggressive attitude on the part of the man and a defensive attitude on the part of the woman, and by the chanting of one or several soloists who sing melodies of 8 bars in 2/4 meters, repeated over and over again even if the lyrics change, which alternates with a chorus. At first, it was accompanied by everyday utensils turned into musical instruments such as wooden boxes, spoons and bottles, and later on by a percussion set made up of congas, cowbells, claves and bongos, or three congas with low, medium and high registers and a wooden box beat with sticks, among other variations.

Rumba can be broken down into three types: yambú, columbia and guaguancó:
Yambú, which has fallen into disuse, is the oldest, going back to the mid 19th century. Although the dance represents the flirting of the female with the male dancer, it uses a slow beat, the movements are soft and unhurried, and there is no pelvic movement that is meant as the erotic possession called vacunao, thus the repeated warning in the chants that ‘there is no vaccination in the yambú’.

Another more recent style is the columbia, originated in the rural areas and essentially for solo male dancers, although there have been women famous for their interpretation of this dance. The music follows the pattern of a ‘dialogue’ between a soloist and a chorus where two distinct parts are clearly identified—one part for singing and the other for dancing, the latter being called capetillo.

The city-born guaguancó is basically the pursuit of the woman by the man, she trying to evade him and he trying to ‘vaccinate’ her, an action that has become so stylized that it may be even suggested with the flip of a handkerchief, and is an opportunity for the dancers to shine. Groups that specialized in playing guaguancó—called ‘choruses’— originated in the late 19th century, creating their own chants whose narrative lyrics have come down to the present day. As customary, the different styles have combined, and it is not strange in a guaguancó for a man to put on a display of talent incorporating movements from columbia or for the couple to pay homage to their ancestors evoking the ceremonious airs of the old yambús. Therefore, rumba is a generic term covering a variety of musical rhythms.

Around the 1920s and 30s, rumba began to spread out from its humble surroundings, the tenement houses and poor neighbourhoods, and became popular in another style yet, the stage or ballroom rumba, which was accompanied not only by percussion instruments, but by wind and even string instruments. Rumba was introduced in Europe, and traveled all the way to the United States by way of Xavier Cugat’s orchestra, playing first in Los Angeles and later at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The rhythms and melodies of rumba were present in the birth of Afro-Cuban jazz.

This style of somewhat sophisticated rumba is the one that one finds at Cuban cabaret shows, with the women wearing dresses of endless flounces and ribbons and a long train. But to those who want to get acquainted with in a setting that resembles its popular and humble beginnings, the place to go is the 'Callejón de Hammel’ (Hammel Alley) in the neighbourhood of Cayo Hueso in the municipality of Central Havana.

Callejón de Hammel is one of the shortest streets in the city, barely 200 meters long, delimited by Aramburu and Espada streets. It owes its name to Fernando Belleau Hammel, of French-German descent, who smuggled weapons during the American Civil War and who in the early 20th century, settled down in Havana, at this dead-end street which now bears his name. He opened a foundry and built houses for his workers. The alley’s first fame came during the 1940s and 50s when the home of trovador Tirso Díaz became the gathering place for a group of singers and composers—friends of Ángel Díaz, Tirso’s son—who constituted the founding members of filin, a renovating movement in Cuban song, which introduced novel harmonies from jazz (which had at the same time assimilated them from French impressionism) and gave a deliberate colloquial character to the lyrics.

Melodies that today are classics of Cuban song were heard around those times in the old alley: Contigo en la distancia, by César Portillo de la Luz; Novia mía, by José Antonio Méndez, or Rosa mustia, by Ángel Díaz. In time, the ‘boys’—today venerable elderly gentlemen, and some deceased—stopped meeting at the Díaz’s and the alley seemed to languish until the 21st of April, 1990, when muralist and sculptor Salvador González started painting on one of its walls what is considered the first mural in plain public highway devoted to Afro-Cuban culture.

Since then, Callejón de Hammel, especially the stretch between Hospital and Aramburu streets has a new lease on life: sculptures and installations made of scrap material take onlookers by surprise; multicoloured paintings with íremes y orishas—deities of Afro-Cuban religions—lighten up the once bare walls; the herb peddler installs himself ready to offer his herbs for curing colds and lovesickness alike; Salvador’s studio-workshop pays tribute, with its name, to the legendary singer of Afro-Cuban ritual melodies Merceditas Valdés, who was born a few blocks away; and as in all popular merrymaking in Havana, rumba regains its dominance, singing and dancing, uniting neighbours and visitors, recalling old customs and making up, along the way, the traditions of the future.

‘The Afro-Cuban Elf’
What Salvador’s art does is show all the techniques and styles of the old art of the ilé ochas, Santería places of worship where the most beautiful and elaborate ceremonial pieces are made. In a wise application, Salvador has decanted these techniques and has created his own style on a protean platform. Inventor and magician, he has taken from the paraphernalia of our plant life, the pigments, red mangrove, shells, skins, fibres and even ancestral gunpowder, to create his world of arabesques.

Miguel Barnet, 1985