Vieja Trova Santiaguera (Old Santiagoan Trova) is a quintet of spry old men, all from the eastern Cuban city of Santiago, an important city to Cuban music and the birthplace of trova, a genre that developed among poor, itinerant, self-taught troubadours (trovadores) in the late nineteenth century, growing out of cancion, urban music that grew out of the mixture of Cuban folk music, European popular song and influences from Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia.

Vieja Trova formed in 1994, naming itself in contrast to the politicized, eclectic “Nueva Trova” (new trova) movement that emerged after the 1959 Communist revolution. Though the members are apparently devout Communists, they didn’t have much truck with the innovations of their juniors. Although Buena Vista Social Club was still a few years in the future, Vieja Trova was founded on basically the same principle, of reviving the musical traditions of the past before all their practitioners died.

“El Tren” (”The Train”) is a whimsical song with wonderful vocal sound effects and onomatopoeia, from their self-titled album. The rest of the album is okay – there are a couple of nice standards (”Lagrimas Negras” (”Black Tears”) and “Son de la Loma” (”They’re From the Hills”) and a lovely song called “El Huerfanito” (”The Little Orphan”), but the rest is undistinguished. If you want to know more about trova and the whole history of Cuban music, I recommend The Rough Guide to Cuban Music.

Vieja Trova Santiaguera – El Tren

Septeto Habanero – Voy a la Calle Vapor

As everything ever written about Cuban music has pointed out, there’s a lot of old men in Cuba who weren’t in the Buena Vista Social Club, and a lot of them are really good. This particular group of old men, the Septeto Habanero (”Havanan Septet”) is the oldest, and possibly also one of the manliest. It’s also one of my favorites. They were the first group to use the trumpet, without which, as this informative article points out, Cuban music is almost impossible to imagine; especially son, the style that the Septeto play, and that dominated Cuba in the 20s and 30s, when the group was but young. Especially in “Voy a la Calle Vapor” (”I’m Going to Vapor Street”), the hot, effortless trumpet is one of the best parts. The repetitive chorus and percussion make the improvisational verses and tres (guitar, more or less) almost the trumpet’s match. And I love that sliding end.

One nice thing about this album, which is well worth buying, is that it’s apparently the exact same music the band was playing 75 years ago, but it was recorded in 1997, so the sound is good. You can get legit old recordings of the O.G. greats, but the sound quality is usually so bad that there’s not much point in listening. And other old groups, like the Septeto Nacional, almost as ancient as the Habanero, have new albums, too, but every song on their album starts the same way (that is, with the same tuneup that begins “Voy a la Calle Vapor”), although after the first few seconds, they’re all great.

Oh yeah, and obviously I was lying about putting off new posts. I wrote about patent medicines all day today, though; I get to do some music.