Enthusiasts of Cuban music: salsa, jazz, the Buena Vista Social Club... have a lot of choices here in San Miguel. But we are about to be treated to a profound and sensuous experience of the African polyrhythms at the heart of this music when the Cuban folkloric ensemble Obini Batá returns to town.
Having been possessed by Cuban music since 1961, I guarantee that their music goes way beyond what you are accustomed to hearing, to say nothing of their dancing, a visual embodiment of the music. Folkloric in the Caribbean sense refers to drumming, dancing, and singing, usually without melodic instruments.
Obini Batá means Women of the Batá, and uniquely the band is all women. Batá refers to a set of three hourglass-shaped drums principally used in the Afro-Cuban religion, Santeria, "the worship of the saints."
These "saints" are actually African deities, orichas, which have been syncretized with Catholic saints. To deceive their masters and preserve their African religion, slaves pretended to be worshipping a Catholic saint, camouflaging their worshipping an oricha, who shared some characteristic with the saint. For example, Chango and Santa Barbara are both connected to lightning.
The tonality of the drum rhythms imitates the rising and falling of the Yoruba language and "speaks with" the orichas, inviting them to come down and mount the head of their worshipper. Each oricha has his own songs, dances, costumes, and ritual objects. These are all woven together to facilitate spirit possession.
Most of this music was esoteric and secretive, used as it is the Santeria religion to invoke African deities and bring about spirit possession among the initiates. It was first publicly performed in Cuba in 1936.
The first time I heard it was on a record in Berkeley, California in 1961. Curiously, although the recording was of the best living Cuban batá drummers, the record was released on a Mexican label. In that era our group of fanatic aficionados of Cuban music had to order records from New York based on advice from knowledgeable people including conga drummer Mongo Santamaria and one of Eddie Palmieri's trombonists with whom I was friends.
The first person I met who had a lived experience of Santeria was Gus Segrade, a leftwing, Puerto Rican intellectual, a Spanish professor at San Diego State, whom I accompanied on congas at a poetry reading to celebrate Black Panther Huey Newton's birthday party in 1976. His opinion of Santeria was agnostic and cautious: "My grandmother used to take me to ceremonies. Now I don't believe or disbelieve in it, but I don't mess with it."
In the 70s in the Bay Area there sometimes were public performances of Santeria drumming and singing. It was thrilling for me to experience the sounds that I had been hearing only on records come alive in three dimensions.
Spirit possession, a central part of Santeria rituals, has been described as "the white darkness." Personally, I did experience a sensation of being transported once while I was drumming for a Haitian Voodoo ceremony in New York. My teacher put his arm around my shoulders to hold me gently, and simply told the spirit to go away. His motivation may have been pragmatic in that he wanted me to be able to continue accompanying him.
The Cuban rhythm section in popular music reflects folkloric rhythms. *
Another time was when I was invited to watch a batá rehearsal of my Cuban drum teacher, the pioneering white batá drummer in the US. I felt I could easily have been possessed if I had allowed it, but I controlled myself because I did not want to disrupt the rehearsal. Later, when I told my teacher about this, he said that it was too bad I had inhibited myself, as they would have been happy to stop the rehearsal and take care of me. (Under possession people need to be cared for.)
In general people need to "learn" to be possessed, which includes observing other people in that state. On the other hand, there are many instances of white Americans or Europeans simply wandering into a ceremony (in New York City or Cuba) where batás are being played and becoming unexpectedly and genuinely possessed. Some say that one criterion of a genuine possession is that one does not remember anything.
While they are possessed people can display superhuman strength. I have witnessed people handling hot coals without being injured. During a voodoo ceremony in Brooklyn for which I was playing, a 28-year-old Haitian dance teacher was catapulted around the room by a force appearing to be coming from inside him. As is common, the ceremony was in a basement with a concrete floor, pillars, and no soft surfaces. It took four men, including me, using all our strength to hold him still so that he would not hurt himself. He was possessed by one of the Petro loas (the Haitian word for oricha). Some believe that these powerful loas may have facilitated the successful Haitian revolution against the French in 1789.
As mentioned earlier, one of the things that is unique about Obiní Batá, the group that played Friday night, is that they are women playing batá drums. Traditionally women were banned from learning. Eventually these barriers broke down. Now anyone can study bata for non-religious purposes. There are numerous female batá drummers worldwide, including two very accomplished good friends of mine in the Bay Area (who are initiates in the religion).
The batas played in Obini Batá's performance here in November 2023 were a secularized form of the consecrated ones used in ceremonies, which are "fed" a mixture of blood and herbs to give them power. Women are still forbidden to play these consecrated drums and therefore cannot play in ceremonies. A reason given is that menstrual blood will negate the sacred power of the blood inside the drums.
The group's 2023 performance was impressive. All the women sang, danced, and drummed with fluidity, grace, strength, and passion. Frequently the drummers danced and sang while drumming. Believe me, coordinating all this at once requires a highly-developed sense of African polyrhythmicity.
Traditionally, there is a rigid hierarchy among the three batá drummers, each person specializing in playing only one particular drum, playing distinct parts which vary in complexity. In their performance they easily interchanged drums, which means they each have mastery of all the drum parts. Maybe there is a feminist matriarchal element to this flexible non-hierarchical approach.
Another thing that differed from other Cuban folkloric performances I have seen was that audience participation was encouraged. We were encouraged to clap on the dominant beats or pulse of the music. (Audience members enjoyed this, but I found it annoying as it interfered with my hearing the subtlety of this very complicated music.) Some people spontaneously got up and danced, others were happily dragged to the front by a member of the group.
The author sitting in on congas *
One song they played is one of my favorites, a rhythm which I have been studying since 1973. It can be complete as the group was playing it, with singing, bell, and beaded gourds. However, frequently there is one conga in the ensemble as well. During the song, since there was a conga sitting there with nobody playing, I got up and jumped in. I am glad that I did. It was a rare pleasure for me to play for a dancer who really embodied the music and responded to the drum.
This group originally sprang from the Conjunto Folkloric Nacional, founded in 1962. Like the Folklorico, most of Obiní Batá's performance was devoted to religious music: the song and dance of the orichas. Then, during second part of the show, they moved to the secular, including poetry, pregones (street vendor´s songs), conga de carnaval, a son montuno, and finally rumba guaguancó, the rhythm most beloved by conga drummers worldwide, which forms much of the basis of salsa. Typically, the Folklórico enacts a dramatization of a spirit possession but that seemed to be missing from this performance. Another novelty for me was that the performers were frequently smiling, something I have not observed in other folkloric performances.
After the show I bid farewell to the group, "Gracias y espero que regresen pronto," Thanks. I hope you come back soon. My wish will soon come true. Now is your chance.
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Obiní Batá – National Folkloric Ensemble of Cuba
workshop / dinner / show
Saturday, September 6, 7pm
La Hacienda, Libramiento Jose Manuel Zavala 6
Richard Adelman, MA Psychology, has been a conga and bongo drummer since the 1950's and a teacher of those since 1970. Having studied with Cuban and Haitian master drummers in New York, Cuba, and San Francisco, he has taught Afro-Cuban and Haitian drumming to thousands of students over the years. He calls his teaching approach Conga Drumming Demystified because he specializes in giving clear explanations which make drumming available to everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or talent. In San Miguel he has played with Gabriel Hernandez, Conjunto La Libertad, Soniquette, and Katy Chan, among others.
To deepen and enhance his drumming, his music teaching, and his life, Richard began studying the Feldenkrais Method and other body therapies in 1973. He maintains a private and group practice in San Miguel in Feldenkrais movement and hands-on work, a gentle form of Pilates for seniors, and Formative Psychology. He sees patients in his office in Centro and at their homes. Richard also gives hands-on therapy in the TOSMA Saturday Market in Mercado Sano.
