Recording El Porro
El Porro is an amazing piece of music, composed by Colombian classical guitarist Gentil Montana. When I first heard it, I envisioned an arrangement with a rhythm section and horns accompanying the original guitar part. I had to create the arrangement I heard. It took two attempts to get it right. The first time I recorded this with some great musicians but it turned out too "Smooth Jazzy", not that I have anything against "Smooth Jazz", but it was not the feel that I was looking for.
Before I continue, I guess I will describe a bit about Porro, this is as a musical style and dance from the Caribbean region of Colombia. It is a Colombian cumbia rhythm that developed into its own subgenre. It was originally a folkloric expression from the Sinú River area that evolved into a ballroom dance.
I decided that I needed help. I was fortunate enough to discover a phenomenal producer Peter Schroeder who is himself an amazing musician and composer, with over 7 years of playing Latin music, a great teacher and all around great guy; I am not kidding, he really is a nice guy, very polite and gentle, surprising for a producer. However, Peter was instrumental in getting the project off the ground, he provided the structure, musician management (trust me this alone is enough for one person, but that serves another blog), and his OCD and perfectionist tendencies made miracles happen. He was also relentless in ensuring that we were moving in the right direction ("it is about the journey man", one of his favourite sayings other than "please and thank you"). Peter's contacts with some of the best players in the world made things very interesting. He got an amazing bassist Fito Garcia and trumpeter Miguel Valdes, and of course El Jose on percussion. These guys made the arrangement come alive and sing, I was very excited, at last I was getting somewhere.
We got all the tracks recorded and it was time to record the guitar track, so we went to Baker Studios on Vancouver Island to work with the legendary Joby Baker. Now this was an experience, We had to take the ferry from Vancouver to Vancouver Island and drive into the country to this house on a lovely property, trees everywhere, just gorgeous. Introductions were made as Peter takes pictures of everything, he is like that, he is good artist and professional photographer also, so he loves to take pictures, I hope he laughs when he reads this.
Joby sets up some amazing microphone technology that I never heard of before, a microphone that was a ball, one looked like part of a Darlek, one with ribbons, the mics were so sensitive I think you could hear my finger nails grow. Things are ready and then I started playing El Porro from beginning to end, pretty good, with some minor mistakes, so I thought that we should run through the piece and correct these errors. WRONG! Joby was like one of the old European violin masters, or old school Kung Fu master from 36 Chambers of Shoalin: "you could do better!", "that is not clean enough", "bring out the melody, caress the bass", "your triplets are not even!", "sustain that melody note!", "AGAIN!", "you could do better mate!", "you sound like you are struggling!", Three hours later, I could not squeeze the guitar any more, I had to tap out, and then we broke for lunch. (BTW Joby is a phenomenal cook). Joby literally ripped the best out of me, for that I am eternally grateful.