El negrito

Guitars create good vibes, no?. I really think it's universal. No matter where you are, if you're sitting around with a group of friends and someone whips out a guitar the beer just starts to taste better. You get that glowy feeling - what a simple and straightforward form of entertainment! (well, unless the person with the guitar refuses to share it, or veers straight off into heavy metal territory...)

Last night what was looking to be an average night of a meal out and then back home early took a turn for the musical when we decided to meet up with friends of friends. El Negrito, one of those friends of friends, is a folk singer and musician from Misiones, a province in the northern part of the country, near the border with Brazil. And he travels almost everywhere with his guitar on his back.

We met them on the steps of a bank on Santa Fe, and were about to set up shop right then and there with a couple of bottles of beer, but the glare of the policeman patrolling the block made us move on to Plan B. But there just happened to be a cafe/bar across the street, completely empty, with a couple of inviting tables outside. Perfect.

We hadn't even drained the first round when El Negrito took out his guitar. (FYI: Yes, El negrito means " little black guy." But he's not black. Nor is this as insulting as it would be in English. Though calling someone un negro can certainly be a racist slur depending on the context, it can also be an afectionate nickname amongst Argentines. Also compared to the tall blonds that make up the rest of his family, which is of German ancestry, he got the chromosomes for dark hair and dark skin. So the nickname sort of works.)

He sang and played Argentinian folklore, po p songs and some Brazilian standards too. When a freak thunderstorm started ( oh so common in hot, humid Buenos Aires) we just moved the party inside, got the waiter to turn off the radio and picked up where we'd left off. Of course the policeman that was supposed to be patrolling the neighbourhood was drinking coffee and chatting with the waiter. Though I think they were sort of enjoying their FM pop hits, they grinned and beared the impromptu concert, and more importantly, the waiter kept up the flow of cold beer.

El negrito answered all my nerdy questions about the particularities and regional differences in Argentinian folk music and its origins and instrumentations. I'm preparing for a big trip to a great speciality CD store a friend told me about to stock up on the variety of sounds of this country.