The Louisiana Décima Project is a new music sustainability program focused on curating, reviving, and sustaining the Isleño décima, unique tradition of Spanish folk songs from St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Project director Will Buckingham first fell in love with these funny and hauntingly beautiful songs during his research for his dissertation in the mid 2010’s, and this project reflects his desire to support this tradition and share it with new audiences.

For hundreds of years, Louisiana’s Isleños have given voice to their unique way of life through a distinctive song tradition known as the Isleño décima. Hurricanes, oil spills, and economic forces have taken a stark toll in this place. The once-bustling villages of Delacroix, Reggio, and Ycloskey, once the centers of Isleño culture, have been all but abandoned, and the last generation of décima singers have passed away.

The project will leverage digitized collections of historical field recordings that document the Isleño décima to curate a free online open-access library in order to revive and sustain the tradition for the future. The values and priorities of the Isleños who inspired this project will guide our work. Our collaborators often described the décima tradition as “lost,” and and their desire to see these recordings curated in a way that Isleño descendants, researchers, musicians, and general audiences can access and engage with is what drives our work on this project.

This program is generously supported by grants from the Keller Family Foundation and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation.

A series of conversations, workshops, and performances with Leandro Moré: Fall 2024

This series will bring veteran Cuban percussionist Leandro Moré to New Orleans to perform, discuss, and teach the mozambique, a rhythm that rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the sound of a new, youthful, revolutionary Cuba. Created by Pello el Afrokán in 1964, the popular rhythm with carnival origins became an alternative to U.S. rock and roll both for Cuban audiences and listeners abroad at a crucial moment in regional and global politics. Its appeal across racial lines and the prominence of Afrocuban performers and instruments (most significantly, scores of drummers playing with their hands) were cited as proof of revolutionary Cuba’s elimination of racism in the country, and the sound was mobilized in the service of the new communist government – at the express direction of Fidel Castro – to encourage workers to join the annual sugar harvest of 1965, solidifying the rhythm as central to the narrative of a unified, cooperative society.  

Such success was short-lived; today, the mozambique is remembered in Cuba as part of a period of optimism and change, reflective of new possibilities for music in the country, but also new limitations; it remains obscure to U.S. American listeners compared to other genres, likewise obscuring its role in Cuban politics and popular culture. Mr. Moré’s passion for the mozambique and the story he tells about it offer audiences in New Orleans a chance to learn about Cuban music and history, but they also speak to the possibilities of meaning in music, even meanings that are multiple, changing, unexpected, or contradictory. 

Mr. Moré will discuss his experiences as a young participant in the group Pello el Afrokán y Su Ritmo Mozambique, which played a central role in the development and dissemination of the rhythm, both in Cuba and abroad. In workshops, he will teach the component rhythms of the mozambique as well as other Cuban dance rhythms of the 1960s, including cha cha chá, charanga, and pilón.

This program is supported by a generous grant from the Keller Family Foundation.