Francisco agua bella biography

Biography

Similar Artists

1. Hilton Ruiz

   27,870 listeners

2. Giovanni Hidalgo

   11,860 listeners

3. Jerry Gonzalez

   6,876 listeners

4. Patato

   9,887 listeners

5. Juan Pablo Torres

   10,858 listeners

6. Hector Martignon

   4,134 listeners

7. Jimmy Bosch

   39,171 listeners

8. ¡Cubanismo!

   49,098 listeners

View all similar artists

Jazz and folk percussionist (1925–2010)

Musical artist

Francisco Aguabella (October 10, 1925^[1] – May 7, 2010) was an Afro-Cuban percussionist whose career spanned folk, jazz, and dance bands. He was a prolific session musician and recorded seven albums as a leader.

Biography

In Cuba

Aguabella was born in Matanzas, Cuba. He demonstrated a special aptitude for drumming at an early age, and was initiated into several Afro-Cuban drumming traditions, including batá, iyesá, arará, olokún, and abakuá. Aguabella also grew up with rumba.

The first thing you hear when you wake up in the morning is the drums. It’s a national sport, as important as baseball. You see a bunch of guys on the street, and someone will start clapping his hands, or tapping out a rhythm on a Coke bottle with the bottle cap. Then they’ll be pounding on wooden crates, or a wall, or splashing in the puddles of water dripping out of an old air conditioner, or playfully tapping on somebody’s head. You can’t escape the rumba

— Aguabella (1999).^[2]

•

Bio

Francisco Aguabella was born October 10, 1925, and raised in the Matanzas drumming tradition of Cuba. In 1953, he immigrated to the United States and established himself in California as an olu batá (batá drummer). Batá drumming is a ceremonial musical style that plays an integral role in the African-derived religion of Santería, practiced in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and, since the 1950s, in the United States. No other music of the Americas bears a more striking similarity to West African music than batá. Its set of three double-conical drums replicates the Nigerian Yoruba drum ensemble of the same name. Many of the rhythms closely resemble their African prototypes, and the Afro-Cuban language of Lucumí, in which Aguabella sings, is clearly a derivation of Yoruba.

Before 1980, Aguabella and Julito Collazo were the only olu batá in the United States who had been initiated into a secret society of drummers designated to perform a highly sacred type of batá known as batá fundamento. The batá fundamento is an integral part of Santería ceremonies in which an individual'