Our Latin Thing at Peter Barakan's Music Film Festival

 

The void left by the absence of live shows in the last year has been filled by quite a few music related movies released in the past few months. The biggest one, by far, being David Byrne’s American Utopia. The Spike Lee directed movie didn’t disappoint. The build-up from the relatively austere opener until the full band reveal with Talking Heads’ I Zimbra, was electrifying and a reminder of the power of the live music experience.

Another word to describe this feeling is magic, which is the name of the annual event curated by Peter Barakan. Since 2014 Barakan has assembled each year an eclectic program of artists outside the mainstream from around the world. The sadly departed Gurrumul came to the second edition in 2015. Other artists that have been part of the festival over the years are Dayme Arocena, Joe Bataan, Arto Lindsay, Omar Sosa, 3MA, Tamikrest and Flor de Toloache. You can find reviews of the headlining shows outside the festival for the last two on this blog.

The same acute vision and wide ranging approach was applied to put together the first Peter Barakan’s Music Film Festival. Documentaries and narrative features covering topics ranging from historical icons (Billie, Jazz on a Summer’s Day) to contemporary ones (Amy, Kamasi Washington’s Becoming for Michelle Obama). From unsung heroes (20 Feet From Stardom, Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World) to indigenous culture (Small Island Big Song, Sketches of Myahk). I watched Rumble... and enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was Our Latin Thing what made my jaw dropped. The film commissioned by Fania’s honcho Jerry Masucci to  celebrate the first live outing of its all-stars orchestra, was a very special part of the festival.

It was special because it was a very rare opportunity to see it on the big screen. I’ve seen it several times on a beat up burned DVD copy with some scenes missing and this was my first chance of watching it on a big screen. The fact that the organizers disregarded that it was only available on DVD, with no English or Japanese subtitles, in serious need of a remaster, and yet they were willing to play it at the festival speaks loudly about the hidden treasure nature of the film and it’s nothing less than that. The bet definitely paid off. The screening I went to was pretty packed.

The first images on screen, following a small child lured by the hypnotic beat of drums in the distance, work as an introduction of sorts to the relentless cadenza of the Latin beat, of the son montuno and the guaguanco. Once the threshold is crossed the uninitiated is sank head first into the pool of richness which is Latin American culture. That’s the incredibly ambitious goal of the movie, to portray the complexities of the Caribbean Latin American experience, in my opinion it succeeded.

One element I thought was particularly eloquent was the representation of contrast in Latin culture. Contrast, according to film theorist Rick Altman, is what defines the musical genre. Non-musical narrative films are usually three act story-arcs structured by a chain of events in which each one would set up the following one. Let’s say in one scene a character withdraws money from an ATM, in the following one goes to a gun shop and buys a gun, in the following one he enters a bank with a gun and so on. The musical film interrupts this flow with music numbers, not only because it disrupts the “reality” of the world portrayed in the movie (imagine a bunch of singing and dancing at the gun shop from the example above), but also because it breaks with the continuity of the chain of events.

Our Latin Thing is structured as a musical. It contrasts the rehearsals of the Fania All Stars for the Cheetah Club concert towards the end of the film, with scenes from the Latin community’s everyday life in New York in the seventies. It celebrates its wide diaspora focusing on the faces of a diverse population, its food and religion, without shying away from questionable elements like cockfighting, crime and the struggles of having to face police abuse. The contrast builds a parallel with music. There’s a wonderful montage during one of the climatic music numbers in which the simultaneous soloing of each member of the brass section is edited along a big argument shown at the end of the cockfighting scene. The cacophony becomes absolute harmony. It is this maybe the essence of Latin culture? Chaos being the true order?

The music transcends entertainment. Dancing, lingo and rhythm all have parallels in life and beyond. Not for nothing the placement of the Santeria scene, which embodies the ancient African heritage, right before the concert at the Cheetah. It emphasizes the role of deeply cemented roots in history, neglected as we all know, at the core of a rich and usually misunderstood (or discriminated) culture.

What a concert that must have been. It was quite a treat to see all these artists performing at their peak; all of these heroes of the Latin community, most of them sadly gone. Starting with the smooth groove of Barretto’s Cocinando, which reminded me of the In a Silent Way era Miles Davis. Including live renditions of classics like Cheo Feliciano’s Anacaona, Larry Harlow and Ismael Miranda’s Abran Paso and of course the immortals Quítate Tu, Ponte Duro and bookending with Estrellas de Fania by the All Stars Orchestra and its top of the line soneros. 

I was lucky to see some of them live years ago and even met a few, thanks to my tenure at the Los Angeles institution KXLU’s Alma del Barrio. I saw Ray Barretto and Adalberto Santiago, Cheo Feliciano, Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz and Willie Colon. Each one of those shows was unforgettable. Leon Gast's Our Latin Thing is an important document of a moment in time and of the Latin American experience. Thanks to Peter Barakan for showcasing it.  

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