Description
Yeison Landero
Yeison Landero, from San Jacinto in Colombia’s Montes de María province near Cartagena, is called “el heredero de la cumbia” – the heir to cumbia, the inheritor of cumbia. He’s from the birthplace of that style of music, a style that’s now enormously popular all across Latin America and increasingly in the USA as well.
Yeison is the grandson of Andrés Landero, the man who arguably invented what we know today as cumbia when he translated the indigenous melodies of San Jacinto’s gaitas (flutes) to the accordion, hitched them to propulsive African-derived rhythms played on a trio of percussion instruments, added electric bass to fill out the bottom, and wrote and sang lyrics that championed the lives of rural Native and Black campesinos. This mix of musical and cultural elements spread like wildfire across Latin America starting in the 1960s and continuing until today.
Andrés Landero is known throughout Latin America as “el rey de la cumbia” (the king of cumbia); his grandson began studying with him when Yeison was 7 years old. Today Yeison Landero and his band are keeping the classic cumbia sound alive, updating it for 21st century listeners and dancers, and bringing it to the world through their performances and recordings.
Not only did Yeison Landero inherit his grandfather’s love for cumbia and the accordion, but also the talent to interpret melodies. At the age of 7, Yeison became the most appreciated disciple of his grandfather Andrés learning all the emotions and humility behind the montemariano musician.
He grew up in an environment surrounded by music, dances and serenades. In his early years, his home was visited by great musicians who entertained at parties with their incomparable talents. Artists of the stature of Alfredo Gutiérrez, Lizandro Meza, Calixto Ochoa, Enríquez Díaz, the composer and singer Adolfo Pacheco Anillo, the legendary pipers of San Jacinto, Abel Antonio Villa, and an innumerable bunch of sabanero folklore figures with whom Yeison nurtured his traditional style.
His first group was created by Andrés Landero himself. Presented next to the king of cumbia, Yeison Landero and his sister were introduced as “Los nietos de Andrés Landero”, performing cumbia at festivals, patriotic celebrations, concerts, regional fairs, and toured nationally.
Yeison later went on to study music at Bellas Artes, and concluded his law degree at the University of Cartagena. But his love for his ancestral accordion and his passion for cumbia were so great that he decided to turn them into the motor of his life, captivating the hearts of all cumbiamberos. He then decides to release his first album called “Landero Vive”, as a posthumous tribute to his grandfather’s immortal legacy. Since then, Yeison Landero’s accordion has not stopped playing, taking cumbia to various stages nationally and internationally, and representing Colombia with its unique sabanero sound.
Maraca Bruja
Maraca Bruja is a local outfit performing traditional sounds of the Caribbean coast of Colombia. The music they perform is called Gaita, a folkloric music from the Bolivar region of Colombia near la Sierra Nevada, where it’s believed its the origin of the instrument.
The members of Maraca Bruja met at a Bulla en el Barrio workshop, another local group performing Colombia traditional music. They were all interested in learning to play gaita music so they signed-up for music classes with Martin Vejarano, a Colombian producer who has been championing traditional Colombian sounds in NYC for 2 decades. They formed Maraca Bruja early in the summer of 2019 as a way to get together in Prospect Park to not only practice but also to connect to their roots and share their experiences. In August of 2019 they traveled to San Jacinto for the National Gaita Festival in Colombia, where they spent a week eating and sleeping Gaita culture, surrounded by groups from all over the country and sharing the roof with master Rafael Perez Garcia.
They perform gaita as an act of resistance, because gaita is resistance. It’s ancestral music that has been invisible to most people in Colombia, surviving through oral tradition generation after generation. It’s music that guides a group of people searching for their origins, for connection with their past as a way to understand where they want to go. Maraca Bruja’s goal is to perform this music with respect to the past, bringing a honest, humble but powerful sound to el Barrio. OYELO!