Juan Luis Guerra:
Merengue Messiah
by Neil Leonard

Rhythm Music Magazine
Vol. 3, Num. 5, May 1994
Copyright 1994, Neil Leonard

Juan Luis Guerra sang in English on only one occasion, and even that was on a song firmly rooted in his native island. In the song, called “Guavaberry,” Guerra sings the part of a descendant of ex-slaves who migrated to the Dominican Republic from the United States in 1824, establishing a small, English-speaking community that exists to this day. Guerra observed, and learned from, the failure of crossover attempts by such salsa stars as Ruben Blades and Willie Colon: by singing in English they succeeded only in offending their Latino fans, but made no serious dents in the U.S. mainstream market. Having grown up listening to the Beatles, whose lyrics he did not understand, Guerra saw no reason to abandon his native tongue in an effort to give his songs greater appeal. Though he is one of the most successful musicians in Latin America, he continues to be handled by the little-known Karen Publishing Company. He shows no signs of moving to a major label or courting the U.S. market by recording in English.

Though he is the reigning king of the Dominican dance music known as merengue, Guerra has good reason to be skeptical of his chances for cracking the American market, compared to those of a salsa superstar like Ruben Blades. Merengue may now be the most popular form of dance music among Latin Americans, but unlike salsa it has shown virtually no crossover potential in the United States. Salsa has borrowed a lot from jazz, and vice versa: it evolved from Cuban son and was brought to the States by forerunners like Mario Bauza, Machito, Miguelito Valdes and Arsenio Rodriguez, who moved from Havana to New York in the forties to escape the segregation at home. The meeting of jazz and Cuban music was one of the best things that happened to both, reflected in U.S. music throughout the century, from the work of jazz fathers such as W.C. Handy and Louis Armstrong to Top Forty acts like Bo Diddley and the Miami Sound Machine.

Merengue has only recently overtaken salsa as the music of choice in Latino dance clubs. It is often played at twice the speed of salsa and lacks salsa’s flowing melodies. On uptempo merengue pieces, for example, the saxophones are used strictly as percussion instruments and have no lyrical function, quite unlike salsa’s more melodic horn arrangements. Though rooted in folk rhythms, current versions mix in synthesizers, sampled sounds, electronic drums and funk-influenced electric bass. In merengue, as in disco, rhythm is everything: dancers love it, but its repetitiveness and typically superficial lyrics preclude serious listening.

All this changed with Guerra, who successfully mixed merengue with jazz and salsa. Guerra’s first ambition was to be a jazz musician, and he came to the United States to study guitar and arranging at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. But while playing guiro (a ridged percussion instrument) at a party in Boston he realized the deep appeal of his native music, and returned to the Dominican Republic to form his own merengue band in 1984. He named the band 4.40 after the pitch emitted by an A tuning fork (440 Hertz); the implication was that these were serious musicians, and more than just a dance band. Guerra augmented merengue’s basic signature of high-velocity lyrics, repetitive rhythms, and staccato, rapid-fire saxophone lines with tightly-syncopated horn arrangements and four-part vocal harmonies a la Manhattan Transfer. Like Cuban pop innovator and jazz bassist Juan Formell, who turned Cuban dance music around with his band Los Van Van (see RMM Feb. ‘94), Guerra was bringing a new approach to a popular but stagnant musical form.

But Guerra’s first record, the heavily jazz-influenced Soplando, sold poorly. He accordingly backed off his initial cerebral approach, determined to make music with greater commercial appeal. His next three records used jazz elements more as ornamentation. It worked: 4.40 gained a reputation as the hottest new band in merengue, dethroning Wilfredo Vargas, who had dominated Dominican music for the previous decade.

Guerra’s lyrics have been key to his success. While merengue lyrics typically have the depth of a Donna Summer song, Guerra has often been compared to Ruben Blades, who is an excellent songwriter, and even to Spanish poet Garcia Lorca. For example, both Guerra and merengue peer Sergio Vargas have recorded songs about visa applications. Vargas’s “What’s Your Name” has nothing in the way of ambiguity or suprise; it is a song about everyday grind, disappointments, and run-ins with bureaucrats. The lyrics, which lose nothing in translation, begin with the phrases:

Old lady, light a candle (to pray). The day of my interview has arrived.
‘Wha’s your name?’ says the whitey. ‘Wha’s your name?’ says the gringo,
When I go early in the morning to look for my visa.

The song ends with the most basic of sentiments:

“All I want to do is go and eat.”

In Guerra’s “Visa Para Un Sueno” (Visa for a Dream), on the other hand, the power is in the dream, not in the stamp on the passport. The song is difficult to translate without losing its idiosyncratic feel. It begins with:

It was 5:00 in the morning,
A priest and a worker with thousands of papers that leave no room for sincerity.
It was 7:00 in the morning,
And one by one they went to the slaughter house.
Each one has to pay their price,
Looking for a visa to a dream.

Guerra’s combination of poetic depth with the driving rhythms that Dominican teeny-boppers loved was a milestone for merengue. Dominican author Enriquilo Sanchez called him “the first danceable poet ever born.”

The success of Guerra’s third disk Ojala Que Llueva Cafe (Let it Rain Coffee), which included “Visa Para Un Sueno,” came as a surprise to him. He wanted to make serious music with commercial potential but the success of this record surpassed his expectations, making him one of the most popular musicians in Latin America. He and other merengue artists had clearly underestimated their potential audience.
Guerra’s fourth disk, Bachata Rosa (Bachata is a music from the Dominican countryside), is one of the few merengue records that stands up from start to finish off the dance floor. One of its main strengths lies in its rich variety of sounds, a welcome change in an often monotonous musical form.

“A Pedir Su Mano” (To Ask for Your Hand) combines sampled marimba parts with vocals reminiscent of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba makes a guest appearance on “Carta De Amor” (Love Letter), pounding away at thick chords as the song gathers intensity, defying everything musicians are taught about staying out of the vocalists’ way. On “Como Abeja Al Panal” (Like a Bee to the Honeycomb), perhaps the best ballad the group has recorded, Guerra shares the spotlight with background vocalist Adalgisa Pantaleon. While an excellent singer, Guerra is more famous for his songwriting and innovative arrangements than for his voice. Pantaleon, on the other hand, is an exceptional singer, but she is allowed a solo only rarely. The rest of the time she joins the other two background vocalists. Featuring Pantaleon more often, at least in duets, would only improve Guerra’s repertoire.

The disc’s cover is a triumph of kitsch. The words “Bachata Rosa” are written around a drawing of a pierced heart; underneath, two tropical fish smile and blow bubbles at each other. Guerra appears in black hat, black shirt and pants, black shoes—and a horrendous, multi-colored, flowered jacket. At his feet is an oversized photo of a rose, a love letter, and an envelope with a lipstick mark. What better way to ensure that his fans wouldn’t take the danceable poet too seriously?

Bachata Rosa sold five million copies, won the 1991 Grammy for Best Tropical Album, and landed Guerra a huge contract with Pepsi Cola. He became one of the most famous persons on the island and an unofficial spokesman for the Dominican Republic. His promotional tour was one of Latin America’s most flamboyant, and included smoke machines, video screens, eighteen musicians, and ten engineers.
Lately Guerra is starting to take himself more seriously—perhaps too seriously. Bachata Rosa, he said, was overly commercial. His latest album, Areito, presents a new, more self-conscious, direction. The disc is inspired by Guerra’s interest in the Taino Indians, indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean, and named after their word for collective worship. Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of Colombus’s arrival in the Americas, Areito pays tribute to this first nation, who were virtually extinguished by the Spaniards.

Areito’s cover makes the departure from Bachata Rosa immediately apparent. The front, back, and centerfold photos depict Guerra dressed in black, with bandages wrapped around his eyes or hands. The booklet is printed on black paper and decorated with faint, dark-gray Taino drawings.

Guerra simulates a Taino chant in the title track, one of the disc’s high points. Since none of the Taino’s original songs or instruments have survived, he created an imaginary version, using synthesizers and modern recording techniques. Here, too, he is pushing the envelope of merengue, though the album has few such truly innovative moments.

Ruben Blades sings background vocals on “Si Saliera Petroleo” (If We Struck Oil), a mixture of salsa and merengue. Calling the Dominican Republic by the Taino name Quisqueya, the song speaks about the difficult and sometimes violent life on the island. In a mambo section at the end Guerra responds to his people’s self-pity and fatalism, asking “And if we struck oil, like they did in Kuwait, would we be any better off?”
“Mal de Amor” (Lovesick) is by Haiti’s Nemours Jen Baptiste. Dominicans are often contemptuous of Haitians, with whom they share the island, often far from amicably. In selecting this song Guerra is clearly advocating better relations between the two peoples.

The closing piece is “Naboria/Daca Mayanimacana,” which, the liner notes say, was “the Taino plea for mercy before being slaughtered.” It begins simply, with guitar and voice, the singing and arrangement very much in the style of Silvio Rodriguez, Cuba’s famous political singer-songwriter. Guerra opened for Rodriguez when the singer came to the Dominican Republic to sing a tribute to Maximo Gomez, a Dominican general who fought in the Cuban war for independence. This brief association with Rodriguez had unfortunate consequences: a group of Cuban exiles later heckled Guerra at a music awards ceremony in Miami and threatened to provoke a scandal. Finally he distanced himself from the Cuban government, but this piece is a testament to his love for Cuban music. After its intimate introduction, unfortunately, the piece goes downhill, reaching a grandiose finale that features the American Boys Choir and sounds like it was written for Hollywood.
Areito is an inconsistent disc; it has several very memorable pieces, but doesn’t stand up quite as well as Guerra’s previous albums to uninterrupted, off-the-dance-floor listening. The album holds few surprises for old fans, and is difficult to recommend over Ojala Que Llueva Cafe or Bachata Rosa.

Where Guerra goes from here remains to be seen. He has all the makings of a true Latin American superstar. He has distinguished himself from his salsa mentors by not singing in English; unlike Blades, Colon, and Eddie Palmieri, all based in New York, he still lives and records in a Latin American country. Yet Areito reflects Guerra’s difficulty in taking on the role of spokesperson for the region. It is hard to preserve your own voice when you are trying to speak for everybody. Will Guerra learn from Juan Formell of Cuba’s Los Van Van, who writes about everyday issues from a perspective that is distinct to his country? Will he find a way to write consciousness-raising music that is as exciting as his dance music? Time will tell.

Neil Leonard is a composer/saxophonist whose recent solo concerts were featured at the Audio Art Festival in Poland and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York. His recent composition, Totems, was premiered by Don Byron at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. Leonard teaches multi-media and music synthesis at Berklee College of Music.