Ultramerengue

Francisco Ulloa

album cover

Ultra Fast, Ultra Cool

Before the rise of the big Dominican dance bands in the 1960s, merengue was mostly made by groups of three or four musicians. These tipico bands centered on the tambora drum, which pumps out the pulse, and either the accordion or the four-stringed cuatro guitar—instruments that provide the harmony as well as the repetitive riffs, called jaleos, that keep dancers swirling. (In contemporary bands, the jaleos are usually handled by longwinded saxophonists.)

Zipping along at ultrafast tempos, merengue tipico returned to prominence in the late 1980s through the efforts of musicians such as accordionist Francisco Ulloa. In his hands, the music can feel like a tornado uprooting everything in its path—it's exciting and just a bit out of control. Formerly employed in agriculture (where one of his specialties was caring for palm trees) the native of Puerto Plata is a master of the squeezebox, and one of the few figures in Dominican music conversant in both traditional rural styles and the more modern dance floor derivations.

Ultramerengue showcases not just this broad range—its fourteen tracks include a snappy rewrite of an old Colombian folk song, several boleros, and a pambiche, which is slower and more sensual than "hot" merengue—but also Ulloa's preternatural composure. As the rhythm of this supercharged dance music careens wildly, he pumps out leapfrogging, impossibly tricky phrases that defy the laws of accordion physics.

Genre: World, Dominican Republic
Released: 1992, Green Linnett
Key Tracks: "Juanita Morel," "La carta," "La negra Tomasa," "Ay Mami," "Dominga, que lindaeres," "La Tinajita"
Catalog Choice: Merengue
Next Stop: Cieguito de Nagua: Aprovechate
After That: Silvério Pessoa: Batidas urbanas
Book Page: 794

Buy this Recording

Share this page:

Comments:

Post a Comment:

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below:


Note that your comment will be reviewed by an editor before it appears on the site.


About 1,000 Recordings

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

Essential operas. Milestone rock albums. An education in the blues. The world of world. Classical from Bach to Bartók to Beethoven to Brahms. And dozens of unexpected gems, surprising discoveries, and long-lost masterpieces.

This is an online version of the list (published alphabetically in the book). The entries in the book break down genre bias and broaden every listener’s horizons—think Miles Davis to Claude Debussy to the melodic story-songs of The Decemberists. And the writing is passionate, informed, opinionated.

More about the book

site design: Juxtaprose