Guararey de Pastora (aka Guararé or Pastorita) - songo v salsa (v son)

DJ Yuca

DJ Yuca

Son Montuno
I think Guararey de Pastora was a big hit in 1974 for Los Van Van. This was when they were pioneers (and possibly the only successful exponents) of songo.


I think this track was originally a changüí.

Do you regard this version as changüí or songo (or both)?

A year later Ray Barretto did a NY salsa style version of the tune, which was a big hit and is still popular in salsa clubs worldwide.


Anyone is welcome to comment on differences between the 2 versions. @Latinjazz mentioned elsewhere Los Van Van’s version is rhythmically more interesting and complex, Ray Barettos version is better arranged and harmonically more interesting. Anyone care to expand on that?

There are other versions of this track (at least one under the title Pastorita) that we could also discuss.
 
To state the obvious: the Van Van is far faster than the Barretto. The vast majority of salsa covers of Cuban compositions are of pre-revolution sones however there were a few 70s/80s Cuban tracks that were covered in NY, and I think it was common for them to be slowed down in the salsa versions.
 
Re. rhythms on the Van Van: I don't know anything about songo but it sounds like they've replaced the traditional son cáscara on timbales (I think they updated the conga tumbaos too). Is there a drumkit in there too? I don't hear bongos or handheld bell.
 
This live recording of Los Van Van may shed some light on the instrumentation (confirms drumkit at least)


Also some interesting info in the comments:

Dice JUan Formell: «Por los años 70, en una presentación, alternábamos con un grupo de Guantánamo y escuché las letras de aquella canción (Pastorita) ... me gustó mucho tanto el tema que anoté su letra y la traje en la memoria... Hice la orquestación y desde entonces está en el repertorio de Van Van en cada escenario de Cuba y el mundo».


Este tema es un Changuí que se llama El Guararey de Pastora, originalmente del tresero guantanamero Roberto Baute Segarra (1905-1991), aunque se le atribuyó durante mucho tiempo a Pedro Speck (1909-2000), cofundador en 1945 del Grupo Changüí de Guantánamo.


Here's a recording by some instance of Changüí Guantánamo
 
Some interesting recordings with respect to the comparison Los Van Van / Ray Barretto:

As a possible step in between the two, Creación 75 recorded this in Miami in 1974

Sierra Maestra's take from 1997

Tiburón Morales (of Son 14 fame), recorded in Santiago de Cuba in 1998 or so, Juan Formell was involved as executive producer
 
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DJ Yuca said:
Re. rhythms on the Van Van: I don't know anything about songo but it sounds like they've replaced the traditional son cáscara on timbales (I think they updated the conga tumbaos too). Is there a drumkit in there too? I don't hear bongos or handheld bell.
Click to expand...
Here is something to help clear up about songo hehehe

The Songo Enigma

After writing over 20 instructional books Cuban piano, congas, drums, timbales, clave and bass, this is Kevin Moore's first book for non-musicians - listeners, dancers and fans of Latin music. Beyond Salsa alternates between
www.timba.com www.timba.com

Gotta love that psychedelic 70s synth :)

Van Van has generally used a drum kit with timbales, but it has varied a little at different times. I don't think they've ever had bongos. This is nowadays a very common setup in timba bands (drums with timbales). In some cases such as Pupy y Los Que Son Son and Havana D'Primera, they have both a drum kit and separate timbales. Many of today's younger groups play songo.

In general, changüí is fast music, so it's not surprising that an adaptation of the changüí would be fast as well.

This link jumps you right to La Guararey de Pastora in a medley of hist from 1969-1979. You can see they dropped the 1970s synth (they still have both piano and keyboard) and you can get a very good look at how Samuel has his percussion set up. I'm not sure if Changuito had exactly the same set up but probably something very close, since Samuel took over from Changuito. Anyway, this is a much less experimental sound than the 1970s stuff was. Also, just plain better recording quality :)

If you want to watch the whole medley you can use this link.
 
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DJ Yuca said:
Do you regard this version as changüí or songo (or both)?
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Songo. I don't think it has much changüí about it.

Regarding what is and isn't changüí, the changüiseros in Guantánamo appreciate Revé bringing the name of changüí to a wider audience, but don't consider Revé to play changüí either. Their music has some changüí elements, but not enough for the changüiseros I've talked with to consider it changüí.
 
Gaviota said:
Some interesting recordings with respect to the comparison Los Van Van / Ray Barretto:

As a possible step in between the two, Creación 75 recorded this in Miami in 1974

Sierra Maestra's take from 1997

Tiburón Morales (of Son 14 fame), recorded in Santiago de Cuba in 1998 or so, Juan Formell was involved as executive producer
Click to expand...
Sierra Maestra has som interesting percussion going on there and El Tiburón's version really starts as changüí
 
I‘ll answer in little bits not to throw my mobile phone out of the window.

@timberamayor has already explained a lot, by the way the most interesting Changüí threads are by her, too - I just can’t find them now.
My information about this is due to Kevin Moore’s books by 80%, I want to leave that clear, I’m no expert.
Los Van Van were founded by Juan Formell who played first in orquesta revé, meaning people from the east of the Island, where Changüí is from.
Songo was first called Changüí 68, and in the 60/70ies Rumba and specially Conga was a big influence in Cuban music.
Songo - and this particular song, too, features lots of freedom for the bass player - who is not playing Tumbao anymore, and then a whole selection of partly related grooves, the one here is the third one in Changüitos video (Changüito was the main inventor and creator of Songo grooves after another percussion player before him whose name I don’t recall now)

They all have in common that they are a lot more complex than the Son-complex, from bass to piano montuno and of course percussion.

It’s a Changüí song originally, but played as a Songo. So the music style is Songo here.

Barretto’s version, on the other hand, is a typical Salsa arrangement with its own stylistic characterisics.
If you listen to the intro, the melody is harmonized with different chords on each note. Cuban music (that I know of) was not so jazz-harmony-immerged at the time (not to say - it was simply not so complex harmonically).
On the other hand, Barretto’s version offers 0 surprise from a rhythmic perspective.
But the arrangement, mostly the Mambos and dramaturgy of the song are better than Van Van’s version In my opinion.
 
Here is from a peña in Guantánamo. You can see they have a electric bass rather than a marimbula and also congas. They also played sones. The fun part of this is he dancing, also a nice tres solo and bongo solo.
 
timberamayor said:
Here is from a peña in Guantánamo. You can see they have a electric bass rather than a marimbula and also congas. They also played sones. The fun part of this is he dancing, also a nice tres solo and bongo solo.
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I love the last coros! And the ambiance and dancing!
Btw Just remembered we were discussing once if Changüí is danced a tiempo or a contratiempo, which made me ask some Cuban dancer friends. The whole thing ended in a heated debate where professional dancers insisted it’s danced a tiempo and others said no way. :)
Most normal situation in Cuba when you ask about music. 50% say white, 50% say black. And there you go.
 
Gaviota said:
Some interesting recordings with respect to the comparison Los Van Van / Ray Barretto:

As a possible step in between the two, Creación 75 recorded this in Miami in 1974

Sierra Maestra's take from 1997

Tiburón Morales (of Son 14 fame), recorded in Santiago de Cuba in 1998 or so, Juan Formell was involved as executive producer
Click to expand...

I didn't know any of those versions. Interesting. The Creación 75 album seems to be covers of big NY tracks, which makes me wonder if it in fact came out after Barretto's take.
 
DJ Yuca said:
I didn't know any of those versions. Interesting. The Creación 75 album seems to be covers of big NY tracks, which makes me wonder if it in fact came out after Barretto's take.
Click to expand...

Rhythmically it seemed a bit closer to Los Van Van's recording to me. But the group and album title including 75 casts doubt on the claimed 1974 release year, so this does seem a possibility
 
Gaviota said:
Rhythmically it seemed a bit closer to Los Van Van's recording to me. But the group and album title including 75 casts doubt on the claimed 1974 release year, so this does seem a possibility
Click to expand...

Maybe the objective was to create versions of big salsa tunes whilst adding influences from songo and any other contemporary Cuban sounds. I need to check their other tracks.

I imagine at the time Miami could have been ambivalent towards songo and anything else coming out of Cuba. Most of the Cubans there were anti-anything to do with Castro and pro-US so they would have related to NY salsa, at the same time they probably wanted something more Cuban and more Miami than NY salsa.

I can only think of 2 salsa bands based in Miami in the 70s: Creación 75 and Los Jovenes del Hierro. There were probably more. There certainly were by the 80s.
 
Conjunto Cristal come to mind; they also covered quite a fewcontemporary Cuban songs

ETA: also Conjunto Impacto
 
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DJ Yuca said:
I think Guararey de Pastora was a big hit in 1974 for Los Van Van. This was when they were pioneers (and possibly the only successful exponents) of songo.


I think this track was originally a changüí.

Do you regard this version as changüí or songo (or both)?

A year later Ray Barretto did a NY salsa style version of the tune, which was a big hit and is still popular in salsa clubs worldwide.


Anyone is welcome to comment on differences between the 2 versions. @Latinjazz mentioned elsewhere Los Van Van’s version is rhythmically more interesting and complex, Ray Barettos version is better arranged and harmonically more interesting. Anyone care to expand on that?

There are other versions of this track (at least one under the title Pastorita) that we could also discuss.
Click to expand...
The first I would classify as a mix of changui and salsa.
I dispose the second version with all my heart and I don't know how it would be better arranged than its original changui structure.
Septeto Santiaguiero does a nice version:


Also the original intended format is my fave lol:
 
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Latinjazz said:
I love the last coros! And the ambiance and dancing!
Btw Just remembered we were discussing once if Changüí is danced a tiempo or a contratiempo, which made me ask some Cuban dancer friends. The whole thing ended in a heated debate where professional dancers insisted it’s danced a tiempo and others said no way. :)
Most normal situation in Cuba when you ask about music. 50% say white, 50% say black. And there you go.
Click to expand...
And I was told that many people think they are dancing on1 but they are actually dancing on2 , so there's that take as well :D

There is my fantastic video where I said I had trouble knowing when to start, so I just follow the lead and it turned in to quite the discussion including showing rivalry between Yateras changüiseros and Guantánamo changüiseros.

 
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