New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) On January 31st, 2012, Smithsonian Folkways shines the spotlight on the South American country of Uruguay, with Los Gauchos de Roldán's new self-titled album. Though perhaps better known for its standout performance in the 2010 soccer World Cup, the small nation situated between Argentina and Brazil now shares its much-loved, yet little-known, down-home rural dance music. Born in the gaucho ranching homelands of northern Uruguay, the multiracial genre combining accordion and guitar has been an important social tradition for families since the late 19th century.
Listen to "Como mi suegra" (Like My Mother-in-Law) - https://snd.sc/qCAafd
Watch a mini-documentary about Los Gauchos de Roldán - https://youtu.be/mIG7kvdV5H0
"Los Gauchos de Roldán: Button Accordion and Bandoneón
Music from Northern Uruguay" is the 34th release in the Smithsonian Folkways Tradiciones/Traditions series since 2002. The series, a co-production with the Smithsonian
Latino Center, showcases the diverse musical heritage of the 50 million Latinos living in the USA.
Button accordionist and bandleader Walter Roldán hails from Tacuarembó, Uruguay, a melting pot of Spanish creoles, indigenous descendants, Afro-Uruguayans, Brazilians, and European immigrants. It is also a center of rural northern Uruguayan traditional music, notable for the two-row button accordion and the bandoneón, a complex accordion-like instrument with a lush sound that is also a symbol of the urban Rio Plata tango tradition.
In the mid-19th century, the popular European dance forms of the time--polka, mazurka, waltz and schottische--arrived in Uruguay and joined the Afro-Creole rhythms of habanera, maxixa and milonga to eventually take root in the countryside. The rhythms were then "reshaped in the style and way of thinking of the paisanos (rural people)," says Roldán. The rhythmically infectious result can be favorably compared to south Louisiana's Cajun and Creole traditions played with a tango sensibility.
"We were just a few that kept up the struggle for people not to forget that the two-row button accordion is part of our roots. The majority of our grandparents and their relatives met at dances where the two-row button accordion was played. Then they fell in love, and got married. That's the way it was, and we keep up the fight," states Roldán.
On the new album, Roldán pumps out time-honored polcas and chotis, Brazilian-tinged maxixas, and more on his button accordion. With songs inherited from Roldán's father and grandmother, 'Los Gauchos de Roldán' also features bandoneón master Chichí Vidiella, guitarist Bernardo Sanguinetti and Ricardo Cunha on guitarrón (a classical guitar with a large, deep body and lower tuning). Renowned and formerly-exiled Uruguayan guitarist and singer Numa Moraes makes a guest appearance on multiple tracks.
Moraes says, "We were known for the soccer World Cup, and for the first time people are starting to talk about Uruguay in another way, and from a musical point of view I think that it will be very important.... It is a very small country, but it has a great variety of rhythms and colors in its music."
In addition to countless performances in Uruguay, Los Gauchos de Roldán have been featured at the
Chicago World
Music Festival, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio, TX.
19 tracks, 55 minutes of music, 40-page bilingual booklet.
'Los Gauchos de Roldán' Track List:
1. Como mi suegra (Like My Mother-in-Law) milonga
2. La embrujada (The Bewitched Polca) polca
3. Chotis de Don
Lorenzo (Don Lorenzo's Chotis) chotis
4. En el galpón (In the Barn) maxixa
5. La flor del bañado (The Marsh Flower) polca
6. El gaucho en la pulpería (The Gaucho in the Bar) mazurca
7. El viejo (The Old Chotis) chotis
8. Como polca suena/La polanquera (It
Sounds like Polca/The Girl from San Gregorio de Polanco) polca
9. Colonia Lavalleja (Lavalleja Township) habanera
10. La polquita de la tuna (The
Little Polca of the Tuna Cactus) polca
11. Chotis cuadrillero (The Quadrille Chotis) chotis
12. Maxixa del pañuelito (The Handkerchief Maxixa) maxixa
13. La infeliz (The Miserable Girl) polca
14. El remolino (The Whirlwind) valseado
15. Polca del 1904 (The 1904 Polca) polca
16. La roncadora (The Growling Polca) polca
17. La Chiquita de Buricayupí (The
Little Girl from Buricayupí) polca
18. Cerro abajo (Downhill) maxixa
19. Una noche cualquiera (Any Night) vals
