Website: http://www.cumbancha.com

Labels:
Stonetree Records
Cumbancha

Andy Palacio passed away unexpectedly on Jan 19, 2008 as a result of several strokes and cardiac arrest. In honor of his work we are continuing to represent the Garifuna Collective, and will continue the tour already planned for spring 2008, featuring the women's group called Umalali (see separate listing).

Andy Palacio

Internationally, Belize's best-known performing artist and cultural preservationist is Andy Palacio, a Garifuna singer born and raised in the southern Garifuna fishing village of Barranco. In addition to the traditional Garifuna music that he heard live on a daily basis, Palacio absorbed the diverse sounds disseminated by radio from neighboring Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, the Cuba, Jamaica and the United States. Palacio pursued his musical ambitions in a series of high school bands, covering a diversity of popular music from abroad. Attracted by the ideals of the Nicaraguan revolution, he joined the literacy campaign in that nation's African-Amerindian Caribbean coast region, and developed a deeper appreciation for his own threatened cultural and linguistic traditions. Those insights made their way into his own creativity, influencing him to delve more deeply into the roots of Garifuna music.

Palacio returned from Nicaragua to discover the emergence of new Garifuna pride in their culture and identity, a development dramatically expressed in the sudden popularity of punta rock, a fusion of traditional Garifuna music with electric guitar and the influences of R&B, jazz and rock and roll. The Original Turtle Shell Band, led by Belizean Garifuna musician and painter Delvin "Pen" Cayetano, burst into national consciousness in the early 1980s just as Belize gained independence. The Turtle Shell Band's invitation to perform with their mentor Isabel Flores (a legendary Garifuna percussionist and singer, now deceased) at the 1983 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival encouraged Andy Palacio to pursue a musical career.

In 1987, after Pen Cayetano turned down an invitation to work in England with Cultural Partnerships Limited, a community arts organization, Palacio stepped in. He returned to Belize six months later with professional experience, a broadened perspective, and connections that led to his involvement with the short-lived Sunrise recording project, the first effort to record, document, preserve and distribute Belizean roots music. The following year Palacio's career took off, buoyed by widely circulated cassette recordings released by Sunrise, and a string of invitations to represent Belize musically at the Festival Internacional de Cultura del Caribe (Cancun), Carifesta VI (Tinindad and Tobago), Carifesta VII (St. Kitts-Nevis), the Rainforest World Music Festival (Malaysia), the Antillanse Feesten (Belgium), the World Traditional Performing Arts Festival (Japan) and countless performances in the United States, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany and Great Britain.

Two critically acclaimed recordings on the Stonetree label, Belize's only record company, cemented Palacio's fame at home, while reinforcing his stature as the country's foremost overseas cultural ambassador. Recorded in Havana and Belize, Keimoun (Beat On) (1995) showcased Palacio's vocal and composition talents, enlisting first-rate Cuban and Belizean studio artists. The first CD to be produced in Belize, Keimoun put the country on the world music map, and is listed by The Rough Guide as one of 100 essential recordings from Latin America and the Caribbean. Two years later Palacio returned with Til Da Mawnin, an energetic mix of dance tunes backed by Belize's top instrumentalists and singers. Palacio has also performed with Stonetree's Garifuna All-Stars* project, as yet unrecorded.

Appointed Belizean Cultural Ambassador and Deputy Administrator of the National Institute of Culture and History in 2004, Andy Palacio continues to live in Belize, where he has turned his primary energies to promoting Belizean art and expressive culture.

Michael Stone

The above reprinted with permission from Michael Stone, Executive Director, Program in Latin American Studies, Princeton University (copyright 2006)

*now called Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective, the project represented here with this premiere recording