2023-09-16 01:22:12
This Friday, 290 music-loving souls met at the Muxikebarri in Algorta, in the third of the five subscription events for the 39th Getxo International Folk Festival. The Asturian piper Hevia was performing, presenting his album-book ‘Al Son del Indianu’, released more than five years ago, in March 2018, and which sounds better balanced than what we tasted live: 17 pieces (including the solo drummer of his sister, the percussionist María José Hevia) in 92 minutes in octave, with three winds that often did not integrate very well into the ensemble, although the concert was good, not only because of its exotic nature.
This album ‘Al Son del Indianu’ was created by José Ángel Hevia Velasco (Villaviciosa, Asturias, 1967), inventor of the electronic bagpipe (he did not use it much in Getxo, although he was very famous at the turn of the century for his tunes for La Vuelta Ciclista a España in 1999 and 2003), honorary academic of the Academy of the Asturian Language and for four months president of the SGAE, while he lived between Havana and Santo Domingo, that is, between Cuba and the Dominican Republic, whose images served as funds during almost the entire concert. The effort was commendable, the great eightte sometimes bustled with salsa in a La Fania style (although the winds, trombone, sax and trumpet that covered the bagpipes often sounded unbalanced in the mix, sometimes they went the other way and some provided shocking arrangements ), and the leader Hevia presented almost all the topics with an informative precision that makes it easy to prepare this review.
With a hat, at the beginning of the show. Pedro Urresti
‘Al Son del Indianu’ is a tribute by Hevia to the Asturian bagpipers who emigrated to Latin America, from Chile to Tampa, Florida, to earn a living with their instrument. Some left to visit the Americas a century ago. Hevia said that in the 50s “Havana was the first or second most important city in Asturias, since the Asturian Center had one hundred thousand members,” and he proceeded to play a ‘Guantanamera’ with an excess of music. Furthermore, on Friday Hevia recovered the legacy of immigrant countrymen such as Emilio Rodríguez Moriyón, ‘El gaitero de Gijón’, who made a career in Buenos Aires (he was away for more than 40 years before returning), who had a larger band than the one he brought Hevia and who was ahead of his time, or José Remis Ovalle, who put the bagpipe aside due to the civil war, recovered it in 1957, in 15 days of rehearsals he caught up, won a competition and embarked on the same an American tour where he ended up playing daily in the USA for $400 a night, during the 50s!
Getxo Folk 2023
Hevia stated that musicians like these were precursors of the new folk in vogue today, advanced in fusion, and added that just as in flamenco there are round-trip songs (which have come from America to Spain), those pipers brought rumbas, fox-trot or sones. Their hour and a half concert was more, and in its first part the brass sounded too effusive and protagonists (on some occasions even out of orbit), the bagpipes sometimes even squeaky (the transverse flute seemed more balanced than sometimes the leader was blowing), and his sister’s percussion was too loud and not coordinated with the other percussionist. Told like this it seems like a disaster, but there was too much impetus, ambitious arrangements poorly tied up, and on one topic everyone seemed to be going their own way (at dawn). The second half was better, with the same salsa drive but everything better organized or coordinated, so much so that in a couple of songs we thought of La Bottine Souriante.
Hevia was presented in octet P Urresti
Hevia began with ‘Bachata para un intermedia’, with parts inspired by the mass, but the visual background was better than the musical, and continued with a ‘merengaita’, as he calls them: ‘El berrido’, the first jazz download titled with the last name of one of the two producers of the album, which was played almost in its entirety this Friday. He streamlined the work song ‘Carretera de Avilés’, with the bagpipes he drew the melody of the aforementioned ‘Guantanamera’, and with the beautiful habanera created in Asturias ‘La capitana’ the panorama began to become clearer. Vía Moroyón adapted Gardel’s tangos like ‘El día que mequieres’ (in Havana, with a lot of fusion) and ‘Volver’ (very jazzy), he revised La Argentinita’s cuplé ‘La panderetera’ (he found its score among the papers of Moroyón), from Ovalle, chose a deluxe pachanguera ‘Alborada merengada’ (which was inspired by Rimski-Kórsakov), and the four best songs in the repertoire were two very well-resolved jazz pieces that he did not present (‘Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps’ and ‘El Cumbanchero’), the rumba ‘Al Son del Indiano’, and the jazzy merengue ‘Danzonete’ (another ‘merengaita’ titled after a character from his mother’s town, Cabrales, who won the dance contest every year and that without having left the town he spoke with a Cuban accent).
And already in the epilogue the tension and inspiration dropped during the sister’s solo drummer, a ‘Rumba de reyes’ very much like La Bottine Souriante, and the double encore opened with ‘Busindre reel’ (her most famous song) and closed with the ‘March of May 2’, a war march against Napoleon that he wanted on Friday to turn into a peace march.
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