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Written in fRoots issue 348, 2012


VAAMONDE, LAMAS & ROMERO
O Tambor De Prata
Fol 100FOL1058 (2011)

An attractive, quirky and unusual treatment of catchy Galician melodies on primarily gaita, soprano sax and accordion, with some traditional percussion and on one track a burst of hammed-up zarzuela (light opera) style singing, from the trio of Suso Vaamonde, Pedro Lamas and Xosé Lois Romero joined on some live concert tracks by A Coruña’s big, largely brass Municipal Band.
     It seems it’s a project based on the repertoire of the early 20th century band Os Trintas de Trives, which, though from the tiny village of Trives near Ourense, was awarded a silver drum by the king of Spain for playing at his 1902 coronation, and to have travelled to Cuba (as did many other Galegos, but Os Trintas came back). In a slightly droll, is-this-a-joke sort of way, the sleeve-notes (in Galego) ask, but don’t answer, questions about Os Trintas.
     Internet research, though does throw up what seems some genuine history and a photo, and these days it’s also the name of a gaita-band competition in Pontevedra. Despite its name meaning ‘the thirty’, it seems to have been a quartet, a fraternal trio de gaitas - gaita, bass drum and gut-snare side drum - plus clarinet, and much of its repertoire came from the arrangements and compositions of a musical director called Ricardo Courtier. It appears he was working with just the limited possibilities of that pair of monophonic (well, plus drone) melody instruments, so his arrangements presumably just provided the basis for the expanded harmonic possibilities brought by Romero’s accordion, and Roberto Somoza’s orchestrations for the forty or so strong La Banda Municipal.
     The CD comes with a DVD of a 2011 concert at A Coruña’s opera house by the trio with the Banda Municipal. No further enlightenment on the DVD about the music or the elusive Os Trintas, just the concert video, and while the music sounds fine, visually they go in for bouts of laboured, infant-level clowning, including pantomimic blonde wig for the zarzuela number, that diminish the mental imagery evoked by the audio. Stick with the CD.

www.folmusica.com


© 2012 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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