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Estoy de vacaciones con la famiilia en Santo Domingo. Anyone know any place where there is rumba anywhere in or near Santo Domingo? Or anyone here who plays rumba? Aqui hay grupos de palo dominicano pero estoy hablando de rumba cubana.

Mucho "Perico Ripiao".

Omelenko1 wrote:Mucho "Perico Ripiao".

...eso es asi a bailar merengue apanbichao.

Find a fiesta de Palo.

That will get your heart more than pumping

Perico ripiao is more in el Cibao than in the capital. I was asking about rumba cubana. Haven't found any yet. I did a gig last week playing congas with my daughter singing in NJ and a great dominican palo group Kumba Carey played after we did. One of the drummers is a great rumbero too. Then I went over to another friend's house and played dominican palo for a couple of hours with his group Palo Monte. Dominican palo is nice but is not rumba. No doubt some of the best drummers in merengue ripiao and palo can play, it is just not rumba, hace falta la clave cubana.
I have another 10 days to keep looking!

Hey Jorge!! Did you end up finding anything? I was there from the 1st to the 10th (punta cana). Had a great time down there with the family.

There were a couple of clubs called La Rumba and The Rumba Club, but nothing to do with rumba, they just played bachata, reggaeton, salsa and merengue like the other clubs, and intolerably loud. We stayed in La Caleta near the Santo Domingo airport and in Santo Domingo, and went to visit Samana, Jarabacoa, Bani and Juan Dolio, passing through lots of little towns in between. In the 2 weeks there I saw a total of one tumbadora, which had been mine, a Gon Bops quinto which I had bought 40 years ago ($88 new) and gave to my brother in law about 30 years ago and it sits in his house in La Caleta unplayed. The only rumba I heard was me playing that drum for 15 minutes while I visited my sister in law. Actually, I also only saw one tambora the whole time I was there, in a perico ripiao band playing on a Saturday night in Juan Dolio.

I think live music is dying in the Dominican Republic, certainly as a cultural pastime and even as a commercial entertainment business. The few Dominican palo/gaga and perico ripiao groups that I am told are there are not playing around a lot and are not much listened-to by most people. Music is definitely not dead though, we drove past dozens and dozens of clubs on the highways and smaller roads blasting recorded bachata, merengue, reggaeton or salsa out of PA speakers and subwoofers, sometimes so horribly loud that your ears rattled in the car while driving by. I don't know how anyone could go into any of those clubs without industrial hearing protection.

The few dozen family members and friends we hung out with did not know of any rumba or palo dominicano events during the time we were there. The little club in Monte Adentro that we used to go to dance merengue in the 80s (bailando pegao) with live perico ripiao bands closed down years ago. There was a big drug bust complete with SWAT team right near there the night before last. Most clubs seem to be owned by Europeans and play recorded not live music. The Friday before last in Santo Domingo, my niece, a college student, was refused entrance into one dance club, "London Box" because she is black. I have heard and known a lot of great Dominican musicians but these days there seems to be a shortage of live music and live musicians. Admittedly, we avoided the resorts where sometimes they do have live performances, although they are mainly for foreigners not Dominicans.

Sorry for the depressing report, but I did check this thread a few times while I was there and no one here suggested anywhere else to go either. Now that I am back, Pedrito and Roman are playing with 2 different bands tomorrow night in NYC at Guantanamera and the Zinc Bar respectively.