Cumbre

Sukay

album cover

Not Your Average Subway Buskers

If your knowledge of Andean mountain music begins and ends with those trios that play "El cóndor pasa" on subway platforms, prepare for a jolt. Sukay brings the traditional music of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru to life in super-extreme high-definition. The variously sized pan flutes pop as though propelled by hot, volcanic breath from the center of the earth. The stringed instruments, notably the small ten-string charango, are strummed in urgent fleet-fingered code. The feeling is of irrepressible energy—even when the melodies are heavy-hearted (which is often), the music flutters with glorious, birdlike buoyancy.

Sukay was formed in 1974 by an American singer, Quentin Howard, and a Swiss multi-instrumentalist, Edmund Badoux. After travels through South America, the group settled in San Francisco; regular international tours sparked wide interest in indigenous Andean music, and established the group among the elite in a suddenly growing genre. (One indication of Sukay's meteoric rise: Charango master Eddy Navia left his group, the esteemed Bolivian band Salve Andina, to join Sukay in 1978, and the Argentine classical guitarist Enrique Coria followed several years later.)

Cumbre is an excellent showcase for Sukay's hallmark—exacting ensemble play. Navia, Coria, and the pan flutist Alcides Mejia follow traditional performance practices handed down for generations: Moving as a unit, they honor the contours of tunes every Andean group is expected to play (the trembling rhapsody "Desde lejos," a winsome arrangement of "El cóndor pasa") without going to great extremes to sexy things up. A bit more risk-taking happens on the Navia originals, pieces distinguished by open-vista melodies (the title track) and fetchingly sincere refrains ("Tinkuna") that can sometimes resemble rustic village songs. Everything, though, is driven by Sukay's spry ensemble cohesion, which charges these stirring originals and minor-key folk songs with undeniable electricity.

Genre: World, Andes
Released: 1990, Sukay Records
Key Tracks: "Tierra de vicuñas," "Tinkuna," "El cóndor pasa," "Desde lejos."
Catalog Choice: Music of the Andes
Next Stop: Inti-Illimani: Antologia Vol. 1, 1973–1978
After That: Rumillajta: Wiracocha
Book Pages: 754–755

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About 1,000 Recordings

Celebrate the joy, the revelation, the mystery, the fun, the sheer shivers-up-the-spine pleasure of great music.

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