Due to its multi-ethnical and multi-cultural connotation, diverse folkloric tendencies have arisen, producing a great richness in musical, choreographic and literary expressions, conditioned by the different bio-geographical regions, as follows: Andina, Caribe, Pacífica. Oririoquía y Amazonia.
Important interpreters composers are the representation of this richness; these artists have been able to transcend beyond the Colombian frontier, and have exposed these musical tunes throughout the world. Because of this, honoring the Colombian music and folklore, we highlight some of these persons:
MATILDE DIAZ.
She went popular in 1943, just 19 years old, as interpretor of the porro called Carmen de Bolívar, written by Lucho Bermúdez. Her rhythmical voice has been considered as one the most beautiful in the history of popular Colombian music. Although she was not from the coast –she was born in Icononzo, Tolima – she adequated herself marvelously to tropical rhythms. In 1946 she married composer Lucho Bermúdez in Buenos Aires, turning, in fact, in the official voice of his orchestra. Among her great amount of records, some outstanding boleros are: Te busco, Añoranza, Fantasía Tropical, Una Mujer, and Desvelo de amor. She has alternated with international
figures as Celia Cruz, with whom she keeps a tight friendship.
LUCHO BERMÚDEZ.
In a feverish activity during six decades of twentieth century, Lucho Bermúdez got to compose one thousand songs, many of them recorded in eighty long play records. He dedicated his porro Carmen de Bolívar to his hometown, which turned into an anthem in the voice of his wife, Matilde Díaz. The orchestra directed by him went over the whole country, first as a group of importat radio stations, and then as invited orchestra to clubs, hotels, grills, carnivals and fairs. The clarinet played by Lucho was the pattern for the good tone in porros, gaitas, cumbias, boleros and pasillos, which caused furor. Even though it is not widely known, his artistic
production started with tunes of the interior, region that he still did not know. Bambucos, torbellinos, guabinas and sanjuaneros, are then in his compendium. He was born in 1912 and died in 1994, in Bogotá. At an early age he learned to play the piccolo, the pipe organ, the trumpet, the stick trombone, the saxophone, and the clarinet. Marbella, Cadetes Navales, Calamarí, Prende la Vela, Las Mujeres de San Diego, Joselito Carnaval, Borrachera, El Veneno de los Hombres, Danza Negra, San Fernando, Salsipuedes, Linda Caleñita, Los Primos Sánchez are some of his most famous compositions. The 13th of June of 1954, day of inauguration of the Colombian
television, Lucho Bermúdez acted in the first transmission, which was on-the-air. In 1968 he released a new rhythm and dance called Patacumbia. Months before dying in Bogotá, the liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán had made the following prediction to Lucho Bermúdez: "Your music will be like me: everybody will love it".
RAFAEL ESCALONA.
Cotton planter, diplomat, folklorist and composer born in Valledupar in 1929, master Escalona, is a whole institution of vallenato music. Such compositions as La casa en el aire, El testamento, La Maye, and many others, have been hummed and danced by more than three generations of Colombians within all the regions of the country. Bovea and his vallenatos, Nelson Pinedo, Jorge Oñate, Colacho Mendoza and other renowned interpreters have popularized their own versions of the original themes of this great composer, who, curiously, never recorded by himself.
VICTOR HUGO AYALA
Is the official voice of the National Anthem of Colombia. Lyric tenor born in Bogotá in 1934, he preserves the power in his voice and his excellent register. He has recorded more than 25 long plays. He lived and harvested success during six years in new York. His major triumph has been the bolero called Camino Verde. He also made Si Te Vuelvo a Besar popular. In one of his most recent productions, he alternated with the young contralto María Isabel Saavedra, born in Valle del Cauca, recording a compact disk in honor to the traditional Andean music.
CARLOS ALBERTO VIVES RESTREPO.
Born in Santa Marta (Magdalena) in August 7, 1961, married with Herlinda Gómez, and with two children, Carlos Enrique and Lucía. When Carlos Vives was starting his artistic life in the Colombian television, nobody thought that he liked singing, neither that he would be successful with the classical themes of the legendary vallenato. Many always saw him as the ideal spruce for TV novels, but never imagined seeing him with a knapsack and a guitar over his shoulder, gathering the steps of great composers as Rafael Escalona, Leandro Díaz, Julio Erazo and Emiliano Zuleta, among others of not lesser importance. For Vives, this experience, besides meaning his
re-encounter with his own ancestry, it was the jumpstart of his artistic success. Carlos feels free while he can sing the verses taught by the jugglers of Cesar during his adolescence. In them, he wants to express all the love he brings from his homeland. Inside his knapsack, he carries the madness of this feeling that he has taken across many countries in the world. With his band, La Provincia, he has crowded sceneries as the Radio City Music Hall of New York and the Plaza de las Ventas in Madrid. Furthermore, he has received numberless gold and platinum records, and prices as the Amigo, Globo, Ace, Billboard, and recently, one of the most deserved
ones, his first Grammy in the category of Best Interpretation of Latin American Traditional Music, with his album Déjame Entrar, and with the song equally called, he got to be number one in the lists of the most popular Latin American songs in the United States. In 1991, the record with which he started his successful career was released; later, in 1993, Escalona released the Clásicos de la Provincia, La Tierra del Olvido in 1995, in 1997 Tengo Fe, in 1999 El Amor de Mi Tierra was released, and in 2001, Déjame Entrar which has consecrated him and his group as one of the best exponents and ambassadors of our Colombian music.
CARLOS JULIO RAMIREZ
He was born in Tocaima, in 1916. After singing opera and presenting in various sceneries, he came back to Colombia and experimented with boleros and the Andean string music, especially the bambuco. With his baritone voice he successfully interpreted boleros as Frenesí, Perfidia, Un Poquito de Tu Amor, Mala Noche, Acércate Más, Júrame and Granada.
PACHO GALAN
He was the creator of a huge variety of rhythms and mixes of those, among which the merencumbé, chiquichá, tuqiu - tuqui, mece – mece are specially remembered. Autodidactic, when he was young he learned to play the trumpet and the guitar in Barranquilla, city where he moved to after finishing his primary studies at Soledad, where he was born in 1906. When he was thirty and until his death in Barranquilla in 1988, he went through the country, as through the three Americas. In 1955 he moved to Medellín, where he acted beside master Ramón Ropaín.
JAIME LLANO GONZALEZ
He was born in Titiribí (Antioquía) in June 5, 1932. The first music lessons were taught by his mother, Magola González de Llano. In 1952 he arrived to Bogotá, where he met master artist Oriol Rangel, who was his teacher for many years. In 1986, the Colombian government bestowed him the "Cruz de Boyácá", in recognition for his labor in behalf of Colombian music.
LOS HERMANOS MARTÍNEZ
Jaime, born in San Gil (Santander), gynecologist-obstetrician from Universidad Nacional, is the first voice in the duet, and plays the violin and the guitar. Mario, born in Barichara, dental prosthesis technician, is the second voice in the duet and plays the tiple (small guitar) and the fife. During 14 years, they integrated the famous "Nocturnal Colombiano" directed by Oriol Rangel. Afterwards, they made part of the group "Los Maestros", with master artist Jaime Llano González. They have received numerous medals as one of the best duets of the national song book; they have more than 40 recorded works.
ORIOL RANGEL
Nació el 12 de Agosto de 1916 en Pamplona, ha acrecentado fabulosamente el legado artístico que dejara a su padre, el maestro Gerardo Rangel, organista y compositor. Estudió en el Conservatorio Nacional, más tarde entró como director de las orquestas de las emisoras "Nueva Granada", "Nuevo Mundo" y "La Voz de Colombia". Continuó organizando programas de música popular proyectados por el Ministerio de Educación a gestar en la radio su programa "Antología Musical de Colombia"
SILVA Y VILLALBA
It was year 1963, and the great trios and duets were dominating; the guitars and tiples (small guitars) accompanied the beautiful lyrics of our Colombian music. It was indubitable that the songs dedicated to love, landscape, and in all the cases, to experiences lived by the authors, were taking the course followed today. Not a week passed without hearing love serenades or birthday celebrations for a loved one. It was the time when schools the children how to sing, always having the most affectionate Colombian songs in their song books. Year 1967 was about to start, and in a San Pedro party in Espinal city, "Silva y Villalba", one of the most important
duets in our country, was born. They shyly played the Colombian tunes in private friend meetings, and slowly reached maturity, acquiring an unbreakable confidence playing the themes.
They participated in many and varied festivals, but in 1968 the attention was turned towards the Phillips Silver Orchid, a contest that only had two categories: Soloists and Groups. Success did not take much to come, and the support for the duet was fabulous; Silva y Villalba turned into the new idols of string music. In 1969, they recorded their first Long Play called "Viejo Tolima", with themes that persist in the first Colombian Music Catalog.