The City of Musical Memory. Lise A. Waxer

local popular genres. Thanks to some street vendors who sold salsa records in downtown Cali, I was able to accumulate a large collection of secondhand LPs of Colombian salsa, which I listened to and studied in order to determine components of local musical style.

      Although I eventually began participating in the local musical scene as an active musician, my first—and what became predominant—avenue for understanding the mechanisms of Cali’s salsa tradition was to participate in the weekend rumba (partying) that is the hallmark of local popular culture. Social dancing, usually spiked with generous amounts of aguardiente (anise-flavored cane liquor) or rum, is a tremendously important part of Caleño cultural life. Not being much of a drinker or partyer before I arrived in Colombia, I often found the weekend rumba to be exhausting and would complain to my amused friends that the good life was wearing me thin. What those sessions did provide, however, was a view of the immense passion with which Caleños have adopted salsa as their own: head thrown back, arms spread wide, singing loudly and earnestly (if not always in tune) along with the song playing at the moment.

      Halfway through my sojourn in Cali, I began to perform as pianist with an all-woman Latin jazz ensemble called Magenta. (The name was chosen by the band’s cofounder Luz Estella Esquivel to characterize the group’s self-identity as integrally female and feminine, but stronger and deeper than the usual feminine color association of rosy pink.) The six-member combo was formed by musicians from various all-woman salsa bands in Cali who were interested in Latin jazz and wanted a break from the diet of commercially oriented salsa tunes they had been playing. Having heard that I could play a bit of jazz piano and hold a salsa piano montuno (groove), I was invited to join them. My musical debut in Cali surprised many of my research informants, who, despite my explaining that I was an ethnomusicologist conducting fieldwork on salsa, usually pegged me somewhere between journalist and hippie. My participation in Magenta Latin Jazz served considerably to establish my acceptance among local musicians and also provided an invaluable tool for understanding the resources and restraints that shape musicians’ lives in this city.

      During the course of my research, I came to know people from a wide range of socioeconomic sectors in Colombia. Since salsa was first adopted in Cali by working-class people and is still largely identified with these populist roots, much of my work was with aficionados, fans, and musicians from this sector. My friendships and closest working relationships tended to be with university-educated people from working- and middle-class backgrounds—people with dispositions and values very much like my own. I also spoke with many people from the upper middle class, including both fans and detractors of salsa, which gave me an idea of the complex social and economic discourses cross-cutting popular musical tastes within Cali and in Colombia generally. My core network of friends, however, comprised musicians, aficionados, and record collectors. Ranging in age from our early twenties to our late thirties, most of us were unmarried and only partially employed (most salsa musicians in Cali do not have steady work). So, unhampered by family and work obligations, we spent much time hanging out and listening to music.

      For most of my stay in Cali, I shared a flat with Sabina Borja, a Caleña woman my age. Our place soon acquired a reputation as a meeting place and hangout, as friends would drop by at all hours to chat, drink beer or rum, and sample the latest acquisitions of my record collection. For a brief time, the Latin jazz group I played with would meet for rehearsals at our place, and these, too, became a pretext for friends to drop by and hang out, our music serving as a backdrop for the impromptu socializing. Thankfully, the neighbors tolerated our bohemian gatherings and never once complained about the noise, although the music and animated conversation often reached intrusively loud levels. Had I lived in a more affluent neighborhood, this would not have been possible, since these barrios, like their North American and European counterparts, are characterized by a respectful observance of social distance, which includes keeping one’s music at a discreet and unobtrusive level (cf. Pacini Hernández 1995: xxi). Having grown up in a reserved Toronto neighborhood, I witnessed these transformations of our living space with bemusement and wonder (is this really my house?), letting people take charge of putting on the music, prepare drinks, cook, and roam about the flat as they wished. What these gatherings afforded me was a firsthand experience of informal social life in Cali and the role that salsa plays in this context. Over time, as Sabina and I became friends with our neighbors, some of them would come up and join our parties, and this, too, gave me a sense of how everyday life in working- and middle-class Cali both frames and is framed against a lively panorama of musical sound.

      During my time in Colombia, I had some of the most intense and exhilarating experiences of my life. I did not grow up with salsa or Cuban music; I became interested in these sounds only in my mid-twenties, when I began studying Latin popular music in Toronto as an aspect of ethnic identity and cross-cultural integration (Waxer 1991). Over the years, however, I have become intensely interested in and involved with the study of salsa and Cuban music, finding this music to somehow embody the diverse and dynamic circumstances of my own life. As a young Canadian woman of mixed Chinese and Jewish ethnic heritage, I have had intense personal experiences of the ways in which diverse cultural flows can shape individual subjectivity. In salsa’s rich and variegated diffusion through the Americas, I have found a metaphorical expression for my own complex background. I believe it was no mistake that I ended up in Cali, a city where, like myself, people have not been among the original creators of a musical style but have nonetheless found meaning in its rhythms, embracing it as their own.

      Just as salsa music cannot be performed by one person alone, neither can its study be completed by one sole scholar. It is with sincere gratitude that I thank the many, many individuals who collaborated on various stages of this project. The first tip of the hat goes to my mentor and former doctoral advisor at the University of Illinois, Thomas Turino, who has guided and given feedback on this project since its initial conception as a doctoral thesis. My thanks also to Bruno Nettl, Charles Capwell, Alejandro Lugo, and Norman Whitten, who served on my doctoral defense committees and whose helpful comments on earlier drafts of this material served greatly for its transformation into a book. Special mention also goes to Lawrence Grossberg, whose teachings have strongly influenced my own thinking on popular culture. I would also like to thank Peter Wade, whose trenchant observations during my fieldwork and over the ensuing years have proved enormously helpful in my understanding of Afro-Colombian music and culture within the national context. His book Music, Race, and Nation: Música Tropical in Colombia (2000) has stood as an inspiration and counterpoint to my own work here.

      Deborah Pacini Hernández merits special credit as the fairy godmother of this project. Not only did she help with many practical suggestions before I left for the field, but she also provided me with several key contacts in Colombia. Finally, she gave useful feedback on portions of the material and facilitated the links that led to publication of this book with Wesleyan University Press. Thank you for guidance, inspiration and friendship, Debbie. I would also like to thank Gage Averill for providing me with my initial contacts in Cali, which made it possible for me to have commenced this project in the first place. Carlos Ramos and Marta Zambrano provided useful comments and insight when I returned from the field. Dario Euraque and my other colleagues at Trinity College have been of great assistance in helping me refine my notions of race, ethnicity, and diaspora. Wilson Valentín’s use of the concept of surrogation (2002) has been very useful for my work here. Especial thanks to Douglas Johnson for moral support and light. Paul Austerlitz made several invaluable recommendations on earlier versions of this manuscript, and Su Zheng and Frances Aparicio also provided helpful feedback on portions of the work here.

      Heliana and Gustavo de Roux were my first hosts in Cali and became my adoptive guardians and mentors while I was in the field. As scholars themselves, their comments, observations, and guidance proved invaluable for my research. Shortly after I began my fieldwork, Jaime Henao and Gary Domínguez became my first key collaborators. Jaime introduced me to several important musicians in Cali and also outlined many musical concepts for me. Gary, the owner of the Taberna Latina, was my main link to the salsotecas and tabernas, in addition to providing key contacts in Cuba; his club became an important place where I met many music lovers. I am indebted to both Jaime and Gary, for without their enormous assistance I could never have realized this project.