Grupo Tuira is sometimes a band, but more than anything it’s a musical scene that revolves around composer Rómulo Castro. When they all come together to play, it’s a combination of musicians who are all band leaders in their own rights.
I became acquainted with this scene in the mid-90s, when these musicians worked out of the El Aleph Cafe, which was first located in El Cangrejo near the Einstein head statue, then later moved to a locale near the Via España end of Via Argentina.
The bars and clubs where musicians earn their living tend to be shifting and ephemeral. After a cruel economic climate forced Alexandra Schjellderup to close El Aleph, most of the Grupo Tuira components --- in addition to Castro, we must count Luis Arteaga, Babito, Lizi Rodríguez, Dino Nugent, Valeria Ovando and others --- lacked a regular venue to play for awhile. The versatile and brilliant Nugent had his fingers in so many pies that the Aleph’s closure didn’t cost him much work, but most of the others suffered real hardships on account of their musical homelessness.
But that was then, and now the Panama City bar and club scene has shifted to Bella Vista’s Calle 42 --- the street that runs into Avenida Balboa between APEDE and the BBVA Bank --- where on a Friday or Saturday night you are likely to find different bands playing at the Club Guaguanco, Bongos, Players, Cheta’s, and maybe even at this loft that has been converted into a Mexican restaurant and bar, Ta’Contento.
This latter venue has become the new venue for the Grupo Tuira people. About once a month various components of Rómulo Castro’s crowd come together to play at Ta’Contento. Such was the case on February 18, when Valeria Ovando and friends got together for a bit of pre-Carnival partying.
(Now you might wonder why it is that Rómulo Castro, whose song “La Rosa de los Vientos” won a Grammy when Rubén Blades used it as the title cut for his award-winning album, is not featured as a Carnival treasure. For one thing, most of his and Grupo Tuira’s music is too cerebral and not rowdy enough for drunken Carnival masses. Moreover, Panama City’s main Carnival stage is subject to Arnulfista political censorship, and Rómulo Castro is an outspoken Torrijista, most recently demonstrating his politics as the author of “¡Podemos!,” the Martín Torrijos campaign song.)
The publicity said that Valeria Ovando and friends would begin at 8 pm, but this is Panama and I figured that if I got there at 8:30 I’d be early and get a good seat. I figured right. I put in my order for a nacho, melted white cheese, chorizo, hot sauce and onion/tomato/cilantro concoction and a Cerveza Soberana, sat down at a table in the back and got settled in to take notes as Grupo Tuira mainstay Luis Arteaga picked up his guitar for a little solo set. Arteaga is best known as a balladeer, but he explained that while he and his friends went through phases in which they were under pindin, salsa, jazz, Brazilian and other influences, he’s “really committed to the new sound.” El nuevo son is a style of ballad that emerged principally out of Chile and Cuba in the late 60s and early 70s, caught on in intellectual circles throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and has taken on a life of its own ever since, even though it has been steadfastly boycotted by the US-based multinational recording industry. Arteaga gave the gathering crowd several fine examples of what it’s all about.
Then Valeria Ovando took to the stage --- or should I say assumed her place at the end of the loft where the instruments and amplifiers were set up --- and, accompanied by electric piano and percussion, began her performance.
When the Grupo Tuira scene began to gather in the 80s, Valeria Ovando was the precocious teenager hanging with a crowd that was a few years older than she was. Now she’s a petite woman with long brown hair and a powerful, well-trained voice.
She went through some nuevo son influences, and into some Harry Chapin in Spanish translation. The band expanded and the sound got jazzier with “La Vida Loca,” and then the set concluded with “Nunca Más Felíz.”
After a short break Ovando and Arteaga took the stage for a duet by the founding martyr of the new sound movement, Chilean musician Víctor Jara, who was tortured to death in the Santiago soccer stadium as part of the vicious September 11, 1973 coup that was organized by Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Augusto Pinochet.
Arteaga stepped down, “los muchachos” came back onstage and Ovando launched into a powerful series of numbers that belied European and show tune influences.
Then came a couple of Rómulo Castro songs (one of them with Castro onstage to sing along), the Uruguayan hit “Mujeres Como Yo,” some slow sentimental stuff, a rowdier number with Ovando affecting an impressive tremelo in her voice, and finally some Brazilian-style scat singing that required a great vocal range.
It was a great evening of music for just a five buck cover charge, and a wonderful display of many of the talents and influences that add up to an important Panamanian artistic movement that is not easily squeezed into foreign or domestic commercial or political box. And the nachos were also very good.
Also in this section:
Cool Internet sites
Books: Guarding the Crossroads
Music: Valeria Ovando at Ta'Contento
TV: Confrontación
A century of Panamanian music on the Admin Building steps
