O Grande Amor

Part 5: Zouk Is The Only Medicine We Have

When we returned home with some current Zouk bought at Debs Records in Pointe-à-Pitre, I started looking in record stores in the area. Rhino has just opened one its first stores in Albany. They had a few compilations Zouk Attack, Hurricane Zouk and Dance!Cadence! They all have some prime cuts on them. Zouk Attack and its liner notes is probably the best compilation introduction to Zouk available. I also came upon a magazine called The Beat that reviewed Reggae, African, Trinidad and Tobago and sometimes the “Other Caribbean” i.e. Guadeloupe and Martinique. There was advert for cd’s by mail from a person named Gene Scaramuzzo who also wrote about the various releases from Martinique, Guadeloupe and Trinidad. The Other Caribbean column was later penned by my friend Brian Dring. Gene Scaramuzzo also put together The Best of Straker’s: Ah Feel To Party a fine compilation of classic Calypso- SOCA that also contains extensive liner notes. When we returned to NYC each June and October, we would hit Tower, HMV, Virgin to scour the racks for zouk. The pickings were slim. When in NYC I would venture into Brooklyn’s Nostrand Avenue where there was a sizable Haitian population. The Haitian record stores stocked some zouk especially Eric Virgal, a crooneur I believe is the term used. As I learned later, ships carrying large orchestras used to sail from Cuba and Haiti to Guadeloupe, Martinique and Dominica. One can sense the cross fertilization of musics from one island to another. One can hear Son Montuno, Charanga, Haitian merengue and countless other rhythms all along the greater and lesser Antilles. Each island has its own cadence and believes that its version is the one. Martinique is home of the beguine. This is where the beguine began, a la Cole Porter. It is the basis of cadence. It was time of fruitful collaboration between islands in the Caribbean and Brasil too. All these potent rich mixtures took place prior to 1979 and the advent of Zouk.

Parallel to our discovery of zouk in the early 1990’s, my spouse started to take dancing lessons at Arthur Murray. Soon she became a fine dancer. She favored the mambo and cha cha and swing over the fox trots and other dances. I in turn used to DJ a few of these dances. Ballroom dancers are not the most fun people to DJ for with the exception of a few I got to know. They were more concerned with technique than dancing to the music. It was during this time that I began to collect classic Cuban big band music. This music was pre-revolution before Fidel Castro took power. Havana was still wide open and the music reflects those times. The Cuban Jam Sessions gave birth to the NYC Latin music scene of the 1960’s and 70’s that included the best Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians of the time. Fania and other labels started recording these bands that were exploding in NYC at the time. I never liked the word “salsa”. Even Tito Puente said it was “something sold in a bottle called ketchup”. I like mambo and cha cha. For financial reasons the term salsa was adopted. From Cuban music I ventured into South America. Joe Arroyo, The Latin Brothers, Grupo Niche and others from Colombia. Oscar D’Leon from Venezuela. Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz, Manny Oquendo, Willie colon, Larry Harlow, Noro Morales, Arsenio Rodriguez, Bebo Valdes, Ray Baretto, La Sonora Ponceña, Los Van Van, Mongo Santamaria, Machito, Mario Bauza, Eddie and Charlie Palmieri, Fruko, Orquesta Reve and Africando and on and on. In NYC Monday nights was when jazz met Latin music since that was the night off for most musicians.