National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Salsa is one of the most popular musical genres in Colombia. Despite the fact that it originated and developed miles away in Cuba, Puerto Rico and New York, the early circulation of recordings enabled Colombians to adopt salsa as their own. Today in many Colombian cities the sounds of romantic salsa, salsa dura, and timba blast from the speakers in bars, clubs, buses, cabs, and homes. Cities like Barranquilla and Cali are known worldwide for their hardcore salsa aficionados and collectors. Caleños have even developed their unique stile of dancing. Cali is even considered by many as the salsa capital of the world. Colombians have also played and recorded salsa since the late 1960s. Pioneering orchestras like Julian y su Combo and Fruko y sus Tesos and later Orquesta Guayacan and Grupo Niche have developed their own Colombian salsa sound.

While people often associate Colombian salsa with the two coasts, Bogotá, in the mountainous center of the country, has also had a tradition of hardcore salsa fanatics and collectors. In the past eight years several new salsa bands have emerged in the city with consolidating a small salsa Bogotana scene. One of the first bands to gain public recognition was La 33, who will be making their second U.S, appearance this January at NYC's 8th annual globalFEST event.

The story of La 33 is very different from what one would expect from a salsa band. Co-led by brothers Sergio and Santiago Mejia, what began as a project to study Latin music later became an underground phenomenon and latter a commercial success in Colombia without the support of major record labels or mainstream media. The band was born in a rehearsal space owned by the Mejia brothers in Calle 33 (33rd street) in Bogotá, within a scene interested in the fusion of Afro-Colombian musics (Choc Quib Town and Bomba Estereo, the most well known). Most of its members began their musical careers as teenagers playing heavy metal, punk, and ska, and somehow remain loyal to punk aesthetics and values, something that becomes pretty evident when you see the band perform live.

Speaking from their offices in Bogotá, Santiago Mejia, pianist and co-leader of La 33, discussed the peculiar story of the band.

Nat Geo Music: How did you get interested in music?

Santiago Mejia: When we were teenagers my brother began a punk band. At the time I jut liked to ride my skateboard and didn't care much about studying or playing music. I knew how to play a little bit of piano, but that was it, I preferred riding my skateboard. One day something happened to the singer of the band, he never came back to the rehearsals, so my brother said I should sing. I that is when I really got into music. Both of us began taking music lessons and playing in different rock and ska bands. My brother moved to Montreal to study jazz, and I moved to an apartment in downtown Bogotá. I met other teenagers interested in music and they introduced me to the rock bands of that sector of the city. They also showed me jazz recordings like Kind of Blue, and other works by the Miles Davis Quintet and John Coltrane. All those kids were also into Afro-Colombian music. They were studying it and playing it with their own bands. I thought all of that was great and got really into it. I decided to play jazz and Afro-Colombian music, but at that time I was still learning how to do it. I would meet friends and play in the street. Many bands emerged from those street jams.

Was your brother Sergio still in Canada?

Sergio was in Canada studying jazz and rock like crazy. I would write to him and send him music from Colombia. I remember I sent him all the recordings of the people in Bogota that were playing different fusions of Afro-Colombian music. He would send me scores from Latin jazz tunes and we began to study the same things from a distance. He got tired of living in another country and came back to Bogota. We decided to form our own band, and began several projects at the same time. On one hand we wanted to play Colombian music, so we began studying like everybody else was doing it. On the other, we were also interested in salsa. So we began to hang out in the bars in Bogotá where DJs played salsa. Then we said: Lets go and hear some live salsa, and there wasn't any.

So you were going to all these places, but there were no live bands, just a DJ?

Exactly, and they just played salsa dura. We were only going to the places downtown, but we were just learning about salsa in Bogotá.

So you were not salsa aficionados before that?

We liked salsa, like most people in Colombia or Bogotá, but rock was closer to us, stronger.

What got you into salsa?

In a certain way salsa is also Colombian music, even rock. If you think about what Colombian music is, you realize that many things have been adopted. In some cases there are local things that mix with foreign ones. But, when you are in Bogotá, you are too far from those roots. We liked the energy of salsa, and we knew we could fusion it with other things. Salsa is also a danceable music, and that makes it more fun for people. It's easier to dance to something you like, than something you don't.

So you didn't find any live salsa and decided to start your own band?

We found some bands that were very good playing covers. We were thinking about something different, so we decided to start the band. We began calling musicians. It was a long process - more that six months auditioning people. Obviously we all were very bad, we were all learning. Most of the people that joined the band were music students interested primarily in jazz and rock. Since none of the musicians knew salsa we began to study the music. First we studied the standards of the Latin Real book. Then we began transcribing some simple tunes like "Lluvia con Nieve". The we began to assemble a small repertoire of covers including "Son de la Loma" and "Lagrimas Negras". That is how we began studying and as we learned we began thinking about arrangements and how they worked.

When did you began playing live?

At that moment we were not thinking in playing live, we were just learning and trying to keep the band together. Its formation changed a lot, even after we began playing live. We kept studying because salsa has several rhythmic patterns you need to synchronize. When you have never played salsa that is very hard, so it becomes a process. Then we tried playing covers of more complex music, tunes from Irakere and Chucho Valdez, we tried some jazz standards - and a Thelonious Monk tune which was a failure. We had our first concert at a friend's birthday. We all stood in a line in the living room, we had no idea how to organize the band in a space, but that was a good experience and kind of marked the beginning. Later we began playing in bars, at the same time many of the original members left to study music abroad, and we had to find new ones among our friends. That is how Palo our timbalero joined us. He used to be a heavy metal drummer. I think you can still hear some of that in his solos. El Profe, the trombone player used to play in several ska bands, the same goes for Felipe the saxophone player.

Your first album became a commercial success in Colombia, how did that happen?

We began playing in bars and saving money to record an album. The band became more popular in an underground scene and we got a steady gig at Quiebracanto, a bar in Bogota. We will play every Friday and sometimes Saturdays. All the members of the band saved the money, we saw it as an investment. When we had some money we went to the studio and recorded as fast as we could due to the limited budget. The engineer helped us mix the album. He did a very good job, in the short time he had. We released the album in December 2004 and it began to grow like a snowball. We originally printed 1000 copies that we sold in a month and a some time later we had sold 5000. So far we have sold around 26000 copies of that album.

What was the strategy?

We signed a deal with a small local distributor that put the record in some stores. Then we would talk to the clerks at the stores to help us advertising the album and not let it disappear in the shelves. We also asked friends to go to the stores and ask for their music. I think salsa fans were salsa eager for something new and for while nothing new was coming out. Some record collectors liked the record and began showing it with others. Suddenly "La Pantera Mambo", a cover of [Henry Mancini's] Pink Panther theme became a hit among these people and all of them began to get the record.

So you went mainstream?

No, we were still an underground phenomenon. The press and commercial radio were not aware of us. We were selling a lot of records, but nobody seemed to be aware of that. We had left copies at some big radio stations, but they had neglected them. Then a journalist from a major radio company who liked our music gave the record to one of this DJs. "La Pantera Mambo" made it to the top ten and later three more songs. That opened other stages. We began to play larger venues. Then through the internet we found out that the band was very popular in Italy and we decided to find a booking agent there. Since then we have toured Europe seven times.

Your sound reassembles New York salsa from the 1970s. Although you mentioned you studied a lot of Cuban music. Why did you decide to base your sound on salsa dura, did you feel closer to that sound?

That salsa comes from the big city. We do not live on an island, we live in a big city with many migrants. Bogota is like a small New York. We have always felt closer to New York. Even though we studied Los Van Van and all those bands. For me New York is rock n' roll. That New York salsa seems to be the rock n' roll of latinos in the United States.

What's next for La 33?

We are still promoting our latest record. We are going to New York for the globalFEST and then we will tour Europe again.