An early post this week – I will be busy through the 10th.

This track, a steel guitar solo by Mr. Zafra accompanied by Mauro Baradi on a standard acoustic guitar, puts me in the strange position of not exactly knowing how to react when listening to it. It sounds awkward enough to be the first time the musicians have played the number…or, that could be my own cultural ignorance and the piece is meant to slowly lumber along. Probably the latter, as the flip side is a more standard, uptempo folk melody. Either way, I’ve always liked this, and have never found anything quite like it. Being from the Philippines, you can definitely hear the influence of 300 years of Spanish colonial rule.

This was released on Columbia’s “X” (for “export”) series, and recorded in November of 1929, in New York City.

Urbano A. Zafra – Danza Filipina

Technical Notes
Label: Columbia
Issue Number: 3910-X
Matrix Number: 111286