2002 Madison WI
Earth shaker

Rubén Blades comes to town with a new take on world music

Rubén Blades ˜ Renaissance man, Panamanian singer-songwriter, salsa superstar, movie star, lawyer, politician, social engineer ˜ brings his world back to the Orpheum Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 23. Literally. This show coincides with his latest CD release, Mundo. In case your Spanish isn‚t up to par, "mundo" means "world," and the album is Blades‚ sparkling new take on world music.

World-citizen Blades is excited about returning to Madison. He‚s impressed with the sophistication of his audience here, and with the warm reception he got during his two-day stay in 2000. And he‚s recently discovered a special connection with our state. "I walked into a Mormon place in Utah last year and stumbled into their genealogy office," he says. "There was a Ruben Blades who emigrated to Wisconsin from England in the 1850s. I‚m sure he was a relative ˜ my grandfather was Ruben Blades from England too, and it‚s not a common name."

Blades ˜ practically our homeboy, given this unexpected family tie ˜ has recorded some 18 albums and won a fat handful of Grammys. His music‚s evolved over the years, and the Mundo tour is just the latest surprise in a long, creative voyage.

Blades, born in Panama in 1948, grew up poor, in a musical family. The topsy-turvy political situation in his homeland led him to choose a career in law, but in the ‚70s, after visiting ex-pat family members in Miami, he landed in New York. There he began writing and recording songs, first with Bronx-born Puerto Rican bandleader/trombonista Willie Colón, and then with his own group, Seis del Solar (later Son del Solar), featuring the brilliant piano work of another neoyorquino, Oscar Hernández. Blades‚ liquid version of Afro-Caribbean dance music showcased his famous story-songs ˜ works of literature about life in the barrios and banana republics that stood in sharp contrast to the repetitive jingles that are the salsa genre‚s stock in trade.

Blades took a detour in 1994, forming the grassroots Papa Egoro party (the name‚s an indigenous Panamanian word for "Mother Earth") and making a bid for his country‚s presidency. He didn‚t win, but his candidacy brought popular environmental and socioeconomic issues to the table. His post-salsa period emerged in the aftermath. He popped out two Grammy winners in a row: La Rosa de los Vientos, pure Panama; followed by Tiempos, a collaboration with the fabulous young conservatory-trained Costa Rican group Editus. On Tiempos, Blades lays his literary lyrics (and several works by Panamanian songwriter Rómulo Castro) over a music line that mixes Caribbean rhythms with contemporary classical and Latin American folk music.

In 2000, Blades and Editus brought their Tiempos tour to Mad City. They played Tiempos tunes, leaving the audience breathless, and then moved into a healthy set of earlier Blades hits including the immortal "Pedro Navaja," about a handsome, gold-toothed, shade-wearing Latino Mack the Knife who walks the barrio streets "with tumbao"; "Ligia Elena," in which a white society girl runs off with an Afro-Latin trompetista; and "El Padre Antonio," a eulogy for liberation theologist Archbishop Oscar Romero, murdered in El Salvador in 1980. These songs are Latin music anthems, and at the Orpheum that night people danced and sang ˜ all the words, like boomers at a Motown party.

Mundo goes a step beyond. It has Blades and Editus; Boca Livre, a major Brazilian group; De Boca en Boca, four golden-voiced argentinas; Broadway songstress/actress Luba Mason; and bagpiper Eric Rigler, who‚s played his Celtic instruments with dozens of major artists. In keeping with this multinational project, Mundo is a musical tribute to Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam. Drawings of double helixes dance behind the liner notes. The lyrics, too, point to our shared, original African heritage. "Skin is pure geography ˜ the soul is a universal project" go the words to "Primogenio" ("Beginnings"), the album‚s third cut. On this track bagpipes, accordion, a Cuban guitarra trés and a hint of Middle Eastern harmony ride the clave beat.

Of course, Blades isn‚t the only musician weaving seamless new world-sound tapestries ˜ for example, the Omar Sosa Septet‚s soaring, polyglot jazz reaches a similar goal, through an entirely different approach. But Mundo is unmistakably Blades

.I talked to Blades on the phone about his new sin fronteras style. "I‚ve always liked music from all parts of the world. Don‚t forget, Afro-Cuban music isn‚t indigenous to Panama ˜ I picked it up, like jazz and rock. Like economic globalization, there‚s globalization of music. Rock, jazz, tango, samba ˜ these have been in the vocabulary of world musicians for decades. What‚s different in my internationalization is that I‚ve included elements like bagpipes and Middle Eastern tonalities that are usually ignored or dismissed as not susceptible to fusion.

"The sink or swim for Mundo," Blades says, "was to make these diverse sounds compatible. To have them all work together, that‚s the key.

"This approach is normal for me, ‚cause I‚m from Panama, where we get influences from both sides of the ocean. I always loved Brazilian music, and I grew up with American rock pouring into the Canal Zone. And Caribeos come from all kinds of backgrounds ˜ my family‚s a perfect example. My grandmother came from Galicia, northwest Spain, which, like Scotland and Ireland, has a Celtic heritage. Bagpipes don‚t scare me, ‚cause they play them there! My mother‚s father was from New Orleans, also a major musical melting pot."

Some short takes from Mundo: a gorgeous traditional Senegalese tune, "Jiri Son Bali," mixed with mambo; a con-clave version of "Danny Boy," aptly described in the liner notes as "a fusion that could be danced in a Riverdance program, or a salsa club in Cali or Caracas"; 10 Blades originals, including ˜ "for all the salseros who‚ve waited patiently till the end of the album" ˜ the short, pure salsa (with bagpipes) piece, "A San Patricio."

My friend Nacho Blanco, a lifelong Madisonian and recent transplant to Miami, caught the Mundo tour a few weeks ago in his new hometown. "The concert will play a little differently in world-traveled, overeducated Madison than it did in Florida," he said. "One woman stood up and shouted Œ¡Eso no me gusta!‚ ˜ I don‚t like it!‚"

Blades means the world to Miami Latinos," Blanco went on. "But they want to hear the old songs that are the markers of their lives, and they don‚t get it when their hero does something evolutionary."

Blades is unfazed by his occasional critics. "I don‚t think there‚s anything strange about Mundo," he says. "I wasn‚t doing anything but trying to interpret my own emotions. Everybody who was involved with this album understood what I was after, and they really got into the discovery process. Of course, when you hear this new music you still know it‚s me ˜ as an artist one develops a personality that always expands and evolves. I don‚t get lost in endless repetitions, in vain search of a hit. No one really knows what a hit is, but this album is good. It could be major hit, if it gets enough airplay, so people have a chance to hear it."

Blades tested the waters and found positive response. "I played this album to hard-core salseros before it was released. I wanted to explore their reaction. One of them told me, ŒI like it, but I don‚t know why!‚ To me that meant the sounds and rhythms disarm the hard-core salseros and unlock their inflexible tastes. I think these fusions awaken some sort of memory that allows people, in spite of their preferences, to wake up spiritually. In reality, all music comes from the same place, no matter what culture it‚s rooted in."

Blades, whose songs sometimes pay tribute to Latin America‚s literary giants ˜ in particular, Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Amado ˜ stresses that his lyrics are what‚s constant, the link to his old albums. "As a writer I talk about myself, my environment, what I witness. I‚m careful. I try to write honestly and intelligently, to be true and to avoid clichés. On Mundo, it‚s me ˜ I‚m merely using a different framework to present my lyrics."

What should we expect in the upcoming concert?"

This tour‚s designed to make people happy, and aware of different music genres and possibilities," Blades says. "It‚ll be longer than usual. Editus, Rigler and Boca Livre will all be onstage. Each group will play some of its own music, and then I‚ll come in and we‚ll all play some of the Mundo stuff together. Then we‚ll do some of the familiar hits from the Willie Colón and Seis del Solar albums. It‚s going to be a very interesting concert, I hope."

After the Mundo tour, Blades says, he‚s thinking about recording some boleros, and maybe some tangos. He‚s planning an album with two-time Grammy-winning Miami salsero Roberto Blades, his little brother. "And another record with Seis del Solar ˜ we‚re about to celebrate our 20th anniversary!"

I haven‚t begun to scratch the surface of the multifaceted Blades. He‚s still making movies and TV specials. He‚s developing a Web page intended to be a dynamic global forum on everything from economic opportunities for low-income folks to opportunities for underemployed artists. "I‚ve been thinking about getting into archeology, too," he adds.

And he wants to go home. "I live where I work ˜ right now in L.A. and New York," he says. "But I‚m going back to Panama, to stay. My dad is 78 now, and I want to spend time with him. And I might get involved in Panamanian politics again ˜ not to run for office, but to work with candidates whose programs I can support."

No doubt about it ˜ Blades is extraordinary. His concert will be, too. This will be one of the year‚s major music events ˜ be there.

Written by Susan Kepe