‘Salinawit’ Nights & then some

Hosting the latest edition of Salinawit Nights last Tuesday was Conspiracy Garden Bar & Café on Visayas Avenue, QC.

Featured in this series of mini-concerts are our best singers performing familiar Western standards whose lyrics have been translated into Filipino or Tagalog by poet, journalist, scriptwriter and editor Jose “Pete” Lacaba. And it’s always a fun night when the terrific music, the crossover metaphors, the camaraderie and revelry are shared with friends old and new.

I’ve attended many of these terrific musical events catering to intimate audiences since Ka Pete conceived of the initial offering way back in December of 2006, with performers Peach Abubakar, Glaiza de Castro, Bodgie Pascua and Susan Fernandez (how we miss her!) at Blacksoup Café in Cubao X (for Expo). 

By now it’s been practically instituted, announced every so often by Ka Pete himself. In the early years the regular venue was Exchange Bar in Richmonde Hotel in Ortigas Center, with Thursday-night regular Girl Valencia as the leading exponent in rendering songs such as Yun Na for That’s All.

Fellow writer-barflies and Pete’s fellow AIM (“Ayaw Ipasa ang Mayk”) stalwarts such as Reli German, Charlson Ong and Marne Kilates regularly lorded it over the dais. Semi-retired professionals like Gou de Jesus and Celina Cristobal occasionally spiced up the proceedings.

Eventually, many of the singers whom I’ve most admired were drawn to join Salinawit Nights, which have since been mounted at different venues: Armida Siguion Reyna and her granddaughter Cris Villonco, Jacqui Magno, Joey Ayala, Jim Paredes, Boboy Garovillo, Mon David, Art Manuntag, Richard Merk, Skarlet, Dulce, Bituin Escalante, Charmaine Clamor, Lynn Sherman, and Kat Agarrado — with most of these names practically constituting a Who’s Who in Pinoy jazz and blues, also folk and pop.

Movie and stage personalities as well as opera stars have also joined in, the most regular being Ricky Davao, together with Pinky Marquez, Carmi Martin, Leah Navarro, Eugene Villaluz, Pinky Amador, Isay Alvarez, Robert Seña, Montet Acoymo, Dondi Ong, Bo Cerrudo, Aia de Leon, Astarte Abraham, and Miguel Castro. Why, even senatorial hopefuls like Risa Hontiveros and Dick Gordon have performed Pete’s Salinawit songs, as well as his and poet Marra PL Lanot’s son Kris Lacaba, himself a poet.

Pete has now translated, or transliterated, over 130 Western standards. An expanded edition of a bound photocopied set of 134 songs is made available at these mini-concerts, featuring the original vis-à-vis the Pinoy lyrics. 

Last week, it was our top three and my most fave divas top-billed at Conspiracy, or what host, presenter and solo front act Ka Pete called the LBC trio — for Lolita Carbon, Bayang Barrios and Cooky Chua. Now that’s a group that I can’t miss when they perform together, especially when the accompanist on the piano is the consummate Ferdie Borja.

Actually, these ladies are more known, nearly officially, as Tres Marias Filipinas — or so we might expect them to bill themselves when they come up with the 3-in-1 CD album that has been announced to be in the works. 

Lolita’s gravelly whisky voice I’ve always loved, from way back at Mayric’s across UST on España, during her days with Nene (after Asin), with bass maestro Bob Villegas. Lolita meant, still means, birit blues and soul non pareil. 

Bayang came over from Davao, thanks to Joey Ayala, as part of the pioneering ethno-folk-rock band Ang Bagong Lumad, but has long since made a name for herself with her clear, mellifluous, and powerful voice and effortless styling.

And Cooky, well, Cooky the rock and jazz icon and total performer (who never gets totaled despite her intake onstage) — she’s been part of or been backed up by groups such as Color It Red and Luzviminda, as well as solo instrumentalists like the semi-retired Aya Yuson.

Aya and I chanced in on the lovely divas around a prepping table at Conspiracy’s smoking side, together with their show producer, the just-as-lovely terpsichorean Yna Miranda-Dalisay. We handed Cooky a (nearly full) bottle of expensive brandy as regular tribute, and were in turn immediately gifted with a CD each by Bayang — her latest album, titled “Malaya.”

Pete welcomed us and we spoke briefly on our arrangement for sharing his Johnnie Black and my Caol Ila 12 Years Islay single malt in case we lose one another among the crowded tables. Semi-retired rocker Jaime Fabregas came in; so did current rocker Igan D’Bayan. Hey, what a surprise!

This writer-rocker got chewed down a bit for missing the opening night of buddy Igan’s latest art exhibit, a somewhat strange back-to-back with the venerable Betsy Westendorp at Crucible Gallery. But then what can be strange with Igan? Even his appearance at Conspi that night must have been pre-planned; he knew how to stalk me.

Other friends who came for the wondrous Salinawit gig (with an inspired Lolita belting out Que Sera, Sera in Tagalog better than any way Aretha Franklin could’ve done it) were our fellow MTRCB previewer Tony Veloso, poet-architect Cesar Aljama, poet Marne Kilates, and poet-novelist-rocker Lourd de Veyra, as lush as they come, so that the Caol Ila was done for, daddy, daddy, ‘twas done for, well before Cooky could kill the classy brandy (for a change) on and off stage.

I understand that the night wore on even more enchantingly after Aya and I skulked off with my empty bottle, that the guys we left behind had all lorded it onstage at Open Mic hour, singing their hearts out to all the girls we’ve loved before.

But I failed to bring home Pete’s latest 134 x 2 lyrics compilation. A good thing I’ll see him again soon, when he’s conferred the UP Gawad Plaridel next month for his outstanding contributions in the field of Journalism. Established by the U.P. College of Mass Communication, the annual award “recognizes Filipino media practitioners who have excelled in any of the media forms (print, radio, film, television, and new media) and have performed with the highest level of professional integrity in the interest of public service.” 

While the award that will be handed by UP president Alfredo Pascual and U.P. Diliman Chancellor Caesar Saloma may have nothing to do with his Salinawit lyrics translation, much less his singing, Pete will have to present a Plaridel Lecture “on current issues in the journalism industry” — which may have nothing to do with the fact that he also established the Plaridel e-group.

As for Bayang Barrios’ Malaya CD, I loved the following cuts: Bata Batuta and Bathala by Joey Ayala, Gising Na Kaibigan which was one of Lolita Carbon’s signature anthems, Adto Na Kita by Onie Badiang, Popong Landero’s Malaya which became the album title, and the haunting Pahinga Muna, which must be by Mike Villegas. Why, that’s almost all the songs in the album! Yeah! In fact I loved the whole album. Congrats and kudos to Bayang and Mike and their lovely partnership!

 As for my buddy Igan, so shamefaced was I over my no-show at his big moment with Ma’am Betsy that I quickly teleported myself over to SM MegaMall A to experience the visual juxtaposition of their “contrasting styles, philosophies and techniques.” Indeed, Westendorp’s elegance meets up with D’Bayan’s obsession with the macabre and what he acknowledges as “things that go bump in the night” — the way we did that night at Conspiracy.

 The two artists present self-portraits surrounded by satellite paintings. Why, in Igan’s “Self-Portrait of the Artist as the Undead,” he is The Joker as super-zombie in the war of the worlds and words and woes all the way to zeta. 

His other portraits are all apt, given the artist’s partiality for the bizarre and horrific. “Van Gogh”’s remaining ear looks like it’s suffered from a scalding headphone, while an eye has also gone awry, its pupil going as yellow ochre as Arles’ heat of sun. And “Phantom Lord” may be how we’ll see Lourd de Veyra a century from now, a holocaust’s lone ranger with long silver hair, still trying to un-gnash his teeth from possible Salinawit lyrics of “Gusto ko ng tokwa’t baboy with the single malt.”

Truly, verily, verily, these friends of mine are weird, even as they go hum and hump their way into the night.