Chapter One

Returning to the roots of the bomba

Defining the practice

The bomba that has been practiced in Puerto Rico since the 19th century

comprises a music, dance and song event wherein a group of drummers, prospective

dancers, and the general public gather to perform and enjoy songs led by a main singer

and chorus. The songs are drawn from a large repertoire of verses, choruses and patterns

played and sung by any number of singers, accompanying drummers (usually no more

than 2 or 3) and a solo lead drummer. As the singing and drumming unfold, successive

dancers step into the dance space in front of the drums to challenge the lead drummer to

mark his/her improvised dance moves with a stream of idiomatically appropriate and

cleverly placed accents and improvisations. Participation in informal events is usually

open to any member of the audience provided they have some knowledge of bomba.

The term bomba refers alternately to a musical form, a dance, and/or a song. The

main objective of a bomba is to set a dialogue between dancer and lead drummer. Once

all the integrated musical roles such as accompaniment, chorus and soloist are in place,

dancers enter the area in front of the player to begin a dynamic interaction where the

dancer invents rhythmic accents that must be immediately responded to by the lead

drummer. This musical interaction engages specific rhythms in a complex operation

involving rhythms, improvisation, accompaniment and song. Meter is either simple duple

21
or compound. Tempos can vary from 54 to approximately 150 beats per minute,

depending upon regional preference and individual interpretation.

The bomba ensemble consists of three instruments, solo lead singer and chorus.

Most ensembles have a designated lead vocalist but often will feature another member of

the ensemble as main vocalist provided they possess a comparable ability to sonear (to

sing improvised verses). The three main instruments of bomba are illustrated below. The

güiro, though an instrument of bomba in the past, is no longer used.

Cuá (Fig.1.1). A cuá is a solid, struck idiophone made of bamboo or wood mounted on a

stand and played with two hard sticks. In earlier days it was common to play the cuá

sticks on the side of a buleador drum by a player seated behind the horizontal version of

the drum (southern tradition) or seated on the floor next to the vertical version of the

buleador used elsewhere on the island.

Figure 1.1 Bamboo cuá on stand. Museo Ambulante Raúl Berríos Sánchez

22
Maraca. The bomba maraca is a shaken, single body gourd with a handle. This type of

vessel rattle contains internal strikers of seed or small stones.

Figure 1.2 Photo of bomba maraca

During earlier times in the town of Loíza, the part now played by the single

maraca would have been performed on a güiro, a scraped idiophone made from a gourd

onto which notches have been cut on one side. The instrument is scraped with a thin fork-

line implement. The güiro is the solo percussion instrument of traditional jíbaro music in

Puerto Rico (Dufrasne, 1991:75).

Figure 1.3 Güiro

23
Barriles or bulas (Fig.1.4, 1.5, 1.6). Bulas or barriles are the principal Puerto Rican

membranophone of bomba. A goatskin head is mounted on a metal hoop that is fastened

to the body of the drum by a number of different systems. The main systems in use today

are the rope and peg method seen throughout West Africa, a tourniquet style popular in

the Caribbean, and the modern metal hardware with tuning lugs. Bomba ensembles must

have at least two barriles of slightly different diameters. The smaller version will play the

primo part, the larger the accompanying buleador part.

Figure 1.4 Bomba primo drum (solo drum) from the collection of the Museo Taller
Africano

24
Figure 1.5 Tourniquet style bomba drum from the Museo Taller Africano

Jocelyne Guilbault describes this type of barrel drum in Martinique and

Guadeloupe:

The boula is a single-headed drum played by a musician sitting on the barrel and playing
with his bare hands, at times using his heel to alter the tension and thus the pitch. The
boula traditionally supplies the basic rhythm, a kind of cyclic formula maintained
throughout the entire piece (1993:239).

The boula she describes is the same as the bula of bomba. As will be seen later, a number

of musical and instrumental similarities among Caribbean nations indicate that national

boundaries did not prevent the cross-breeding of cultural elements.

25
 The drums are divided into those that support the basic rhythm, most commonly

called buleadores or seguidores and a solo drum called repicador, primo or subidor. In

the Loíza and Santurce styles the buleador is accompanied by an identical rhythm played

by the cuá; in the Ponce styles the cuá may play a complementary but slightly different

pattern. In duple meter, the maraca plays quadruple subdivisions of the beat, whereas in

compound time it plays triple subdivisions. The buleadores play the basic, repeating

underlying style or substyle rhythm, while the repicador improvises extended syncopated

rhythms. These improvisational lines, which I analyze in Chapters Four and Five, range

from widely spaced accentuations to intensive, dense rhythmic inventions. In the

presence of a dancer, the repicador must mark the dancer’s steps with rhythmic responses

whereas the same drummer may freely improvise when there is no dancer on the floor. In

either case this practice is called to “subir or repicar”.

Figure 1.6 Southern style horizontal position bomba drum from the Museo Taller
Africano

26
 Songs are always initiated by the solo voice followed by the entrance of either the

chorus or the drums. These songs, in either major or minor keys, are sung with choruses

in unisons, parallel octaves, and occasional consonant harmonies, usually in thirds and/or

sixths. Singers lead the call and response format generally in eight bar strophic units in

“octosyllabic or hexasyllabic verses, texts can be very enigmatic” (Dufrasne, 1994:39-

40). Dufrasne is referring here to numerous songs lyrics where absurd refrains simply

don’t make syntactic sense or even common sense. In some cases songs utilize foreign

words (especially French and African-sounding words) so transformed through centuries

of syncretization that the original meaning has been lost. Some old songs used words for

their rhythmic qualities alone, beyond any literal meaning they may have possessed.

While the lyrics of the call vary from verse to verse, the chorus remains the same,

except in the performance of medleys, where, naturally, different refrains would be sung

to the different songs contained in the given medley. Depending on the spirit of the

performance, songs can last for as few as three to as long as fifteen minutes.

Individual bomba rhythms and their corresponding song repertoire have

customarily held great significance to the communities from which they emerged. Songs

often include place names, names of styles, and often of individual persons within the

bomba milieu. In the days before widespread literacy, acknowledgement in popular

bomba songs was like entering the historical record. Many well-known bomba lyrics such

as Cortijo’s “Juan José” and Dufrasne’s “Leró pa’ Cico Mangual” immortalized the

contribution of earlier dancers or singers. The village of Loíza, the city of Mayagüez and

the names of diverse variants of bomba appear in the lyrics of countless verses and

27
choruses, thereby ensuring a historical continuity that would have otherwise been

subsumed by other more radio-friendly local and imported music.

Figure 1.7 Chorus and dancers of the ensemble Bambalué from Ponce.4

In the following examples I illustrate the use of colloquial themes and the

depiction of the everyday in song lyrics. These portrayals of local culture, an important

element of the lyrics of common salsa5, plena6 and Spanish rap songs, perform a dual

role as traditional representations and as a public record of their lives.

The first example below acknowledges a common event around Santurce (the

neighbourhood of the composer). Friends would drop by each other’s houses to enlist

4
Photo courtesy of Alberto Galarza.
5
Big band format musical style featuring Afro-Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican dance rhythms.
6
One of Puerto Rico’s three main musical genres, believed to have emerged in the early 1920s.

28
their participation to play drums and dance. The verse also recognizes bomba activity in

neighbouring Loíza.

Example 1 Depicting neighbourhood interaction.

Juan José- (Rafael Cepeda Atiles) from Cortijo y Kako Ritmos Callejeros7

Juan José pasé por tu casa y te llamé Juan José I passed by your place and called
Juan José como no me oistes te pité… Since you didn’t hear me I whistled
Juan José cuando por Loíza que yo pasé Juan José when I went by Loíza
Yo te ví bailando un balancé, I saw you dancing a balancé,
Vente a bailar bembé Come on and dance bembé8

The following verse comes from the south, where the singer calls for all to play

this leró style in praise of Cico Mangual. The imperative tone of the second and third

lines is a typical exhortation to participate.

Example 2 Referencing a traditional player from the region.

Leró pa’ Cico Mangual (Emanuel Dufrasne) from Paracumbé Tambó9

.
Leró, leró, leró pa Cico Mangual Lero, leró, leró for Cico Mangual
Repícame bien ese cuero Play me that drum
Repica, repica el cuá Play the cuás

The third example goes beyond the mere acknowledgement of Pancha (the dancer

and subject of the verse) to affirm the authenticity, the status and the value of the Ayalas’

style of bomba.

7
Cortijo y Kako-recorded 1970, re-issued 1992.
8
Bembé, an Afro-Cuban term, refers in this instance to an informal gathering of drummers.
9
Paracumbé, 1997.

29
Example 3 About a town and a particular ensemble.

La Negra Pancha (Roberto Cepeda) from Hermanos Ayala: Bomba de Loíza10

Ya llegó la negra Pancha Pancha, the black woman has arrived

La bomba quiere bailar She wants to dance bomba
La bomba de los Ayala The bomba of the Ayalas
Que es la bomba de verdad Which is the real bomba

Cuando llegues a Loíza When you get to Loiza

No te olvides visitar Don’t forget to visit

El batey de los Ayala The Ayala yard

Pa’ que gozes de verdad To really have a good time

Finally, this example references the western region and acknowledges the lure of

the sub-style called balancé.

Example 4 Referencing place and the “balancé”, an older form of bomba.

Siré-Siré (Roberto Cepeda) Viento de Agua Materia Prima11

Si iré, si iré me voy pa Mayagüez I’m going, I’m going to Mayagüez

Si iré, si iré porque están tocando Because they’re playing
Mi balancé my balancé

Defining the parameters of tradition in this dissertation

Given that the earlier repertoire of bomba was developed outside any formal

institution, I refer to the practice as a “tradition”. The definition of tradition used

throughout this dissertation will then denote socio-cultural practices that have achieved a

general level of consensus among people. Because these traditions have evolved outside

10
Hermanos Ayala, 2001.
11
Viento de Agua, 2004.

30
both a written history and a notated repertoire they are a direct, unmediated reflection of

the expression of a given social class. Tradition may simply refer to a way of doing

things over an extended period of time. It has been my experience that the limits of what

is deemed “tradition” is often established as a result of the exchange between regular

participants and those who seek some understanding of established practices. Local

customs that are deeply engrained rarely need defining in order to continue their

existence. When scholars, curious amateurs and even interested observers seek precise

knowledge of the practices of any given bomba community, they encounter a wide range

of often confusing definitions of styles, sub-styles and their defined boundaries. The

absence of any historical documentation of different bomba styles and rhythms suggests

that either these distinctions were un-important to insiders or that any record of

performance practice has been lost.

To most bomba players, the notion of tradition encompasses the way things have

previously been done. It defines practices that have been locally developed and are often

imbued with extra-musical significance. A community’s music may be associated with

historical events, ritual, ideology and/or rites of passage. Recognizing the existence of

these multiple meanings, my definition of tradition connotes a musical style in continual

development, one that admits shifting influences and is open to subtle changes. When I

use the term “traditional” I will be referring to practices originating prior to the 1950s

where one can observe the activity as a community social practice within a slave, former

slave and/or working class sector.

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Bomba: origins and tradition

Puerto Rico, first explored by Christopher Columbus in 1493, was colonized by

Spain and remained under its political control until the end of the Spanish American War

in 1898. In the early 16th century, Lorenzo de Garrebod was granted the privilege of

introducing four thousand duty-free Guinean Negroes to Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico

and Jamaica by Emperor Charles I of Spain. This beginning of the “slave trade”

witnessed the arrival of the Wolof from Senegal and Gambia and later the Mandingo. Not

long after, these slaves were followed by Fulas and Biafrans from present-day Nigeria

(Vega Drouet 1979:8-9).

Although the institution of slavery was firmly established in Puerto Rico, it was

still possible for slaves to buy their freedom. By the mid-seventeenth century the island

also became a haven for escaped slaves from other colonial possessions.

From the mid seventeenth century, runaway slaves from the neighbouring islands who
took refuge in Puerto Rico were declared free by the decision of the Council of the Indies
if they accepted baptism and swore allegiance to the Spanish king. This “news” attracted
all would-be fugitives, so that it became necessary to supply a place for them to establish
themselves. The Negro colony in San Mateo de Cangrejos was a result of this and the
refugees became some of the most faithful defenders of the Spanish flag
(Figueroa Mercado, 1974:105 in Alleyne, 2002:117).

The subsequent increase in “free blacks” on the island resulted in “a Puerto Rico,

which is more culturally homogeneous than other Caribbean societies” (Alleyne,

2002:118).

During this period of settlement and expansion of the slave trade circumstantial

evidence in the way of anecdotes, drawings and stories indicate that certain forms of

recreational dance and song emerged within the slave population. A number of similar

rhythm and dance names appear in areas of heavy slave traffic under Spanish, French and

32
English rule that imply a type of cultural exchange was also taking place albeit under

harsh conditions. As the diverse African ethnic groups were brought together, a synthesis

of many different traditions took place. It is from this mixed lineage and this fusion of

traditions that bomba emerges.

The first written evidence of a dance called bomba in Puerto Rico is found in an

often quoted document titled “Voyage aux iles de Tenerife, la Trinité, Saint Thomas,

Saint Croix et Porto Rico.” Botanist André Pierre Ledrú detailed his impressions of local

inhabitants dancing and singing popular bombas of the period in 1797.12

The type of bomba practiced in Puerto Rico by the mid to late eighteenth century

showed strong similarities with the musical practices of African slaves in the mixed racial

environment of the West Indian European colonies. While official colonial records

confirm that bomba dances were occasionally used to disguise slave insurrections, their

more common purpose was as an activity of slaves and labourers during limited

recreational time (Vega Drouet 1979, Dufrasne 1985, McCoy 1968). Though very little

information on actual practices survived the early colonial years, what did survive was a

tradition that began to be documented only in the first half of the twentieth century. This

encompassed a set of regional styles, characteristic dance movements and steps, a large

repertoire of songs, specific drumming techniques, drum craftsmanship, typical costumes

and regular community social gatherings.

The West African Yoruba and Mende arrived from “the late XVIII to mid XIX

centuries” (Campos-Parsi, 1981:46) and can be counted among the most numerous

African ethnic groups responsible for the transformation of the musical landscape of the

Caribbean and South America.

12
Ledrú, 1797 in Vizcarrondo, 1957.

33
 In 1840 Ciriaco Sabat, a man known as the King of the Blacks of the Congo, requested
permission to hold bomba dances on the feast of St. Michael (September 29) and Our
Lady of the Rosary (October 7) and reminded the Governor that he had previously
granted permission (Vega Drouet, 1979:38).

This letter, while clearly suggesting a precedent for these dances existed also

implied some recognition of a civil, if absurdly imbalanced, relationship between the

authorities and marginalized blacks. In spite of occasional permits that allowed slaves to

engage in limited social events, authorities felt justified in curtailing slave activity given

the many recorded incidents of slave escapes. Civilian authorities feared the festivities

and concentration of slaves at bomba dances could disguise further slave revolts such as

those in Bayamón in 1821 and Guayama in 1822. The persecution of escaped slaves adds

a complex further dimension to colonial policy, especially considering the fact that in the

previous century the colony had welcomed and given free status to those who fled other

adjacent colonies.

The slave trade persisted well into the mid-1800s with new shipments of Africans

arriving from both the continent and neighbouring islands. The late 19th century is

perhaps the second-most significant period of renewal and evolution in the bomba’s

history, after the mid-20th century. The accelerated rate of trade coupled with increased

inter-island migration saw many new groups arrive on the island, groups that brought

renewed vigor to the established musical forms.

Though many freed slaves remained in their original jobs, it was within those that
became urbanized that the bomba saw its largest transformation. …Documents exist
confirming bombas played on violins, and the bomba became a salon dance. Here it was
danced with frilly dresses and white suits, totally unconnected to the working class. There
was then a “rural” form and an urban one (González, 1983:20-21).

Dances with names similar to the bomba appear in historical narratives of the

Caribbean islands of Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.

34
Paraguayan newspaper articles dating back to 1863 feature a local Asunción journalist

rallying support for a ban on a form of African drumming and dancing known then as

gomba. Edgardo Díaz Díaz addressed these articles in 1986 (Díaz Díaz, 1986:8-14). He

maintained that the Asunción journalist described a dance that shared remarkable

similarities with the Puerto Rican bomba. For linguist Manuel Álvarez Nazario

etymologically, the term bomba derives from an ancient term describing drum, or
ngwoma, emerging out of languages from the Bantu and several other related and distant
languages (Álvarez Nazario, 1959:61-62).

Margot Leith Phillip’s linguistic study of the related “bamboula” in the Caribbean

arrives at a similar conclusion (Leith-Philipp, 1989). There seems little doubt that in spite

of the severe restrictions imposed on the slaves’ expressive forms throughout the Spanish

and French colonies, recreational dances and songs continued to flourish and extend

beyond political and cultural boundaries.

The principal areas of bomba activity were those regions most associated with

plantations in the north and south coasts of the island. Precise official permits and

commercial records of slave transactions make it possible to identify slaves by ethnicity

and to thereby assemble hypotheses of the unique types of bomba practised.

As bomba continued to evolve in communities and plantations throughout the late

19th and the early 20th centuries, islanders encountered the first writings that addressed

the plight of the common rural inhabitant. These were the work of the costumbristas

(writers specializing in folkloric themes, literally “customs-writers”) such as Manuel

Alonso’s El Gíbaro (“The Peasant”, 1849), Manuel Zeno Gandía’s novel La Charca

(“The Pond”, 1894), and Tomás Blanco’s Elogio de la plena (“Homage to the plena”,

1935). This period of Puerto Rican history saw the adoption of the jíbaro (peasant) as a

national symbol. Jíbaros connotes rural peasants, their families, subsistence farmers and

35
farm hands. The mixed ethnicity of this archetype was construed as overwhelmingly

European whereas genealogical records prove otherwise. The social practices and cultural

artifacts of these peasants demonstrate characteristics drawn as much from European

sources as from African ones. By emphasizing the European roots of this social group,

white authorities distanced themselves from any African connections and began a virtual

national project aimed at creating a contrived heritage that leaned heavily toward whiter

skin tones. This cultural identity project was achieved by gradually removing awareness

of the African presence from the consciousness of the elite and consequently, the nation.

Afro-Puerto Ricans, whose numbers rivaled and at time surpassed that of whites, were

systematically oppressed and rendered practically invisible by the socio-cultural elite. In

less than a century, the musical and social contributions were subsumed by an upper class

bent on creating a symbolic white peasant rooted to the land and to the mother country of

Spain.

Still, the bomba persevered. Quintero Rivera made a compelling case for the

survival of African musical practices in rural Puerto Rican music via a phenomenon he

termed the “camouflaged drum”. He showed how inland cultures, those populations that

chose to live outside the confines of urban or plantation culture, adopted and transformed

African music by camouflaging its elements. This “counter-plantation” culture, as he

described it, masked the presence of non-Spanish cultural attributes by disguising them

and transferring them onto instruments more closely associated with European culture,

such as the cuatro13 of the jíbaro or even the indigenous güiro. Quintero Rivera wrote of

this with reference to the aguinaldos (traditional Christmas songs) Si Me Dan Pasteles

and Aguinaldo Cagueño (Quintero Rivera, 1992:34-35).

13
The ten-string (five double courses) guitar-like instrument of jíbaro music.

36
 The basic melodic phrase of one of the most traditional aguinaldos is structured, in fact,
on one of the bomba variants…Another bomba rhythm is present in the melodic prelude
of one of the most popular aguinaldos.

McCoy (1968) noted a distinct African influence in the aguinaldo of the jíbaro. Álvarez

claimed the secondary melodies and counterpoint lines of the bombardino (sax-horn) in

the danzas played by military and municipal bands, including the national anthem “La

Borinqueña”, are themselves adaptations of drum improvisations in the bomba.14

The work of the costumbristas of the last two centuries fueled the pre-existing

racial prejudice towards Afro-Puerto Rican culture to such an extent that these attitudes

remained basically unchallenged until the mid-twentieth century. In the mid-1950s the

popularity of Cortijo y su Combo and the establishment of the Instituto de Cultura

Puertorriqueña or ICP (Puerto Rican Cultural Institute, the island government’s official

cultural agency) at last raised awareness of the powerful influence and cultural

contributions of Afro-Puerto Ricans.

Campos-Parsi identified three periods of African influence in Puerto Rico.

1. The XVI century, when the African influence is digested indirectly as colorismo
costumbrista15.

2. The mid-XVII century, when more authentic expressions are found aided by imported
slaves.

3. The XX century, when the cycle closes with the development of commercial
forms.

(Campos Parsi, 1981:46-47) [Translation by author]

This assessment fails to recognize the effects of inter-island commercial and

political traffic beginning with the Haitian Revolution of 1795-1805 and the impact of

policy shifts such as the “Real Cédula de Gracias” of 1815, a Spanish crown edict that

14
This will be elaborated upon in this Chapter and Chapter Five.
15
Translates to “local colour”

37
finally allowed immigration from other Catholic colonies.16 Campos-Parsi claims the

period of African influence ended with the development of commercial forms. He must

have presumed, as have other authors and scholars, that bomba practices were in a

terminal decline.17

During Campos-Parsi’s third period of African influence, namely, the twentieth

century, bomba developed throughout the island. Community gatherings featuring bomba

dancing occurred on weekends or holidays when people could afford to spend some

leisure time and occasionally travel to participate. During the early part of the century the

bomba did not gain popularity beyond the boundaries of working class neighbourhoods

and was confined to a social practice among peers, in particular those of African descent.

Anthropologist Alden Mason, a disciple of Franz Boas, toured Puerto Rico in 1915-1917

and was the first person to record bomba music (in addition to other regional musical

genres) on wax cylinders. The recordings, done under the sponsorship of the island’s

government surveying office, are housed in the traditional music archives of the

University of Indiana and administered by the American Museum of Natural History,

Division of Anthropology Archives.

The development of radio and later the inauguration of television service dealt a

powerful blow to communal practices. Young audiences could not resist the allure of the

many foreign musical imports that found their way on to the airwaves. Fewer locations

16
Álvarez, http//rrpac.upr.clu.edu:9090/~laalvarez/Articulos/presenciaNegra/presencia.html
17
It is hard to imagine how a renowned figure such as Campos-Parsi could not have been aware at that time
that the bomba was on the verge of a renaissance. After all, that renewal had been promoted by the ICP
(with which Campos Parsi maintained an active and essential role), the prominent Cepeda, Ayala, and
Albizu families and a growing number of young enthusiasts who saw the bomba as a vehicle for cultural
pride.

38
sponsored bomba dances and many potential young drummers drifted towards Cuban,

Dominican and other dance-band oriented music.

Bomba since 1950

I propose that bomba after the mid-twentieth century was driven by three

principal forces: first, the efforts of Castor Ayala and Rafael Cepeda, secondly, the arrival

of Cortijo y su Combo, and thirdly, the support of the ICP. By the early 1950s the bomba

truly was in a steep decline, prompting Don Rafael Cepeda to form an ensemble to re-

invigorate the community and draw younger people in. Together with a similar move by

friend and fellow bomba dancer Castor Ayala18, this, in my view, represents the

beginning of modern bomba history. The accomplishments of these two individuals and

the important contribution of their respective family members should not be allowed to

obscure the fact that other bomba performers did persevere but did not take any proactive

stance in relation to its declining practice. These communities simply continued to hold

bomba dances in their localized pockets as they had done for generations.

18
In the case of Castor Ayala, he formed his group in 1959 in response to a request by television producer
Milton H. Lehr who was looking to present some traditional music from Loiza on his programme “Show
Time” (Raúl Ayala, p.c., May 2005).

39