The bolero is declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO: Is it Cuban or Mexican?

A news to celebrate with guitar, requinto, maracas, trumpet and bongo. The announcement came last Monday, December 4, from Kasane, in northern Botswana, but we Peruvians paid attention only to the recognition of ceviche as intangible heritage by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. However, our flag dish shares honors with the best-known Latin American musical genre in the world: Bolero.

Popular music and poetic speech, a structure inseparable from its lyrics. Phrases like “This afternoon I saw it rain,” “Only once,” “You got me used to it,” or “In life there are loves that can never be forgotten” evoke the melody and its love speech. In all its lines, it is a sentimental cartography.

Where are the singers from?

The Bolero has a birth certificate: on August 26, 1883, 140 years ago, the Cuban troubadour and tailor Pepe Sánchez put words and music to “Tristezas”, the first sigh of the genre: “Your complaints make me sad, woman, deep pain that you doubt me. There is no proof of love that shows how much I suffer and endure for you.”. It was Sánchez who designed his definitive structure of two quatrains of meter and variable rhyme, 32 measures of minor tone, divided into two sections of 16 and separated by an instrumental passage called Pasacalle.

Over time the bolero preserved its tone, shaking off an original structure derived from the nineteenth-century Cuban danzón. On the island he experienced golden times with musicians like Miguel Matamoros, who wondered where the singers in the classic “Mamá son de la loma” are from, or Ignacio Jacinto Villa Fernández, “Bola de Nieve,” that of the remembered “Oh Mama Inés, all black people drink coffee”. A phrase as immortal as “Maní, manísero, maní!” by Antonio Machín from Villa Clara, the most famous Cuban bolero player outside the island. “In Machín, a pleasant voice, with rich sounds, the Creole genres find a conscientious interpreter, who knows how to interpret with equal success a fast-paced rumba or a song full of nostalgia” His countryman Don Alejo Carpentier wrote about him.

Let’s add to the list Benny Moré, “the Barbarian of Rhythm”, “Prince of Mambo” and “Sonero Mayor de Cuba”, remembered for relics such as “Conocí la paz” or “Bonito y tasty”, which would update for millennial ears ‘ Don Oscar de León; César Portillo de la Luz, the melancholic “Master of Feeling”, author of “Contigo en la Distancia” or Doña Celia Cruz, guarachera from Cuba and queen of salsa, who in her early years popularized boleros as memorable as “No me Hablas” of love”, “Old Moon” or “When I am with you”.

In the first decades of the 20th century the bolero was adopted by Mexico, which enriched it with its own style. Great idols such as Doña Consuelo Velázquez come from Aztec land, famous for her interpretation of “Bésame mucho”, the most international of boleros, later performed by Nat King Cole, Sinatra or the Beatles; the immortal Agustín Lara, brothel pianist who dedicated beautiful songs to cabaret artists and prostitutes. Likewise, our parents and grandparents swore eternal love dancing cradled by the voices of Lucho Gatica, from the trio Los Panchos. by Roberto Ledesma, by Javier Solís, by Álvaro Carrillo, by Roberto Yanés or closer in time, by the endearing Armando Manzanero.

Is the bolero Cuban or Mexican? As Abel Páez, renowned musician and professor at the Catholic University, explains, it is not possible to issue a single criterion. Both countries played a significant role in the evolution and popularization of the genre. “Although Cuba is recognized as the birthplace of bolero, Mexico has played a crucial role in its dissemination and popularization, without neglecting Puerto Rico, which has also made great contributions”it states.

Agreeing with my colleague, for the composer Juan Luis Dammert, recent author of the book “Music Map”, recognition must be shared. “At this point, the bolero is a chain with links in several countries. I once heard Manzanero say that his boleros were influenced by Cuban music because it was what was heard most in his native Yucatán, then closer to Cuba than the rest of Mexico.it states.

Red and white bolero

The bolero sings about love, but also about alcohol when it becomes a symbol of exit, amnesiac relief or sentimental consequence for those who try to forget crossed loves. In our country, it is its canteen version that has most affected our sensitivity. “The Peruvian bolero is Chalo Reyes, Pedrito Otiniano, Lucho Barrios, Iván Cruz and several others who sang in live venues”, remembers Dammert. For his part, Páez adds that Peruvian Creole composers and musicians incorporated elements of the bolero into their own genre to give it a different style. “The great Óscar Avilés, a central figure in Creole music, brought the bolero to the atmosphere of Peruvian clubs and taverns. The same thing happened with Arturo “Zambo” Cavero, Cecilia Bracamonte or Eva Ayllón, who always provided a space for the bolero within their Creole work. Likewise, the influence of orchestras such as the Sonora Matancera contributed to the bolero cantinero or ‘moruno’ as it is known in Cuba. “Rolando la Serie, Orlando Contreras, Vicentico Valdez and Celio Gonzales created a style that had a strong impact on singers like Iván Cruz, the King of Peruvian bolero.”it states.

The bolero never dies

According to experts, the bolero refuses to disappear because it tells, above all, life stories: it tells us about loves (won, lost or unrequited), jealousy, betrayals and misunderstandings. It speaks of forgiveness and punishment, repentance and cursing. As Dammert observes, although his greatest performers are no longer with us, his voices still sound radiant and even better mixed. “For me, the bolero is part of the subconscious, the soundtrack of my past, background music in various settings: it is the voice of Luis Alberto from Paraná playing on the speakers of the market with the Sonora Matancera; the world of my parents, my older brothers, couples’ dances. There was the bolero, in the things those singers said, so intimate”he points out.

For Páez, although not with the commercial prominence of its golden era, the bolero has always been current, and even more so with the access to the genre that virtual platforms allow. “Currently jazz, pop or urban music artists incorporate elements of bolero in their compositions. Recently, the young local composer Gonzalo Calmet released a production with his own songs titled “Volvieron los boleros” and another young singer-songwriter, Vania Bedoya, has composed a bolero titled “Si tú me túeras.” I believe that the bolero will never lose its validity. It is a genre that has always adapted very well to modern times”he concludes.