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Let the music do the talking
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Boston Globe, Let the music do the talking >>
Go! took a year of Spanish in college, never realizing it really would be the one foreign language it would make a lot of sense to know in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the Spanish classes we "took" were in the a.m. -- not a good time then or now for Go! -- and we either slept through them or slept during them. Thus, Go!'s Spanish is pretty much limited to saying "Yo La Tengo!" which means "I got it!" (Yep, that's also the name of a Hoboken post-punk band, too, which is the only reason we know it.) But libre is one word we didn't have to look up. It means freedom. Plena is a word we did have to research, and our research tells us it's a traditional Afro-Rican genre that emerged in Puerto Rico at the end of the 19th century with immigrants from Barbados. Over time, their songs mixed with local genres to create the plena, traditionally performed using three different sized hand drums that were pitched low-to-high and featured interlocking rhythms. There were also vocalists doing call-and-response. Over time, plena evolved -- as music will do. In 1994, bassist Gary Nunez formed Plena Libre whose mission was to reinvent and update the genre. Tonight on the stage of the Scullers Jazz Club, you'll find Nunez and 11 other musicians wielding trombones, keyboards, timbales, congas, and all sorts of drums we don't know the names for. There should be a mad weave of polyrhythms that simply sizzle. Shows at 8 and 10. Tickets: $18. 08/10/04 >> go there
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