Cortijo's Wake / El entierro de Cortijo

Julia Edgardo Rodriguez Julia Rodriguez, Flores Juan Flores

Description

A bilingual edition of a renowned work of Puerto Rican literature, Cortijo's Wake/El entierro de Cortijo is novelist Edgardo Rodriguez Julia's vivid description of the funeral of legendary Puerto Rican musician Rafael Cortijo. El entierro de Cortijo became an immediate bestseller following its original publication in Puerto Rico in 1983. An unparalleled Afro-Puerto Rican percussionist and bandleader, Cortijo (1928-1982) revolutionized the country's musical culture. His band, Cortijo y Su Combo, captivated Caribbean and Latin American audiences as it emerged in the mid-1950s. Immensely popular across Puerto Rican social classes, the band both "modernized" the traditional vernacular forms of bomba and plena and forcefully reestablished their African and working-class roots. The group's innovations have been integral to salsa since the 1960s.Winding through the streets of working-class San Juan with Cortijo's funeral procession, Rodriguez Julia's autobiographical chronicle provides a rare portrait of the impoverished society from which Cortijo's music emerged. Along with detailed renderings of grief-stricken mourners-including Cortijo's childhood friend and fellow musician, the celebrated singer Ismael ("Maelo") Rivera-Rodriguez Julia records his feelings as he, a light-skinned, middle-class writer, confronts the world of poor black Puerto Ricans. The author's masterful shifting of linguistic registers, his acute sensitivity to Puerto Rican social codes, his broad knowledge of popular music, and his sardonic ruminations on death and immortality make this one of the most widely read books of modern Puerto Rican literature. Well-known critic and cultural historian Juan Flores has provided a scrupulous translation of Rodriguez Julia's text and an introduction situating the book in relation to Puerto Rican music and culture and the careers of Cortijo and Rodriguez Julia.

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 30 décembre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822385738
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

’ 

   

                    

Cortijo’s Wake

El entierro de Cortijo

                  

                       

                  

              

   

English translation ©  Duke University Press

El entierro de Cortijo ©

 Ediciones Huracán, Inc., and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 

C. H.Westmoreland

Systems, Inc.

Designed by

Typeset in Carter & Cohn Galliard by Tseng Information

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on

the last printed page of this book.

       

Acknowledgments

vii

A Note on the Artist Rafael Ferrer

Introduction

Cortijo’s Wake





El entierro de Cortijo



viii

              

I would like to thank the author ofEl entierro de Cortijo, Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, for his generous assistance and indispensable collaboration in preparing the translation and all aspects of this bilingual edition. I also received invaluable help and information from my dear friends and collaborators Máximo Colón, Rafael Ferrer, Aurora Flores, René López, and Carmen Rivera Izcoa; I thank them sincerely. My special gratitude and affection are due to Miriam Jiménez Román, mycompañera, who offered knowing advice and support from beginning to end.

                          

Rafael Ferrer was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in . Ferrer began his career as a drummer, atimbalero; in the early s he played with Rafael Cortijo and Ismael Rivera. He participated in the life of the musicians and formed a friendship with Cortijo that ended only with Cortijo’s death in . Since the s Ferrer has been an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been included in major collections around the world. The paintings in the present book were composed on the occasion of Cortijo’s funeral. They were generously donated by the artist for use in this publication.

 .Rafael Cortijoby Rafael Ferrer. . Oil on linen. '' x ''.