Los Combos Nacionales, Panamanian music of the 60s and 70s

For those of you who don't read Spanish, know your way around Panama City or know about our culture:

The Combos Nacionales were the popular Afro-Panamanian musical groups whose heyday was from about the mid-60s to the mid-70s. They were influenced by the American soul music of that time and also contemporary musical influences from South America, and had roots in the calypso music that an older generation of immigrants from the West Indies brought to Panama and in the Afro-Cuban musical traditions that are also the roots of salsa.

Yes, the traditional cumbia and tamborito traditions continued, and continue, as Panama's "música típica," and yes, today's Panamanian kids are more oriented to our version of hip hop, regueton. But the Combos Nacionales didn't just go away, and even if they and their fans aged, they continued to grow musically and even attract a few younger musicians to the genre.

The Paradise Banquet Hall is in the shopping strip on Via España and Via Brasil that's diagonal from Exedra Books. In addition to the music, there will be West Indian food sold at this event.

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