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GUILLERMO CARBÓ RONDEROS. Tambora: Baile cantado en Colombia. 2003. Recorded in Altos del Rosario, Hatillo de Loba, San Martin de Loba, and Tamalameque. Producciones Tambora-YAI Records. One compact dise. Booklet (28 pages) with notes in Spanish, French, and English. Photos, maps, musical examples, bibliography.
During the last fifteen years, important social and political changes have deeply transformed the position of Afro-Colombian cultural traditions within the Colombian milieu. The new Constitution Charter of 1991 declared Colombia a multicultural and pluriethnic nation, granting (at least in theory) particular protection and special rights to the country's ethnic minorities. In this context, African-rooted musical traditions have awakened the interest of scholars, activists, and musicians alike. Since the beginning of the new century, audiences in the country's largest cities have begun to listen to previously unknown types of African-derived folk music original from both the Caribbean and the Pacific coasts. The juncture has brought to light research like Guillermo Carbó's work on the tambora tradition from the upper Magdalena River, a region nearby the Caribbean coast. This record includes several of Carbo's field recordings recorded in situ between 1990 and 1996 during the field research for his dissertationrecently published in France (Carbó 2003) and unfortunately still unavailable in Colombia. Interestingly enough, Carbo's liner notes on the recording make no reference to the issue of racial politics, neither as an important part of...