Aprietame Asi (Squeeze Me Like That)

So far in 2008, Smithsonian Folkways has produced three splendid releases of folksy, offbeat music from Latin America: Amor, Dolor y Lágrimas: Musica Ranchera, a sweet tour of Mexican “country music,” Ayombe: The Heart of Columbia’s Música Vallenata, a rootsy session from the Columbian growing lands, and the current volume, my personal favorite.  Merengue Típico is frantic fun, and an education on a delightful sub genre of Dominican Republic party music. 

First lesson, most of the “merengue” we know is merengue de orquesta, big band music.  Merengue típico evolved from a guitar based music to a focus on accordion after the 1870s when tobacco traders brought the squeeze box to the island.  This raw and rowdy sound marries the DR’s three cultural strands: European, African, and native Taino.  Típico emerged as egalitarian boogie music, condemned for its lewdness until the reign of dictator Rafale Trujillo who famously promoted merengue along with his uncompromising politics.  The big band, urban sound was the major beneficiary of the Trujillo bump, but to this day típico has its following, and as these 13 bracing tracks demonstrate, its accomplished practitioners as well. 

This is not a compilation but rather a fine, contemporary recording performed by an allstar lineup, featuring Lidia Maria Mernández López, La India Canela—a female accordionist leading an all-male group—apparently a minor trend among típico groups.  These songs unfold at unrelentingly breathless pace with tumbling percussion, thumping bass, and fleet, spitfire accordion parts that are as rhythmic as they are melodic.  Sometimes call-and-response and harmonized vocals are also prevalent, but it’s the accordion that stays with you, especially when it tangles with a saxophone, interlocking in a decidedly African rhythmic knot.  As ever with this standard bearer label, sleeve notes take you deep into the history, the artist’s careers, and the origins and meanings of the songs.  But this one is worth it for the music alone, as energized and furiously joyful as any on earth.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org