It seems like another lifetime when I sat by a stream in the Putumayo valley in southern Colombia one glorious day in 1974. With the Andes in the background, birds circled overhead as the Indians of Sibundoy returned from the fields to prepare for Carnival celebrations. I couldn't imagine a more beautiful setting. Everything seemed right with the world.

I returned to New York and decided to open a small handicraft shop which I named Putumayo in celebration of that magical day and place. Though 27 years have passed and I am now 50, my goal of introducing people to other cultures has never waned. In fact, as I've rediscovered the world of music these past eight years, my belief in the potential of human beings to appreciate the beauty that can be found in other cultures has grown.

I've also recognized that life isn't always as simple as it appears. The Putumayo region, and much of Colombia, has been devastated in the past 10 years by drug activity, war and environmental destruction.

This collection of music from Colombia offers traditional and contemporary dance styles such as cumbia and porro. It demonstrates that despite hardship, the power of the human spirit to create, communicate and celebrate remains undiminished.

I encourage you to find that magic place, your own Putumayo, which will help inspire you to contribute to the building of a world where other cultures are cherished and supported.

Dan Storper Fundador/Ejecutivo en jefe Colombia is the third largest country in Latin America. It is flanked by three great bodies of water: the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Amazon River. The country is home to a great cultural and geological diversity. The snow-capped peaks of the Andes Mountains in the southern and central regions descend to large expanses of savannah grassland and tropical rainforests. Colombia borders Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil and has a population of almost 40 million inhabitants. The geographical contrasts and the diversity of its population make Colombia one of the most heterogeneous countries on the planet and extremely rich in musical styles.

In fact, each region of Colombia can be identified by its own specific kind of music. For example, joropos are folk songs from the plains near the Venezuelan border. Pasillos, guabinas, bambucos and sanjuaneros are traditional styles from the Andean mountain region. Currulaos, abosao, bunde and arrullos are rhythms from the Pacific coast.

The most popular styles among the entire Colombian population, however, are from the Atlantic coastal region: the cumbia, porro and vallenato. Cartagena de Indias, one of the most important towns in this area, was the main trading port where slaves were brought in by the Spanish to work the gold and silver mines and plantations throughout South America. Twenty percent of the Colombian population is of African origin, which makes Colombia the Latin American country with the second largest population of African descent after Brazil. This African presence is reflected in nearly all forms of Colombian music.

While Colombian salsa and vallenato are becoming increasingly popular throughout the world, the style that most influenced the music scenes both at home and abroad is cumbia. The word cumbia comes from kumb, which is a West African word meaning "noise and celebration." There is also a dance known as the cumbé in Guinea, in West Africa. Cumbia arose from the dances performed by inhabitants of the Colombian Caribbean, such as the lumbalu and the bullerengue, which are based on hand drums and singing of African influence. The flutes and whistles played by the Cuna, Cogi and Aruacos Indians from the Caribbean region were combined with Spanish verse and African rhythms to form the genre we know today as cumbia. This fusion of indigenous, African and European cultures makes cumbia a symbol of a new culture arising in the Americas.

Porro is another rhythm from the Atlantic coast which shows how the traditional way of playing wind instruments in this area influences Colombian music. Several years ago this music had lost some of its popularity and was only played by the older people and at traditional village celebrations. However, thanks to a number of contemporary artists, the porro has made a comeback and is now played in the traditional way or on electronic instruments.

Vallenato comes from the towns and villages of the Upar valley on the Atlantic coast of Colombia. This music is a fusion of sounds from the African, native and Spanish populations. It is usually played with an accordion, drum and guacharaca (a scraper made of bamboo). Nowadays it is played on a wide range of instruments but can be distinguished by the sound of the accordion. Vallenato music was originally a means by which stories and news were conveyed from one village to the next by troubadors and minstrels. This music has now crossed all frontiers and has been included in the repertoires of international superstars from other countries such as Julio Iglesias and Gloria Estefan. The musicians who play vallenato music are famous for playing at long events called parrandas vallenata (vallenato gatherings) that last for up to five days.

While we've included the most popular musical styles, cumbia, porro, vallenato and salsa, and several less widely known regional styles like currulao from the Pacific region and a bambuco from the plains, a one CD collection can't fully represent the music of this diverse land. Hopefully, this selection will encourage you to explore further the richness and variety of Colombian music and culture.

Los 50 de Joselito "Montañerisimo"

Los 50 de Joselito are made up of Alex, Richy and Willy, three young men each from a different part of Colombia. While their youth and hip wardrobe give them the appearance of a Colombian N'Sync, their music consists of acoustic renditions of old Colombian classics. With great energy and fun, they have recorded the hits to which their parents and grandparents danced and sang, giving the music a more modern style and a clearer sound without distorting the original intent. Los 50 de Joselito perform everything from bambucos and guavinas to vallenatos and cumbias. They have followers all over Colombia and a 70 year-old grandfather and his 9 year-old granddaughter can go hand in hand to their concerts.

"Montañerisimo" refers to the Andean mountain range and its people. This song is a bambuco, a typical rhythm from the Andean region. Los 50 de Joselito dedicate this song to Medellín and Manizales, important cities from the mountains.

Los Warahuaco "La Tuna"

Hernán Rojas left Colombia for Argentina to finish medical school, but he arrived just before the fall of the Perón regime. With the university closed, he was forced to become a carpenter and housepainter and ultimately formed a cumbia band called Los Wawancó. He played in Argentina for 27 years, and was one of the main proponents of the spread of cumbia's popularity there. Finally, homesick for his family, friends and homeland he returned to Colombia. In 1982, he founded Los Warahuaco and soon became one of the leading artists on the Discos Fuentes label.

"La Tuna (The Prickly Pear)" has strong Cuban son and boogaloo influences. The title refers to the spiny fruit of a tropical tree. The singer wants his beloved to prick her fingers on the needles so he can give her his loving help. "I brought you my love a prickly pear / If you prick your hand I shall be in luck / I'll have your arms in my arms"

Gabriel Romero y Su Orquesta "Las Lavanderas"

Gabriel Romero, otherwise known as "El Cumbiambero Mayor (The King of Cumbia)," was born in Sabanagrande, on the Atlantic coast. His father was the well-known composer and musician known as "El Negrito Fino." Because of his father's influence Gabriel began singing at 12 years old with a band that played at parties and celebrations. He studied agriculture in the university but later gave it up to dedicate himself wholly to music. He was catapulted to fame as a member of the band The Black Stars in 1969, after releasing "La Piragua (The Canoe)", which went on to become a standard of the Colombian repertoire. After leaving The Black Stars he started his own group, which won the Congo de Oro, a prize awarded each year for best song in the Barranquilla carnival.

In the cumbia "Las Lavanderas (The Washerwomen)," you can hear the melodic call and response of the wind instruments, especially the clarinet and the bombardino, a deep-throated brass instrument similar to the euphonium. The words describe the women who go from house to house to collect and wash the laundry. "The rich man lives from silver / The washerwoman lives from dirt / Her lot is watching the washing hanging on the line."

Joe Arroyo y la Verdad "Yamulemau"

In 1971, when he was only 16 years old, Joe Arroyo began singing in Fruko y sus Tesos, the most important salsa band of the time. The happy vibrancy of his voice and the mischievousness of his movements soon made him famous, and he recorded and performed with other popular bands. He finally started his own band, La Verdad (The Truth), in 1981. With his own orchestra, Joe Arroyo could now give free reign to his creativity as an arranger, singer-songwriter and composer.

Arroyo is a versatile singer of many Caribbean rhythms and sings music ranging from sones and boleros to the cumbias and fandangos of his native region. A native of Cartagena, he was exposed to and inspired by African and Afro-Caribbean music from a very young age, and he regularly invents new rhythms and styles with roots in these traditions.

"Yamulemau" was originally recorded as "Diamoule" by Laba Sosseh, a singer from the West African country Gambia. An interesting example of cultural interaction between Africa and the Americas, Sosseh was first inspired by popular Cuban music and salsa. Arroyo sings "Yamulemau" in the original African language, imitating the phonetics much the same way African artists like Sosseh have done with Spanish.

Lucho Bermudez "Fiesta de Negritos"

Lucho Bermudez is one of the most famous performers and composers in Colombian music history. A genius of the clarinet, an instrument that is immensely popular in Colombia because of its close similarities to the folkloric instrument the flauto de millo, Bermúdez was his country's Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington rolled into one. He was born in the town of Carmen de Bolivar in 1913 and passed away in 1994. Over his long and successful career, Bermudez played a wide variety of Colombian and tropical rhythms but is perhaps best known for bringing the porro to fame. Bermudez, originally arranged the style to be played by big jazz bands and created a new form of porro known as the gaita. He was the first to bring the music of the Atlantic coast to the cities of the interior.

"Fiesta de Negritos" is one of Lucho Bermúdez's most famous gaitas. This song reveals the similarity between the porro and jazz where instruments improvise freely and converse over a common theme.

Toto la Momposina "Oye Manita"

Totó La Momposina takes her stage name from where she was raised, Talaigua Mompos in the Bolivar region. Since she was a young girl, Totó took part in dancing and singing competitions in her area and won them all. Her family wanted her to be a doctor or a lawyer, but her destiny had already been decided: to continue the Afro-Colombian traditions of her homeland.

Totó has traveled for many years around the villages of the Colombian Atlantic coast, compiling songs and verse sung by its inhabitants. She has given them value and recognition by making recordings so that they will be remembered forever. Her efforts were recognized when Gabriel Garcia Marquez chose her as one of his companions when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm in 1982. She has since toured Europe and the United States on numerous occasions, introducing countless thousands to the diverse music and dance styles of Colombia.

"Oye manita (Hey, little sister)" originated in the palenques (Afro-Colombian communities of the coast.) It is a son palenque, a blend of Cuban son and a local style called bullerengue music. The song is dedicated to Estefania Caicedo, one of the great singers of bullerengue who lived in Chambacu, formerly a black neighborhood of Cartagena de Indias. When the authorities realized how valuable the land in the district was, the residents were sent to live in another part of the city and the property was sold. "Chambacu, Negro's sweat / History of the Slave / And, like you, Estefanía / They also wrote my history."

Grupo Bahia "A Guapi"

Grupo Bahia represents a new vision of Colombian music. Its founder, Hugo Candelario González, has succeeded in weaving together a blend of musical contrasts that combines modern elements with the musical diversity from the Chocó region on the Pacific Coast. The sound of the marimba, played majestically by Candelario, reveals the preservation of the African influence on the Pacific coast. Because of Grupo Bahia, rhythms such as the currulao, bunde, jurga and the Chocoan porro are no longer lost folklore of the Pacific. Through their efforts, these styles have made a comeback as new, fresh sounds popular throughout the country.

The song "A Guapi (To Guapi)" is a currulao that the conductor and founder of the band dedicates to his home village. "I shall sing to my land / That sweet and beautiful land / Guapi / Pretty land / Oh most beautiful land."

Tulio Zuloaga "Temporal"

Tulio Zuloaga is one of the young talents of tropical music but has also had a long career as an actor, television personality and disc jockey. He has been experimenting with traditional rhythms of the Atlantic coast, especially the vallenato, and mixing them with musical elements heard in the big cities to give them a contemporary sound. He collaborates with the best young arrangers in Colombia to create modern versions of vallenato classics. His success comes at a time when vallenato, long considered unsophisticated music of the lower classes, has become popular throughout Latin America and promoted by young, glamorous singers such as former soap opera star Carlos Vives.

"El Temporal (The Storm)" is an old Puerto Rican plena1 that warns of the coming of a storm. Tulio blends electronic instruments, acoustic guitar, and the strains of an accordion to a fast vallenato rhythm. "The storm, the storm is coming / What will become of you, my life / When the storm arrives."

1 a traditional Puerto Rican folk style that is known for its topical lyrics and upbeat rhythm

Fruko y sus Tesos "Soy Como Soy"

Ernesto "Fruko" Estrada began his musical career at the age of 15 when he joined the legendary cumbia group, Los Corraleros de Majagual. It was with Los Corraleros back in 1968 that Fruko first traveled to New York to witness the city's burgeoning salsa scene. The group Fruko y sus Tesos began in 1970 when Fruko and musical director Mario "Pachanga" Rincón, while working for Discos Fuentes, Colombia's leading record company, set out to create a sound similar to New York's Fania All Stars.

"Soy Como Soy (I Am What I Am)" is typical of Colombian salsa, which is known for dispensing with drawn-out introductions and jumping straight in with a driving pulse. The interlocking horn arrangements and the machine-like efficiency of the rhythm are one of Fruko's trademarks, as are the elements borrowed from classic Cuban son such as the nasal, muñeco (little doll) singing style of the chorus. The lyrics describe a young man's awakening as he leaves the simplicity of his childhood behind and heads into life's daily struggles, all the while trying to have fun and not get weighed down. "Life is hard / I am how I am and nothing more / I live life in order to have fun."

La Sonora Dinamita "El Ciclón"

La Sonora Dinamita (The Dynamite Sound) is one of Latin America's most popular groups. They were created in 1960 by the Discos Fuentes label, which gathered a group of accomplished musicians from the Caribbean coast to play dance music with wide appeal. They were immediately popular throughout Latin America, especially Mexico where they were in such demand that a Mexican version of the group was created to perform and record locally. La Sonora Dinamita has recorded an endless stream of hits, many rife with racy double-entendres.

"El Ciclón (The Cyclone)" is a cumbia that compares the havoc a woman reeks in a relationship to that caused by a cyclone. "You're like a cyclone / Hauling everything away / Burning up my life / Leaving me wounded." This arrangement features the bouncier, more oblique version of cumbia known, somewhat derogatorily, as chucu-chucu, an onomatopoeia for the less syncopated rhythm.

Orquesta de Edmundo Arias "Cumbia del Caribe"

Edmundo Arias is the son of Joaquin Arias, composer of one of Colombia's most popular bambucos, "Los Sauces (The Willows)." When he was ten years old and living in Tulua Valley in southwestern Colombia, he and his brother Ricuarte started Los Hermanitos Arias, a group that played music with a Cuban influence. Since the most important recording studios in Colombia were to be found in Medellin, the capital city, Arias went there with his brother and started the Sonora Antillana, which they later renamed the Edmundo Arias Orchestra. Edmundo was the composer, arranger, conductor, and played the bass and the guitar. He was inspired by the music from the Atlantic coast—porros, cumbias, merecumbes and gaitas—which make up most of his musical repertoire. Arias gave the music from the Atlantic coast a personal touch with certain contrasts and characteristics that distinguish it from the other contemporary music of his time. Arias passed away in Medellin in 1993.

"Cumbia del Caribe" is a mostly instrumental piece in which the electric organ contrasts with the multiple rhythms of the wind instruments. The song opens with the shout "Güepajé," a popular slang word that expresses happiness and excitement.

The Latin Brothers "Delia La Cumbiambera"

The Latin Brothers was established in the early 1970s with the aim of having a top quality orchestra in Colombia that could compete with the popular salsa bands from New York and Puerto Rico. Taking their cue from salsa pioneers like Oscar D'Leon and Willie Colon, The Latin Brothers use a horn section that features the melodious riffs of the trombone and a rootsy, funky repertoire. With over twenty-five years of popular dance hits to its credit, The Latin Brothers is one of the most beloved salsa bands in Colombia.

"Delia La Cumbiambera (Delia the Cumbia Dancer)" reveals that The Latin Brothers not only play swinging salsa but also some great cumbias. It is interesting to note that all the instruments play a cumbia rhythm, except the piano, which follows a salsa rhythm called a montuno. "If you want, let's enjoy it, Delia / If you want, let's dance, Delia / If you want, let's have a good time."

13) Momposita

Length: 15mn 55s

Totó la Momposita, Kolumb. Sängerin 22.6.2001

14) Carlos Fonceca

Length: 4mn 52s

Carlos Foncena - siehe Film „Under Fire"!

15) Los Novios

Length: 2mn 29s

Marimba de arco, 1989 in Masatape live

16) solar de monimbo

Length: 2mn 59s

Gesang mit Marimbas aus dem Radio

17) mejia Godoy

Length: 4mn 1s

"No Pasaran", 1988 in Köln gesungen auf einer Solidaritätsveranstaltung. Godoy ist noch heute sehr beliebt.

18) Missa Campesina („Bauernmesse")

Length: 6mn 21s

von Jorge Isaac Carvallo, 1980

19) Pinoche

Length: 3mn 21s

Typisches Spottlied

20) Radio Sandino1

Length: 1mn 27s

Radio Sandinista

21) Radio Sandino2

Length: 3mn 17s

Radio Sandinista

22) Radio Sandino3

Length: 3mn 23s

Radio Sandinista