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Eva Ayllón
Recommended New Music!
by Catalina Maria Johnson, Ph.D.
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The Queen of Landó still rules: Eva Ayllón´s “Kimba Fa”
De los barcos portugueses
Portuguese ships
allí me trajeron a la abuela
Brought my grandmother here
la trajeron de Guinea
They brought her from Guinea
con escala en Cartagena
Stopping over in Cartagena
mercaderes españoles
Spanish merchant ships
la trajeron más al sur
Brought her further south
y por eso estoy cantando
And that is why I sing
ritmo negro del Perú
Black rhythms from Peru
María Angélica Ayllón Urbina (whose stage name “Eva” honors the maternal grandmother who taught her music at an early age) has encompassed a variety of Latin American and Peruvian genres in the course of nearly thirty years as a beloved figure of the Peruvian musical landscape. However, she is best known for her fiery renditions of afro-peruvian melodies, in a style which emerged in Ayllon´s hometown of Lima with the 1950s “black pride” movement, demanding recognition of the cultural contribution of nearly half a million Peruvians of African descent.
Ayllon´s latest CD, “Kimba Fa”, which means “free and joyous energy” takes its title from “Quimba, Fa, Malambo, Ñeque”, a glossary of the expressions used by African descendants in Peru. The seventeen tracks on “Kimba Fa”, transport the listener on a delightful paseo through Peruvian musical history, and along the way give due recognition to several of its luminaries.
Amador is a song in the afro-peruvian panalivio style, much beloved by the recently-deceased maestro it celebrates: Don Amador Ballumbrosio. The panalivio, also known as penalivio (a song for curing sorrow, or alivio de pena) often sings against exploitation and is accompanied by the violin and the percussive footwork of the zapateo, both of which were excelled at by Don Amador. Ayllon´s rendition of the Peruvian pop hit Akundun (the fragment of lyrics at the beginning is from this song) also renders tribute to Don Amador, who participated in the original ground-breaking 1993 fusion of rock, rap, African and Andean rhythms – all of which are also heard in Ayllon´s version.
Landó, the cornerstone of afro-peruvian genres which evolved after the sixteenth century from the Angolan “lundu”, was dominated so completely by Ayllon that she was given the title “Queen of Landó”. The elegant, intertwined and seductive cadences of the landó are used to transform the Mexican song Adoro, originally composed and popularized as a bolero (highly romantic style of Cuban torch songs which spread throughout Latin America in the 40s and 50s).
Another classic afro-peruvian rhythm, the festejo (from the Spanish fiesta) a celebratory genre first documented in Lima´s religious processions several hundred years ago, is featured in the song Mi compadre Nicolas which in true festejo style, takes off with the textured, shirred rattling of the signature afro-peruvian instrument, the quijada de burro, or donkey jawbone.
Ayllón also pays homage in the CD to legendary composer and singer Chabuca Granda. A friend of Ayllon´s since her adolescent days, Granda was instrumental in making the vals criollo (Peruvian Creole music) widely known throughout Latin America. This genre, which incorporated the European waltz brought over by the Spaniards during colonial times, is well represented in Kimba Fa with two compositions by Granda (El Surco and Maria Sueños) as well as the classics Toro Mata, Mal Paso and Nada Soy.
A few of Kimba Fa´s tunes travel into pop and jazzy regions somewhat less successfully, where a shade too much orchestration and the inclusion of less traditional instruments such as the piano don’t frame Ayllon´s marvelous voice nearly as well as the Creole and afro-peruvian melodies, which she rips into with powerful, soaring abandon, creating highly danceable and richly textured counterpoints between her voice , the filigreed guitar notes and the crisp percussion of the cajón (box drum) or the rattling jawbone.
The beginnings of Peru’s Afro rhythms are lost in the history of the Americas, but Latin Grammy-nominated Kimba Fa offers wonderful witness and honor to the peoples that brought those rhythms, proving that as Queen of Landó, Eva Ayllon still rules.
