When we Costa Ricans think of music from Guanacaste, we tend to recall certain standard songs typical of school functions, all having the same rhythm and seasoned with a measure of marimba and someone breaking in at intervals to shout, “Bomba!” This is why, after hearing these songs of Max Goldenberg and Odilón Juárez, most Ticos outside the province imagine they come from anywhere in the world except Guanacaste. Behind the bullfighting songs come a pasillo, then a little waltz, and then a “retahíla” (a tune that connects many seemingly unrelated ideas, producing images with a double meaning.) Farther along in the material, there is a bolero, then a corrido, followed by a kind of foxtrot and even a danzón with Brazilian touches. It’s as if the guitars of Max and Odilón have absorbed something from all the music passing through the tawny meadows of Guanacaste over the past hundred years. They have followed in the footsteps of Adán Guevara, José Ramírez Saizar, Arístides Baltodano and so many other songsters who inherited the Guanacaste (and universal) way of interweaving their identity with others. The music of Guanacaste has drunk from so many springs that no single source can now be recognized. From the Indians they took the ocarina, the dance of La Yegüita (a very rustic dance dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe) with a style that differs from the Nicaraguan song. From the Africans who traveled the Guanacaste pampas centuries before settling in Limón, they took the marimba, the quijongo and the base of the bull song. From the Spaniards they adopted the contra dance, the guitar and, of course, the language. Then the 20th century brought the victrola and the radio, the Charleston, the tango, the Mexican ranchera, the bolero. And so, the custom of borrowing the foreign and sharing one’s own became a tradition and everything possible was absorbed, until arriving at Max’s cheese works. There, during long hours of watching the white cheese thicken and solidify as he squeezed it, just the way his father had taught him, Max Goldenberg composed a large part of the songs making up this CD. The cheese works have since been turned into a library and no longer exist, but they inspired such great harmonic treasures as “La cofradía” (“The Brotherhood”) and “El vals del coyote” (Waltz of the Coyote”), a lovely metaphor against loneliness. The Tierra Seca concert is like sitting in front of the campfire, singing along with Uncle Adán’s songs: “Tengo mi hamaca tendida” (“My Hammock’s Hung Up”), a small masterpiece of Guanacaste folklore, and “Fiestas en Santa Cruz,” extolling the valor of the man who risks his life riding a bull to impress his sweetheart; or “La coyolera,” an anonymous song that recreates an old tradition: getting together around a recently cut palm (coyol) to drink the juice flowing out of its trunk. As the hours pass, the fermenting juice takes effect and everybody gets “juma.” The disc includes “Rasgos de un corcel” (“Features of a Steed”), one of the most celebrated themes of Odilón Juárez, carrying on the tradition of the Caballito Nicoyano. Two instrumentals, Fidel Gamboa’s “El zapateao” and Goldenberg’s “El portoncito,” showcase the skill of the musicians and the dialogue attained between tradition and improvisation.