![]() ![]() ![]() This is what Johnny Ventura confesses: “What I thought of doing was a bit of a mix between classic merengue and that ‘rock’ and ‘twist’ music that occupied all the attention of the youth and the radio stations we had at that time”. “And the Dominican Republic would be no exception. Bill Haley and his Cometas, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chubby Checker, with their infectious rhythm and stage presence, became standards for young people to follow. “In the United States, the avalanche of rock and roll and the twist, brought into fashion musical groups smaller in number of members, enhanced by the use of the electric guitar, the electric piano, the prominent role of the drums and deafening sound amplification equipment. Combo and boite became consubstantiated as expressions of a new phase of musical and dancing sociability. “The big dance floors, which had reached their apogee during the Trujillo Era (the Night Club of La Voz Dominicana, the Patio Español of the Hotel Jaragua, the Salón Cinco Estrellas of the Hotel Embajador), progressively gave way to more modest centers, such as the boites, which began to proliferate. A smaller number of musicians, ranging from eight to ten, made it more functional, facilitating its presence in dance halls, television shows and other presentations, at a lower cost. “At the same time, a new model of musical organization – the combo – was gaining ground, as revealed by the success achieved by Cortijo y su Combo in Puerto Rico. MURIO JONY VENTURA PLUSGroups comprising some twenty musicians, plus a cast of singers, with conductors who had achieved a high reputation in the artistic world, would become unviable in economic terms, under the new context. “After Trujillo’s death, the great orchestras -which had received direct or indirect sponsorship from the regime’s institutions and members of the ruling family themselves- began an irreversible process of decline. The explanation offered reads as follows. In the work Antología del Merengue, published in 1988 by the Banco Antillano, presided over by our good friend Polibio Díaz, its authors José del Castillo and Manuel García Arévalo, after exposing in the section they called “La Era de las Grandes Orquestas” the imprint of the big bands -with their marvelous arrangements- in the development of our danceable musical genre, outlined the emergence of what they called “La Fase del Combo” (The Combo Phase). ![]()
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