While rebuilding his father’s marimba he used wood he found that was to be used for smoking fish. “First of all, I use chonta because I can guarantee that the traditional tuning of the instrument will never be lost. Chonta is useful for marimba construction only when it is cut during a very special lunar phase called menguante.
“If there’s dust collected by the wood, it was cut incorrectly, at the wrong time, and is completely useless for a marimba. We can tell because the polillas [moth-like insects] attack the wood.”
An indispensable part of Afro-Colombian and Pacific music, the marimba is also gaining popularity in pop and reggaeton music.
Menguante are the phases immediately following the full moon leading up to luna negra where the moon is virtually invisible and begins the new cycle. “It’s easy to tell when to cut the wood and to know if it was cut at just the right time. Many of our activities are connected with the solar and lunar cycles. In Bogotá, the city continues on no matter the position or cycle of the moon. However, in Buenaventura at 6 or 7 p.m., it’s very dark with the waning moon.”
In tune with nature
These ingrained natural sensitivities of his farming community in Buenaventura are the results of acclimating to the inequities in Colombia’s predominantly black region of the Pacific coast. Two of Baudillo’s children were killed due to guerrilla-related violence.
“People get in the wrong groups. They don’t like what you do because they see the good and like the polillo, ruin the wood. They can ruin lives, families and even entire communities. Every key of every marimba I make, every key I cut defies injustice.”
While Petronio Alvarez’s currulao song, “Mi Buenaventura” portrays a city where las olas centelleantes vienen y te besan (the sparkling waves come and kiss you), catastrophic infrastructural problems and political agendas still plague the area. Buenaventura is Colombia’s most active Pacific port.
Despite inequalities, Buenaventura embraces its pluriethnic, multilingual heritage through dozens of cultural festivals including neighboring Cali’s Petronio Alvarez Festival. Much like the Smithsonian Folkway Festival, the Petronio Alvarez Festival celebrates the region’s music, art and food that has now entered the global stage through popular groups like ChocQuibTown, Grupo Bahía, and La Mojarra Electrica from Bogotá.
The sound of a people
The marimba connects them all and tells the story of the rituals that have descended from the escaped Africans of San Basillio de Palenque to the African diaspora aesthetic shared by descendants of slaves throughout all of the Americas. Cuama remembers vividely, “No one read, no one went to universities, work was scarce but we all ate — we ate a lot too. In fact, we ate and enjoyed life to the fullest. Our problems weren’t as they are now, or maybe we didn’t see them that way. Even though life was hard at times, it was easy, slow, careful but always full of heart.”
Ali, one of Baudillo’s nine children and an accomplished marimba player, fondly remembers his grandmother. “It was amazing watching my grandmother tell time by the position of the sun. When there was an abundance of shade, she could tell it was 10 in the morning. If the sun beamed direct rays, she knew it was noon exactly.”
Although many of Cuama’s children have left the region, those remaining are all musicians. Ali has won honors and currently performs and accompanies his father to interviews such as our intimate conversation in a hotel downtown in Bogotá.
Like his father, short in stature, methodical and slow in speech with a thick distinct accent, Ali muses, “My father’s work amazes me. The tours and the conferences he has attended have connected people from around the world to innovate music and use the marimba with other world and orchestral instruments.”
Cuama says a bird, a marimbero, that calls at 5 a.m. every morning trained his ear. Now with professional performing groups, bands, and orchestras asking for his marimba specifically, he tunes it in a way that makes those combinations work.
“You know we African descendants love our loud music and dancing so sometimes I’ll have to go and ask the neighbors to turn it down so I can focus on the marimba I’m working on. It’s nice to hear though that their reggaeton music includes a traditional marimba. You see, even these humble traditional instruments become mainstream!”
His marimbas’ sounds can be heard around the world in Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, the United States and several countries in Africa. “They fall in love with the sound of our music and take it home with them. I love that; a piece of Colombia in so many parts of the world.”
