Album Notes

Julio C. Zelaya L.
A composer, guitarist and arranger.
Music studies in Canada and the United States, graduated in the Berklee college of music, Boston, MA/85.

The Garífuna people is an Afro Honduran culture. They came to the north coast of Honduras in 1797 from the island of San Vicente in the Caribbean, what they call YURUMEN in a very nostalgic way, like a magical place, a lost paradise.
"YURUMEN" is a music story about this people, told in an universal language. Their rhythms and instrumentations have been mixed with harmonic and melodic elements from other styles of music that have been an influence in my life, specially samba, bossa, salsa, pop and jazz.
For the Garífuna people, their music and rhythms are a very important part of their daily life, the rhythms are present in every celebration of life or death according to the garífuna tradition.

The garífuna rhythms are a very important contribution to the music of the world and should be subject of study to every serious musician and music lovers.
I think that the most important thing a composer/musician must seek in order to be able to say something musically and with honesty is: IDENTITY.
"YURUMEN" is the result of this search for identity. The result of several years of research and composing along side the garífuna people.

In this recording I used almost all of the existent garífuna rhythms and variations. There are about ten different rhythms and some of them have some very drastic variations. Their main instrumentation consist of the tambora garífuna made out of wood and deer skin, they make them in different sizes such as bass, segunda y primera for soloing. Other percussion instruments include their own hand made maraca, turtle and armadillo shells, snail crust (used as a wind instrument), claves, guiros and just about anything they can use for the occasion . All of this instruments have been used in this recording combined with a modern instrumentation.

As many other cultures in the world, the garífuna people live under the constant menace of extinction. A globalized world kind of want to put us all in some kind of an uniformed mind. The protection of the living cultures of the world is a must as a source of creativity and cultural diversity. Besides it's artistic value, this work as many others in the world are oriented to the protection, diffusion and preservation of this cultures as a patrimony of the world.
Listen to what I have to say and I promise you a smile, a tear, a laugh, a sense of peace, curiosity, the drive to dance or any other positive emotion.