Cuarteto Zupay or simply Los Zupay, was an Argentinian Popular Music group formed in Buenos Aires in 1966 that remained active until 1991. The founding members were the brothers Pedro Pablo García Caffi (baritone) and Juan José García Caffi (first tenor), Eduardo Vittar Smith (bass) and Aníbal López Monteiro (second tenor).
Over the years, the group's line-up changed with the exception of Pedro Pablo García Caffi, holder of the group's name, who remained a member until its dissolution. Other members were Eduardo Cogorno (tenor), Rubén Verna (tenor), Horacio Aragona (tenor), Gabriel Bobrow (tenor), Javier Zentner (bass) and Marcelo Díaz (tenor). From 1981 until the dissolution of the quartet in 1991, the line-up was Pedro Pablo García Caffi, Eduardo Vittar Smith, Rubén Verna and Gabriel Bobrow.
With a style based on vocal work, Cuarteto Zupay tried to overcome the split between folkloric music and tango, as well as to develop new sounds and themes that could attract young people to a style they called Música Popular Argentina (English: Argentinian Popular Music) or MPA.
Among their repertoire stand out Marcha de San Lorenzo, Zamba del nuevo día, Chiquilín de Bachín, Si Buenos Aires no fuera así, Jacinto Chiclana, Canción de cuna para un gobernante, Oración a la Justicia, Como la cicada, Te quiero, Ojalá, etc.
Their favorite author was María Elena Walsh, whose songs were included in almost all the albums they released, three of them exclusively.
Background In Argentina, folk music had been growing in popularity since the 1930s, hand in hand with a process of industrialization that induced a massive internal migration from the countryside to the city and from the provinces to the capital, Buenos Aires. This resurgence of traditional folk music exploded in the 1950s in what was called the "boom del folklore" (English: folklore boom).
In the 1960s, the folklore boom was amplified with the creation of the major folklore music festivals such as the Cosquín Folk Festival (1961) and the Festival de Jesús María (1966). but especially with the appearance and massive spread of innovative musical forms, in a process of continental scope that adopted names such as Nueva Canción Latinoamericana and Argentinian Popular Music.
The rise of Cuarteto Zupay was part of a tendency to create vocal groups that characterized Argentinian folk music in the 1960s and 1970s. Los Huanca Hua stood out among the precursors of this movement, appearing in 1960 and inspired by the renovating ideas of Chango Farías Gómez. The "choral folklore" concept existed before, with representatives such as Cuarteto Gómez Carrillo in the 1940s,Cuarteto Gómez Carrillo was formed in Santiago del Estero in the early 1940s, and consisted of four siblings: Cármen Gómez Carrillo ("Chocha"), Manuel Gómez Carrillo ("Manolo"), Julio Gómez Carrillo ("Chololo") and Jorge Rubén Gómez Carrillo ("Gougi"). the ensemble Llajta Sumac,Llajta Sumac was directed by Esteban Velárdez and included Remberto Narváez, Guillermo Arbos, Lorenzo Vergara and Miguel Ángel Trejo on piano. Los Andariegos, Cuarteto Contemporáneo,Cuarteto Contemporáneo was formed in Mendoza in the 1950s and had Tito Francia, Jorge Montana, Mario Bravo and Oscar Cánova. Conjunto Universitario "Achalay" of La Plata, and Los Trovadores del Norte already in the 1950s. But it was the success achieved by Los Huanca Hua what boosted the formation of vocal groups in Argentina.
Until then, most ensembles worked with two voices, and exceptionally with three voices. Vocal ensembles—intimately related to a less visible but far-reaching process of choir development—began to introduce fourth, fifth and sixth voices, counterpoints, and generally explore the musical tools of polyphony and of ancient musical forms designed for singing such as the madrigal, the cantata, the motet, among others.
The innovative possibilities that vocal arrangements presented for traditional folk and popular music led to the creation of several vocal ensembles such as Cuarteto Zupay, Grupo Vocal Argentino, Los Trovadores, Opus Cuatro, Buenos Aires 8, Quinteto Tiempo, Markama, Contracanto, Cantoral, Anacrusa, Santaires, De los Pueblos, Intimayu, etc. Their influence spread to other countries in the region, as was the case of the Chilean group Quilapayún.
Trajectory
The beginnings Cuarteto Zupay was formed in Buenos Aires in 1966 and debuted in May 1967, at the initiative of the brothers Pedro Pablo García Caffi (baritone) and Juan José García Caffi (first tenor), who were joined by Eduardo Vittar Smith (bass) and Aníbal López Monteiro (second tenor).
In the first two albums, the group used the name Cuarteto Vocal Zupay, then simply Cuarteto Zupay after the third one.
The word Zupay or Supay is a Quechua term that corresponds to a demon-god of indigenous origin who was the protagonist of many legends and ancestral dances in the northwestern region of Argentina, historically and culturally linked to the Andean civilization. The Zupay is an ambivalent figure defined by syncretism who has been assimilated to the Devil of Christian culture but that is also worshiped as Lord of the Depths or Salamanca. Unlike what happens with the Christian Devil, "the indigenous did not repudiate the Supay but invoked it and worshiped it out of fear, to prevent it from harming them".
Playing with the name, the group would title their tenth album La armonía del Diablo (English: Harmony of the Devil) years later. Furthermore, their seventh album's cover adopted a symbolic image that was used henceforth as isotype of the group, consisting of an inverted black triangle with a smiling devilish face in the center and painted in red, which corresponds to the folkloric description of Zupay. Ultimately, a significant photo of the quartet surrounding a Zupay mask (like the one used in the diabladas of the Oruro Carnival in the Andean altiplano) was included on the cover of the anthology 20 grandes éxitos, released in 2007.
Juan José García Caffi, a classically trained musician and arranger in that first stage, gave the group the style of a chamber music ensembleThe first distinction the group received was the Honorary Diploma awarded by the Asociación Argentina de Música de Cámara in 1967. inspired by the madrigal renaissance,Diario 16. Madrid, Spain, cited on while Pedro Pablo García Caffi imposed a strict discipline of rehearsals, which earned him the nickname "García Gaddafi",Muammar Gaddafi is a revolutionary leader of Libya, who has been described as a dictator by his critics. but who also established from the beginning a criterion of excellence and professionalism that was unusual at the time.
Folklore sin mirar atrás (1967–1969)
Cuarteto Zupay debuted in May 1967 at La Botica del Ángel, owned by Eduardo Bergara Leumann.
Located in Lima 670, La Botica del Ángel was one of the strongholds in Buenos Aires where artists linked to what was then called "the new Argentinian song" were promoted, which sought to break away from the traditional schemes of the tango-folklore duality, with unclassifiable singer-songwriters such as Nacha Guevara and María Elena Walsh—the latter would be the author with the greatest presence in the historical repertoire of the quartet.
Les Luthiers also debuted that year, with a proposal of unparalleled musical humor. Los Gatos also debuted with La Balsa, giving rise to a genre that adopted the name of rock nacional.
At the time, Argentina was governed by a military dictatorship led by Juan Carlos Onganía that less than a year before had overthrown the radical president Arturo Illia. Shortly after debuting, Los Zupay released a single album that attracted attention, performing a daring version of the Marcha de San Lorenzo a capella. A few years later, the military regime banned another version, psychedelic rock and very humorous and informal, made by the band Billy Bond y La Pesada del Rock and Roll.
In December 1967, the group released their first album Folklore sin mirar atrás (English: Folklore without looking back), with a title that was shared by their second album, released the following year. Both albums, their titles, the back cover texts written by Miguel Smirnoff and the songbook that integrates them, constitute a true cultural manifesto on what they called Argentinian Popular Music which indicated from the beginning a defined artistic-ideological line that would have as a priority the creative freedom and development of new musical forms and poetic contents without abandoning the indigenous, African and Hispanic-colonial roots present in folklore.
In the back cover of the second album, Miguel Smirnoff, then producer of the cycle Canciones para argentinos jóvenes at the Teatro Payró, points out some remarkable details about the music of Los Zupay:Let us avoid, when talking about this album, the term "folklore", even though it appears in the title of the album, conveniently spiced up. We are talking here about our music, Argentinian and contemporary; it is not "the music of today" either, since Los Zupay continue to evolve permanently and, even within this album, it is easy to notice two or three different stages of the process that is leading them to the creation of "that" which, perhaps, is a faithful expression of our country in the world: the Argentinian Popular Music, thus, with capital letters, integrating the elements of tango and folklore to a rhythmic and melodic base of universal value and easy comprehension anywhere.Miguel SMIRNOFF (1968): "Back cover commentary", on Folklore sin mirar atrás Vol. 2, Buenos Aires: Trova, 1968.Folklore sin mirar atrás Vol. 1 includes the two songs of the first single, Marcha de San Lorenzo and Añoranzas, and others among which stand out Antonino, a Spanish traditional, Zamba del nuevo día, by Armando Tejada Gómez and Oscar Cardozo Ocampo (which would become a classic of the group) and Chacarera de la copla perdida by Lupe García Caffi and Juan José García Caffi. The album also features a rendition of Camino del indio (English: Road of the Indian) by Atahualpa Yupanqui which prompted a sour remark from the author: "Los Zupay, those who asphalted the road of the indian".
In the second half of 1968, the group released its second album, Folklore sin mirar atrás Vol. 2. The album is similar in its thematic structure to the first, but is much more complex and daring, both in the vocal arrangements, the inclusion of dissonances, the participation in four tracks of Oscar López Ruíz's instrumental ensemble, and above all, the use of a drum kit and electric guitar, a radical innovation for folklore. A similar step had been taken three years earlier by North American folk singer Bob Dylan, ending in an uproarious booing at the Newport Folk Festival.
Thematically, the album contains songs of a more varied style, among them Los castillos, by María Elena Walsh, who would become the group's favorite author; Mi pueblo chico by Pérez Pruneda and Adela Cristhensen, also released as a single with great success; Por un viejo muerto, by Damián Sánchez and Bernardo Palombo, a song with social content about a homeless old man freezing to death in the street; and the well-known tango Milonga triste by Sebastián Piana and Homero Manzi.
Several changes (1969–1975)
In 1969, the first tenor Juan José García Caffi, who was in charge of the vocal arrangements, left the group to devote himself fully to his vocation as composer and conductor of symphony orchestra—in which he excelled. He was replaced by the, then tenor, Eduardo Cogorno, who was performing in the Coro Universitario de Arquitectura, although J.J. García Caffi would again be in charge of the vocal and instrumental arrangements in the 1972, 1973 and 1977 albums The group then consisted of two tenors (L. Monteiro and Cogorno), a baritone (P. P. García Caffi) and a bass (Vittar Smith).