- Fandango: Prueba de Fuego
- Landó: María Landó
- Tanguillo: The High Seas
- Joropo-Festejo: Muiñeira de Chantada
- Currulao: Currulao de Crisis
- Tarantella-Muiñeira: Epilogue
- Llegará, llegará, llegará
- Let’s Festa
- Bonus Track: Tarantella-Muiñeira (without narration)
Cristina Pato: Galician bagpipes, piano
Victor Prieto: accordion
Edward Perez: double bass
Eric Doob: drums
MAY 2015
The first time Edward Perez (bass) and I played a Muiñeira, it didn’t sound traditionally Galician at all (maybe because he is from Texas and has spent years in Perú), but it did sound very familiar to me… Edward added the Joropo pattern to a Galician song and with that subtle change, he brought back memories of the way my late father, Dositeo Pato, a Galician immigrant to Venezuela, used to play.
Following this experience and another four years touring together, in 2014 I commissioned Edward to write the music for a storytelling idea that I had about exploring the different ways of understanding just one word through just one rhythm. I was intrigued by the complex meaning of the word Latina in the US and, through music, I wanted to find a way to understand and explain its journey.
The Latina 6/8 Suite is the result of that collaborative process. Opening with a fandango, a rhythm that traveled both ways across the Atlantic, and closing with a traditional Sicilian tarantella and an incredibly similar Galician muiñeira, the journey takes us through fascinating Latin-and-American rhythms in 6/8. And each one of them has behind it a compelling story of human migration.
We all have common roots, heritage, language, and way of life… but exploring how a basic 6/8 pattern has evolved in different Latin countries brings up many other topics related to the context and meaning of the word Latina that have also evolved in fascinating ways: gender, power, and human migration.
This album also contains music by close collaborators of mine. Emilio Solla’s “Llegará, llegará, llegará” and Victor Prieto’s “Let’s Festa” stretch our journey to Argentina and Brazil…
Cristina Pato
Executive Producer: Cristina Pato
Artistic Producers: Emilio Solla and Cristina Pato
Mecenas: Jody and John Arnhold
“The Latina 6/8 Suite” is an idea conceived and commissioned by Cristina Pato
Arrangements and original compositions by Edward Perez except for Track 7 (by Emilio Solla)
This album was made with a lot of love coming from my amazing band and collaborators and the incredibly generous support of 104 Kickstarter friends/backers. Including mecenas Jody and John Arnhold. See the Kickstarter project →