Vince Delgado
Interview by Ma*Shuqa Mira Murjan
and Coralie Russo
This is Part Two of the fascinating story of how Vince Delgado became the
multi-talented percussionist who has worked with many famous musicians
and dancers. His story is entwined with the history of belly dancing and its
origins in Northern California.
Original cross-cultural compositions blended musical
genres
A lot of original music and jazz standards…everyone in the
band composed music. I’m still playing with them. I use my
Egyptian Tabla, Riq, congas and bongos. In 1990 and 1991,
I did some world percussion festivals in the bay area and
in different states with drummers from all over the world.
The interesting thing about the Murasaki Ensemble is that
Shirley Muramoto’s mother had learned how to play the
Koto in one of the US. internment camps during WW II,
then taught Shirley how to play Koto. Shirley’s mom had
learned from the same teacher that I had learned from
(Suwada Sensei). Years later Shirley got a grant to make
a film called “Hidden Legacies” about the music in the
internment camps. In the movie I give a five-minute talk
about my experiences learning Japanese classical music.
More unique recording experiences
In 1997, I made an album with a lot of great musicians.
It was produced by Branslav Bubalo, a wonderful Serbian
accordion player. Larry Dunlap arranged all the tunes.
It was a mixture of originals, Serbian, Latin and Eastern
European with a jazz influence. Larry Vuckovich was on
piano, Svetozar Necak on bass, Jeremy Cohen on violin,
plus another violinist, a viola player, a cello player and Jackie
Ryan on vocals and me on percussion. It is one of my favorite
projects to have been involved with. The group was called
Under the Sun Ensemble and the CD is “Closer to Me”.
The group also performed a few concerts in the bay area.
Composing “The Arabian Nights”
2000s - In 2002, I was asked to compose all the music
for a production of “The Arabian Nights” by the Marin
Shakespeare Company. I composed and performed the
Overture, plus all the poems in the stories were set to music
and I converted them into songs. Coralie Russo played
the Oud and I was on Kanoun and we taught one of the
actresses, Carolina Rojas Moretti, to do simple percussion on
a Bandir. We had a two-week run performing matinees and
evening performances for hundreds of people in an outdoor
venue called Forest Meadows at Dominican University in
San Rafael.
Jazayer Band – end of an era
In 2004, Mimi Spencer died, and two years later my daughter,
Devi-ja Delgado Croll, passed away. Both had cancer. Mimi
had been dancing a lot and playing in Arabic based night
clubs in San Francisco and Devi-ja was teaching bi-lingual
biology at Napa High, playing Middle Eastern gigs now
and then and teaching a Samba class in a Santa Rosa dance
studio. That was the end of Jazayer band.
Music beyond Jazayer: Jazz, Turkish, and Indian
I began to play the Kanoun more seriously, as up to this point
in time I had only used it as way to compose original music.
I was playing a steady jazz gig, using congas, bongos and my
riqq in Napa, CA, in a group called the Donny Mac Trio
from 2008 to 2011. (https://youtu.be/V8-VWHdQCHQ)
42 The Belly Dance Chronicles � July 2020