Venezuela 4

By 1973, the master composer and arranger Luis Laguna (†) founded in Maracay, the group Venezuela 4. The group Venezuela 4 was mainly dedicated to instrumental music of traditional Venezuelan roots, over time the compositions of maestro Luis Laguna became a mandatory repertoire for students, singers and musical groups. Venezuela 4 releases its first full-length album in June 1975. Chronologically, this is the first group that gave indications of a change in Venezuelan traditional root music, although its work as an active group was brief compared to those of Raíces de Venezuela and El Cuarteto, which have already passed thirty years of activity. Two record productions as a group and a series of albums accompanying singers, is the recorded legacy of Venezuela 4. The death of its leader, Luis Laguna, in 1984, meant that the group did not stay longer. Undoubtedly, Laguna was a fundamental piece of this group, in addition to being, for his excellence, one of the most popular and important composers of Venezuela, especially towards the second half of the twentieth century, because from his compositions he becomes the protagonist of the aesthetic change of Venezuelan music. Aquiles Báez, a renowned Venezuelan guitarist and composer with a long career, comments in a personal capacity that changes in music generally occur from the proposals of the composers, in the case of Venezuela, Laguna is a benchmark of the transformations in Venezuelan music in the 70s, since his work updated the traditional repertoire and opened the way to a new generation of musicians who later, during the 80s and now more recently in the 21st century, have continued with the line of work proposed by the teacher. By 1968 musicians began to gather, especially guitarists, in the house of maestro Laguna located in Maracay, Aragua state. These first calls were made with the intention of playing music based on the teacher's teachings, as well as exploring new musical proposals, especially those from Brazilian music. From there, an ensemble of musicians begins to be profiled in which these learned ideas began to come to life. Over the years the proposals born of that kind of laboratory that was the house of Laguna were concretized in a musical work that was formalized with the birth of the group Venezuela 4 in 1973, «... originally composed of Luis Laguna (guitar and direction ), his son Carlos Laguna (four), Eliécer Guzmán (mandolin) and Carlos Soto (double bass) »(Guido and Peñin, 1998: 718). Later Henry Martínez and Lencho Amaro join the guitar. But this need to differentiate had detractors, there was "... a lot of criticism of what Venezuela did 4, they said we made Brazilian meringues, distorting Venezuelan music, it took us a lot to be accepted," says Henry Martínez. It is normal for changes to generate positions found by the most orthodox, but thanks to these transformations, traditional music becomes dynamic and changing, thus enriching its own evolution.