culture

Roberto Domínguez, band leader of the Combos Nacionales era
his videos, and a note by Eric Jackson

In the middle to late 1960s and into the 70s, there was a musical movement in Panama of people now collectively known as the Combos Nacionales. They were influenced by the Afro-Cuban traditions that later became known as salsa, by Panamanian and Antillean music of their parents' and grandparents' generation, and by the doo-wop, soul and rock music that people heard on the US Armed Forces stations and eventually on Panamanian radio.

So many of the outstanding figures of that scene were Atlantic siders, but not all were. On the fringes of it you had a Panama City kid, the teenage son of a Cuban mother and Panamanian police sergeant, both of them musicians, an Instituto Nacional grad named Ruben Blades who went to New York to find fame and fortune. A little older but also from the Instituto Nacional there was Roberto Domínguez, who was better known as the Roberto in Roberto y su Zafra. The "Zafra" was an ever-changing band whose constant part was Domínguez. "Roberto y su Zafra" was, in a sense, Roberto Domínguez.

He died on February 15, reportedly of a heart attack. He was 62 years old. Many Panamanians of his generation, and younger ones who were exposed to their heritage by their elders, will remember and mourn.