Plena Music of Puerto Rico

In 1900 plena appeared as a humble proletarian traditional genre in the lower-class, vastly Afro-Puerto Rican urban neighbourhoods in San Juan, Ponce and elsewhere. Plena later came to occupy its niche in island music culture. In its classic form, plena are an informal, modest, simple folksong genre, in which alternating verses and choruses are sung to the accompaniment of round, frequently homemade structure drums known as panderetas (like tambourine without jingles), possibly supplemented by accordion, guitar and other instruments that might be handy. The plena rhythm is a simple duple style, though a lead pandereta player may add lively accent.

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Plena melodies incline to have a modest, folksy simplicity. Some of the early plena verses observed the barrio anecdotes such as Cortaron an Elena (they stabbed Elena) or Alli vienen las maquinas (Here come the fire trucks). Many have decided disrespectful and satirical flavor such as Llego el Obispo mocking a visiting bishop. Some of the plenas include Cuando las mujeres quieren a los hombres and santa Maria are well-known all over the island. In the year 1935 the easyist Tomas Blanco celebrated plena rather than the old-fashioned and elitist danza as an expression of the island’s basically creole, Taino or mulatto racial and cultural character. Plenas are still usually performed in different settings; a group of friend going a parade or festival may bring a few panderetas and burst into song, or current words will be fitted to the popular tunes by protesting students of striking workers which has long been a usual type of protest from employment and slavery. While fan might on event dance to a plena, plena is not distinctively oriented toward dance.

In the 1920 and 30s plena became commercially recorded, particularly by Manuel El Canario Jimenez, who performed ancient and current songs, adding the folk instruments with piano and horn compositions. In the 1940s Cesar Concepcion promoted a big-band version of plena, lending the genre a current respect, to some range at the expense of its popular vigor and sauciness.

New revitalized plena appeared in the 1950s which performed with the small band of Rafael Cortijo and vocalist Ismael Maelo Rivera, achieving unique fame and modernizing the plena while restructuring its earthy strength.  Many of the Cortijo’s plenas present beautiful and suggestive design of barrio life and lent a new kind of credit to the active contribution of Afro-Puerto Ricans to the islands culture (particularly music). This time represent the apogee of plena’s fame as a commercial renowned music. Eventually, Rivera spent much of his time in prison and his grouped never recovered its former strength. Yet, the extraordinary massive turnout for Cortijo’s funeral in the year 1981 revealed the beloved singer’s enduring fame. By then, though, plena’s fame had been substituted by that of salsa, though some revivalist group such as Plena Libre continue to perform in their own lively style, while street plena is also heard on different events.