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Rancho Aparte brings high-energy chirimía music to the Richmond Folk Festival
By Don Harrison
The leaders of Rancho Aparte are determined to spread awareness of the indigenous chirimía music of Colombia’s Pacific region. “The love for home is part of the musical essence,” the bandleaders proudly proclaim.
But this brass and drum ensemble is also doing something a little different, presenting a progressive, high-energy take on an already unique sound popular in the department of Chocó, a region that boasts the largest Afro-Colombian population in the Republic of Colombia.
“Rancho Aparte is an antithesis of what is traditionally known as traditional Chocoan folklore,” say bandleaders Dino Manuelle and Dyam Palacios. “[We are] breaking the molds in terms of the personal presentation of its members, the uniformity of the band, the musical concept, and the development of compositions.”
“[We are] breaking the molds in terms of the personal presentation of its members, the uniformity of the band, the musical concept, and the development of compositions.” ”
The eight-piece Aparte, which formed in Chocó’s capital city of Quibdó, is still buzzing after its triumphant appearance at this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. By turns brash, jubilant, and elegant, the group’s music will be featured at the 20th Richmond Folk Festival, slated for September 27-29, 2024.
Initiated in 2005 by vocalist Manuelle, with clarinetist and saxophonist Palacios eventually serving as co-music director, Rancho Aparte represents a strain of chirimía music that incorporates glancing blows from other genres—dancehall, salsa, Afrobeat, reggaeton—to conjure up a punchy, party-flavored music that has been labeled, “El Punk del Pacifico,” or the Punk of the Pacific.
“This concept was given to us due to the energy transmitted by the band’s performance,” say Manuelle and Palacios. “To dance to Rancho Aparte’s music, you just need to know how to jump, as one of our most famous songs says.” But even with the increased intensity, the roots of the music are still intact, they are quick to add. “The songs of traditional chirimía music tell all the experiences, lives, and feelings of the population. Rancho Aparte builds on this foundation and takes advantage of the knowledge of other musical genres by its members to enrich the compositions.”
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A way of being Chocoan
Chirimía has a complex past, with roots in both the military band music brought by the colonizing Spanish in the 17th century—at the same time that enslaved Africans arrived in the Pacific region—and music schools founded by the Catholics and the Claretians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “The music scene in Chocó is diverse in terms of the formation and teaching of chirimía,” say the bandleaders about today’s Chocó. “Chirimía is present in spaces such as events, concerts, celebrations, and even funeral rituals. This format accompanies the daily life of the population in Chocó.”
The music has meant different things throughout the years. In their paper, “The Chocoan Shawm: Assimilation and Reaffirmation,” music researchers Ana María Arango and Leonidas Valencia write that “chirimía tells us a story of assimilation as Afro-descendants appropriated European instruments and welcomed them in the midst of a Catholic doctrine that used music as a tool to design social subjects.”
But chirimía also symbolizes resistance to that doctrine, they say. “Once the people appropriated it, hegemonic sectors such as the church labeled it as inappropriate, grotesque and vulgar. In this sense, chirimía and the stridency in the execution of its instruments became a vehicle to affirm a way of being Black and a way of being Chocoan.” Many of Rancho Aparte’s compositions have a social message, the bandleaders say, with the lyrics protesting against the state’s neglect of its people. “Our music contains everything from a message of love to the highest experience of madness, all in a dialogue with tradition.”
“… chirimía and the stridency in the execution of its instruments became a vehicle to affirm a way of being Black and a way of being Chocoan.” ”
“There’s a lot of creativity in this space,” says Cristina Diaz-Carrera, curator at the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She’s traveled to the secluded, densely forested region and heard indigenous chirimía performed first hand. “There’s a series of rhythms in the repertoire but then, within those rhythms, people can compose any number of songs. You might have the chirimía rhythms but then fuse them with salsa or cumbia.”
While chirimía remains popular in the department of Chocó, she says, the music hasn’t found as much favor across the republic, or globally, as other styles, like the Congolese soukous-influenced champeta and the marimba-driven currulao. “Chirimía hasn’t reached in the same way as currulao. Instrumentation is the main difference. Chirimía music is a band music, playing mostly European instruments, brass and snare drum, leftover from military-type instrumentation, [and the] rhythms are very much influenced by African rhythms. It’s very layered, and the snare drum has a prominent role.”
According to Arango and Valencia’s research for the Association for Cultural Research of Chocó (ASINCH), chirimía was originally the name of an aerophone instrument, similar to the oboe (or shwam), that arrived in the New Kingdom of Granada with the Spanish and became popular throughout Latin America, promoted by the Catholic church as a religious symbol.
Even if the instrument eventually yielded to other aerophones, the musical backing that developed around the shwam’s mesmerizing sound still provides the foundation for today’s chirimía, Rancho Aparte’s bandleaders say. It’s a sound that invites people to “dance, jump, and enjoy.”
“The format consists of a clarinet responsible for interpreting the melodies, a euphonium that serves as a harmonic mattress, and percussion that includes a snare drum accompanied with accessories, resembling a traditional drum set,” Manuelle and Palacios continue. “It also includes a traditional drum made of wood, with tatabro [pig] or goat skin, and a pair of brass or zinc cymbals.” Rancho Aparte follows this conventional chirimía setup with clarinet, euphonium (Felipe Colorado), drums (Arnold Yassir Parra), and percussion/cymbals (Rodolfo Romaña, Wainer Córdoba), but it adds bass (Yeison Moreno), and a second clarinet (Emer Dávila).
“They seem to be very much in this fusion space,” says Diaz-Carrera. “Part of the next generation that has been influenced by different music, like reggaeton and salsa, and able to draw from the traditional rhythms and instrumentation but also work with other rhythmic genres.” This inclusivity would appear to be part of the tradition as chirimía has a long history of incorporating a patchwork of styles and dance forms into its music—abozaos, polkas, danzas, waltzes, and fox trots.
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Spreading the gospel of chirimía in the U.S.
Aparte’s eclecticism was in evidence during their April appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, when the band launched into a joyful, shape-shifting rendition of the American brass jazz standard, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” “We were struck by the similarity in the history and interpretative development between New Orleans music in its brass band format and chirimía music,” say Manuelle and Palacios. “Among the similarities, we found that geographically both territories have a nearby river, New Orleans has the Mississippi River, and Quibdó has the Atrato River. Musically, it is evident that the rhythms and melodies of both formats are an appropriation, adaptation, and transformation of European music.”
Since its inception, Rancho Aparte has been able to craft modern-sounding recordings that match their energetic live presentation, such as its most recent album, Re-evolución, produced by GRAMMY-winning producer, Ivan Benavides, a fellow Colombian. Translating their distinctive sound to tape is, they say, “challenging but not impossible. Traditional music is about feeling, timbre nuances, and sensations experienced when in contact with the audience. Entering a technical space like a recording studio requires the expertise to make your mind feel that you are in a space with listeners who connect with your performance and thus flow musically without feeling panic from the red recording button.”
The members are due to spread the gospel of chirimía on another U.S. tour this fall, which will include their Richmond Folk Festival appearances. “The audience will experience a show full of energy, tradition, connection, and dance,” Manuelle and Palacios promise. “They will encounter sounds from the Chocoan jungle, with a clarinet that calls, a euphonium that scolds, a snare drum that calms, a traditional drum that hits, traditional cymbals that incite, and a native voice that rescues the soul of our people.”
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