Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective

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This week I went to Movie and Music in the Park to hear Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective. I wasn’t familiar with him, but wanted to go because while I was in Belize, my friend and I went to the Lebeha Drumming Center. Here children have the opportunity to learn the traditional Garifuna drumming. The website states
“It is not a therapeutic drum circle, it is not the more commercial Punta Rock style (exemplified by stars such as Pen Cayetano and Andy Palacio), and none of the kids is forced to practice. If nobody shows up to listen or to dance, the boys play for themselves with just as much vigor as they would at a major festival.”
Andy Palacio’s style may have chanced since this was written, however. It the jacket of the cd and on his website it states
“About five years ago, Belizean producer/musician Ivan Duran, Palacio’s longtime collaborator and founder of Belize’s pioneer label Stonetree Records, convinced Palacio that he should focus on less commercial forms of Garifuna music and look more deeply into its soul and roots.”
While I enjoyed the music of Andy Palacio, listening to the boys play at Lebeha was more of a treat. Of course, sitting on a patio in Belize with the drummers and maybe ten others easily outweighs a more formal audience of several hundred at home.

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