Batazo Batero

Los Propios Bateros began as a quest to discover a common Colombian rhythm pattern that could connect music from all over the Americas. Spearheading this experiment is prolific drummer and percussionist Pedro Ojeda (Romperayo, Los Pirañas, Ondatropica), who has spent years researching popular rhythmic styles preserved on the bounty of recorded Colombian treasures dating from the 1950s, '60s and '70s — treasures that have, outside of a burgeoning new generation of collectors, mostly been poorly preserved and ignored by the general public. Ojeda has documented this quest on a feature length film produced in tandem with Estudio Elgozo, shining light on many of the Colombian drum masters (the propios bateros) that are still alive, including Guillermo Navas, Plinio Córdoba, Germán Chavarriaga, Wilson Viveros and Juancho Cuao among many others. The production of the documentary serendipitously led to the most fabulous of recordings, presented on this single by Names You Can Trust, when the great Guillermo Navas and Germán Chavarriaga, as well as Ojeda himself and an all-star cast of younger generation musicians, assembled for a jam session in Bogotá. These two studio recordings are master classes in Colombian descarga and pompo, loose and improvised jams with a seductive, seasoned groove and flavor that is unmistakably Colombian, and inherently timeless.