THE EMPIRE OF CUBAN MUSIC

RAFAEL LAM

INDEX:

INTRODUCTION

I- The empire of Cuban music

II- Cuban musicians

III- The kings of percussion

IV- This is Cuban music

V- The island of music

VI- The mecca of rhythms

VII- Understand Cuban music

VIII- Cuban music concept

IX- Music gave Cuba: unity, identity and joy

MUSICIANS

1-Adalberto Álvarez

2- Alejandro García Caturla

3- Alejo Carpentier

4- Alfredo Brito

5- Amadeo Roldan

6- Amadito Valdes

7- Aniceto Diaz

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8- Antonio Arcaño

9- Armando Orefiche

10- Arsenio Rodríguez

11- Azpiazu

12- Bebo Valdes

13- Benny More

14- Carmen Valdes

15- Compay Second

16- Changuito

17- Chano Pozo

18- Chepin

19- Chico O Farrill

20- Chucho Valdes

21- Eduardo Cordova

22- Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes

23- Emiliano Salvador

24- The Chori

25- Enrique Jorrin

26- Enrique Lazaga

27- Ernesto Lecuona

28- Esteban Salas

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29- Fernando Ortiz

30- Frank Fernandez

31- Generoso Jimenez

32- Gonzalito Rubalcaba

33- Gonzalo Roig

34- Grenet

35- Guillermo Barreto

36- Ignacio Pineiro

37- Israel Lopez

38- Jorge Luis Prats

39- Jose Luis Cortes

40- Juan Blanco

41- Juan Formell

42- Juan Carlos Alfonso

43- Juanito Marquez

44- Julio Cueva

45- Leo Brouwer

46- Lilí Martínez

47- Lopez Gavilan

48- Manuel Saumell

49- Manuel Galban

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50- Maraca

51- Mariano Mercerón

52- Mario Bauza

53- Miguel Faílde

54- Miguel Matamoros

55- Moses Simons

56- Neno González

57- Nilo Menendez

58- Ninon Mondejar

59- Orestes Lopez

60- Oscar Valdes

61- Pancho Amat

62- Paquito D´ Rivera

63- Perez Prado

64- Peruchin

65- Puppy

66- Rafael Lay

67- Rene Hernandez

68- King Montesinos

69- Richard Egues

70- Rolando Valdes

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71- romeu

72- Rubalcaba

73- Ruben Gonzalez

74- Tata Guines

75- Urfe

76- Xavier

INTRODUCTION

The empire of Cuban music is a book dedicated to

Cuban musicians and music; a tribute to those who for
more than five centuries, in modern times, gave joy to their
country. It has ten complete articles dedicated to the theory
and concept of Cuban music, for a better understanding of
such a complicated art.

Along with these nine chapters, more than seventy

relevant personalities, true kings of Cuban music, are
presented. These instrumentalists took more than 25
successful rhythms around the world, to the Holy Land and
beyond the Chinese Wall.

Habaneras, congas, rumbas, criollas, guarachas,

guajiras, sones, changüí, danzones, mambos, cha cha chá,
Mozambique, pa´cá, dengue, pilón, salsa and timba; A wide
palette of music was disseminated by many of these kings
of Cuban music.

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 Cuba is not only an empire of music, it has also been,
for centuries, a fortress of musical resistance. We have
faced the cannons of music, we always pass imported music
in our “own system”. In that sense, the researcher
Buenaventura Ferrer wrote centuries ago.

“There is nothing strange that the French school

contradanza adapted to our rhythm. Nor can we be
surprised that the rhythms or musical modes coming from
abroad: galop, pasturelle, chassé-croisé, were replaced by
the descent and the ascent, by the chain and sieve of ours.

In twenty years – commented Alejo Carpentier – the

Cuban contradanza had devoured its progenitor. Then we
began to send, since the 17th century, “amulated” Creole
dances, which spread panic among the Spanish
ecclesiastical authorities.

Musicians have been present in all the events of Cuban

life, in births and deaths, they were present in wars and
festivals, in ceremonies, weddings, parties, discharges, in
bohemia.

Our kings of music have gone through dozens of

national rhythms and foreign invasions: tango, jazz,
Charleston, merengue, mariachis, rock and roll, rock, pop,
beat, salsa and American timba.

Cristóbal Díaz Ayala usually says that, after the heroes,

the singers and musicians are the most important
personalities in a country; That is why I dedicate this book

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to Cuban musicians.

To all those who gave Cuba unity, identity and joy, this
book is dedicated: The Empire of Cuban Music.

“Without music we would be a people without wings.”

(The Naborí Indian)

1- THE EMPIRE OF CUBAN MUSIC

When Christopher Columbus landed with his three

caravels and his acolytes in Cuban lands, they were looking
for the Silk Route and the fastest and most economical
species. Very soon, very soon, an army of brave soldiers
and warlike adventurers eagerly began a search throughout
the region for the clue to the coveted metal: gold.

The feverish search for El Dorado (the country of gold),

a mystical land overflowing with gold mines, fueled legend
and the most hazardous expeditions. Searching for gold,
finding it and sending it to Spain by the entire galleons
became an obsession.

In Cuba, the entire indigenous population was mobilized to

strip the island of its gold. They killed, terrorized and
subdued the indigenous people. But the conquerors suffered
a cruel disappointment: in the "pearl of the Antilles" there
was not the slightest nugget.

Over time the colonists were consoled. The island

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overflowed with exploitable wealth. The sybaritic society of
the old continent discovered a superior quality sugar , true
ambrosia (sugar can sweeten life). A cup of intense
anthracite black coffee . A glass of Cuban rum, so
appreciated by English pirates. And the cigars , famous in
the world. And finally, tasty, rich and lively music. 1

The first music that the colonizers found came from the
indigenous people of Cuba themselves: They organized
some areítos (parties that they later called changüí,
guateques, discharges ).

“Those parties with dancing and singing lasted from

dusk, all night, until light came, and all their dances were to
the sound of voices and whether there were 500 or a
thousand together, women and men, they did not leave
each other for feet nor with their hands, and with all the
movements of their bodies, a hair of the compass.” 2

This is how Fray Bartolomé de las Casas told it, and

through his description we can easily verify the massive,
social nature of participation, of the areítos, as well as their
functional value in the stories told. Both maracas and
rattles, rhythm sticks, drums, beaten gourds, flutes;
Everything was mixed with the instruments brought by the
colonizer from Europe, together with the instruments
reproduced by the black African slaves in Cuba.

Everything seems to indicate that Cuba was predestined

to achieve music of enormous value with ecumenical
characteristics. The question everyone asks is: How is it
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possible that a country (an archipelago with 160 keys) so
small of only 110,860.63 km. 2 has been able to conceive
such powerful music throughout the American continent and
in the Western Hemisphere?

The reasons must be sought in five points:

CHAPTER I

THE MEETING AND SYNTHESIS OF MEN AND

CULTURES 1-CONTINENTS : Europe, Africa, China,
America. More than 1,400,000 black African slaves arrived
in Cuba, with an overwhelming rhythmic power; a true
“musical tsunami” never before seen on this New Continent.
This impetuous sound engine has provided, for more than
five centuries, a timbral and sound site with immeasurable
variety and complexity. It is enough to observe the number
of successful Cuban rhythms amounting to more than 25.
There are countries with a high wealth of rhythms like
Venezuela, but they do not have as many rhythms of
international reach. Other gigantic countries like Argentina
only have one world-famous rhythm.
2- THE GEOGRAPHY: Cuba is geographically located, in
the center of the musical tropics, in the heart of America,
Key of the Gulf, at the entrance to the Caribbean, they say
that "it was his turn." From the 15th century onwards,
Havana became the anteroom of the Indies, as the
chronicles say. You had to go through Havana to get to
Mexico, Central America, the Darién, Panama, the mainland
of Venezuela.

For these reasons it turns modern times into a true

CROSSROADS , through which the world parades, as it was
in other distant times: Rome,

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Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia, Spain. Cuba became the richest
country in the world – a product of sugar – on two
occasions in history.

“Cuba was rich in wood,” writes Alejo Carpentier. And

the port of Havana became a stopping place where ships
that were careening after a long voyage were caulked. The
Cuban capital was the shipyard where the ships of the
Spanish Navy were built (with valuable wood). After loading
the ships of the Golden Galleon Fleet with precious pearls,
jewels of all kinds. All that wealth came to rest in Havana to
take the big leap with well-defended artillery” 3

3-- FUN ENVIRONMENT:

Every time Havana becomes a service colony, a port of

entertainment, with a floating population of sailors,
foreigners, adventurers, places of entertainment multiply.
Fernando Ortiz, in his book La clave xiolofónica, provides an
excellent overview of that Havana:

“Havana was for centuries the Seville of America and,

like it, it could have deserved the dictates of Babylon and
Finibus Terrae of picardy. In the happy and dissipated city
of the 16th to 17th centuries, they burst like bubbles, in the
most frenetic musical rhythms and the most crackling
percussion. In their long stays, the marine people of the
fleets meet with the boisterous slaves and the women of the
course, in the still lifes of the black mondongueras , in the
gambling dens or planks set up by generals and admirals for
the tahuería, and in the less holy places. The cane liquor,
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the Havana tobacco, the dances and songs of three worlds,
to the sound of the most sensual, exciting and free music
that unbridled passions managed to extract from the human
core” 4

What Fernando Ortiz describes is what we call:

environment, emotional climate. Cuba and, especially
Havana, had more theaters, cinemas, dance halls,
recreational societies, cinemas, clubs, cabaret, nightclubs,
dances, parties, carnivals, brass bands, parrandas, than any
other country or city in the world. Suffice it to say that in
Old Havana of four km2 alone, there were 237 bars. In the
colony there were more than 50 dances a day, in almost all
the houses there were dances with free entry.

4- MUSIC AND MUSICIANS

Cuba has been the producer of countless successful rhythms

and musical “modes”; But logically, every country that
produces rhythms, consequently, also produces musicians.
When there is weather, atmosphere , agon (a word
invented by the Greeks) , the musicians appear, whirlpool
brings whirlpool. Cuba is the country with the most
musicians per capita in the world. The administrative means
have not yet been able to count the number of musicians
and musical groups that the country has. Because, there is
a huge number of independent groups - on their own - and
many amateur musicians, conga percussionists and
suburban rumbas from popular neighborhoods who
participate in carnivals and solar rumbas who must also be

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classified as empirical musicians. They are the ones who
keep Cuban rhythms safe in times of musical crisis. Some of
the successful rhythms of Cuba: conga, rumba, habanera,
criolla, danzón, guaracha, son, mambo, cha cha chá,
pachanga, Mozambique, dengue, pa´cá, pilón, salsa, timba.

5- THE HAPPY AND FUN PEOPLE OF CUBA:

Cubans have a mix of many cultures, from four continents.

All this amalgamation of cultures creates a new culture. All
the grace of the Spanish flavor is linked with the flavor of
the African, a true enjoyer of life. As the intellectual Miguel
Barnet says, without black people, the country would be
very boring. The Aché of Cubans is proverbial, they have a
“natural card” (using a word from José Luis Cortés, king of
Cuban salsa). That invincible mix of Spanish or European,
with black and Chinese, gives a magical touch to Cubans.
They are the “ heralds of civilization ,” using an
expression from one of those heralds: the painter Wifredo
Lam.

Over time, the wise Fernando Ortiz would write: “It

cannot be attributed to patriotic petulance if a Cuban writer
says that the popular dance music of Cuba has had a great
resonance for centuries, both in the New World and in the
Old, because such fact is undeniable. Cuba has a genuine
national musicality and cosmopolitan values... We Cubans
have exported with our music more dreams and delights
than with tobacco, more sweetness and energy than with
sugar. Afro-Cuban music is fire, flavor and smoke; It is

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syrup, sandunga and relief; like a sonorous rum that is
drunk through the ears, that in treatment equalizes and
unites people and in the senses energizes life.” 5

Cuba is the mecca of rhythms, many come to this

country in search of the authenticity of the music, a place of
pilgrimage, as if they came to Mecca to touch the black
stone of the Kaaba.

GRADES:

1-Eduardo Manet, The gold of Cuba, The UNESCO Courier,

December 1997, p. 28

2-Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, History of the Indies, Book

III, chap. 144, Economic Culture Fund, Mexico, 1951. Taken
from the book by Leonardo Acosta, Music and
decolonization, Art and Literature, Havana 1982, p. 137

3-Alejo Carpentier, Conferences, “On Cuban music”, Letras

Cubanas, Havana, 1987, p. 432-58

4-Fernando Ortiz, The xylophonic key of Cuban music ,

Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1984, p.73 to 76

5- Fernando Ortiz, Africanía de la musica folklorico de Cuba,

Editora Universitaria La Habana, 1965, p. 143-144

II- CUBAN MUSICIANS

" Cubans are always inventing new rhythms. They are
superior to those of all America; They have more flavor and
possibilities ." (Tito Puente)

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 Cuba has rich, lively and universal music and,
consequently, it has many great instrumentalists. These
instrumentalists were empirical, the vast majority came
from the oral tradition; others were the fruit of bands,
academies and conservatories. Musical teaching in Cuba
starts from the Music Chapel of the Cathedral of Santiago de
Cuba, founded by maestro Esteban Salas in 1763. He was
followed by José Hierrezuelo and Juan París.
In the 19th century, the largest of the Antilles had
some pedagogues with solid technical training: Antonio
Raffelin, Juan Federico Edelmann and Nicolás Ruiz
Espadero, in Havana. Laureano Fuentes Matons and Rafael
Salcedo, in Santiago de Cuba. José Martín Varona, in
Camagüey. Tomás Tomás, in Cienfuegos. José White, in
Matanzas and other foreign musicians such as Hubert de
Blanck, who has lived since 1880. Blanck sets in The

Havana the first methodologically organized music

conservatory.
In 1903, the Municipal Academy of Music was
inaugurated in Havana, Cuba's first official institution,
directed by Guillermo Tomás. From then on, conservatories
and private teachers proliferated. (Harold Gramatges,
Presence of the Revolution in Cuban music, Letras Cubanas,
Havana, 1983, p. 9 to 11)
Harold Gramatges told me that in 1957 it was known
at UNESCO that Cuba was, in relation to its population, the
country with the largest number of conservatories and

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musical academies.
With the social change of 1959, provincial and national
musical schools were quickly established. The first was the
National School of Art in 1961, located in the Reparto
Siboney (former Country Club of the Havana aristocracy).
From the colony, visiting chroniclers wrote about the
musical environment in Cuba. The chronicler Luciano Pérez,
in 1830, mentioned that “in Havana everyone is a musician;
As you pass through the streets you hear nothing but
guitars, pianos and music. You will be able to hear musical
instruments playing in all the houses of rich or poor, from
the owners of the houses to the poor slaves. They play from
the morning until late at night, you will also hear singing
and dancing. It's the way to pass the time." 1
In the streets of Havana it was common to see a
traveling organ grinder carrying an instrument on wheels
and meeting with jugglers, acrobats. Also, there were black
people who carried their organ on their shoulders, placed it
on scissors and accompanied its loud sound with Cuban
percussion. What they earned from public charity during the
week allowed them to travel to nearby towns on Saturdays
and Sundays to entertain parties.
When the Spanish colonizers began to bring black
African slaves to Cuba, they had no idea that they were
populating the nation with high-powered musicians, who
through magic could reproduce their culture and their
ancestral jungle drums. Little by little, blacks, browns,
browns and Europeans merged profusely in the orchestras.

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 In an often-quoted paragraph in the book Memoria
sobre la vagancia en la isla de Cuba , José Antonio Saco
wrote in 1831: “The arts are in the hands of people of color.
Among the enormous evils that this unhappy race has
brought to our soil, one of them is having distanced our
white population from the arts. Destined only for mechanical
work, he was exclusively entrusted with all trades as
appropriate to his condition; and the master became
accustomed from the beginning to treating the slave with
contempt, very soon he began to look at his occupations in
the same way, because in the exaltation or dejection of all
careers, the good or bad quality of those who are involved
must always influence. they dedicate to her.” 2
Alejo Carpentier considers that several reasons acted
against music being assumed as a profession. Firstly, the
prejudices of a colonial society, of recent rise, which
assigned its children to the judiciary, to medicine, to the
church, to the arms race, to public administration, reserving
the monopoly of “honorable conditions”. ”.
“On the other hand,” writes Carpentier, “the profession
of musician was not entirely enviable, due to the instability
and poverty that accompanied its activities. In Santiago de
Cuba, the priest Juan París had to lend money to one of his
musicians so that he could purchase a decent suit to wear
to a funeral. In Havana, since an ecclesiastical provision
prohibited them from joining orchestras and choirs of opera
and ditties, the instrumentalist singers of the capital filled
out sheets and sheets of pleas to the dean and council, so

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that the factory foreman would pay them their back
salaries, or so that the foul scorer does not deduct the
quarters judged for poorly explained absences. Despite
everything, the squares were fiercely defended as the only
possible providence. The concert was a very risky adventure
to constitute a means of subsistence. And as for the
theater, the arrival of singing companies was still too
irregular to ensure a continued demand for music stand
musicians. Hence, the white man, privileged in the choice of
professions, turned his back on a dangerously insecure
profession. What path was left, then, for the black musician,
when a theatrical, transit company did not request his
services? The dance. Dancing, which the Creoles of the
early 19th century encouraged with incredible perseverance,
as it was their favorite entertainment. "The dance, where
Spanish, French and mestizo dances were used, to give rise
to new turns and rhythms, which would end up giving a
peculiar character to the music of the island." 3
The musicians, united with the singers in Cuba, and
throughout Latin America, have been like a staff (relief) for
the people.
Of course, don't think that Cuban musicians led a kind
and pleasant existence. The Spanish authorities prohibited
accordion, timbale and güiro charanguitas. When the sound
arrived in Havana, the police arrested the small groups that
played the strange primitive music.
In the little solarium of “Puerta de Hierro”, on Vapor
and Hornos streets, a group of young people organized a

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party with the Jesuit group. Shortly after the dance began,
a couple of police officers under the command of Corporal
Lorda showed up with orders to drive to all participants. The
corporal offended a woman by calling her “immoral and a
prostitute, causing the fight.” 4
Already in the 20TH century, the use of Afro-Cuban
drums was prohibited, the police forces jumped the “houses
of saints” and stabbed or burned the sacred instruments.
The most sacred and secret offering drums or gods were
hidden. The batá were taken out wrapped as something
criminal. The police took the tureens with the saints and
necklaces. It was a true martyrology for musicians,
according to Rogelio Martínez Furé. 5
But nothing could stop those crushed drummers from
imposing their music, their history, their culture, their
traditions and experiences were involved; That is to say, his
life. The titan of European culture, Goethe wrote that: “The
poet does not like silence, / he wants to show off to the
masses; / praise and censure longs: / (To the benevolent,
1799).
In the world of music, any type of censorship is useless,
people have so much freedom of artistic selection
embedded within them that it is quite difficult to change
their preferences.
The poet Nicolás Guillén said: “what is today the Caribbean
Sea was the scene of the most terrible crimes and
injustices; and only singing or dancing managed to mitigate
in some way the pain of those towns in which death gave

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way to slavery.” 6
What else were the crushed slaves going to do that
would express with their music, their songs of pain. Guillén
himself answers that question: “You have to have boluntá,
that saltiness is not for all of life.” Bito Manué didn't know
English, he didn't know English... I didn't know French
either... But he had boluntá and with the boluntá he ended
up sweeping Paris. He had a holy mouth.
Certainly, from very early on, the blacks managed to
sneak into the temples among clouds of incense,
accompanied by a disproportionate and incoherent
instrument, which included the graceful tiple and the dry
and harsh calabazo or güiro. This is how Serafín Ramírez
tells it in 1891 in his book “Artistic Havana”.
Of course, the experience did not please many
colonizers; they spoke of obscene, indecent and stupid
songs, many of which today we would classify as naive. A
bit similar happens, currently, with many dance songs, in
which alibis are used to ruthlessly attack today's musicians.
Things haven't changed much, musical racism is something
that has haunted Cuban artists for more than five centuries.
The truth is that contradanza music is still celebrated
by foreigners "when it is composed by people of color, it has
more acceptance among Creoles," José María de la Torre
stated in the last century, in his book "Lo that we were and
what we are or Havana.”
However, the musicians did not make a living from
their music, almost all of them had to assume the “double

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job”; They practiced many trades: carpenters, cigar makers,
bricklayers, painters, bakers, shoemakers, barbers, cane
cutters, stevedores. In their free time they played for free
to have fun or to make some money. That was the way that
black people had to look for a place under the sun, to affirm
and gratify themselves in the face of the tragedy of slavery
or contempt. Perhaps they knew very well that those who
take the helm of music, take control of joy, that is, of the
world.
Miguel Matamoros had countless jobs, like Ignacio
Piñeiro, Graciano Gómez was a cigar maker, Sindo Garay
was a circus performer, Joseíto Fernández did everything,
Rafael Lay was a dental mechanic, Pepe Olmo was a
carpenter, Roberto Faz was a driver and bartender, José
Dolores Quiñones and César Portillo de la Luz were house
painters, Compay Segundo was a cigar maker, Senén
Suárez worked as a winemaker and, he tells me, that many
times they played simply for a bunch of bananas; Barroso,
Miguelito Valdés and many other singers were boxers;
Antonio Machín, bricklayer; Juana Bacallao and Freddy were
floor cleaners (maids); Polo Montañés, charcoal burner,
milker and cane cutter; Benny Moré was a stevedore, food
seller and traveling musician. Many died of hunger or sick
without care, like Manuel Corona: “Help me, I'm sick,” he
died abandoned in a small room on Marianao Beach. In the
tribute to the troubadour Alberto Villalón, he expressed:
“...because I also like Manuel
Corona, I knew the pain of loneliness and isolation, and that

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is why I am overwhelmed by the pain of thinking how he
died, abandoned and sad, in a dark pigsty on Marianao
Beach.”
Corona died on January 9, 1950, suffering from
tuberculosis, in a room provided by the owner of the
Jaruquito bar. In Bohemia magazine, in January 1958,
journalist Guillermo Villarronda announced: “María Teresa
Vera, the queen of the old guard, can die of hunger.” At
that time the troubadour lived waiting for death in a small
room in Marianao. “We were a very poor family, starving,”
Sindo Garay tells his biographer Carmela León.
Popular musicians were the most humble in the world, they
played handmade, very rustic, low-cost instruments. Made,
many times, by themselves, who became ingenious luthiers.
They used any type of instruments: waste materials: candle
or cod boxes, güiros, maracas, horse jaws, car tires, work
irons. The groups of cigar makers, while they worked, sang
a cappella.

BOHEMIANS
Bohemian life is not only the domain of troubadours,
musicians have lived part of their lives breaking their bones
on the road, as Leonardo Acosta says. A traveling music,
made by guys who lived on the roads and spent the night in
seedy inns, like Benny Moré who lived in the inn on Paula
No. 111 (the street where José Martí was born), a place that
breaks the soul. We hope that one day at least a plaque will
be placed there. Today when I look at the house my heart

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trembles. Benny was the king of nightlife, wanderer,
wanderer of roads. He knew where he was going, but not
how far he would go.
Sindo Garay, with a juma (drunkenness), in 1903, went to
bed on the steamship Avilés and appeared in Havana.
Compay Segundo crossed from Alto Cedro, /to Marcané/,
looking for sanacaburia (food), yam with cod, and rum –
food of troubadours.
Benny Moré, in the capital he played in the bars of the port,
after his performance he would take out a can of bitumen
(fleteaba), passing the “brush”.
A musician named Juan Portela says that “the dances were
offered with lanterns placed on the walls and, sometimes,
hanging from the rafters.” “We went on horseback, on foot,
in a cart and when there was a fotingo, in a fotingo. Never
less than 16 danzones were played per dance. We ended up
very tired and we were paid poorly. But since music wasn't
enough to live on, you had to take what they gave you. At
the dances, sometimes ugly incidents occurred. In the
1920s, at midnight a drunk rural guard wanted to shoot at
the pailas because he didn't want them to continue playing.
These heavinesses occurred all the time. Incidents of sashes
and other problems occurred at those dances. But in none
of them did anyone put horses into the room and start firing
shots to break it up, as was done in other places.” 7

REMUNERATION
Musicians were very deceived by people, institutions,

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promoters and gangsters. The poor pay was called “yerba”,
a word widely used by María Teresa Vera in the biography of
Jorge Calderón. The director of the Aragón orchestra, Rafael
Lay, explained that “the gangsters were gentlemen who had
a name among the dancers, and the courage to hire
orchestras with their chests. He asked a garrotero for
money, he deposited the advance payment to those who
demanded it. “If the dance was good, he paid, and if not,
look, you couldn't kill him...! We avoided that. If at twelve
o'clock at night he did not appear with forty percent, we
would tell him: “Well, Aragón already got you for the
advance payment. Then they went out to look for the
money for us to continue... they were businessmen, not
musicians... On the other hand, there is a false belief that
musicians are idiots. It is true that many fell into the
bohemian life; But most of them died because they had to
play like crazy people and they ate very poorly. Do you
know what it's like to be playing all night, until four in the
morning, and leave with twenty-five cents?... No one can
resist that! Listening to air if you played an air instrument,
and if it was the keyboard, the exercise with your arms or
shoulder blades is tremendous... and without thinking!,
because in the old dance academies, where people worked
from Tuesday to Sunday, There was no “I'm going to smoke
a cigarette” thing. There one piece ended and the other
began, because the more pieces there were, the greater the
profit. Each one was charged three cents for women and
two for musicians. To get twenty-five or thirty cents, every

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time the employee punched out the last ticket for a
customer, he would whistle and that number would end
right there and the other would begin. On top of the bad
night, the bad diet; That's why musicians died from their
lungs. That was the worst disease that existed in this
country in the 1930s, besides typhus.” 8
The salary of musicians, members of musical groups,
in dance activities was earned in accordance with what was
established in the contract, unlike payment in cabaret and
dance academies, which was subject to a pre-established
rate. Hiring was carried out through the union, which
legalized the contract after agreeing on the price. An
advance payment was required, but the directors always
observed the established rate and the union had to
intervene.
The director received double what he earned. The
musicians were paid according to the complexity of the
parts and the instrument played. Piano, violin, flute (first
parts earned more), second violin, double bass and singer
(2nd). Percussionist (3rd)
In the 1940s, the charge was 2 pesos a day for shows,
cabaret, cafes, and first class concerts, and 1.50 for second
class concerts. We collected this data from Alicia Valdés'
book, The Musician in Cuba.

PERSONALITY
Musicologist Alicia Valdés Cantero, in a research she
conducted on “The musician in Cuba,” does not agree with

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the pigeonholed image that exists of the musician as
“bohemian, who likes drinks and women.” Alicia places the
musician as just another worker, a fighter for his labor
rights, a fighter against conflicts in his society.
In reality, within the musicians there are dissimilar
facets, in all parts they cook beans, says the phrase. There
is everything in the vineyard of the Lord. There were singers
like Daniel Santos who was made in Cuba under a mantle of
legend, addictions and a licentious life. Fernando Collazo, so
controversial that at this point it is not known if he
committed suicide or was murdered. And at that same time
and line of work, his own substitute Barbarito Diez was
abstemious, blameless, pristine. In the filin was José
Antonio Méndez, a man of alcoholic culture, and as
counterpart Portillo de la Luz, who never drinks alcoholic
beverages. From Puerto Rico (Cuban citizen), there was Rita
Montaner, totally disrespectful to many colleagues, and
Rosita Fornés, respectful, decent, incapable of hurting
anyone. There is everything in music.
There is a group of popular and famous musicians who,
after trying them, disappoint. An unusual book by Alcides
Greca, “Profile of a Man”, dedicates a chapter to stupidity in
illustrious men:
“Rare have been the men who won favor with personal
treatment. Only some seasoned politicians, who pay
attention to detail and make courtesy a school of seduction,
usually come out well. When the merit is true – due to their
own merit and not due to chance of circumstances – they

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are usually affable and courteous. The illustrious, on the
other hand, are dull and stuffy. The illustrious man conquers
his rank thanks to the trumpeting of fame. They live under
the siege or constant request of their admirers, who listen
to the incessant shouting of their name, little by little they
get the idea that they are “an extraordinary being” that
they constitute “something” very important in the world.
Then a second personality begins to form. He becomes
egocentric, selfish to the point of being dehumanized. Spied
on even his smallest gestures, knowing that his attitudes
and ideas have great repercussions, he becomes cautious.
He adopts poses and transforms into a “flirt.” Silliness and
stupidity fly, like fluff, around illustrious men. Incense
disfigures their vision of the world in which they operate.
They become conjurers, mannequins, they are exhibited at
the vanity fair, they only live for the outside; They become
strangers to their own people. They only seek the increase
of “glory”. The desire to “make the most” of obtaining
advantages makes them elusive and distrustful. Much of
this is due to the self-interested flattery of those around him
who vainly deify him. Also to the lack of foundation of their
prestige.” 9
Artists are not saints, “the orishas were not saints
either,” as Raúl Martínez says.
"Show me an idol and you will show me a tragedy"
(Scott Fidgerald, film The Heir)

In the prologue of the book “The faces of salsa”, by

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Leonardo Padura, LPF Mantilla writes: “Benny lavished
himself at the Ali Bar, like Maelo or Arsenio or like so many
true idols, he never knew – or wanted – to be a star. His
hands always smelled of earth and, perhaps, that was why
his greatness was unbreakable and his idolatry sustained,
irreversible. Glamor barely touched these essential artists
and that uncontamination saved them for mythology. A rare
conscience alerted them to what their place was and what
their destiny was, and they settled for singing and playing,
wherever, until the end. "They knew that was what they
were born for, and that certainty was more than enough." 8
On a tour of Varadero and tourist centers, Gabriel
García Márquez revealed to a senior Cuban leader that “the
musicians were the best thing I thought about the tour.”
ALL STARS OF CUBAN MUSICIAN FAME Ernesto
Lecuona, king of piano and classical melodicism; Xavier
Cugat and Justo Don Aspiazu, kings of ballroom music;
Antonio María Romeo, king of danzonero piano solos,
initiator of charanga; José Antonio Díaz, Antonio Arcano,
José Fajardo, Joseíto Valdés, Richard Egües, kings of the
charanguera flute; Jesús Valdés, “Lilí” Martínez, Peruchín,
Rubén González, the Rubalcaba family. From the salsa
generation: Emilio Morales, Miguelito Núñez, Leonel
Morales, Rolando Luna, Manolito Simonet, Lázaro Valdés
(father and son), Pachy Naranjo, Iván Melón, Tony Pérez
(Isaac Delgado), Miguel Ángel de Armas (Pan con salsa) and
Peruchín –nephew–, from NG La Banda, El Chaka and Luís
Bu, from the Manolín Band. Javier Gutiérrez “Caramelo”,

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Juan Carlos González, from Charanga Habanera, kings of
the piano, with an off-beat, asymmetrical bow; Félix
Chapottín, “Guajiro” Mirabal, Arturo Sandoval, Elpidio
Chapottín, Jorge Varona, José Miguel Crego “El Greco”,
kings of the trumpet; Richard Egües, José Fajardo, José
Antonio Díaz, Melquiades Fundora, Joaquín Oliveros,
Panchito del Abad, Belisario López, Joseíto Valdés, Rolando
Lozano, Alberto Cruz “Pancho el Bravo”, Paquito D' Rivera,
Carlos Averhoff, Germán Velasco, kings of sax; José Luís
Cortés, Paquito D´ Rivera, Orlando Valle “Maracas”, Orlando
Canto, Joaquín Oliveros, contemporary flutists; Juan Pablo
Torres. Senior trombonist; Gerardo Piloto, “El Jimmy” from
NG La Banda, Calixto Oviedo, José Luís Quintana
“Changuito”, Blas Egües, Samuel Formell, drummers; Israel
López “Cachao”, Carlos del Puerto, Juan Formell, Feliciano
Arango, Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez, Paseiro, Rivera, Arnaldo,
Mora, Alain Pérez, kings of bass; Mario Bauza, Frank Grillo
“Machito”, Chico O' Farrill, Armando Romeu, Paquito D'
Rivera, Chucho Valdés, Gonzalito Rubalcaba, Horacio
Hernández “el Negro”, kings of Latin-Afro-Cuban jazz; Israel
López “Cachao”, “Niño” Rivera, Frank Emilio, Bebo Valdés,
Peruchín, Chombo Silva, Gustavo Mas, “Tata” Güines,
Changuito, Francisco Fellove, Marcelino Valdés, Walfredo de
los Reyes, Guillermo Barreto, Amadito Valdés, Julio
Gutiérrez, Dandy Crawford Julio Cueva, Moisés Simona,
kings of the download; Arsenio Rodríguez, king of the devil
and the sets; Ignacio Piñeiro, poet of son and salsa; Enrique
Jorrín (king of cha cha chá); Pérez Prado (mambo king);

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Chano Pozo, Guillermo Barreto, “Tata” Güines, José Luís
Quintana “Changuito”, Miguel Díaz “Angá”, Yulo, Enrique
Plá, Amadito Valdés, Walfredo de los Reyes, Blas Egües,
Jorge Alfonso “el Niño”; “Palito”, and the “Chori”, from
Marianao Beach, Patato Valdés, “El Colorao”, Manengue, the
Efi Abakuá kende Bariba, Antonio Valdés Domínguez,
Agapito Bachá, The Abreu brothers (Los Papines). Juan
Claro “Clarito”. Lawyer; Montero, from Melodías del 40,
Orestes Vilató, Daniel Pérez, “El Wikly”, Pedro Izquierdo,
from
Mozambique, Elio Revé; “Omoalañé”, kings of percussion;
Julio Valdés, Fernando Ortiz, along with all the rumberos
and folklorists, kings of Afro-Cubanism; Aída Diestro, Isolina
Carrillo, Facundo Rivero, Niurka González, Efraín Amador,
Carlitos Alfonso (Synthesis), X Alfonso, Ele Valdés, Juan
Carlos Alfonso, Mongo Santamaría, Consejo Valiente
“Acerina”, Brindis de Salas, José White, Carlos Borbolla with
its organs, Manuel Barruecos, Isolina Carrillo, Lucía Huergo,
Rey Montesinos, Unises Hernández, Huberal Herrera,
Leonardo Acosta, Vicente González-Rubiera “Guyún”, Félix
Guerrero, Frank Emilio, Edesio Alejandro, Paquito D´Rivera,
Enrique Plá, Carlos Averhoff, Pérez Pérez, Manuel Pérez,
Pedro Izquierdo “El Pello”, Jesús Ortega, Julián Orbón, Isaac
Nicola, Clara Nicola, Juanito Márquez, Guido López Gavilán,
Argeliers León, Manolito Simonet, Emiliano Salvador, Niño
Rivera, Carlos Faxas, Orlando de la Rosa, “Meme” Solís,
kings of the quartets; Juan Formell, king of songo and
salsa; José Luís Cortés, king of the barrios, the timba and

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the modern montunos; Revé, king of modern changüí;
David Calzado, Germán Velasco, Rolando Luna, El Guajiro
Mirabal, Alfredito Rodríguez (son), Harold López-Nussa,
Ernán López-Nussa, Lazarito Valdés (father and son), José
Manuel Ceruto, Feliciano Arango, Miguelito Pan con salsa,
Manolito Simonet, Isaac Delgado, Paulo FG, Manolín, Pedrito
Calvo, Mayito Rivera, Robertón, Valentín, José Luís Cortes,
Juan Formell, Chucho Valdés, Adalberto Álvarez, Cándido
Fabré, “Pachy” Naranjo,
Armando Gola with the group Colé Colé, Moisés Valle
“Yumurí”, his brother Orlando “Maracas”; Carlos Manuel and
his Clan, Dayron and the Boom, Arnaldo, the “Mulato
accelerationo” and his Talisman, Mikel Blanco and his Banda
Salsa Mayor, kings of salsa, timba or dance music. Many of
these musicians remain for another book in the Stars of
Cuban Music series.
Music put Cuba on the world map, we are the country
with the most musicians per capita on the entire planet;
Emerging from total poverty, they won over the world's
listeners, according to Alejo Carpentier.
GRADES:

1-Luciano Pérez de Acevedo, Voyages in America, in

Gustavo Eguren, La fidelísima Habana, Letras Cubanas,
Havana, 1986, p. 226
2- José Antonio Saco, Memoir on vagrancy on the island of
Cuba.
3- Carpentier, Music in Cuba , People and Education, 1989,

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Havana, Cuba, 1961, pp. 124-125
4- Jesús Blanco, 80 years of the son and the soneros of the
Caribbean, Fondo Editorial, Tropykos, Caracas, Venezuela,
1992 5- Rogelio Martínez Furé, Imaginary Dialogues, Art
and Literature, Havana, 1979, p. 185
6- Nicolás Guillén, The Bearded Caimán s/f
7- Samuel Feijóo, Signos Magazine, May-Dec., 1975, p. 227
8-Erena Hernández, Una orchestra de Maltina, (Interview
with Rafael Lay), Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1986, pp. 123-
124
9-Alcides Greca, Around man, Ed. Losada, Buenos Aires, p.
47
Alicia Valdés, The musician in Cuba, People and
Education, 1988, pp. 44-49

III- THE KINGS OF PERCUSSION

Cuba is a powerhouse of percussion. In Havana, the

Guillermo Barreto In Memoriam Drum Festival is celebrated
from March 8 to 13, 2011, which is now reaching its 10th
anniversary. Cuba is a powerhouse of the drum, true kings
of percussion are created in the country; From their
beginnings they emerged from the slave barracks, the
bateyes, the palenques, councils, neighborhoods, lots,
carnivals and popular festivals.
They are very famous in Cuba and abroad: Chano
Pozo, Tata Güines, Walfredo de los Reyes, Guillermo
Barreto, Blasito Egües, Emilito del Monte, Amadito Valdés,

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“Patato” Valdés, Mongo Santamaría, “Chocolate”, Armando
Peraza, Candito Camero, the dynasty of Oscar Valdés,
“Papá” Kila, Enrique Plá, Miguel Angá and the myth of El
Chori, who on Marianao Beach made sounds out of water
bottles and put on a true show that fascinated Marlon
Brando in his visit to the Choricera cabaret.

There are institutions that have generated percussion

stars: Los Muñequitos de Matanzas (1952), the best rumba
ensemble in Cuba. In 1959 Los Papines Luis, Alfredo, Jesús
and Ricardo, the Abreu brothers. The National Folkloric
Ensemble of Cuba (1962), the rumba groups Yoruba
Andabo (1985) , Clave and Guaguancó and a long list of
current groups .
Chano Pozo is the great myth of Cuban percussion, in
Havana he becomes a very famous percussionist in
Tropicana, along with Rita Montaner and Bola de Nieve. At
the carnivals he shone with Los Dandy de Belén . Since
1947, he triumphed in New York, together with Dizzy
Gillespie he made time at Carnegie Hall and other glittering
stages. He made contributions to Latin jazz (Cuban), leaving
behind emblematic works such as Nague, Blen, blen, blen,
Pin, pon, pan and Manteca (with Dizzy Gillespie).
Walfredo de los Reyes, to whom everyone takes their
hats off, according to Changuito, was the first drummer in
the world who played the drums and the tumbadora at the
same time. Walfredo's son has an extensive professional
history with great figures of international music: Sergio

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Méndez, Tania María, Santana, Fischer, etc.
Guillermo Barreto is considered by Changuito as “one
of the greatest drummers in Cuba, as a drummer, timbalero
and cajista. Together with Walfredo de los Reyes he played
an important role in the Havana Downloads of the fifties.
Tata Güines has a history of more than half a century
of professional work in the best orchestras and most
prestigious halls and theaters in the world. He worked in
dozens of emblematic groups and artists. He created a style
of playing, with a spectacular sound.
In the Latin Jazz (Afro-Cuban) conceived and
developed in the United States, we must mention stars such
as Armando Peraza, Mongo Santamaría, Francisco
Aguabella. These percussionists swept the American nation
in the 1950s, at the time of cupob and afro-cubop . He
recorded the first Afro-Cuban folk album abroad.
“When we hear them play together, the walls sweat.
For me the congas are his voice and that fascinates me”
(Carlos Santana)
Armando Peraza started in Kubavana, arrived in San
Francisco in 1949, formed the group Afro-Cubans. At the
New York World's Fair, a Nigerian asked him: What part of
Africa are you from?
Candito Camero: He began to play professionally, in
Cuba at the age of 14, he played the drum on the congas on
the hill. In 1952, he arrived in New York, where he worked
with the star Dizzy Gillespie.
Mongo Santamaría: He was born in the Jesús María

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neighborhood, Africa was very close to him, his grandfather
was from the Congo. I work with Chano Pozo and Miguelito
Valdés. In 1963 he settled in New York with a group, they
classified what he did with percussion as crazy. He played in
the best nightclubs in the US and left a deep mark on the
musicians. In 1955 Mongo recorded Changó for the Tico
label, the first Afro-Cuban folk album recorded abroad by a
Cuban .
Carlos “Patato” Valdés: He learned to play rumba in
Havana neighborhoods, he danced and played various
rhythms. He was characterized by “marking time”, like a
true companion. He was a friend of Mongo Santamaría. He
played at the Zombie Club in Havana for tourists. Within the
Conjunto Casino, he was the creator of the two tumbadoras
in dance music, he tuned the instruments in the low and
high levels, inventing a polythrhythm that made the rhythm
of the Casino something unique, and he contributed the
Afro-Cuban element to a music ensemble. for whites. While
the bongo of “Chicuelo” Guzmán achieved a good sound and
stability in the hammer and the bell. (Helio Orovio)
Francisco Aguabella: An authentic Abakuá who played
in the Los Dandy de Belén troupe. He worked with none
other than the voice, Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas.
Silvestre Méndez: Composer of El telefonito and the
incommensurable Yiri yiri bon, recorded by Benny Moré. It
is said that he was one of the first to play three tumbadoras
at the same time. A musician named Chocolate who lived in
Mexico revealed to me that Silvestre taught Benny in Mexico

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many rumbero steps.
Orlando “Puntillita” Ríos arrived in New York in 1980
and made a very good impression with his percussion work.
From the new wave we remember Horacio “El Negro”
Hernández (1963), he studied with Angá, he played with
Gonzalito Rubalcaba. He is a creator of orchestral colors, he
played in the United Nations Orchestra and the Tropijazz All
Stars.
In 1961, in Santiago de Cuba, the composer Enrique
Bonne organized Los Tambores de Enrique Bonne ,
composed of about 50 instrumentalists, who introduced the
Santiago conga to the shows. The gigantic band, a kind of
record of percussionists, included congas, bocú, catá,
requintos, bells, chekeré, and Chinese cornets.
True unforgettable virtuosos: Papa Kila, bongosero of
Arsenio Rodríguez and the tumbador Félix “Chocolate”
Alfonso. Eliseo Martín “El Colorao” from the Orchestra of
Arcaño y sus Maravillas. Ulpiano Díaz, timpani who
popularized the use of the cowbell in the Arcaño danzón
stage. Juan Claro Bravo “Clarito”, with drummer Daniel
Díaz, made an era with the charanga Ritmo Oriental, by
Enrique Lazaga. Clarito developed the sound in the batá
style on the tumbadora, with a polythrythm called
“guatrapeo”. As Enrique Lazaga, director of La Ritmo
Oriental, explains to me, the “picadillo” was one of the
specialties of Yulo, the “picadillo” consists of a spontaneity
within the “time in the rhythm”; while “guatrapeo” is more
rhythmic than “picadillo”, based on the batá style.

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 In 1963, Pedro Izquierdo “Pello el Afrokán” surprised
Cuba with the Mozambican rhythm that caused a sensation
in the 1960s. Pello was a true spectacle, surrounded by his
dancers, he placed five tumbadoras that made them sound
as if they were a piano, his grandson Omar Izquierdo told
me.

Cuban salsa and timba boom

In the 1990s, young percussionists who are today
established shined in the Cuban salsa and timba boom:
In Los Van Van: Raúl Cárdenas Goiburo “El Yulo”,
initiator of the Orchestra on the instrument of the
tumbadora. He was then followed by: José Nogueras Jordán
(Wikly) and Joel Drick who also plays the paila. In the
drums of Los Van Van, the real initiator was Blasito Egües,
due to administrative problems, they did not let him leave
the Orchestra of the Caribe cabaret of Habana Libre, where
Juan Formell was. Both El Yulo, Wikly and Joel Drick later
moved to NG La Banda, starting in 1988. Giraldo Piloto also
started in NG, born in 1962, current president of the
Organizing Committee of the Drum Fair, Guillermo Barreto
In Memoriam, which began in 2001.
Special mention for “Niño” Jesús Alfonso, tumbador of
the group Irakere, in the 1970s. “El Niño” officially
popularized the simultaneous use of five tumbadoras. It is
said that since 1956 there was already a percussionist who
called him Lázaro Cinco-Tumbadoras.
Pello the Afrokán and Oscar Valdés (son) also

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mastered the five tumbadoras very well. Oscar Valdés has
the merit of leading the percussion within Los Irakere, in
the fusion of the batá within Cuban Latin jazz of the 1970s.
Finally, we must remember the new Chano Pozo,
Miguel Díaz “Angá”, percussionist for Irakere in 1988, with a
vigorous style, exuberant precision and free will, true
successor of “Niño” Alfonso. I remember “Angá”, at the
School of Art Instructors, in 1976, who was the most active
and spontaneous musician that existed in the two National
Art Schools. After graduating he was with the group Opus
13, and after leaving Iraqere, he became independent in
Europe. Roberto Vizcaíno, Yaroldi Abreu (tumbador of the
new Chucho Valdés orchestra) Enrique Plá shone on the
drums of Irakere , who dedicated himself to adapting
certain Afro-Cuban percussive traditions to the drums, in
the domains of Cuban jazz that Iraqere began in 1973 .
Other percussionists of all time: Luis Conte, Nichito
Sánchez, Filiberto Peña (Fajardo y sus Estrellas), Mario
Jaúregui “Aspirina”, Frank Vejerano (ICAIC Group),
Guido Sarría, a star of rhythmic stability (Aragón), Orestes
Varona (star pailero of the fan touch, from Aragón)
Guillermito García Valdés (Aragón), Jesús López
(Rubalcaba), Miguel Santacruz “El Piche”,
The three Esquijarrosa brothers, Rigoberto Saavedra
(Havana Night), Chino Pozo, Perico Hernández (Casino),
Ulpiano Díaz (Fajardo), Pablo Cortés “El Bombi” (NG La
Banda, brother of José Luis Cortés, king of the Havana
neighborhoods) , Tomás Ramón Ortiz “El Panga” (Opus

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13/Paulo FG).
Special mention for the best guirero in Cuba Gustavo
Tamayo, who imposed the cha cha chá rhythm with del
güiro. Francisco Arboláez (güiro from Aragón, creator of the
“aragoneao” touch, in the sound of Aragón), Enrique
Lazaga, director of Ritmo oriental and follower of Gustavo
Tamayo.
There is a very promising young man, Eduardo
Córdova, and percussionist and drum maker from “Siete
Bocas”, who can offer the sound of several drums.
We cannot overlook two percussion superstars who,
although they have Puerto Rican blood, are kings of
percussion and were fed by Cuban music and musicians:
Giovanni Hidalgo, the best tumbador in the world and the
guru of Latin salsa , Tito Puente, who became a musician by
visiting the Cuban nightclubs in Havana, the Club 1900 and
the cabaretuchos on Marianao Beach, where El Chori
played. Many of the spectacular gestures that Tito made
were taken from Chori. In an interview by Mayra A.
Martínez, Barreto reveals that “Tito Puente has been one of
my idols, he came to listen to the Cuban timbaleros, to see
the Chori at Marianao Beach.”
Cuban percussion is one of the greatest attractions of
Cuban music, which offers a thousand-volt electric battery
to the thriving Caribbean rhythms.
The Guillermo Barreto In Memoriam Drum Festival has
been celebrated in Havana since 2001, organized by Giraldo
Piloto, Barreto's nephew. The Timbalaye Festival is also

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celebrated.
(I appreciate the collaboration of Luis Tamargo, Raúl
Fernández, Changuito, Tata Güines, Enrique Lazaga,
Enrique Plá and Giraldo Piloto)

IV- THIS IS CUBAN MUSIC

Cuban music is a separate story in the panorama of world

culture; The musical power of Cuba is proverbial. In the
distant colonial period, long before being located on the
map, Cuban music was already known in many dark corners
of the planet.
In the European world, in some places, music and
culture of the so-called “enlightenment” were billed; born in
aristocratic convents and castles; an art, often lifeless,
without a truth. The Old World went through a long period
of

desiccation – in the words of the French ethnomusicologist

Alain Danielou –, of sterility, of rational logism that tended
to reduce the arts to more or less abstract aesthetic
formulas, but lacking psycho-physiological action. 1

Since the colonization of the Americas by Europeans,

Cuba has conceived a music that, more than a canon of
beauty, allows one to free oneself from the European norms
that have been maintained since ancient times. In the
largest of the Antilles, music is created that is closer to life,
music to be suffered and lived in communion with

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something mysterious. Cuban popular culture is something
else, it is born in the barracks, palenques and slave
councils, in the fields, mountains, bateyes, hamlets,
neighborhoods, lots, in the dust of the streets and
workshops. A music with life, which is constantly fertilized,
with atmosphere, atmosphere, emotional climate.

The culture of the great masses, of the common man,

is the culture of fun, entertainment or recreation. By culture
of fun we mean festivals, carnivals, dances, sports, from
which the most important culture of the towns comes,
where all of us, the townspeople, develop. The Nobel Prize
winner Gabriel García Márquez, a wise man of American
culture, says it like this:

“Deep down we all know what the term culture

encompasses, but we cannot express it in two words. I
think it was Jack Lang, the former French Minister of
Culture, when reflecting on the meaning of that word, who
said that culture is everything: cooking, the way of making
love, of living, and the arts within all of that. . Culture is
everything and it has cultural conditioning. But we must be
careful: the more we expand that concept, the more difficult
it will be to know how culture should be protected.” 2

What we are talking about is what we can call: the

culture of joy , and let it be known that there is nothing
more important in life than joy. The colonizer instilled in us
the idea that Europe is “high culture” (the enlightenment),
the true “universal culture.” Therefore, the arts of America

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had to be “elevated” to universal European high culture.

Isn't the refined Indian, African and Chinese music,

where the first musicians are known to have been born,
high culture? What European can easily play the
complicated music of America and Africa: samba, conga,
rumba and African variants? Any Cuban conservatory
student can play European music (Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven); but it doesn't happen the other way around.
When I ask European musicians, why don't they play Latin
American music?, they answer, "because it is very difficult
to play." So what really is high culture, until when should
we repeat the lie?

Over the years, pedagogues, educators, scientists,

researchers, sociologists, psychologists and musicians have
tried to understand and solve the problem of popular taste.
The way to “elevate the taste of the people.” But they forget
that culture is not a downpour, it is not a bucket of water
that is poured on a person and acquired instantly. Cultural
processes take centuries, it is an ancient saga.

Alejo Carpentier wrote in 1972, “ The Divine Comedy

has no role to play, for now, where there is illiteracy and the
possession of a handful of rice or a crust of bread is the
question that must be resolved today, without delays that
usually cause shameful for the men of our time. There the
equation is not defined in terms of culture, of readings, but
of systems. In Cuba we have already traveled a path like
many peoples in Latin America, but now it remains to be

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seen which path we must follow.” 3

People have their customs, their idiosyncrasies, their

way of life. The nature of man is more important than we
imagine. An important politician once said: “If what we give
to a man is important, what he carries inside is more
important.”

At another time, in 1966, Alejo Carpentier expressed:

“Musical perception is not infused through the means of
dissemination. No adult of our peasants feels transfixed,
struck by Beethoven's grace after a symphony orchestra
has played the Pastoral Symphony in your town or hamlet.
It is your children who, accustomed from childhood to
listening to music (I do not even think about the faculty of
orderly listening), will go alone into the vast and wonderful
world of music. And for this there is no need for any didactic
imposition. There is no need for How to Hear Music books or
those others that try in vain to explain compositional form.”
4

The problem of taste and the procedure to lead man

towards culture is more complicated than we think. The
Brazilian theorist Artur Da Távola states that “The
personality of man, as a whole, is indisputable. Your
consciousness can be described, but your unconscious
cannot be written, it is always unconscious. We have certain
indications and certain ideas about it, but in reality we do
not know it. No one can say where the man ends. This is
where the beauty of the thing lies. The human unconscious

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2
hides who knows what secrets. No one can say where man
ends. So we have to make great discoveries.” 5
However, Alejo Carpentier himself recognizes that, in
the long run, the people know how to decide very well who
they elect. “And who immortalized, disseminated, had
translated, what speaks of great and authentic in an Emil
Zola, discarding what is trivial and despicable? The reading
public and the cinema public have been able to forget the
terrifying dramas, to stay, in the end, with the inexhaustible
great films.” 6

We can still say: Who decided in music which great

musicians stayed: Benny Moré, Barbarito Diez, Abelardo
Barroso, Vicentico Valdés, Celina González, Ernesto
Lecuona, Pérez Prado, Jorrín, Matamoros, Piñeiro, Arsenio,
Arcaño, Formell?

From all this we have to reach a conclusion: It is not

true that the entire public is going to accept everything that
is imposed on it, nor is the public an amorphous element.
The musicologist Leonardo Acosta talks about two trends
that existed in the 1960s: apocalyptic and integrated
mass culture . The apocalyptic current, which included
Leonardo Acosta, denied all authenticity to the popular
music disseminated by the media. “Their basic error – says
Acosta – was to ignore the response capacity of the
receiving public, by conceiving of a strictly passive public.
The sociological studies undertaken in the 1980s
demonstrate that the public (or the people) is never

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3
passive; He always makes his own readings of the
messages and in many cases manages to impose criteria
and tastes, influencing mass production, from fashion to
television programming and, of course, music. People
discriminate between the products of the cultural industry,
choosing and rejecting others in a process that sometimes
takes the industry by surprise.”7

With all these demonstrations and definitions from

specialists, we leave the field open to the readers of this
book so that they can reflect , meditate and draw their
own conclusions, as our friend Reinaldo Taladrid says.

GRADES:

1-Alaín Danielou, “Magic and pop music”, The World of

Music (CIM, UNESCO), vol XII, no. 2, 1970, p. 13

2- Interview with Gabriel García Márquez, appearing in the

magazine El Correo de la UNESCO, February, 1996, pp. 4-6

3-Alejo Carpentier, “Praise and vindication of the book,”

The UNESCO Courier, January, 1972, p. 24

4- Alejo Carpentier, Tientos y differences, UNIÓN, 1974, p.

39

5- Artur Da Tavola.

6- Alejo Carpentier, The UNESCO Courier, January, 1972,

ob cit.

7- Leonardo Acosta, Another vision of Cuban popular

Cuban music, UNIÓN, Havana, 2004, p. 73

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 V- - THE ISLAND OF MUSIC
Cuba is the Island of Music, it surprises the world how
a small island – or archipelago with 1,600 islands and keys
– of only 110,860.63 km2, can have rich, lively and
universal music from very early in history. . The number of
more than 25 successful rhythms that our country has
taken around the world has no equal in the history of the
planet. Huge countries like the United States, Brazil, Mexico,
Venezuela and Argentina have not been able to create so
many winning rhythms for the world.

Before the Spanish colonizers arrived in Cuba, there

was already music, dance and massive social parties. The
indigenous people practiced festivals called: Areíto that
“lasted in dancing and singing from dusk, all night until light
came, and all their dances were to the sound of voices (...)
and there were 500 or 1 000 together, women and men,
they did not move from each other with their feet or their
hands, and with all the movements of their bodies, a hair's
breadth of the beat."1

The Spanish colonizers landed with their guitar, their

romances and their abundant tradition influenced by all of
Europe and the East, since ancient times. All of this merged
with the abundant rhythms of Africa and the reproduction of
drums, percussion instruments and dizzying dance.

The first example of musical resistance of the native

indigenous people is also found in the description of Las
1 Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, “History of the Indies”, Book II, chapter. 20, Economic Culture Fund,
Mexico, 1951.

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Casas. On the second voyage of Admiral Christopher
Columbus, in a fraternizing attempt for the safety of those
who arrived, they brought small drums on their ships. The
native Cubans reacted in a strange way, the surprise factor
produced general confusion and the first incomprehension.
The indigenous people took it as a sign of war, as a
challenge; “They left all the oars and took hold of the bows
and arrows, and each one of them loaded his plank, and
began to shoot a good cloud of arrows at him. Seeing this,
the Admiral ordered the festival of playing and dancing to
cease.2

The first known musical download is found in 1608, in the

“Mirror of Patience”, by Silvestre Balboa, who contemplates
a motet, to the glory of Bishop Fray Juan de las Cabezas
Altamirano, kidnapped by the French pirate Gilberto Girón ,
and rescued by the neighborhood militias, mainly due to the
heroism of a black slave named Salvador Golomón. The
black slave, in a singular duel, knocks down the French
pirate's head with an accurate machete blow. Upon return
of

militias with the Bishop, in the church of Bayamo, after the

popular triumph, a motet is put together – like a download
– with vihuelas, rabeles, panpipes and violins, and there is a
magnificent dance where not only the instruments of Europe
sound but African drums are beaten, maracas and claves
are played, and some Indian instruments – aboriginal,

2 Chronicle of Las Casas, in Gloria Antolitia's book, “Cuba: two centuries of music.” Editora Letras
Cubanas, Havana, Cuba, 1984, pp. 11 and 12.

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therefore – even appear, among which is one called
tipinagua .3

Alejo Carpentier reminds us that in 1557 Havana had no

more musicians than a flamenco Juan de Emberas, who
played the drum when there was a ship in sight. In 1573
the city council commissioned a certain Pedro Castilla to
take out a dance on the occasion of the Corpus Christi
festival, a traditional festival in the towns of Cuba. However,
over the years, Cuba becomes a country where a musician
emerges from every corner, people say that an
instrumentalist emerges from under every stone. The
thousands of musicians that currently exist in the Cuban
nation are countless, close to a million amateurs came
together, there is talk of about twelve thousand professional
musicians, not counting the independent ones, those who
are looking for a new musical group. .

There are many factors that turn Cuba into an Island of

music: the abundant encounter of cultures, African power,
entertainment spaces, the popular and enjoyable
atmosphere of Cubans, the climate of entertainment spaces,
the tropical atmosphere, the joyful life and much honor!

It doesn't matter that I repeat it many times, that Cuba has

an entourage of percussion unique in America and the
Western Hemisphere, with a very abundant sound deposit
and timbral variables. It is a music that is always fertilizing,
it knows how to assimilate all the influences and pass them

3Ibid

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through the popular spirit, in this way, it makes them its
own.

Cuba received the invasion of music from all over Europe,

from Africa, from China (Asia), from the American continent
and all of this merged with the national rhythmic force,
becoming habaneras, criollas, danzones, congas, rumbas,
guarachas, habaneras, criollas , boleros, sones, mambos,
cha cha chá, mozambique, pa'cá, dengue and a long list of
rhythms and musical modes. That is the reason why Alejo
Carpentier considers Cuban music “a living music, a
pulsating folklore, which is nourished by current events;
Like jazz, it is in perpetual evolution. From year to year it
changes, it is enriched, it modifies its instrumentation and
its harmony with useful technical procedures, it perfects the
instruments. It is a folklore that emerges from the
countryside and the cities, a very living tradition.” 4

The three centers of Cuba are located in the areas of black

African slaves: Oriente (Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo,
Bayamo, Holguín, Manzanillo), Matanzas and Havana. In the
eastern zone, son and its variants (changüí, nengón and
kitibá), trova and son emerge. In Matanzas the danzón and
the rumba, the clave and guaguancó choirs on a bridge with
Havana, where the habanera, the guaracha, the mambo,
the cha cha chá, the mozambique are also developed. The
feeling movement, Nueva Trova, salsa and timba.

This is Cuba, the Island of music, the one that engraved in

4 See Alejo Carpentier's chronicle in the UNESCO Courier magazine, Paris, June 1973, pp. 17-18

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stone and put Cuban culture on the world map.

VI- - THE MECCA OF RHYTHMS

“ Rhythm comes from God ” (Longinus)

Cuba is the emporium of rhythms, many come to this
country in search of the authenticity of the music, a place of
pilgrimage, as if they came to Mecca to touch the black
stone of the Kaaba.

Of course, the first musicians in Cuba, after the 15TH CENTURY,

did not create from nothing; The ancient cultures of Europe,

Africa, Asia, America provided the primitive forms. Like
Greek music, in Cuba many timbres and instruments were
imported or reproduced. Even so, what the Greeks and
Cubans managed to do with this music has no example, and
is something exclusively created by them. The peculiarity
lies rather in musical ingenuity, in the cultivation of music. 5

It is known that Cuban music penetrated Europe through

Spain since the 17TH CENTURY. Hispanics are beginning to
complain about the rise of what they call “demonized
zarabandas coming from the Indies.” Those zarabandas
were, simply, like some Cuban, mestizo, amulated dances.
And with the diabolical sarabandes came a chaconne, no
less shaken. Musicologist Alejo Carpentier considers those
happy dances to be “pretty pop music” for the time (today
he would call it salsa or timba ). The zarabanda was so
lascivious in its lyrics, so impudent in its movements, that it
was enough to inflame the spirits of the people, even the

5 See Curt Sachs, “Music in Antiquity”, Editora Labor, Barcelona, Spain, 1934, p. 70.

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most honest.6

Some time later, Carpentier tells us that in 1776 a fleet

from Europe, which had made a long stopover in Havana,
took some mestizo emigrants to Veracruz who brought tons
of music with a dance called chuchumbé, which immediately
obtained a great stir, an extraordinary diffusion success.
The thuggish people of the maritime city began to dance,
with the greatest joy, the friendly Antillean novelty.
Couplets full of licentious intentions, with a lot of malice,
like the guarachitas from later in the 19TH CENTURY.

But the Cuban nature of music, the formation of rhythms in

the mid -NINETEENTH century was still very relative. After the
arrival of the Spanish colonizers and the African slaves, we
had to wait a few centuries. The first stage was due more to
inflections, to modalities of interpretation, to superficial
malice, than to a graphic issue. Alejo Carpentier assures
that there was no creation of new rhythms until after 1850.
That is a similar process throughout the American
continent: tango, samba, merengue, Mexican dance, jazz,
are rhythms that took shape on that same date in the mid-
19TH CENTURY. “Thanks to this – writes Carpentier – certain
current genres, very characterized and living, can always be
related to an original cell, first blurred, then modified and,
finally, replaced in the course of an evolution, which can be
followed, step by step , for more than a century and a
half.”7
6 Ramón Chao, “Words in time”, by Alejo Carpentier, Editora Arte y Literatura, Havana, Cuba, 1985,
p.131.
7 Alejo Carpentier, “Music in Cuba.” Editora Pueblo y Educación, Havana, Cuba, 1988, p.27.

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 The musical avant-garde in America is led by Cuba, with a
more abundant and complex interweaving of rhythms and a
profusion of dissonant harmonies. And, precisely, to the
direct influence of Afro-Cuban music, says Fernando

Ortiz: “And all that sprang from the folklore of the Cuban
people and their amorous genius.”8

VII- UNDERSTAND CUBAN MUSIC

All those who were born in Cuba have the duty to know
their national music, that is, their own culture. However, not
everyone understands their own culture, knowing is not
understanding. The first thing in life is to know yourself,
“Know thyself,” says an old phrase from ancient Greece.

Cuban music, since the arrival of the colonizers in the 15TH

CENTURY, has been plagued by misunderstandings; especially

after the arrival of the black African slaves, who reproduced
music totally opposite to the music of European traditions.

The music of European concert traditions has a sense of

structural complexity and sound traditions with multiple
historical roots, linked to concert traditions.9

Certainly, the music of European traditions, according to

Alejo Carpentier, “has a logical, continuous development,
adjusted to its own organicity, presenting itself as a
succession of techniques, trends, schools, illustrated by the
presence of leading creators. In more than ten centuries of

8 Fernando Ortiz, “Ethnological studies.” Editora Ciencias Sociales, Havana, Cuba, 1991, see prologue by
Isaac Barreal (XXVII).
9 Leo Brouwer, “Music, Cubanness and innovation.” Editora Letras Cubanas, Havana, Cuba, 1989, p.10.

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European music there are no mysteries, no accidents... On
the contrary, when we face Latin American music, we find
that it does not develop based on the same values and
cultural facts, obeying phenomena, contributions, impulses,
due to growth factors, emotional drives, racial strata, grafts
and transplants, which are unusual, for those who intend to
apply certain methods to the analysis of an art governed by
a constant replay of confrontations between what is one's
own and what is foreign, what is native and what is
imported.10

As we can see, music comes from castles, convents, from a

school and academic heritage, while the work has its roots
in oral tradition, from word of mouth, from generation to
generation. Let us not be surprised, for a long time, in
various towns, music was transmitted through oral tradition.
In Cuba, the majority of instrumentalists and singers were
empirical.

The Cuban musicologist Olavo Alén states that:

“currently most of the music that is transmitted is orally or
through non-academic learning, and that it lacks writing for
its preservation. The transmission from generation to
generation of the songs of Tumba Francesa is orally,
although some composés (singer-creator-poet) write their
songs in notebooks so that they do not forget, but what is
written down in the notebook is only the text of the song,
the melody is retained in memory and is learned by other

10 Alejo Carpentier, “That musician inside me.” Editora Letras Cubanas, Havana, Cuba, 1980, t.3, p. 325-
326.

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interested composers , by trying to repeat it after having
heard it during a party, or by asking the creator to teach it
to them and singing it several times.11

Cuban music is born in the land, the countryside, the

mountains, the bateyes, neighborhoods, lots of “bad life”
(always related to life), there can be no greater substance
of a town. A music of ambiance, of atmosphere, of
emotional and sentimental climate; a music, rich, lively and
universal.

The European colonizers flatly rejected the music of the

colonized. (Coincidentally all colonizing music ends up
fascinated by the colonized, the most reliable example is
that of Greece on ancient Rome). The reason for the
rejection comes from colonizing Eurocentrism , from
believing that Europe is the center of the world and the
others: Asia, Africa and Latin America is the art of the
“savages”, of the “primitives”. The contempt, the
persecution, and the censorship imposed on the music of
African traditions is one of the most shameful chapters of
the era of slavery. Almost all the most important rhythms of
Cuba, and of America, suffered the contempt of the
aristocratic classes: the danzón, the son, the rumba, the
conga, the mambo, the guaracha, the bolero, as we see in
the history of each rhythm. national. A thick undergrowth of
prejudices has persecuted the music of the Latin American
people.

11 Olavo Alén, “Musicology in Latin America.” Editora Arte y Literatura, Havana, Cuba, 1984, p. 394 and
395.

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From Fernando Ortiz to Alejo Carpentier and Leonardo
Acosta they have made it known: “There is still no
nationalist consciousness in Cuba – words of Edgardo Martín
published in 1950 by Fernando Ortiz – that we need to take
the great step forward that our culture and our all life
needs... The music of Cuban composers encounters
resistance from some people; They are not convinced –
because they do not want to – that music as good as the
best can be produced in Cuba, and that, in fact, there is.
Their mentality is uprooted from the country, or their social
personality. Their prejudices force them into an intellectual
game, in which Cuban music never fares well. But Cuban
music will occupy its rightful place; and the Cuban people
will be with her, because it will be their own glorification. If
the great Dvorak said long ago that “the future of American
music must be sought in the so-called black melodies and
rhythms of African origin,” shouldn't we have to think in an
analogous way regarding Cuba?”12
Alejo Carpentier, twenty years earlier, in 1929, had to face
the persecutors of culture: “Let's defend our culture against
its detractors! Let's love the son, let's take care of our
guajira, arrabalera and Afro-Cuban tambourine, the güiro,
the décima, the lithography of cigar boxes, the holy touch,
the picturesque proclamation, the mulata with her gold
rings, the light flip flop of the rumbero, the neighborhood,
the sweet potato and the joy of coconut! “Blessed be the
lineage of Papa Montero and María la O! “When you see

12 Fernando Ortiz, “Africania of Cuban folk music.” Havana, Cuba, 1965, p. 143-144.

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things from abroad, you understand more than ever the
value of this popular treasure!”13

The history of American music has gone through the

contempt of the ruling classes, pseudo-intellectuals and
detractors of all kinds. Ambrosio Fornet publishes that
“Afro-Cuban folklore was rejected as something for blacks,
an element foreign to the nationality that took us back to a
barbaric prehistory.” Israel Castellanos writes “The music of
blacks…has been judged, even by the least severe critics, as
more noisy than beautiful: most of their instruments tend to
make noise and not produce pleasant sounds.” Roig de
Leuchsering publishes these words: “And dedicated to
dancing…even in times like these, of more acute political
and social crises, Cubans seem to try to exhaust themselves
physically and morally with dancing and playing, in a
suicidal fit of madness. collective, to anesthetize their evils,
difficulties and misfortunes.” Alejo Carpentier: “The
movement initiated by some composers in favor of Afro-
Cuban music provoked a violent reaction from the
adversaries of blackness. The Afro-Cuban was then opposed
by the Guajiro, as a representative of a white, nobler, more
melodic, cleaner music.” Cristóbal Díaz Ayala: "None of our
creative artists, born and cultivated in our soil, ever liked to
dip brushes, in a determined way, in the African range...Not
the most wise of our teachers, Ignacio Cervantes." Roche
Monteagudo: “The dances titled El papalote and El Bamboo
13 Alejo Carpentier . Carteles Magazine, Havana, Cuba, July 12, 1931.

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are prohibited, as well as everything that is not known by
its title, and that due to its rhythm, gestures, and
indecorous costumes, are obscene or may be considered to
violate the provisions of the particular; "The official on duty
must report to the Chief of Police what he notices regarding
the matter." Leonardo Acosta: “In the Atenas Club it
reached the point of absurdity that the orchestras were
forced by the “Commission of Order” to play waltzes, fox-
trots, danzones or boleros, and they were strictly prohibited
from performing rumbas, sones, mambos. Meanwhile, the
whites of “good society” developed by dancing to the music
of the blacks, and tradition demanded to end the party with
a street conga.”
And a curious thing María Teresa Linares tells us: “Then
Machado, the president, invited groups of men to some
mineral water gardens in San Francisco de Paula, and then
he took his friends, his mistresses, and his women of the
world there. , and his political friends, to dance the son. And
the Mendozas, Paul Mendoza and the bankers and the very
rich people of the aristocracy went to places like that.” (See
Robin Moore's book, nationalizing Blanquees, University
of Pittsburg, USA, 1997, p. 243 (notes)

The lack of knowledge of Cuban music starts from very far

away in the colony, Aurelio Pérez Zamora, in 1866, from
The Spanish Abolitionist, Madrid, writes about Three Kings
Day: “Innumerable groups of African black troupes walk
through all the streets of the capital : The mob is immense,
its appearance is horrifying. The noise made by drums,
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6
horns and whistles stuns the ears of passers-by
everywhere. Hundreds of shrill voices, some hoarse and all
wild, respond to an Ethiopian choir, forming a diabolical
concert that is difficult to describe.”14

Music of African origin has another “mechanics”, as those

of us who dedicate ourselves to this art say now. The noise,
the repetition, the quadrature, the African syncopation is
distinguished from music of European origin. The expressive
meaning of the drums is much more extensive and
complicated. For the European, whose ear and thought have
no special training, the rhythm of a drum only expresses the
repetition of the same note at different intervals of time;
For the native of Africa, or heir to that culture, it expresses
much more, because for the black the drum can and does
“speak,” its sounds form words and the development of a
rhythm is a phrase. Black people have a drum language,
through which news is transmitted over enormous
distances. Even in Cuba, slaves used them in the mid -19TH

CENTURY, when the restless resources of the sugar mills and

coffee plantations communicated over great distances with
each other, so much so that the authorities had to prohibit
these touches.

Black music imposes itself not only on the ear, but on all of
man's faculties, on all of his possibilities of understanding,
through sounds that are in harmony, or in unison, with a
conception of the world and the beyond.

14 Fernando Ortiz, The councils and the Afro-Cuban celebration of Three Kings' Day, Ed. Social Sciences,
Havana, Cuba, 1992, p. 33 .

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It is cyclical music, since it symbolizes the cycle of human
life itself. And because it is cyclical, it must be understood
that its matter consists of microcycles, a kind of sound
atoms, which are released everywhere in those extremely
short musical phrases, always equal to themselves, that the
musician hums or plays incessantly, which disappoints and ,
sometimes despairs the European, who comes to the
conclusion that it is monotonous music.

This apparent monotony is part of a complex cycle, whose

elements live intensely in the flesh, blood, brain and heart
of the black man. Some contemporary musicians,
particularly those dedicated to light music, are increasingly
inspired by the supposed monotony of black African music,
to compose works whose originality attracts attention as
soon as they are heard. Jazz, pop, rock, beat, samba,
merengue, salsa and timba make abundant use of this
African particularity. Short phrases that are always repeated
have earned these musicians not only the success that we
all know, but also the possibility of their themes and
phrases becoming embedded in the memories of many
listeners.

But we will also be surprised that so-called Western

European classical music, which seems determined to avoid
this monotony, has done everything possible to avoid it,
particularly through subterfuges such as fugue. The
Cameroonian musicologist Francis Bebey demonstrates
that: “in fact, in its elemental form the art of the fugue

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consists of the repetition, at different levels of the scale, of
a generally short phrase, the various superimpositions of
which give the impression of a renewal. However, when
listening to Juan Sebastian Bach we find ourselves in the
presence of a phenomenon comparable to that presented by
certain black music from Africa, with the only difference that
in these phrases it is not about superimposing itself, but
rather various extremely varied rhythms. a given phrase,
which is repeated endlessly.”15

In black music, the variety and complexity of rhythms is

astonishing. In the decorative drawing of primitive man, we
find a complex rhythmic structure that has not been
equaled by the popular art of our days. This complexity is so
great that the most excellent virtuoso feels inhibited in his
attempts to imitate it. Blacks have reached an
unsurpassable mastery of rhythmic possibilities. Rhythm is
the vital force of music, as indispensable as melody.

There are no drums that exhaust the entire repertoire of

their plays at a party. The simple touch of the oru de batá in
the tabernacle can last a couple of hours. Black is a living
praise of syncopation ; It is laughter in music, producing
fine sugar and cinnamon. It was, really, in America that the
blacks developed and systematized it, making it pass
through the percussion accompaniment to the body of the
melody. It is frequent in black-American melodies, but very
rare in black African ones.

15 Francis Bebey, UNESCO Courier Magazine, Paris

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In this entire process, apparently, black breaks with
squareness, because the traditional expression of the
rhythmic mode produced demands it. European music has a
perfectly predetermined range of sounds, and its art is
based on the exact tuning of voices and instruments; Any
“out of tone” of a voice produces an unpleasant effect and
signs of disapproval in the audience of academic listeners.
But the same does not happen, with the same demand, in
African music, voices, instruments and ears. The musical
scales for black Africans are various, with relative intervals
and insecure steps like the “string scale.” They are the
primitive sound scales, made only with the “vocal cords” of
the human throat, flexible and mobile, where the tonalities
are not naturally prefixed, nor do they stabilize. 16

As we see, music of African origin is not “easy food” for

critics, for scholars of Cuban music. Understanding the
music of this rich country, so abundant in timbres and
rhythmic variables, is not at all simple. The musicologist
Pepe Reyes announces to us that there are more than 18
different keys in Cuba, and Leonardo Acosta reminds us that
“Cuban music requires a special ear, and if you train it since
you were a child, the better, because there are different
keys, and lots of syncopations. and setbacks; If you're
wrong by even a tiny fraction, there's no way to get back in.
For European and American musicians it is a torment, a true
martyrdom.”17

16 It is recommended to read and study – with specialized support – the work of Fernando Ortiz, Ob.
quote
17 Leonardo Acosta, “You choose, I'll sing.” Editora Letras Cubanas, Havana1, Cuba, 1993, p. 17.

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 Understanding Cuban music, that is the challenge of every
musical researcher, of every art instructor, of every musical
dilettante, is – as sports writers say – the task of the
Indian.

VIII- THE CONCEPT OF CUBAN MUSIC

The first thing a country's music must have is a concept,
that was taught by Alejo Carpentier and Fernando Ortiz, two
wise men of Cuban music. Without concept, you can hit the
target, but you miss the goal. A phrase says it very clearly:
“For those who do not know where they are going, no wind
is favorable.”

Everyone who dedicates themselves to an art in life must

carry the concept as their banner: It is judgment, credit,
truth, the flag. But the concept must be very clear because
it can lead us to the abyss, to ruin. The concept has to be
focused, interested in the culture of the country where you
are born and where you live. You cannot defend a foreign
concept, because then you would not be what you are.
“Assert yourself as you are,” said the titan of European
culture, Goethe.

We, those born in the contemporary world, on this side of

the planet, the Western Hemisphere, have the direct
influence of our parents or grandparents from a European
mother culture. But we are not Europeans, we are
Americans, Latin Americans, Caribbeans, Cubans.

In the 20TH CENTURY, and for more than twenty centuries, the
dominant trend in Western culturology prevailed:
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Eurocentrism . The Eurocentric point of view on culture is
reduced to defending the assumption that culture is the
exclusive result of the creation carried out by European
peoples throughout history and, mainly, in Western Europe.
According to this conception, the remaining peoples, such as
those of Asia, Africa and Oceania, are not capable of
creating a true culture. The hyperbolization of the historical
cultural role of the European peoples inherent to the
Eurocentric conception, to a considerable extent, is the
result of the rise of European capitalism, of the expansionist
policy of which the Asian, African and other peoples have
been victims.18

Eurocentrism is in the daily lives of all of us, it is almost

natural, but, at the same time, it is a “craving” of culture,
as the journalist, Julia Mirabal, rightly says. Unintentionally,
as a very natural thing, we talk about the concepts of the
colonizer: “good taste”, “tacky”, “cultured”, “classical”,
“erudite”, “serious”, “school”, “universal” music, “good”,
“luxury (of ornamentation)”
These are concepts invented by the colonizer, to
discriminate against the music of the Third World (Asia,
Africa and Latin America). None of these categories,
invented by the colonizer, can be demonstrable. Art is
appreciation ; All types of aesthetic evaluations have a
limited validity, according to one of the giants of European
culture, Arnold Hauser. “Taste changes, it moves from the

18 YO. Savranski, “ Culture and its functions.” Editora Progreso, Moscow, 1983, p.17. This book has an
entire chapter on Eurocentrism.

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exquisite and discreet to the drastic and striking. Taste
evolves, the bad taste of pre-romanticism constitutes the
origin of an evolution that, in part, corresponds to what is
19
most valuable in the art of the 20TH CENTURY.”

Certainly, in art we do not have any “mathematical

equation”, there is no computer program, no technical
mechanism that can define good and bad, artistic quality.
Technically there are parameters of possible measurement;
but art escapes technique, it goes beyond it. It is a magical,
mysterious, ingenious phenomenon, where the elf,
charisma, and many extra-artistic factors are at play.

It would be worth measuring art by the mark it leaves on

the earth, that is, its usefulness, in the musical history of a
people, and for this we have to wait for it to pass the test of
time, the test of judgment. What is acceptable today may
not be acceptable tomorrow and vice versa.

Then, the obligatory question would come, what is useful?

I, personally, am very clear, useful is what culture brings to
a people: unity, identity and joy. They are the three most
important components of culture. Joy is the driving force of
men and people, it is the salt of life, what sustains the
planet. Without joy man dies, he is abandoned, he ceases to
exist.

So, if a dance orchestra brings joy to thousands of people,

calms them down or disturbs their vital sphere, it makes

19 Arnold Hauser, “Social history of literature and art.” Editora Revolucionaria, Havana, Cuba, 1977,
Volume. II, p. 72

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them live. That's useful. If a concert of songs makes an
audience dream, fall in love and feel good, that is useful.
The so-called “quality”, time will tell.

We can measure quality in science, where everything is

demonstrable – to a certain point –, because everything is
relative. But in art, appreciation, subjectivity have a very
decisive weight. Furthermore, let's think how boring art
would be if, de facto, through some computer, they
predetermined for us what is good and what is bad. And
what option, what freedom would we have to select what
really interests us? Why someone has to decide what we
should listen to. Ultimately, what interests one person may
not necessarily interest another. “What for one is wonder,
for another is forgotten code,” said José Martí.

These are the weapons that must be mastered in the

appreciation of art and culture, music and many other
things. This is the concept, the rest is throwing stones
without knowing where. The joy of Cuban music

IX- THE JOY OF CUBAN MUSIC

“Joy is born in the hearts of ordinary people, it afflicts souls,

it is the wine of the spirit.” (Jose Marti)

The joy of Cuban music is the most powerful force in

Caribbean culture. It is the greatest power in the
geographical area in which we live. It is the grace, the gift,
the aché that life gave to these tropical peoples.

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 In my book This is Cuban Music, Adagio 2008 edition,
my thesis, my concept, my direction revolves around the
power of the joy of Cuban music.

“The contribution of the Caribbean to the world –

writes musicologist Olavo Alén – is given in a single word by
Ángel Quintero and it is joy. “The Caribbean is one of the
regions that brings the most joy to the world.” When I read
this phrase it took me to meditation, because indeed,
almost everyone who comes here comes looking for joy.
When, for example, I travel to Germany, I am not going to
look for joy, I am going to work, or to seek instruction. But
when the German travels to Cuba, he usually comes to look
for joy. Joy that manifests itself in many ways: on the
beaches, in the typical Caribbean drinks and fashions, in the
warm and pleasant climate, and in the music. Well, the
Caribbean has some of the most powerful popular music in
the world today.” (These words from Alén were pronounced
in the presentation words of the book Sauce, flavor and
control!)

Truly, what is joy? Joy is the driving force of men and

women, of people, it is the salt of life, what sustains us on
this beam of life. Without joy man dies, he ceases to exist.
We know many rich people or millionaires who commit
suicide. During these days of economic crisis (week of
January 4 to 10) in Germany there is already the first loss
of a billionaire businessman who said goodbye; The joy of
living was missing.

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 The National Poet Nicolás Guillén recalled that “What is
today the Caribbean Sea was the scene of crimes, of the
most terrible injustices; and only the song of the dance
manages to mitigate in some way the pain of those people
in which death, only death, gave way to slavery.”

When many people talk about music, they understand

that music must be “good” (What is good?), it must be of
quality (What is quality?) Music can be recognized as being
of “high quality,” “very good.” good". And it can be lifeless
music; and we don't have to go far to find those musical
artifacts that have a lot of technical load (Jorge Luis Borges
calls them technical), but they don't say, neither fí, nor fu.
Plato called that “Banausia” in ancient Greece. So it's not
music, and if it's not music, what are we talking about?

Fernando Ortiz called lifeless music “music that calls

for nothing, infertile, formalist, without text, inexpressive,
which here we would say is insocial with an almost esoteric
incomprehensibility, of false originality, covering up
unconfessed frustrations.”

I agree with Gabriel García Márquez that “if people fall

in love with music, it makes them happy, it makes them
live: “It is revolutionary and it is useful and it is good.” In
this way we understand that if dance music orchestras bring
joy to crowds, unite people, make them live, make them
happy (as if it were a religious experience), then it is useful,
good, beautiful and necessary music. I have the concept
very clear. The so-called “artistic quality”, that is another

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story, a story to which Alejo Carpentier puts it this way:

“George Henri Riviére once explained to us what was

responsible for the charm and variety of the collections
displayed in his showcases: -Every time I can give advice to
a novice ethnographer I tell him first of all: “Distrust the
artistic, because It is not always revealing of the popular
character…” Therefore, in my museum you will see that
alongside the archaeological piece, the valuable creation, I
include the homemade object, the naive lithography, the
fruit of some suburban industry.”

Let us never forget the origin of art, which Carpentier

himself at certain times explained very well: “Thus music
was music before it was music. But it was very different
music from what we consider today as music that provides
aesthetic enjoyment. It was prayer, thanksgiving,
incantation, incantation, magic, Scandinavian narration,
liturgy, poetry, poetry-dance, psychodrama, before being
paid (due to the decline of their functions rather than the
acquisition of new dignities). Those who attribute artistic
value to certain American ethnographic documents are
wrong, distorting what originally served something else.
They look for themes, melodies (sometimes beautiful, when
they are arbitrarily separated from their context, which is,
in any case, a mutilation...) without understanding that the
sound expression of such themes, of such melodies, the
more important the factors are. of insistence, of repetition,
of indeterminable return to the same thing... When taken to

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a symphony or a cantata, it loses all usefulness. It becomes
a skeleton, where there was flesh; academicism of the
worst, bad profession of nationalist faith, where there was a
vision of immensity and music of the entrails, prior to the
music intended for those who can acquire a good theater
seat to “see the hands” of the great pianist or director on
duty.”

As we see, we must return again to the origins of

music, to its essence that can lead us to truly understand
what is music? What is it for? What is its usefulness and
meaning?

Let us never forget that the best of the culture of our

American people comes from joy: carnivals, popular
festivals, mass dances, sports, food, love (as also part of
culture). From this premise, we must begin to think
differently. Let us not forget that knowing is not
understanding.

X- MUSIC GAVE CUBA UNITY, IDENTITY AND JOY

“Where the soul of a people is best revealed is in its

music” (José Martí)
Cuban popular music is unique on the American
continent and in its inimitable rhythmic values”
(Manuel de Falla)

In a concert, in celebration of a Cuban Culture Day,

held on a stage in La Piragua, in the Havana Malecón area,

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the Los Van Van Orchestra played. From the top of the
stage I watched the thousands of dancers, people from all
walks of life: Whites, blacks, Chinese, mestizos of all kinds,
including tourists from many countries. Everyone was
dancing frantically to the beat, no one was wondering where
the people around them came from, the music had united
everyone in the same bundle.
We should not be surprised, since colonial times,
some journalist or chronicler realized the same thing. A
newspaper called La Prensa published on November 13,
1842: “Music is without a doubt the most seductive art,
which most closely links man with the country and even
with the most beloved objects…this is why there is so much
passion for national airs, That is why there is no
composition that exercises so much power over us, who
love more than an air of the homeland.”
In the independence war, when Cubans shed their
blood in abundance, music was their best support. That is a
frequent feature in the troubadour war song as a tribute to
the heroes of the liberating feat.
At the end of the fighting, the mambises organized
musical discharges and lamp dances, to cheer up life and
unite in the fight against the colonizing enemy.

The National Anthem, by Pedro Figueredo Cisneros

(Perucho), sung by the people on October 20, 1868, was
like the Marseillaise of the Cubans, a song of freedom, the
clarion of the mambises in days of war, in which the Cubans
united in an ideal: blacks, Chinese and Europeans.
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 The same result was: La bayamesa, created in 1851
with lyrics by José Fornaris and music by Francisco Castillo
Moreno and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Father of the
Country. On March 27, 1851, La bayamesa was premiered
by its creators, together with the tenor Carlos Pérez, in a
serenade, at the foot of the window of Luz Casal, wife of
Francisco Castillo. The song later had various lyrics with a
patriotic meaning; They sang it in every corner of the Island
on the lips of the mambises who were looking for hope in
the final triumph. Don't you remember, gentle Bayamese/
that you were my shining/ and smiling sun, on your languid
forehead/ soft kiss I printed with ardor?

Around 1897, writes Dulcila Cañizares, there was a

great outbreak of patriotic songs that were like anthems
that united the Cubans who were fighting for freedom: The
guerrilla, Cuba for the Cubans, The Cuban flag, The
freedom of Cuba, The combat of bad weather, Two
homelands, Maceo, La palma, La palma wounda, Martí, Poor
Cuba.

The Santiago troubadours joined in with songs in the

Plaza de Marte, Los Hoyos, El Tivolí, San Agustín, in cafes,
barbershops, and the homes of friends and patrons. They
were all one in the city's bohemian parties and downloads.

Already in times of the invaded Republic, songs with a

national flavor identified Cubans who sang songs in deep
conversation and made them their own, as part of the
national landscape.

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 Ernesto Lecuona with his exquisite compositions, very
typical of the Cuban, with the essence of Creole hedonism,
that tasty touch of the peasants, the work songs, the
cadence of the language, the street life, in the words of
Antonio Quevedo and one of his diplomatic friends from the
United Kingdom.

Barbarito Diez for more than half a century unified

millions of listeners with songs adorned with the national
danzón; Almost the entire troubadour, bolero and rhythmic
repertoire was assumed by the nightingale of Cuban song.

Benny Moré, almost unanimously the symbol of Cuban

music, synthesized peasant music, Afro music, the
guateque, the bohemian discharge, the bar, the cafe, the
cabaret, the theater, the show, Cuban joy.

La Guajira Guantanamera , in its origins was a way to

dedicate a tune to women from different provinces, and
ended up being a song that identifies Cuban women. With
the incorporation of Martí's verses, the song acquires a high
poetic level.

The chambelona is a conga used by politicians, which

Cubans sometimes used with double meaning rebellious
lyrics. The conga, said Alejo Carpentier, is “a traveling
ballet”, in which the mass public participates by dancing, as
a spectator and as an actor. Thunderous music that doesn't
need a loudspeaker.

Al vaivén de mi cartera , was a protest song that the

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workers in the Cuban countryside hummed, as a sign of
protest: Al vaivén de mi cartera/ This lamentation was
born.

Matamoros unified the Santiago, oriental sound with its

typical sounds and with them he said Where are the singers
from/ they are from the hills/ and they sing in the plain/. In
his bolero-son creations, he introduces a change in the
musical form and manages to integrate the timbral and
stylistic quality of the troubadours or singers (cousins and
seconds) with the lyricism and rhythmicity of the son.

Ignacio Piñeiro consolidates the clave and guaguancó

groups, from Havana, with a new lyric within the son. The
musician from the capital added spice to dance music and
Latin salsa. He made Catalina de Güines' legendary black
Congo sausages famous: I left home one adventurous
night/ looking for an atmosphere of pleasure and
adventure,/ oh my God,/ how much I enjoyed/.

Arsenio Rodríguez Since the 1930s he began a series of

experiments in which he fused son with elements of rumba
and its variants. He imposed what we call “son
guaguancoseado). In this way the evolutionary chain of son
jumps, according to researcher Lázaro Núñez.
Arsenio magnified, synthesized and crystallized the
new Cuban typology of the sonero ensemble (rhythmatic
base, piano, tres, double bass, guiro, bongo, tumbadora),
trumpets in harmonic blocks within the brass section. A
different musical plot.

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 In Arsenio's tres the effects of the batá, bembé, Bantú,
and Yoruba drums were transported. In short, it is a highly
complicated music, but balanced and translated to the
simplicity of the dancer with rhythmic key time. In his
composition Cárdenas refers to the Cuban flag, in other
works there are mentions of the Congo language, Abakuá
and the slang of the Havana neighborhoods.
Pérez Prado with his sensational mambo synthesized
all the currents of mambeado danzones of the López
brothers: Israel “Cachao” and Orestes with the Orquesta de
Arcaño y sus Maravillas. It was the call of the Cuban “tom
tom”, heir to the African jungle. The mambo brought
millions of dancers and spectators around the planet into
agreement; it was the first great global explosion of
planetary music.

The cha cha cha, was a dance like no other that united
blacks and whites in dances, it was coffee with milk, rice
with black beans from Cuba. The brass bands evicted the
Yankee-style jazz bands from the aristocratic halls. The
Deceiver is a picturesque painting of the Havana street in
Prado and Neptuno: At Prado and Neptuno/ there was a
little girl/ that all the men/ had to look at/.

La Pachanga is a symbol of the fun of Cubans: “Vamos

a pachanguear” (Let's enjoy life), is the image of the joy of
a country that has dancing as one of its adorations and
addictions.

As we have seen, music has been present in all the

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memorable moments of Cuba, in the birth, in the battles, in
the production, the parties, weddings, dances, in the
moments of triumph; in union, identity and joy , the
three most important elements of the culture and life of the
Cuban nation. As the Indian Naborí said: “Without music
we would be a people without wings.”

MUSICIANS

ADALBERTO ÁLVAREZ, THE COLOSSUS OF

CONTEMPORARY SON

(Havana-Camagüey, November 22, 1948)

Adalberto Álvarez is the innovator of modern Cuban

son, he began those experiments in 1970 with the
compositions he offered to the Rumbavana group, with the
experience of his father's Avance Juvenil group and finally
with his own groups: Son 14 and Adalberto y su Son.

The ensemble Son 14 premiered on November 11,

1978, in Santiago de Cuba,

Adalberto shares citizenship with three provinces:

Havana, Camagüey or Santiago de Cuba. He was born in
Havana on November 22, 1948, at that time his mother was
in the capital; but they were from Camagüey where he
spent his childhood. And he became popular with the group
Son 14 in Santiago de Cuba, where he was from 1978 to

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1983. He has lived in Havana since 1984.

“My musical heritage,” says Adalberto, “my mother

Rosa Zayas, sang very well, my father had the group
Avance Juvenil y Soneros de Camacho. I played with my
father, before leaving for Santiago de Cuba in 1978. In my
house you could breathe the traditional: Arsenio Rodríguez,
Chapottín, La Sonora Matancera, El Casino, La Aragón,
Sensación, Neno González, Benny Moré”

Among Adalberto's youthful concerns was his interest

in studying aviation; but he did not have the special skills
such as mastering mathematics “and there I lost the game.
In the stage of youth one has many concerns, but destiny
has the most unexpected in store for you. As if by divine
magic, in 1962, a scholarship from the National School of
Art saved me. They offered me to study the strange
instrument of the bassoon, in 1962, I promised my mother
that I would return with the title of musician under my arm.

The fellow students were: Emiliano Salvador, José Luis

Cortés, Joaquín Betancourt, Pachito Alonso and many more.
There we formed a Typical Orchestra to play in our own
way. It is at this stage when I begin to spread my
compositions. In 1970 he contacted the Rumbavana group
directed by Joseíto González. He delivered the song Con un
besito mi amor , they recorded it and then he continued El
son de Adalberto, which was like one of the emblems that
paved the way for him.

Few know that when Los Van Van were organized,

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Adalberto attended the call, in 1969 “I showed up, but with
a bassoon nothing could be done, can you imagine Los Van
Van with a bassoon?”

Once he graduated, he was sent to Camagüey as a

teacher to fulfill his Social Service and, in turn, he played
with the Avance Juvenil group. At that stage, Eduardo
Morales (Jaws) appears to the group. “He came from
Francisco Guayabal (when that belonged to Camagüey,
where Pío Leyva was born). They called him “Shark,”
because on the beach he always walked with his mouth
open. They also knew him as the baseball player with the
torn stocking, and that was very funny. Upon his arrival, he
very resolutely said point blank: “I am the singer you need,
look no further.” We tried him, he had deficiencies, but he is
undoubtedly a very colorful singer, a sonero with
perspectives and we were not wrong, you see his timbre
how he functioned as lead singer in the group Son 14.”

The departure to Santiago de Cuba, to organize the

Conjunto Son 14, is worth telling. “Rodulfo (not Rodolfo)
Vaillant arrives in Camagüey, he was musical director of
radio and television in Santiago. He had the initiative to
form a group in Santiago, he promised to support us,
together with Antonio Orúe from the Musical Company. I
started with five musicians from Camagüey and, after many
ups and downs and administrative problems, we managed
to establish a “template” to create a group in Santiago de
Cuba. “We finally premiered at a party, November 1978, on

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Santa Úrsula and Primera streets.”

The voices of Son 14 were: Daniel Carmenate, Héctor

Anderson and Eduardo Morales (Tiburón). Anderson was the
primary voice that gave the tone to the ensemble, towards
the duets, with all the nuances and gave the highest notes.
It has a lot of spice, it dances, it is explosive and happy, it
transmitted a lot of flavor and sonorous atmosphere like
Jaws. Daniel Carmenate (bolerist and choir), guitarist,
composer and excellent voice and Tiburón the great sonero.
There was a period in which the singer Félix Baloy (Baloy
with B) was also there, who in 1984 returned with Adalberto
in the new group of Adalberto y su son. It is said that Son
14 had a trio of voices that did not look like anyone else;
Oscar D´ León and Rafael Lay told Adalberto that he was
the best ensemble choir.

The reception of the Son 14 ensemble was amazing, in

those days ensembles had declined and people were
expecting something new. The dances were filled to enjoy
Cuban son, at a time when Latin salsa was invading. They
played a lot in La Trocha, Martí and San Pedro (Siboney), by
the Bus Terminal and they alternated with Havana
orchestras.

ADALBERTO'S CONCEPT

“ In 1992 I told Leonardo Padura that, initially we were

looking for an atmosphere that was related to the original
Latin salsa, with what was done in the 1970s, like what Tito
Puente, Palmieri did, I identified with some of them. their
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themes, pieces of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan origin, and I
decided to give them a stamp similar to what I was
composing, trying in some way to give back to them what
they were doing with our music. That is why Son 14
sometimes seemed like a Latin American group, that is, a
group capable of pleasing the taste of any Latin American
country, because we were closer to the general style of
dance music that was being made in Latin America, with
one defect that, Listening again to Son 14's recordings over
the years, I was finally able to discover: we made the music
much faster than the rest of the salseros, that is, more to
the taste of the Cuban dancer. And I think that if I had had
the experience of these years, I would have made a more
established Son 14 for the dancer, closer to this cadence in
which I am now with the group Adalberto y su Son .
Although sometimes there is a certain timbero touch with
rumba, as entertainment. Rumbavana was a guide for us,
many of his successes were mine. So, from there I looked
for my own style, I introduced the trombone, in the
recordings I added Pancho Amat's tres. It was like an
experiment, because you never know how far music goes,
that is decided by the people who dance, sing and buy
records” 120

The first time Son 14 went abroad was in the summer

of 1979, on that date the Dimensión Latina orchestra
arrived in Santiago de Cuba, with the singer Andy
Montañez, they alternated with Son 14, at the Guillermón

20 Leonardo Padura Fuentes, The faces of salsa, UNIÖN, UNEAC, Havana, 1997, p 167.

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Moncada Stadium. Andy also sang Son 14 and, at the end,
he expressed: “What a shame that a true Cuban music
orchestra like Son 14 did not go to Venezuela, to Puerto
Rico, to the places where our music was sung and danced.
That statement enlightened Cuban musicians. At that time,
record businessman Orlando Montiel had the vision of taking
Son 14 to Venezuela, the center of Caribbean salsa. Montiel
was allied with businessman Ali Kó, representative of Oscar
D' León. We were hired in September 1979, at the La Divina
Pastora Festival, in
Barquisimeto, Venezuela, where we won, we stayed for
twelve days and won the Golden Twilight Award. Later they
returned to Venezuela, but to the Poliedro de Caracas face
to face with Oscar D' León.

Upon their return from Venezuela, Son 14 arrives

triumphantly in Havana, they debut at the Mambí lounge, in
the parking lot of the Tropicana cabaret. More than ten
thousand dancers gathered to dance with the new group
Son 14, which came from Tierra Caliente. I remember that
they had to take us out of Mambí on a truck with a truck, to
protect us from the group's admirers. “We had never seen
anything like it in music, until those days. I remember the
train crash at the Carlos Marx theater, shortly after that
memorable Habana-Jam meeting, in the same theater,
between American and Cuban musicians who played for
three days (nine hours), in a kind of friendly competition.
We also did it with Rumbavana, my beloved group where I
started with my songs.”
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 Then the successes in the capital followed, they
appeared on the Radio Progreso program Alegrías de
sobremesa , in the fashionable television space: Para baile .
In 1980 they achieved second place at the Guzmán Festival,
winning the Interpretation Prize, a very decisive moment.
They began to participate in all the festivals, especially Son,
Benny Moré's, where we won all the awards.

All of this was supported by an album A Bayamo by car

, a sales and popularity success. Work produced by Frank
Fernández who established contact with the EGREM in
Havana, where they recorded the album in 1979, in just
nine days. Other hits were Son para un sonero, El son de la
dawn : “You left me in the street/ at dawn/ when the
rooster sang/ at dawn/. They also recorded two more
albums: Son como son, Adalberto presents Son 14.

ADALBERTO AND HIS SON 84

After the arrival of Oscar D´ León who gave the sonera

clarion call, Adalberto decided to form a group in Havana,
Santiago de Cuba did not offer him everything that Son 14
deserved. Times were different and he created Adalberto y
su Son , a name he baptized by Oscar D´ León. On
February 26, in Santiago de las Vegas, “we came out with a
new line, the voices of: Félix Baloy, Ciso Guanche and the
first voice of Héctor Anderson. The three was defended by
Pancho Amat, the game was won. They released songs like
Waiting for María to Return, María's Return, I Dream of a
Gypsy, The Evil of Hypocrisy, My Black Girl Has Gone Crazy,

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Weekend, Dominating the Game. We recorded albums with
Isaac Delgado, Celina González, Omara Portuondo.

Already in 1991 there is a new air for Adalberto and his

Son, the Salsa Boom has exploded and Adalberto is
abandoning the old traditional soneros, sacrificing tradition
to rejuvenate the staff who would never be soneros in the
traditional way. The singer Rojitas arrives and the success
of the piece, And what do you want them to give you? , also
popularized The Girlfriend of a Friend of Mine, Let Her Go,
Live What's Ours . The big deal of And what do you want
them to give you? It arrived in August 1991. Thus began
the boom of Santera songs, along with Amaury Pérez's, Por
si acaso . Previously, the singer Valentín Larrondo had been
there, since 1988, coming out of the Revé and making
Weekend, What is happening, fashionable. Also in the group
were: Aramis Galindo, a powerful voice –sometimes too
high-pitched-, Coco Freeman, Juan José Hernández, Evelyn
García Márquez, two of his daughters: Yanitza Álvarez and
Dorgelis (pianist and voice). In 2008 the voices are: Michel
Hernández, Aldo Miranda, Jorge Damian.

Adalberto's son spread throughout the world, the

Cuban's works were covered by many salseros: La 440,
Willie Rosario, Charanga casino, El Trabuco Mexicano, Andy
Montanez, Oscar D´ León, Louis Ramírez, Roberto Roena,
Grupo Platería, Willie Rosario, Justo Betancourt, Fania All
Stars. “We have recorded many albums, the son prevailed.”

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ALEJANDRO GARCÍA CATURLA
(Remedios, Las Villas, March 7, 1906/ Remedios, November
12, 1940)

Caturla is one of Cuba's high-level musicians, an

exponent of Cuban culture and the identification of the
intellectual who fights until his death for a just cause. He
was a rebel, a Don Quixote of his time, a man of superior
intelligence, with a musical temperament like few others in
our America. He is one of the creators who from time to
time break conventions and bring something new,
surprising, classic. It was Cuban and universal.

He studied in his hometown with Fernando Estrems

and María Montalván, from whom he obtained a solid
musical foundation. Later, in 1922, he studied law at the
University, and at the same time he studied in the capital
with Pedro San Juan, who directed him in the Havana
Philharmonic. In that Philharmonic he was always next to
Amadeo Roldán.

In June 1928 he went to Paris to give his love to music

in the hands of Professor Nadia Boulanger, the guide of
greats such as Aaron Copland, Michel Legrand, Astor
Piazzolla and many more. “I have rarely had to deal with
such a gifted disciple,” said Nadia. For the same reason, I
don't want to distort him: I make him compose and I
analyze his scores, giving him advice. Nothing else. It is a
force of nature. "We have to let it manifest." “She was for

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me – Alejandro said – the good, splendid and unforgettable
teacher.” (1)

In France Caturla spoke with cultural greats such as

Robert Desnoes, George Sadul, Luis Aragón, Edgar Varése,
Pierre Unik and Dr. Frankel. In Cuba he was a companion of
Roldán, Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes and Alejo Carpentier,
with whom he worked on the opera Manita en el tierra ,
based on an original libretto by the Havana novelist and
musicologist.

In reality, Caturla gave Cuban music its own profile.

His compositions, in their time, were somewhat unusual,
novel and controversial. He broke conventions and was
ahead of his time, although he always knew what he wanted
and where he was going. It was a universalization of
musical forms, among which the modern currents of
European concert music traditions and Cuban folklore, which
clashed so much, merged. But Caturla very wisely entered
the period of decided simplification , at a time when a
judicious current of simplicity began in the Western world
that took shape in the mid-20th century, as one of the most
important achievements in musical history.

In Helio Orovio's Dictionary it is stated that Caturla is a

synthesis of the national and the universal. In his work the
son and the minuet, the bolero and the pavane, the
comparsa and the jig, the guajira and the waltz, the bembé
and the symphonic poem, the rumba and the sonata form,
including the concert forms, were twinned. of the European

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avant-garde of his time. These branches of his very current
universality were always linked to the musical trunk of his
nation, nourished by multiple roots.

Caturla was a composer, violinist, he played

saxophone, clarinet and percussion. He directed jazz band
orchestras, improvised in neighborhood cinemas, sometimes
for fun, performing admirable scores to accompany some
films by Rudolph Valentino, Tom Mix or Douglas Fairbanks;
In this discipline, musicologist Hilario González considers
that this creator was a pioneer in scoring films. He also
participated in journalism as a social chronicler and critic.
He played sports and carried out work and studies about
musical pedagogy and law.

In 1929 he traveled to Europe together with Eduardo

Sánchez de Fuentes to participate in the Ibero-American
Symphonic Festivals of the Barcelona International
Exhibition, where he contacted important musicians such as
Adolfo Salazar. Once again in Cuba, in 1932, he founded the
Caibarién Concert Society, of whose orchestra he was
director and with which he carried out intense work. In
1938 he won First Prize, with his work Cuban Overture , in
the National Music Competition convened in 1937 by the
Directorate of the Ministry of Education.

Caturla's symphonic works have been performed in

cities such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Mexico, Caracas,
Barcelona, Seville, Paris, Moscow. Prestigious directors
selected his music: Pedro San Juan, Amadeo Roldán, Marius

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Francois Gaillard, Nicolás Slomimsky, Ernesto Halfer,
Bartolomé Pérez Casas, Carlos Chávez, Silvestre Revueltas,
Erich Kleiber, Leopoldo Stokowsky, Gonzalo Roig, Enrique
González Mántici, José Ardévol, Manuel Duchésne Cuzán,
Roberto Sánchez Ferrer, among others. .

He created for orchestra, orchestral versions, chamber

music, for theater, ballet, opera, cinema, band, violin and
orchestra, violin and piano, cello and piano, saxophone, and
piano, organ, piano, for voice and various accompaniments
and for a cappella choir All of this covers about a hundred
compositions, not counting many unregistered ones.

In Havana there is a conservatory called Caturla, a

room in the Amadeo theater (Auditórium), an award-
winning documentary by Senobio Faget (Puri), musical
recordings from the EGREM, a book with their
correspondence, compiled by María Antonieta Enríquez.

Caturla died at the age of 34, in his best creative

period. He was murdered by a man who was on trial. The
musician left eleven children, an exemplary career and a
valuable cultural work.

GRADES:

1- Helio Orovio, Dictionary of Cuban Music, Cuban

Letters, 1981, p. 189

ALEJO CARPENTIER AND MUSIC

Alejo Carpentier Valmont was born in Havana on

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December 26, 1904 and died in Paris, France on April 24,
1980. In addition to being a renowned novelist, he was a
true musicologist; his 1946 book Music in Cuba is an
essential work in the history of Cuban music.

Carpentier was the son of a French architect with a

Cuban woman of Russian origin. “My family was very
musical, my father had been a cellist and a student of Pablo
Casals, who had taught him: my father had wonderful
memories of him. My grandmother played the piano very
well, she was a student of Cesar Franck. And my mother
was a pretty good pianist. Music was my first vocation, I
had learned to play the piano with surprising ease; “I
dreamed as a child of becoming a composer.” 1

These musical influences led Carpentier to become

interested in music; many musicians visited his house. He
entered music in a very natural way. Then Alejo came to
study music, harmony and composition. He managed to
compose some things of interest, in the impressionist style
(in the Debussy style). As a teenager he already wrote
some pieces for piano, for chamber orchestra. He played
some scores for concerts, incidental music, between 1934
and 1937. “I considered that my compositions were not
very good, very soon - luckily! - I understood that I was
devoid of musical inventiveness, that my path was not that
of composition. At that moment, then, I definitely felt my
literary vocation and so I began to rewrite. In any case, I
believe that every artist should have his “Ingres violin” (a

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second art). This opens your viewing angle. Learn to pose
problems in a parallel field. Through the shortcut of music I
have found solutions to my literary problems. Music has
helped me in my training: I use musical forms. The
musician has structural means that the writer does not
have. The musician cannot conceive a work that is not
perfectly balanced in all its parts. Accordingly I wrote my
novel The Harassment . 2

Carpentier did not become a renowned composer, but

music has many possibilities and this is how the writer also
investigated music and became one of the most qualified
musicologists in Cuba, alongside Fernando Ortiz. His
immense culture provided him with these possibilities, let us
not forget that music is more than just technique, it is
culture in all its aspects.

Carpentier had an intense work promoting music, both

in Cuba and abroad. In Paris he helped in the dissemination
of Cuban popular music. He used that folkloric phrase from
Nicolás Guillen: “You have to have boluntá, that saltiness is
not, for all of life. Bito Manué didn't know English, he didn't
know English,...he didn't know French either...But he had
boluntá...And with boluntá he ended up sweeping through
Paris..."

“! There was lipidia for implanting Cuban music in

Paris! There was controversy, a hair race, failed efforts. But
in the end the truth prevailed. No one will deny you
anymore, on the banks of the Seine, that our folklore is of

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incomparable richness; that our rhythms make all the
others pale; that our popular songs overflow with strong,
deep and manly poetry.”

-So you are Cuban? –the French women ask you,

delighted to know our nationality. Cuban? Then teach me
how to dance the roomba!...

“So much lipidia because we dared to defend what is

ours!...!Come and receive lessons in Cubanism at Rue
Fontaine!..."3

In 1926 Carpentier organized with Amadeo Roldan the

New Music Concerts , in which the works of Igor
Stravinsky, Ravel, Poulenc, Malipiero, and Satié were made
known in Cuba.

Carpentier's conceptual understanding in his

research and publications was of enormous importance.
There are a huge number of musicologists or researchers
who never found the concept of

Cuban music, they did not have a thesis in their

approaches. They did not know the path of Cuban culture.
Cuba is not Europe, Cuba is America. Carpentier was not
influenced by Eurocentric theses.

Carpentier and Fernando Ortiz joined the folk world of

African music, which is why they were stigmatized by the
aristocracy of the old republic. “The black culture of the
Caribbean was despised by the bourgeoisie. Of Don
Fernando Ortiz, initiator of what then had to be called Afro-

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Cuban studies, the people of the Yacht Club and the Tennis
Club of Havana said: “It seems unbelievable that a man of
such talent wastes his time studying such things…The men
of my generation: Nicolás Guillen, Amadeo Roldán,
Alejandro García Caturla, suddenly discovered the wonderful
contribution of black people to Cuban culture. Not only did
we set out to study it with passion but, in doing so, we
launched a kind of challenge to the Cuban bourgeoisie.
Deep down we assumed a pre-revolutionary attitude. And
this forces me to tell an anecdote that shows how prejudices
were at that time: Around the year 1924 or 1925, a Mexican
musician called Ignacio Fernández Esperón, Tata Nacho,
arrived in Havana, who is the author of songs that we all
know: Adiós short, Cuatro milpas. Tata told me: “I would
like to see something rougher (more brutal)…” Then I
invited him to a ñáñigo oath in Regla. I took it and Tata
came out amazed: “This is folklore, this is
marvelous". Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes learned about
that heresy, considered it a defect inherited from
colonialism and that it was a shame to teach it to
foreigners. Then a Cuban Navy officer challenged me to a
duel.” 4

Carpentier knew perfectly the origins and meaning of

Cuban music, let's not forget that knowing is not knowing .
“First of all, it is necessary to dispel a conceptual
misunderstanding that may still be present in many people.
Afro-Cuban music is an incorrect term that arises from the
racial prejudice that existed in Cuba before the Revolution.
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Since we are a nation that was enriched by the
contributions of African culture since the beginning of the
16th century, we cannot speak of Afro-Cuban music. The
black man is deeply musical, he united his musical talent,
mainly rhythmic, with the melodic talent of the conquerors
of Spain (also very musical) and of the European emigrants,
who were many. From that mixture of the melody of
Spanish origin, with its distant Arab resonances, with the
rhythm brought from Africa by the slaves, Cuban music
emerged.” 5

The validity of Cuban popular music was evident by

Carpentier in all the interviews conducted with him on the
subject. “Cuban popular music is a living music, current
(with life), in a continuous process of evolution and
transformation, arising from the people of the cities
generally, of which the strongest and most legitimate
exponents, in the 20th century, are jazz. and Cuban music.
A music that is fertilizing , in perpetual evolution. From
year to year it changes, is enriched, modifies its
instrumentation, perfects the instruments and their
harmony with useful technical procedures. Cuban music IS.
Cover the planet. It is heard in Moscow as in Mexico; in
Paris, as in Egypt...And its perpetual evolution (through
mambo, cha cha chá and other rhythms, in the style of
Benny Moré, of the many Cuban stars) serves as a guide to
instrumental and vocal groups that perform in all parts.
Popular music is passionate about our people. There is no
popular festival, which we call popular, not even those of
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the Creole bourgeoisie, in which Cuban rhythms do not form
a more important portion of the program. 6

Carpentier wrote the book Music in Cuba when he

returned from Haiti to Havana in 1944. He went to Mexico
on vacation, there the Economic Culture Fund commissioned
him to write a history of Cuban music, destined to be
included in a kind of general encyclopedia. of Latin
American topics that that editorial made. It was a time
when Cuban music was conquering the world, especially
through the dizzying mambo of Pérez Prado who from
Mexico introduced the power of his music to the whole
world.
“It was known that Cuban music had conquered the
world, it was imposing itself everywhere, it can be heard
everywhere; How was it possible that this tiny island of
Cuba has produced one of the greatest music that has
invaded the world, and was becoming one of the most
popular music of the 20th century and it is interesting to
study its roots. So I accepted the task with joy and
satisfaction, but without being very sure of what was going
to result, I didn't think I would find much. I saw that there
were charming authors of Cuban dances in the first half of
the 18th century, originating from the contradanza. …It was
said that before 1800 music had never been composed on
the Island. Now, I set about my task and began to go back,
to go back in the past, and I found, not only extraordinary
composers in the 18th century in Cuba, who are perhaps
the first, chronologically as a date, in Latin America; but I
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went back to the year of the meeting of Spain and Cuba
(1511), even before, and found, in relation to other
countries, traces, traces of what music was like before the
arrival of the Spanish to Cuba. I investigated the old Cuban
cathedrals, in the provincial cities, this earned me a slightly
more comprehensive recognition of America. It is necessary
to study Cuban music in relation to others from America.
That helped me a lot for my work” 7
Carpentier published hundreds of chronicles, articles,
essays, compiled in books published in Cuba. Between 1951
and 1961, the Caracas newspaper El Nacional published
some 300 chronicles in a column called Letra y Solfa.
Themes of the Lira and the Bongó, published in El País, El
Heraldo, La Nación, Diario de la Marina, Tiempo Nuevo,
Conservatorio. Three volumes of chronicles with the name
of That musician inside me. Tents and differences. Four
transcribed conferences filmed by the ICAIC, published in
1987. In 1984 a book of Essays. In 1985 a compilation of
Interviews carried out with the Cuban musicologist.
Carpentier also published in Musicalia, La Gaceta Musical,
Social, Revista de Avance, Carteles. All these materials are
very appreciable to music scholars; they contain Cuban life
and its rich culture. As Leonardo Acosta said, “No topic
related to music was foreign to Carpentier, it ranges from
music of European descent to Afro-Cuban rhythms, rock and
roll and mambo. “A truly monumental work.”

Carpentier welcomed, in his time, all the innovative

music: mambo, jazz, rock and roll, pop.
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 “There are people who frown when they are told about
the enthusiasm aroused by jazz in the younger generations.
Enthusiasm that is not due to a local and passing fad, to a
parish snobbery. I am one of those who believe that young
people usually make mistakes when they deny something;
never when they are interested in something. Jazz excites
them because it is, after all, one of the most original and
spontaneous musical expressions of the time.” 8

“I am a supporter of mambo, in that the genre will act

on dance music as a shock, forcing it to take new paths.
The mambo presents features very worthy of being taken.
All the audacity of North American jazz players has been left
far behind by what Celibidache calls “the most extraordinary
genre of dance music of our times.” 9

“Austere spirits denounce the frenzy of rock and roll as

a symptom of imbalance in the new generations…The
Romans of the Empire experienced similar fevers. And also
the Spanish of the Golden Age, when the “diabolical
Chacons”, coming from America, burst onto the Peninsula,
provoking the wrath of the preachers. The truth is that
there is no reason for so much alarm. I have listened to
several rock and roll albums. Its rhythm is much more crazy
than the mambo. You have to be young to indulge in rock
and roll; which presumes agility, energy, skill. Rock and roll
laughs at censorship and wins followers everywhere. It is at
odds with all etiquette, with all gallantry.” 10

Shortly before his death, Carpentier praised pop music

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and revealed that he would have liked to be a dancer like
Fred Astaire or John Travolta. Cuban musicologists were
horrified, some expressed: “Carpentier is very strange”; but
certainly the maestro did not want to remain, under any
circumstances, among the detractors of popular music. This
was Carpentier, revolutionary, avant-garde, he saw them
coming before their time.

1-Interview on French Radio Television 1963

2-IBIDEM
3-Posters, October 9, 1932
4- See: Conference on Cuban music and the interview by
Ernesto González Bermejo, Alejo Carpentier, “For me the
times of loneliness are over”, Crisis, Buenos Aires, October
1975
4-See: Ernesto González Bermejo, “Alejo Carpentier: For
me the times of loneliness are over”, Review, Madrid,
November 1975 and Guido Vicario, “Música y cultura en
Cuba”, Triunfo, Madrid, June 29, 1947 5 -Interview on
French Radio Television and Ramón Chao, Palabras en el
tiempo de Alejo Carpentier, Ed. Art and Literature, Havana,
1985, p.133 6-IBIDEM
7-Ramón Chao, Words in the Time of Alejo Carpentier, Art
and Literature, 1985, p127. See also Interview with Orlando
castellanos, in the book Entrevistas, Alejo Carpentier, Letras
Cubanas, 1985, p.146 8- El Nacional, Caracas, August 24,
1956) 9- El Nacional, Caracas, February 24, 1951.
Coincidentally on that date, Gabriel García Márquez in El

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Heraldo de Barranquilla also wrote very complimentary
words about Pérez Prado and the mambo.
10- El Nacional, Caracas, undated

ALFREDO BRITO, THE COMPOSER OF THE TROPICANA

CABARET SONG

Alfredo Brito is one of the Cuban musicians with the

most intense career in Cuban music, he is the creator of the
song that gave its name to the famous Tropicana cabaret,
and he had the honor of participating in the recording and
orchestration of the most thunderous hit of the 20th
century, The manisero.

Alfredo Brito's real name is Alfredo Evaristo Francisco

Leopoldo Valdés-Brito Ibáñez (Mexico, June 2, 1896 /
Havana, December 17, 1954), of a Cuban father and a
Mexican mother, although he was born accidentally on a
tourist trip of his parents to Mexico, at 8 months they
returned to Cuba and registered him in 1910 in Havana.

He studied music since 1913 with Pedro San Juan and

Antonio María Romeu, and he played the saxophone, flute
and piano. With Romeu he worked as a flutist for a while.
Some time later he begins to play the saxophone in

1925 at the Venice Lido and in 1929 he was part of the

historic Justo Don Azpiazu Orchestra, at El Casino Nacional,
where Antonio Machín's singer also joined. For Machín he
does the orchestrations of Siboney (Ernesto Lecuona) and
El manisero (Moisés Simons). In May 1930 they went to

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New York to make presentations at the Palace theater and
on the Keith Circuit, at the Lexington theater. They recorded
El Manisero , which later became the First Boom of Latin
Music, a true musical fever in the world.

By 1930 he separated from Azpiazu and formed the

Siboney Orchestra, together with his brother Julio (drummer
and composer of the work El amor de mi bohío and many
others), in 1932 they prepared a show, together with the
Trío Matamoros, the Spanish dancer Granito de Sal and the
rumbera Yolanda González, with whom he embarked on a
tour of Portugal, Spain and Paris where they performed at
the Montmartre, the Ambassador and the Empire where he
performed with Maurice Chevalier. He returned to Cuba,
performed at the Chateau Madrid in Havana and there
received a call from Paul Whiteman, the famous American
orchestra director, for a repertoire of Cuban music that was
enjoying a great boom due to El Manisero.

Alfredo worked on Paul's orchestrations and remained

as assistant bandleader at the Biltmore Hotel and at Radio
City from 1934 to 1935. Upon his return he was nicknamed
the “Cuban Paul Whiteman.”

It brings together another orchestra for the open-air

Eden Concert cabaret, on Zulueta Street, where at the back
of the Parque Central hotel. It is there where he meets the
manager Víctor Correa da Costa and the singer Teresita
from Spain (Víctor's wife), there, around 1938, he makes
music for a show. He names the work Tropicana, joining the

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word tropical and palma cana (Tropicana). When Víctor
Correa moves with his staff and the orchestra director
Alfredo Brito, to the new Marianao cabaret, they name it
Tropicana, inspired by the song, already composed by
Alfredo Brito.

The famous musician worked in Havana theaters such

as Campoamor, América, Warner (Radiocentro, today Yara),
where he was musical director. He inaugurated the Warner
with the play Sueño de Navidad, with Marta Pérez and a
choir. The film that was filmed was Night and Day by Cole
Porter. He conducted the Orchestra of TV Channel 2. He
accompanied many national and international figures such
as Pedro Vargas.

He scored films in Hollywood: Rumba, with Lombard

and George Raf; In Cuba he did it with the film I am the
hero, Prófugos, Ángeles de la calle with his friend Félix B.
Caignet. He worked on jingles for Bacardi, Ron Pinilla, Max
Factor, Crusellas, etc.

Alfredo had five children, one of them Elsa was the one
who offered me most of the data for this teacher's article.
The family lived in Regla and El Cerro and Santo Suárez.

He composed his first danzones since 1917, he wrote:

songs, danzones, incidental music, for orchestral
instruments. With Antonio María Romeu he composed The
Magic Flute. He also created Acelera, Elvolume de Carlota,
La Choricera. Edgardo Martin wrote that Alfredo had a
romantic and Creole style, which revolved around a certain
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cosmopolitanism.

Alfredo Brito is a musician with a long career and a

true contribution to Cuban music.

AMADEO ROLDÁN: THE REMBAMBARAMBA OF CUBAN

MUSIC
(Paris, July 12, 1900/Havana, March 2, 1939)

Amadeo, born to a Cuban mother and Spanish father,

a Cuban citizen, was a violinist, teacher, orchestra director
and star composer.
He began studying music at the age of eight in Europe
and completed his training in Havana with eminent teachers
such as Pedro Sanjuán.
He only lived 39 years, long enough to leave an
intense career that went from organizing concerts with Alejo
Carpentier, in 1929 he directed the

Havana Philharmonic Orchestra, secretary of was a member

of international music associations, directed the Municipal
Conservatory of Havana that now bears his name, in 1932
he held the direction of the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra,
was related to the Minor Group, together to Fernando Ortiz
with whom he undertook a crusade for Afro-Cuban folklore.
He performed in venues such as Town Hall in New York.
He composed hundreds of works: Ballet, music for
orchestra, piano, voice. His piece La Rembambaramba
(1928) and The Miracle of Anaquillé (1931) (with texts by
Alejo Carpentier) are a classic of our symphonic music. In

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1930 he premiered his Rhythmics.
In La Rembambaramba, Roldán conceives a colonial
ballet with our theme of the seething populace life of
Havana in 1830, on the Three Kings' Day (characters,
mulattas, quadrezos, carriage drivers, black cooks, a black
worker, Spanish soldier, troupes in the Plaza de San
Francisco.
In short, he composed a large number of works: for
various instruments, for symphonies, ballets and various
versions.
Alejo Carpentier wrote about Roldán that “his works
entail a technical contribution that should not be forgotten:
in it the rhythms of the typical Cuban instruments appear
noted, for the first time with accuracy, with all their
technical possibilities and the sound effects obtainable.” by
percussion. Roldan's graphics, in this field, constitute a true
method, which Cuban and foreign composers have followed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Music in Cuba, Alejo Carpentier, Havana, 1961, p. 171 to
176

AMADITO VALDÉS: THE CUBAN TIMBAL

RAFAEL LAM

The year 2012 is the 15th anniversary of the famous

Grammy for the album Buena Vista Social Club , to
recount that musical event, I interviewed each of the
singers and instrumentalists of the Afro Cuban All Stars

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orchestra, conceived by Juan de Marcos González.
Amadito Valdés (son) is one of those colossi of Buena Vista
Social
Club, throughout 2011 Amadito's 65th birthday was
celebrated
(February 14, 1946). And during 2012 he will celebrate his
half century of professional work.
Amadito's father (saxophonist) was one of the
pioneers of the jazz band in Cuba. Amadito (son) is what we
call in Cuba a “cool” (nice) musician, very friendly, well-
connected and internationally recognized.

His first drum teacher was the renowned Cuban multi-

percussionist Walfredo de los Reyes. His first performance
took place at the Casino Parisién of the Hotel Nacional in
May 1962 with Yoyo Casteleiro's orchestra.
After working in different groups, for 27 years he
formed
part of the accompanying group of the internationally
famous Las Cuarteto
D'Aida. “With Las D'Aida we managed to maintain the flame
of traditional music in times when electronic music invaded
the world.”
1996 is the date in which Amadito participates in the
recording of the album
Introducing Rubén González , an acetate that completes an
interesting trilogy,
along with the CDs: All Cuba likes it and Buena Vista Social

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.
In 1997, the rebirth of traditional son and trova began.
In April, Juan de Marcos formed the Afro Cuban All Stars
orchestra, to undertake a saga of concerts throughout
Europe and later throughout the United States and around
the world. Then the story was different, the international
market that was previously blocked by the transnational
companies of the record music industry was rescued.
“Those were glorious days of Cuban music at the end
of the millennium that we now, ten years later, remember. I
was fortunate enough to be present at the February 1998
Grammy Awards ceremony in New York City, where the
album Buena Vista Social Club was honored.
At the great moment of the boom of traditional Cuban
music, Amadito appears in the anthological documentary
Buena Vista Social Club directed by the famous German
filmmaker Wim Wenders, which gave worldwide impact to
this Cuban musical phenomenon; Amadito had one of the
leading roles in the award-winning documentary that was
seen almost all over the planet. In 1998, Amadito with
Rubén González's group participated in the “Concertazos” at
the Carre Theater in Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall in New
York.
Throughout his successful career, Amadito has
performed in more than 40 countries around the world and
as a “sideman” he has participated in approximately 80
albums, including several of notable significance in the field
of Cuban popular music such as the group Nueva Visión de

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Emiliano Salvador, the historic Estrellas de Areíto project, a
sovereign Todos Estrellas (Team Cuba) of the Cuban
musical old guard.
Among the most remembered recorded albums are:
Introducing Rubén González, Buena Vista Social Club
Presents Ibrahim Ferrer, Rumba
Deep, Distinct and Different, Cachaíto, Cuban Dreams A
Reunion The New York Sessions with Juan Pablo Torres,
Ibrahim Ferrer, Pio Leyva, Manuel Licea ¨Puntillita¨ Alfredo
Valdés Jr., and we must mention Buena Vista Social Club at
Carnegie Hall , along with Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer,
Rubén González, Omara Portuondo and many others.
In 2000 he was invited by Ry Cooder to participate in
the Grammy Awards gala in Los Angeles, along with Ibrahim
Ferrer, Chucho Valdés and Poncho Sánchez.
“The demand for traditional Cuban music was immense
in those times of the second stage of the final decade of the
20th century,” says Amadito, “that is the reason why even
Cuban musicians residing abroad found new life. Proof of
this is the return to the recording studios of the immense
Bebo Valdés; This production is titled Bebo Rides Again and
in it I also had the pleasure of sharing with Carlos ¨Patato¨
Valdés, Paquito D´Rivera, Juan Pablo Torres among others.
In 2002, Amadito presented his first personal album
called Bajando Gervasio , which was later nominated for the
2003 Grammy Awards.
In July 2002 he appeared with his group at Motion
Blue in Yokohama, Japan, precisely to promote his first

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personal album.
The competitive German firm Meinl, manufacturer of
percussion instruments, has distinguished him with the
construction and distribution in the international market of
the Amadito Valdés Model timbale, which makes him one of
the few percussionists in the world to enjoy this honor. He is
also a “senior endorser” of that company.
The American firm Regal Tip also distributes the
exclusive Amadito Valdés model of drumsticks for timbales
worldwide. Likewise, he is an endorsee of the American
company Evans, which manufactures heads for percussion
instruments.
At the beginning of 2006, the book Amadito Valdés Las
baquetas de oro de Buena Vista Social Club, a personal
history in Cuban music, written by the Cuban journalist
Orlando Matos, was published in Mexico, in which the life
and work of this man is exposed. prominent timbalero and a
journey through almost half a century of Cuban popular
music. In general, musicians only dedicate themselves to
playing music. In this book Amadito proves to be one of the
musicians who knows the history and theory of the musical
world in which he has moved all these years.
In 2006, a unique album appeared on the international
market:
Rhythms of the World Cuba. CD conceived by APE to raise
funds and promote the global community's concern about
climate change. Amadito is part of the "Staff" of this
production along with figures of the stature of Sting, U2,

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Coldplay, Quincy Jones, Omara Portuondo, Ibrahim Ferrer,
Barbarito Torres, just to name a few.
Programmed by Al Gore, with the aim of drawing
attention to the preservation of the environment, the Live
Earth 777 concert took place on July 7, 2007, in different
cities around the world. Amadito performed in Hamburg
Germany with the group Reamonn.
On that occasion, the Gibson guitar firm asked
Amadito, along with other international music stars, such as
Snoop Dogg, Shakira, Bianca Jagger, Reamonn, Katie
Melua, Roger Cicero, to sign one of their instruments that
would later be auctioned for humanitarian purposes. A true
event turned out to be the screening in 2010 of the film
Chico y Rita , by the anthological Spanish director Fernando
Trueba. Amadito is one of the instrumentalists who
participates in this production along with Bebo Valdés, Mike
Mossman, Jimmy Heath among others. He was also present
in the documentary El Oro de Cuba, under the direction of
the Italian director Guiliano Montaldo (Marco Polo and Los
Intocables).
A timpani by Amadito was part of the exhibition that
took place in 2011 at the Museum of Civilization in Quebec,
Canada. In this exhibition there are articles by icons of
African American music, we talk about Louis
Armstrong, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, James Brown, Chuck
Berry, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Benny Goodman and Tito
Puente.
Amadito Valdés' musical concept has been very transparent:

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studying and working on the music of his national traditions,
he has not flirted with foreign jazz, "mine is mine, and
that's why it has worked for me."

ANICETO DÍAZ, THE KING OF DANZONETE

Aniceto Diaz. The king of Danzonete celebrated 25

years of death (Matanzas, April 17, 1887/Havana, July 10,
1964).

The danzonete was created with resounding success,

80 years ago, on June 8, 1929, in the halls of the Spanish
Casino of Matanzas.

The story of the creation of the danzonete, according

to Aniceto, was due to a certain decline of the danzón, in
1929, attacked by foreign music, especially Charleston, jazz
and its variants; also for the sone septets that were
fashionable in that decade. Aniceto presented to a dance
where he did not receive the attention he deserved. Then
upon returning home, he told his wife that danzón was
already in decline and he had to invent something new for
the youth. Then he did what he had to do: merge the
danzón with the son, he eliminated the cinquillo and put the
singer

as the protagonist, creating the danzonete with the first

title: Breaking the routine.

Danzonete, try and go,

I want to dance with you

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 To the beat of the danzonete.

The approval was general, the danzonete was felt

throughout the country, they were quickly presented on
Havana radio as a great novelty. He appears with two
singers and a dance partner to make an impact. Let us not
forget that danzón was without singers. He quickly
engraved the Brunswick seal on it.

Fernando Collazo and Abelardo Barroso, two giants of

son, quickly joined the trend. Pablo Quevedo, the first divo
of Cuba, Joseíto Fernández (king of the Guajira
Guantanamera), Alberto Aroche, Paulina Álvarez, supreme
queen of danzonete. There was no shortage of the
orchestras of Antonio María Romeu, Armando Valdés Torres,
Miguel Matamoros, Fernando Collazo with Las Maravillas,
fashion is fashion.

Aniceto settles in the capital, creates a new orchestra

with his children. The teacher played the figle, the piano,
the flute and was an orchestra director. He came to play
with the so-called creator of danzón, Miguel Faílde, and
created his first orchestra in 1904, 105 years ago. It is also
90 years since his first hit, the danzón The long-distance
telephone , which at that time was like talking about the cell
phone “you have to pay there.” The success of this song
was thunderous.

Aniceto performed this danzón with great ingenuity,

establishing a dialogue with the solo instrument, located at
a certain distance from the rest of the instrumental family.
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This responds to the call of the soloist (muted trumpet).

After the danzonete went out of fashion, Aniceto

dedicated himself to teaching and tuning the piano, in 1947.

Some of Aniceto's many compositions: (DANCES)

To the voice of fire, Speed up the machine, driver, To the

beat of the timbales, Soul and life, Press Association, Arroyo
Arenas, Candela viva, The little crab, The moratorium
caught you, Never leave, The young people of style , pollo y
gallina, Templando la lira, Cuba libre, Soda, Bellamar,
Jersey, The Dollar Princess, Jovenes del ensueño and the
two most famous: The long distance telephone, Breaking
the routine.

(DANZONETES): The trigeminal, That's life, Spanish whim,

Now I feel happy, The high school of Ranchuelos, Don't be
crazy, Guajirita mia, El torbellino, I don't give a damn, The
devil tun tun, Breaking the routine:

There in Matanzas it has been created

A new ballroom dance

With a very well marked compass

And good harmonization.

For the holidays of the great world

Of elegance and distinction

It will be the favorite dance

For your sweet inspiration.

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 (Chorus)

Breaking the routine.

Danzonete, try and go,

I want to dance with you

To the beat of the danzonete.

ANTONIO ARCAÑO, MONARCH OF DANZÓN

( Havana, December 29, 1911 / Havana, June 18, 1994)

Antonio was born in the Ataré neighborhood, since he

was a child he lived with his mother in Regla. He was a
strong man, at 14 years old he weighed 174 pounds “He
was a beast! “I was a boxer, a baseball player, I met Jack
Dempsey at the La Bombilla cabaret, my delirium.” The
family wanted a doctor, a professional, in the house. But,
the economic crisis was not enough for that and

Antonio was obsessed with getting out of poverty, so he

insisted on learning the flute, clarinet and cornet with
Armando Romeu. The influence of music comes from his
cousin, the great flutist José Antonio Díaz. “I owe him
everything I learned, because of him I started playing,
replacing him at dances, he was a great teacher and
excellent musician, the most complete flutist that ever
existed.” (1)

Antonio made his way through study, until he took a

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place in Armando Valdés' orchestra, replacing Belisario
López. When he was 15 years old, Antonio's first popular
music school was in the cabarets on 41st Street, in
Marianao, in the Tropical area: El Paraíso, El Francés,
Montecarlo, La Bombilla, an area for Spanish commercial
employees. , Galician music. In a period of closure of
cabarets, musicians move to the dance academies: Sport
Antillano, Marte and Belona y Galatea. In the academies
they worked from 10 pm to 5 am, for three pesos and
dinner.

From there he went to black societies, worked with the

Gris orchestra and in 1936 he joined the star Fernando
Collazo in Las Maravillas del Siglo with an all-star group
where stars such as Israel López (Cachao), the pianist Jesús
López, the timbalero were Ulpiano Díaz, the violinist Virgilio
Diago. “Collazo's licentious life disturbed the discipline of
the orchestra, in the private homes where we played. The
musicians proposed me as director.

I named the orchestra the First Wonder of the Century,

Collazo legally claimed it and I called it Las Maravillas de
Arcaño, until Arcaño y sus Maravillas remained, and once
independent we played the first dance in 1937.” (2)

THE RADIOPHONE

Arcaño went big with the danzón, he took it to the

symphonic level, he started with six musicians in his
charanga, he added another violin and the tumbadora. It
ended up on the Mil Diez station with the same number of
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strings as a symphony: eight violins, three violas, two
chellos. “I always wanted to have a big orchestra, similar to
a symphony. I liked to experiment. The Radiofónica was a
laboratory orchestra. It had eight authors with tremendous
enthusiasm for creating. Every day we trained a danzón.
Orestes López made about two hundred” (3) Many of these
musicians came from the symphony, as was the case with
Virgilio Diago, but playing the classics does not require
money or fame; They paid two pesos and at a dance from
six to eight

NEW RHYTHM

Arcaño's orchestra had an all-star staff, a teacher in

each instrument, phenomenal composers, they wrote
almost every day, without creators there is no success. The
new style imposed was the result of a process of creation
and collective contributions, through which important
elements of Cuban and American popular music were
accumulated in the genre, as Dora Ileana Torres wrote. It
almost always happens that way, an orchestra is a collective
laboratory. The orchestra had the López brothers, Félix
Reina, Musiquita, Jorrín who experienced and created the
cha cha chá. “Jorrín told me: “Master, I would like that
crazy guy…” I told him: “Yes, my son, of course…” And he
composed it all crazy.”

“Around 1946 – adds Jorrín – I intensified the sung

danzones, I made a trio with the musicians themselves, to
hide that they were not professional singers. "From 1953

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onwards, the typical orchestras returned to include singers."

In 1938, the danzón Mambo was premiered by

Orestes López. A new style is coined. Arcaño himself
described the process that brought Rhythm New to his
orchestra: “Orestes López included his syncopated style in
the piano part, and I followed those improvisations by
making filigrees with the flute. Very soon improvisation
based on that style became generalized throughout the
orchestra, and thus, without having created a specific
number, the New Rhythm began to be played. In 1940,
Orestes López had the idea of including in the last section of
one of his danzones a montuno in the style of those that
had already been played by the orchestra before, writing
the fundamental parts in accordance with its conception,
and thus this danzón, whose title was Mambo , gives its
name to what we have been doing for a while. Then I gave
this style New Rhythm ... Since 1930, Orestes López and I
were around cabarets and other places playing and making
downloads, and the Mambeao style already characterized
his performances. When the orchestra that I direct was
founded in 1937, the danzón was in decline, the competition
was very tough, very tough!, and the musicians had to
improve themselves a lot and include other repertoires in
their danzones; change instruments and innovate... Orestes
made a very tasty little thing that turned out to be the
mambo - Arcaño notes - that was the merit of Orestes
López, taking the montuno, which they also call "capetillo",
and making it syncopated. They say that this form was
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introduced to Cuba by Haitian slaves who played three .
Orestes López was a precursor of the mambo. The charanga
made a change with that innovation. I called these
innovations “ new rhythm.” Then the dancers took out
aisles…It was quite a spectacle.” (4)

Israel López Cachao explains Ritmo Nuevo in this

way: “Look, when I started playing in 1926, danzón was still
a very formal, very traditional ballroom dance, with a very
rigid scheme, even though It already had a final coda in
which some more lively improvisation was done. But in
1937, when the Arcaño y sus Maravillas orchestra was
founded, we did a total renewal of the danzón, although
without harming it: in reality what we did was modernize it,
and in that work we began to manage the rhythm of the
mambo, which was the tumbao that was improvised in the
final part and that could last any time, as long as the people
were dancing. When the first “mambo” was made that was
heard as danzón, what we did was speed up the rhythm of
the danzón, but without changing its structure, because the
dancers were not yet prepared for such a change. Even that
first “mambo” was too fast and the following ones should
have been slower, just like the danzón. But already in 1950,
when Pérez Prado began to work on the mambo, the
conditions had changed, we lived in another era and he did
introduce all the speed that the rhythm had. Furthermore,
from the beginning he proposed to work on a more
complicated, more active choreography. But the original
mambo was our creation..." (5)
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 According to Cristóbal Díaz Ayala and Manuel Villar, El
danzón Mambo, in the original was played together with
the American standard work All the things that you are;
It is not recorded until January 30, 1951. On that occasion it
did not contain any joined piece, it is simply a single
simplified piece. The recording appears when Pérez Prado
makes his dizzying mambo fashionable. As we see, the
Mambo composition is a true mystery.
THE MAFIA OF THE BIG THREE

The musical scepter of the 1950s was held for a time

by three greats: Arcaño, Arsenio and Melodías del 40 .
There were several gangsters, they organized dances in the
gardens of the Tropical and other halls. “There was a
tremendous atmosphere in Havana,” Cachao tells Leonardo
Padura, “and we got along very well among the orchestras.
It was then that Arcaño had the idea of creating the musical
league of the Big Three and it was named that way
because it was the time of World War II and since there
were the three greats of politics (Churchill, Roosevelt and
Stalin) they also did so. I could have Cuban music. And the
impact it had was very great: I think we made all of Cuba
dance.” (6)

Arcaño filled a glorious musical era, reaching the

record of having achieved four hundred and four contracts
in one year. For more than twenty years he played in black
societies almost free of charge. “They had nothing to
support themselves and they had to be helped. I charged

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them fifty pesos per dance and they collected five hundred.”
It must also be recognized that Arcaño faced the trenches of
danzón and charangas, against the invasion of foreign jazz
snobbery transmitted through records and films. Many
times pieces from outside were taken and reworked and
adapted to the Cuban charanga. Thus they kept the
invaders at bay, until the powerful cha cha cha arrived that
evicted the jazz and jazz band orchestras in the aristocratic
clubs with blows of their butts. It must be said that Arcaño
introduced the tumbadora to reinforce the rhythm section in
the charanga.
FLUTIST

The musicologist Ada Oviedo writes that Arcaño, with

the creative spirit that characterized him, revived the
tradition created by the flutist Miguel Vázquez (the Moor), of
improvising long-lasting flutistic variations that stimulated
the dancers' climaxes of euphoria. Arcaño said that Odilio
Urfé baptized him as the “poet of the flute.” And Jorrín
declared that he was moved when he heard it, they heard it
four blocks away, a strong, vibrating, melancholic sound,
without stridency; I felt like a halo, a beneficial influence. “I
was a lover of improvisations, of making filigrees,
variations; I relied on the harmony of the mambo to achieve
modulations, little scales, arpeggios, some small
dissonance.” (7) “For the danzones, Orestes López did a
mambo, and I did a flourish on that mambo. A syncopated
danzón, accentuating the second syllable of the beat. All of
this occurred when I directed the Radiofónica, Enrique Jorrín
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and Orestes López were there. "That's where all of that
came from." (8)

The maestro had the habit of playing with his back to

the audience; according to data from Antonio Romero and
Mauricio Sáez, he improvised with his flute at right angles
formed by the walls. “I adopted this placement to achieve
more strength and help breathing. The amplification was
very bad and that way the sound bounced off the walls” (9)

The flutist Joaquín Oliveros tells me that Arcaño's lip

fell out, the flute didn't play. “A mystery that would be
convenient to investigate, evil tongues say that it was
witchcraft, that something was thrown into it. Maybe it was
overwork, three sets a day and playing until dawn,
physiological exhaustion. "When musicians gave their lives
on stage, that is a story that has never been told." For his
part, Cristóbal Díaz Ayala says that Arcaño suffered from
circulatory problems and as a flutist he was “melodic,
intelligent and classic.” - José Antonio Díaz replaced the
monarch Arcaño on the flute.

DANCES

Few orchestra conductors surpassed Arcaño's orchestra

in number of dances, the presentations had to be thousands
of thousands, he is the best person to speak about the
subject. It was the most anticipated charanga from the
Buena Vista Social Club, Las Águilas, Marianao Social,
Deportivo de la Fe, etc. The Wonders of Arcaño never
touched the aristocracy. They went to a vacant lot as well
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as to a society of poor whites or blacks: “We were village
artists. On one side there was the black dancer and the
white dancer. The black man had a very precarious
economy and could not attend shows other than dances.
When I got two pesos, it was to go dancing. But despite his
poverty, he was very elegant: he dressed better than me.
He danced any day, at any time, even if he fell asleep the
next morning at work. Then they told me: “Arcaño, you are
killing us.” And I answered that they were the ones who
killed themselves, because I played every day because I
made a living from it. The white dancer was more
organized: he danced on Saturday and on Sunday he went
to the beach or the movies. He liked to dance with the black
woman, with the mulatto woman, because they did it very
well. In addition to the Asturian Center card, I had another
one from the Unión Fraternal, where there were very pretty
women, black and mulatto, who danced very well. Once
they called me from the Secretariat and told me: “Arcaño, it
is an honor for us that you dance here, but outside there
are many white people who are going to protest because
they cannot come in to dance and you can.” And I answer:
“That's not a problem. Tell them I'm black. Look at my
Fraternal Union card.”

This was the life of Arcaño, a long-standing

musician, a legend, the Monarca, “Monarch arose from a
journalist from El País , who wrote a black social chronicle:
Pedro Portuondo Calá. He said that I was the Monarch of the
Tartars, that we had degenerated music..."
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 At his residence in Jesús Peregrino y Soledad, he died
in 1994, in the midst of the Cuban salsa boom
phenomenon. We end with the magic phrase: “Ready
Arcaño!”/ “Dale Dermos!” (9)

GRADES:

1- Victoria Eli, “The monarch turns 80”, Bohemia,

Havana, January 1992, p. fifteen
2- Erena Hernández, Music in person, Cuban Letters,
Havana, 1986, p. 43
3- Ibid
4- Ibidem and see also Dora Ileana Torres, “Del danzón
cantado al cha cha chá” , in Panorama of Cuban
popular music, Havana, Letras Cubanas, 1995, 178
5- Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Unión, Havana, 1997, p. 127
6- Ibid
7- Luis Ríos Vega, “Interview with Antonio Arcaño”, El
Manisero, Barcelona, Spain s/f
8- Antonio Romero and Mauricio Sáez, “ Antonio
Arcaño...el danzonero mayor”, Tropicana
Internacional, Havana, no. 5, 1997, p. 46
9- Ibid

ARMANDO ORÉFICHE, THE GERSHWIN OF CUBA

(Havana, June 5, 1911/Palma, Gran Canarias, November
24, 2000)

Oréfiche is one of the most important disseminators of

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Cuban music around the world, along with Xavier Cugat; To
this we must add the enormous number of composed
works, which exceeds one hundred. He is the king of
ballroom rumba: Rumba azul, Rumba blanca, Rumba
colorá, Rumba porteña. That classic that Bola de Nieve
made popular: Mesié Julián and Amor international.
Bombón – mambo dedicated to Lola Flores- . Big stars
sang her songs: Esther Borja, Rosita Fornés, Paulina
Álvarez, Rita Montaner, Josephine Baker, Pedro Vargas,
Raquel Meller, Toña la Negra, Antonio Machín, Miguelito
Valdés, Bola de Nieve, Lola Flores, Caetano Veloso, Sonia
and Miriam

Armando was a pianist, composer, arranger and

orchestra director, he studied teaching, like many of the
Cuban musicians. He studied music at a Havana academy,
at only 21 years old he was already a talented pianist,
everyone called him Fichín. Oréfiche is a surname of Italian
origin (goldsmith), that was the motto of this musician
throughout his life, making music with gold trim.

LECUONA CUBAN BOYS

In 1930 The brothers Agustín and Gerardo Brugueras,

members of the Hermanos Palau-Lebaratd orchestra, the
trumpet Jaruco Vázquez joined Armando Oréfiche and
formed the Encanto orchestra, in order to play at the
Encanto theater in Havana. Ernesto Lecuona listens to them
and is interested in the orchestra, at times he plays the
piano with them, some singer says their songs and then the

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orchestra does more upbeat songs. As time went by, a
Lecuona contract appeared in Spain, the teacher agreed to
claim them, kept his word and, in 1932, took them to Spain
under the name of Lecuona Cuban Boys .

In Spain they relived those Havana days when they

performed performances on two pianos in the Principal de
La Comedia theater. In 1933, Lecuona's sudden illness
made him return to Cuba, the orchestra remained in Spain -
in the form of a cooperative - under the direction of
Oréfiche. With Ernesto's permission, the orchestra continues
to maintain its name, Lecuona is a guarantee seal.

The orchestra turns its performances into true shows.

They perform with a Cuban voice called Carmen Burgette
and a Spanish singer. It is the first orchestra to offer a
complete show, the musicians danced, gestured and staged
the numbers, causing a real sensation on international
stages. The musicians and singers dressed in costumes from
various countries: Arabs, Egypt, Latin America. (1)

Sergio Vermel, shrewd artistic director of the Excélsior

hotel in Venice, discovered that group with unusual sound in
Logroño and hired them for the exclusive Venice Lido,
sensing the charm that their warm rhythms would exert on
the European public. (2)
On June 3, 1934, they arrived in the city of canals as
Lecuona Cuban Boys , in recognition of the great Lecuona
who took them to Europe, Lecuona was an international seal
of guarantee. A period of splendor begins: Zurich, Paris,

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Geneva, stages such as the International Sporting Club of
Monte Carlo and tour the most luxurious casinos and
theaters in Europe. They inaugurated the Moulín Rouge in
Geneva, The Three Mills in Barcelona, the Tamanaco Hotel
in Caracas and were special guests at many carnivals in
Montevideo, Uruguay. They appeared face to face with the
greats: Raquel Meller, Maurice Chevalier, Josephine Baker.
On October 5, 1934, they invaded the ABC stage in
Paris, the success was overwhelming. In its repertoire the
work of stellar Cuban composers was maintained: Lecuona,
Moisés Simons, Armando Valdespí, Margarita Lecuona.
In 1946, while filming a movie in Hollywood, after 14
years of triumphs, the members of the orchestra separated
from Oréfiche. The maestro very elegantly gave everything
and created his Havana Cuban Boys orchestra and “go
ahead with the drums,” as the rumberos say. Oréfiche
continued its chain of successes, 14 more years. Later he
retired to live in Madrid and in the 90s, when the salsa
boom broke out in Cuba, he retired to Palma in the Canary
Islands. Sometimes he made his escapes to the US, his last
presentation was at a tribute to Lecuona. On November 24,
2000, at the age of 89, Oréfiche turned off his engines,
after being one of the musicians with the most flight hours
in Cuba.
CONCEPT
According to Evelio Taillacq, Oréfiche took from the
Europeans the resource of using musicians on various
instruments. The saxophones also played flutes, clarinets

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and even violins. His arrangements denoted an exotic
combination of European softness and distinction with the
impetus and rhythmic richness of Cuba.
What for some was a quality, for others was a defect.
Unfortunately, Cuban music, over time, has had to sweeten
it, soften it, make it “bloodwashed” (using a word from
Alejo Carpentier). “I warned with regret,” says Oréfiche,
“that despite these efforts, Cuban music did not “enter”
those audiences as it should. So to make them understand
it, I dedicated myself to making arrangements of pieces
known to them, adapting them to the rhythm and manner
of Cuban music... “This is how the rumbas in colors
emerged.” (3)
GRADES:

1- Facts about Cristóbal Díaz Ayala

2- Sigrid Padrón and Dulce Ma. Betancourt, “Armando

Oréfiche”, the Cuban Gershwin”, Tropicana
International, Havana, no. 5 of 1997

3- Ibid

ARSENIO RODRÍGUEZ. ONE OF THE ARCHITECTS OF

SON AND EL MAMBO

(Güira de Macurijes, Matanzas, August 30, 1911 / Los

Angeles, USA, December 30, 1970)

Arsenio is one of the colossi of Cuban son and mambo,

musician

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foundation, a creator of a sharp legend, guide to the Latin
salsa Boom of the 1960s.

Arsenio Travieso Scull was born on August 30, 1911

(according to the birth certificate of the Civil Registry of
Güines, in Volume 72, Folio 164 dated April 13, 1940).
Although some researchers offer the date of August 31,
1913, including the aforementioned registration certificate.

He was born by chance in Güira de Macurijes, his

parents were from Havana, mother from San Nicolás de Bari
and father from Villa de Güines. At the age of five he went
to live in the Legina de Güines neighborhood. It is said that
he had an accident during his childhood, in which he lost his
sight; although it is estimated that it was a congenital
disease (advanced diabetes), a family inheritance.

After the cyclone of the 26th, they moved to the

Marianao neighborhood in Havana. He began listening to
Carlos Godínez Facenda, guitarist of the Septeto Habanero.
Later he met Isaac Oviedo, star of tres. At the age of 17 he
joined the Boston Sextet, led by his cousin Jacinto Scull. In
1934 he joined Esteban Regueira's Bellamar Septet. Then

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he takes his own creative path.

Arsenio, thanks to his creative ingenuity, takes the

sonero roots and expands its sonority, innovating its meter
with a new and more aggressive instrumentation in the
ensemble that influenced its dance form. He enlivened his
melodies with the lilting montuno, with the predominant
essential key. The “solos” of the instrument the “tres”, the
piano, the tumbadora and the trumpets. With these
possibilities he rose up in rhythmic improvisations,
accompanied by a choir.

The trumpets and the way they blend with the bass,
the piano and the tres to give a sound that, with the force of
the tumbadora and the accompaniment of the bongo, form
the rhythmic sound world that allows salsa to be named
with these in the 1960s. odds. (Pablo Delvalle)

“The mambo is composed of the yucca drum played by

the congos and is the basis of the rhythm and the part
played by the trumpets. The orientals played something of
this rhythm in the three. In the province of Oriente the
descendants of the Congo play a music called the cassava
drum and in the controversy between one and the other
singer who belongs to sing, says to the other: “Abre cuto
guiri mambo”, or rather: “Open the listen and listen to what
I am going to tell you.” The music that has been played as
mambo has had five different names: goat, capetillo,
montuno, diablo and finally mambo. The idea came to me
because since I had to do something new to find cooking

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(food) I thought that combining the cassava drum with the
capetillo goat could be a strange thing to dance. The yucca
drum is played with three five-foot-odd drums. The rhythm
they carry seems to be a sing-song or controversy. The
singers ask each other questions following the rhythm and
whoever cannot answer them is defeated. That is the basis
of true mambo. The first one I composed was called Soy
kangá and was sung by Fernando Collazo. The first mambo
to be recorded on disc was ¡ So horse ! The trumpeter
Rubén Calzado collaborated with me in all this. The word
mambo is African, from a Congo dialect. In 1939 the septets
disappeared and everyone used trumpets and piano. He was
no longer as crazy as they had said. I began working on this
music in 1935 and in 1936 I was already achieving results.
The two groups that played the mambo were the Boston
Septet, which I directed, and the Havana Orchestra of
Estanislao Serbia. In 1938, when I arrived everywhere with
the nightmare of the mambo, they called me crazy and said
that I had ruined Cuban music. Organize a new set system.
I thought that the septet with the trumpet, the guitar and
the tres did not have the necessary harmony and I added a
piano and three trumpets. Then they started calling me La
Chambelona.”

THE KEY

“The foundation of Arsenio's music is the key –

explains one of Arsenio's pianists: Rubén González-. It is
the exact and precise way of carrying the rhythm that the

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dancers take advantage of to mark the step, as if it were a
train, a perennial hammering. Arsenio trained us in that
obligatory mechanic, entering on time, to apply the “solos”.
“That is a training that is achieved, a difficult job.”

What if I learned with Arsenio? Listen, if I hadn't

played with him, I'm sure I wouldn't know son so much. I
had to learn it at his side, because he was a true sonero.”
(Interview by Mayra A. Martinez)

Arsenio's ensemble, in its time, was like a train, with

that overwhelming sound engine; in the era of danzonera
charangas. It was said that Arsenio left the dance floor hot
and few groups could face him on a (dance) tour at La
Tropical, Club Social Buena Vista or any other black society.

Arsenio left a mythical trail within Cuban music, many

books have been published about his life abroad; two of
them belong to the friend from Cali Colombia Pablo Emilio
Delvalle Arroyo: Arsenio Rodríguez,

Father of Salsa and Del are to the sauce. Another belongs to

David F. García, A Black Cuban Musician in the dance Music
milieus of Habana, New York City, and Los Angeles 2004.
The admiration that exists for this genius of Cuban music
who led an eventful, somewhat tragic life is amazing.

Arsenio died in Los Angeles on Wednesday, December

30, 1970, and was first buried at Roseadle Cemetery in LA.
Then his wife Adelina, on January 3, 1971 (40 years ago),
moved the musician's remains and took him to New York,

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where they held a wake at the Manhattan North Chapels at
107 and Amsterdam Avenue. He was finally buried at
Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale Westchester Country, New
York, on January 6, 1971.
There are some myths about Arsenio's tomb; he is
buried where figures such as the African-American leader
Malcom X, the jazzman Thelonius Monk and the actor Paul
Robertson rest.

After one lives

Twenty disappointments

What does one more matter?

After you know

The action of life

You must not cry.

You have to realize

That everything is a lie,

That nothing is true.

You have to live the happy moment,

You have to enjoy what you can enjoy,

Because taking the account in total

Life is a Dream

And everything goes away.

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 The reality is to be born and die,

Why fill ourselves with so much anxiety,

Everything is nothing more than eternal suffering,

The world is made without happiness.

(Life is a dream/ 1947/ Arsenio Rodríguez)

AZPIAZU, KING OF EL MANISERO

(Cienfuegos, Las Villas, February 11, 1893 / Havana

January 20, 1943).

Justo Ángel Aspiazu, is one of the emblematic

musicians of Cuba, he spread Cuban music in the

USA and Europe, the first great moment of Cuban music.

FAMILY

Justo Don Aspiazu, unlike most popular musicians,

came from a wealthy family, well connected to political
power and with a passion for music. His father Santiago was
a civil engineer and musician. His mother is a teacher and
musical enthusiast. His grandfather José arrived from Spain
in 1840, when Cuban rhythms were taking off. He was a
colonel and auxiliary assistant to General Máximo Gómez.
And surprisingly his great-grandfather was a musician, he
had played with Queen Elizabeth II.

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 CHILDHOOD

Justo studied with his brother Eusebio (known

artistically as Mario Antobal), both of them were sent to the
United States as a child, where they spent most of their
childhood. He studied piano, composition and at the age of
eight he was already playing the accordion.

As a teenager, he was enrolled in a military school in

Cuba with the aim of directing him towards military life, but
he was expelled for disobedience. In 1927 he married the
Cuban-German woman, daughter of General José Braulio
Alemán, a participant in the War of Independence. At that
time his brother Antobal was secretary of the presidency in
the Menocal government. Because of his influence, as a
wedding gift, Antobal sent Justo as Cuban consul in
Guatemala. He did not disembark, because a coup d'état
against President Manuel Estrada Cabrera was staged there.
Luckily for American music, it seems that Justo was
destined to direct his life towards the revolution of Cuban
music in the world.

He returns to Cuba and works for a while at the

telephone company. Finally, in the mid-1920s he founded
his orchestra to perform at the aristocratic five-star Hotel,
Almendares, compared to the Dupont and the Morgan. They
embarked on a tour throughout the country, where they did
not have much resonance.

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 WHO WAS THE MUSICIAN DON AZPIAZU?

It was the conductor of the Havana Casino orchestra

who, in May 1930, took, with the singer Antonio Machín, the
song El Manisero , by Moisés Simons to New York,
recorded it and popularized it for history, starting with them
the first Boom of Cuban music. and Latin in America and
later in the world. From then on the music industry began to
develop the dissemination of music throughout the
American continent.

They debuted on April 26, 1930 at the Palace Theater

on Broadway, the Latin music theater, Machín, with a can he
threw cones of Cuban peanuts while singing the son-pregón,
El Manisero , they also performed other Cuban genres,
with rhythms of hot tropical sun, like

Rumba craze and the survival of Habanera “For your

black eyes.”

According to John Store Roberts, the attraction of the

orchestra lay in the way of playing, in the way of making
Cuban music with a unique and peculiar sound with a
characteristic and authentic seal with maracas, claves, guiro
and bongó, congas and timbales. , Cuba's percussive
arsenal that would leave a permanent and forever mark on
the world music that would characterize us. He was the first
to present these typical instruments in the United States.
And, in turn, he was a precursor of the so-called Latin jazz
(Afro-Cuban or Afro-Latin). He also had a lot to do with the
introduction of Cuban percussion in the world's symphony
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orchestras; the exotic percussion so full of nuances, with
bewitching hums, its caresses of wounded silk, as Émile
Vullrmoz said

Two transcendental musicians played in the Aspiazu

orchestra - apart from Machín -, Mario Bauzá (initiator of
Latin jazz, Afro-Cuban) and the trumpeter Julio Cueva,
promoter of Afro-Cubanism in the jazz band, Armando
Romeu, Leonardo Timor (father) and Julio orchestrated Brito
creator of the song Tropicana. Azpiazu had the skills to
gather good musicians in his band. The orchestra
accompanied the great Carlos Gardel in the film
Espérame . The maestro conducted the orchestra, while
playing a couple of keys.

Don Aspiazu's orchestra was considered by Alejo

Carpentier as “a masterpiece, with it we put ourselves at
the forefront of Latin American music.”

In 1931, in the midst of the El Manisero fever, they toured

from coast to coast with the American singer, Marion
Sunshine, who greatly cooperated with the promotion of the
Cuban orchestra. They triumphed on the best stages in New
York, Paris and several countries in Europe, thirsty for fast-
paced and pristine rhythms. In Havana he worked at the
National Casino and Seville Biltmore. In Paris, according to
Carpentier. It was presented with the charming novelties, in
the maximum sanctuaries of the show at the Empire, the
Plantation, on the banks of the Seine, on the Champs
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Elysées, with an astonishing acceptance in the face of
difficult Parisian criticism. He also performed at the Savoy in
London, Central Park Casino in Boston, in Monte Carlo.

“The Aspiazu orchestra comes to definitively dislodge

American music from the Parisian dance halls. Needless to
say, currently, in the Champs-Elysées cabaret that has hired
Don Aspiazu, the audience yawns when the jazz and tango
orchestras make themselves heard, waiting for the Cubans
to “break out” a very Creole son! ! Jazz is dead! Long live
the son!..." (Alejo Carpentier, November 20, 1932,
Carteles magazine)

In 1939 Azpiazu returned to Havana, performed for a

season at the Sevilla Biltmore Hotel and in 1940 he retired
from music.

BEBO VALDÉS: KING OF BATANGA

(Quivicán, Havana, October 9, 1918)

The Valdés constitute a gigantic dynasty, some related,

others not, but the list is very long: Miguelito Valdés,
Merceditas Valdés, Bebo Valdés, Chucho Valdés, Oscar
Valdés (son, grandson), Vicentico Valdés, Alfredito, Joseíto
Valdés, Abelardito Valdés , Amadito (father and son),
Gilberto Valdés, Marta Valdés, Carlos “Patato” Valdés.

Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro “Bebo”, pianist, composer,

director of the Sabor de Cuba orchestra, integral musician.
Known as the “Caballón” for his tall stature. He made his

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debut in 1938 with the Happy D'Ulacia orchestra. Later with
Wilfredo García's orchestra. He replaced René Hernández in
Julio Cueva's orchestra, for that group he created the work
Oddities of the Century.

Bebo began, with claves and maracas, imitating the

soneros of the fashionable septets of the 1920s. Upon his
arrival in Havana, he was enrolled, along with Cachao and
Argeliers León, in the Municipal Conservatory of Havana,
directed by Amadeo Roldán. He studies with Bourffartique
(author of Burundanda) and Gramatges. He begins to
interact with Cuban musicians such as Machito, Frank
Emilio, and Miguelito Valdés. He begins to become familiar
with jazz.

He began working in 1937 with the jazz band Los

Hermanos Ulacia, presenting his first composition Gloria a
Maceo, a danzón, dedicated to the Quivicán recreational
society. The song becomes a hit with the Arcaño y sus
Maravillas Orchestra.

Between 1940 and 1942 he played with the Hermanos

Camacho ensemble and organized a jazz trio with his cousin
Guillermo Barreto. In December 1943, Julio Cueva hired him
as orchestrator for the Mil Diez radio station's orchestra.
Arsenio Rodríguez, Olga Guillot and Celia Cruz were
performing at that time. Finally he replaced René Hernández
in Julio Cuevas' orchestra. He makes masterful
arrangements for José Antonio Jo “Fantasmita”, Reinaldo
Valdés and Cascarita. With Cueva Bebo he composed his

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first great success Rarezas delcentury, composed on
Siboney beach, birthplace of Compay Segundo.

He forms a small combo to accompany Miguelito

Valdés and where Chano Pozo comes to play. In 1947 he
obtained a four-month contract in Haiti, and was influenced
by Haitian rhythmic music. He returned to Havana in 1948
to make cascarita records and worked with some musicians
from the Tropicana orchestra. Record Breaking the Coconut
with Generoso Jiménez.

Supported by Rita Montaner, from 1948 to 1957 he

worked with the Tropicana orchestra under the direction of
Armando Romeu, in the famous cabaret every Sunday they
organized jazz downloads with the visits of American stars
such as Richard David, Roy Haynes, Kenny Drew, Sarah
Vaughan. For Bebo, one of his idols in jazz was Dizzy
Gillespie, “he was like a God in heaven.” Coincidentally, in
the early 1950s he was requested by Dizzy Gillespie as a
pianist in his orchestra in New York, but he did not obtain a
permanent visa.

In 1949 the batanga rhythm began to develop, with

the song Fantasía Tropical. He arranges Celia Cruz, Noro
Morales, Ignacio Piñeiro, Rita Montaner, Bola de Nieve and a
long list of stars. He arranged for Las Mulatas de Fuego by
Rodney, choreographer of Tropicana.

1952 is one of the big years for Bebo, he travels to

Mexico where he participates in a film with Tongolele, that
same year he founded on the Azul chain, in June 1952, the
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giant band of 20 musicians Sabor de Cuba , with which he
recorded On June 8, 1952, the Batanga rhythm, of his
creation, recorded by Benny Moré, along with two other
singers. The batanga consists of a polythrythm that uses
batá drums playing a type of conga enriched with a touch of
Obatalá, taken from the saint's festivities of the Belén de
Guanabacoa council. The drums in this performance were
performed by Trinidad

Torregosa. Bebo's composition was finally recorded by

Benny Moré with the title Batanga no. 2 , in the form of
guaracha. Chucho drew on this concept in 1969 for his
masterpiece Black Mass, premiered in Poland on October
29, 1970.

He worked with Guillermo Álvarez Guedes on the GEMA

label, his son Chucho debuted with his band and
accompanied Rolando Laserie, Reinaldo Enríquez, Orlando
Guerra “Cascarita”, Pío Leyva, Ada Rex and others.

He was the creator of the work Con poco coco (1952),

considered the first official download in Cuba, recorded at
Panart, for the Mercury label with the support of
businessman Norman Granz, encouraged by Irving Price,
owner of a record store. “After recording classic jazz songs,
such as Mistrust, Tabú, Duerme, Blues by André. At the end
of the session, as there were still a few minutes available for
the album, I started to play a riff, something that came
from my soul, from which we improvised. It was something
with a lot of coconut, very catchy. We called that song Con

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poco coco, the first recording in the world of a true jam
session (discharge of Afro-Cuban jazz).”

The album was called Cuban, with musicians such as

Guillermo Barreto, Alejandro Vivar, Gustavo Más, Kiki
Hernández, Rolando Alfonso. In all those years Bebo
recorded several downloads such as Hot Download (1955),
Hollyday in

Havana (1956), Special del Bebo (1957), Dile a Catalina

(Arsenio classic), with Tata Güines.

Bebo argues with the choreographer Rodney and

leaves Tropicana to work at the Sevilla Baltimore hotel with
Delia Bravo, wife of Armando Romeu. He then joined the
Radio Progreso orchestra and participated in the recordings
of Nat King Cole in Spanish in Havana, with musicians from
the Tropicana orchestra directed by Armando Romeu.

In 1960 Bebo left to fulfill contracts in Mexico, then

began a pilgrimage, went to Los Angeles, recorded with
Miguelito Valdés and in Spain with Lucho Gatica. He tours
with the Lecuona Cuban Boys in Europe. In 1963 he settled
with his wife in Sweden. After 1960 he undertook a
pilgrimage that began in Mexico, accompanying the Chilean
singers Lucho Gatica and Monna Bell. In California he
worked with the singer Miguelito Valdés, later in Spain he
toured with the Lecuona Cuban Boys orchestra.

In 1963 he established residence in Sweden where he

got married and disappeared from the music scene, in a

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country where Bebo had nothing to do, where there is not
the slightest musical climate. In 1983 he retired, thinking
that he had nothing more to do in music. Until 1994 (before
the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon) he was rescued
by Paquito D´ Rivera with the recording of the album Bebo
ride again , with the Mesidor label.

He participated in Fernando Trueba's documentary

Calle 54, which he began recording in 1999 with modern
jazz classics such as Paquito D'Rivera, Eliane Elías, Orlando
Ríos “Puntillita”, Chano Domínguez, Michel Camilo, Gato
Barbieri, Tito Puente, Chico O' Farril, Cachao, Patato Valdés,
Chucho Valdés and others. I had the privilege of being at its
premiere in a Manhattan theater in 2000 and a few days
later at the presentation in Havana.

The documentary directed by Carlos Carcas, produced

by filmmaker Fernando Trueba and the ESGAE of Spain; It
was presented at the La Rampa cinema by Chucho Valdés
and César Portillo de la Luz. At the cinema, Bebo's entire
family in Havana and the old guard musicians gathered,
from those times in the 1950s, when Bebo shone in the
orchestra of the Tropicana cabaret, the Sabor de Cuba
orchestra and the rhythm Outrigger.

Bebo's son, Chucho Valdés, expressed his pride in

being present at this presentation of his father's
documentary, also his teacher, his guide and his best
memory. “In Cuba my father was one of the greats in piano
interpretation, in orchestrations, downloads and

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compositions, he is a musician like few others.”

The 29th International Festival of New Latin American

Cinema grandly presented the documentary Old Man Bebo,
a cultural event in this triumphant end of the year in Cuba.

Bebo was born in Quivicán, a town in Havana, which

should have the Guinness record for the most Grammy
Awards, between Chucho and Bebo, between nominations
and Grammy Awards they are in the sum of thirty.

In 2000, Fernando Trueba's documentary Calle 54 was

released, with a constellation of Latin Jazz stars, where
Bebo plays with his son La Comparsa by Ernesto Lecuona.

In 2003, Bebo recorded in Madrid with the singer Diego

(El Cigala), the album Lágrimas Negras , Best Album of the
Year, chosen by Ben Rattlif of the New York Times. Also
appearing are the albums Bebo Rides Again ( Bebo rides
again ) and Cuban Suite , (with rhythms of mambo,
guajiramontuno, guaracha, son, bembé) written from 1992
to 1997 in Stockholm, while in Cuba the Music Boom was
breaking out. Cuban sauce.

The documentary begins with statements from Bebo in

which he says “When I die I want you to celebrate it with
chocolate and binge drinking Cuban rum. Being born or
dying is the same.”; words similar to Joan Manuel Serrat's
song, Pueblo Blanco, where he says that “To be born or die
is indifferent.”

I recommend watching this documentary Old Man

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Bebo, a work that deserves to be left for the history of
Cuban music and Latin jazz.

Bebo received a Latin Grammy nomination for the

album El arte del flavor, best traditional tropical album of
2002, with his friend Cachao. In 2003 he recorded the
album Lágrimas Negras with Diego El Cigala, listed as Best
Album of the Year by Ben Rattlif, album of the year by The
New York Times. He recorded the album Bebo Rides Again.

Among Bebo's most popular works are: Guempa

(dedicated with a double meaning, in 1951, to Miguel Ángel
Blanco, master of ceremonies at the Tropicana cabaret), La
rareza del Siglo, Mambo Caliente, Ritmando cha cha chá (hit
by Riverside from 1957), Mexico cute and beloved, Canto a
La Habana, A Mayra, Batanga tu bailas, Cachao, creator of
the mambo, Daiquirí, El solar de Bebo, Especial de Bebo, Mi
parranda, Merengue, no, Tirando Tiro.

BIBILOGRAPHY:

I appreciate the collaboration of Professor Raúl Fernández,

in the book Speaking of Cuban Music, 2008, printed in
Colombia,

Data were used from an interview by Rafael Lam at the

Calle 54 de la Son and Music Studios on 54th Street, in
Manhattan, New York, and by the scholar-writer Luc
Delanoy, in his book Caliente, una historia del jazz latino,
2001. Economic Culture Fund, Mexico.

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BENNY MORÉ, THE KING

(Santa Isabel de las Lajas August 24, 1919 / Havana

February 19, 1963)

Benny Moré is unanimously considered one of the

greatest artists that our popular musical has produced. He is
the King, the Barbarian of Rhythm, the symbol, the
synthesis, the culmination of Cuban music.

It summarizes five centuries of Caribbean music, no one

who saw it was left indifferent, it filled and infected
everything with a music of atmosphere, of atmosphere, of
ecstasy and collective frenzy. It covered the most exciting
chapter of Caribbean musical art. He fused the fleeting with
the eternal, the popular with the classic; everything
magnified. It does not admit equal, it can only be compared
with the same. With the most astonishing simplicity, he
brings to the public a sound process so complex and
ancient, worthy of study by the best musical academies.

Benny synthesized and symbolized the traditional trova,

the peasant guateque, with its controversies, the folklore
tradition, the serenade, the discharge, the bohemia, the
bar, the cafe, the victrola, the theater, the club, the
cabaret, the show, the flavor of the Creole atmosphere, a
true Cuban musical mirror.

He covered all facets: singing, composing, arranging and

conducting – in his own way. He sang many of the Cuban

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rhythms. He only said: “You choose, I'll sing.” For
musicologist José Loyola Fernández, Benny is one of the
richest and most extraordinary voices in popular singing.
“He had a tessitura or extension of the scale, very broad –
from the singing point of view –, as it ascended to the most
acute – high – tenor sounds. And it included some more
serious – low – notes, typical of a baritone singer. It was
characterized by having a very broad sound intensity in all
the registers or segments into which a singer's scale is
divided (low, medium and high). This allowed him to sing
melodies with a very strong intensity, both in the lower and
higher registers, that is, the strength of his voice was not
weakened by melodically moving through the low notes. An
even intensity throughout the entire length.”

The way Benny directed and put together the

orchestrations of his Giant Band, his beloved “tribe”, is
something amazing. The director of Aragón, Rafael Lay, was
stupefied with the way Benny searched for the desired
chords by ear. “because dictating a melodic turn is easy, but
orchestration without knowing music...! That is something
incredible!”
One of its musicians, Leonardo Acosta, describes the
phenomenon this way: The arrangements were by Eduardo
Cabrera, Peruchín Justiz and Generoso Jiménez, although
they undoubtedly had the stamp of Benny's ideas. I don't
remember a single arrangement that hasn't played. He
exclaimed, “Right there, mulatto!” Cuban music requires a
special ear, there are different keys, and lots of
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syncopations and setbacks. He made the band accelerate or
slow down the rhythm as I have only seen batá drums do,
and he made the nuances of the diminuendo or crescendo in
his own way. “Let it be heard, but let it not be heard.” Or
when he fired that famous expression “! Let's enjoy..."

Benny was certainly not an academy musician, but he

had a school, the street school, the profession of many
years, since he was a child, playing wherever four cans
sounded. This allows us to talk about a training process that
begins in the activities of the Casino de los Congos in Santa
Isabel de las Lajas, until reaching the Los Matamoros
complex. The experience in Mexico with several jazz band
orchestras, especially Pérez Prado. All this together with
special gifts of genius that is a casual gift in the lives of
artists, phenomena that occur in every century, as the
musician Leo Brouwer told me.

Benny's career, the artist's saga, is very dramatic, he

had to go through all kinds of jobs until he decided to go all
out in the great city of Havana. His cousin and musical
colleague – who later sang in the Banda Gigante – Enrique
Benítez told me that in 1944 he retired to do the harvest in
Vertientes. “Benny told me: “I stay, or I save myself or I
sink.” Shortly afterwards, Benítez, with great joy and
surprise, heard it on the Mil Diez station.”

Benny assured his mother that “even if you think not,

I'm going to have an orchestra and I'm going to earn
enough money to help you. I'm leaving with this guitar that

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is going to give me everything." Some time later he told the
chronicler Don Galaor: “Nothing surpassed the emotion of
being in great Havana. For Guajiros like me, Havana was
something magical and supernatural, the mecca of music. It
is true that he had a very bad time. There were nights when
I went to bed more hungry than sleepy, but I was where I
wanted to be. I came to conquer Havana and I did not give
up. You had to see me. I had faith in my voice and my
songs. I put a guitar under my arm and went out into the
street to shine shoes and sing my songs to the tourists. I
was down and had to defend myself. I'm not ashamed,
because I didn't give up. I wanted to sing in Havana.
"Succeeding in my land, I only thought about succeeding in
Cuba."

To give away some pearls from Benny, below I offer

some of his customs and secrets: Lino Betancourt expresses
that the singer liked to tell stories about old black African
slaves, with great grace and he did it sitting like the
guajiros, on a knife. His brothers Delfín and Teodoro knew
that Benny liked to eat Creole dishes: tail on fire with a lot
of spice; jutias roasted with sugar cane; jerky, pork and cod
with rice and yam. He prepared a strange Lucumí meal:
cassava with Castile flour, fat and peanut balls. He showed
the actress Odalys Fuentes the recipe for taking soft-boiled
eggs, with a lot of garlic, salt and oil, to help her stomach
resist the drinks. He was not a lover of beer, but of Peralta
and Methuselah rum. I visited the Chinese restaurant El
Pacífico to eat fried rice – an invention of the Chinese in
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Cuba – in the Cantonese way. He practiced fishing with a
net and jamo, while drinking a lot of coffee. He loved
baseball. He was not a lover of labels, he walked around in
shirt sleeves and often lay shirtless on the floor, to cool off
from the heat - Guajira custom -, from there he sometimes
dictated his arrangements to his orchestrators. “The singer
Kino Morán assures that he lived very focused on his
music.”

This is the saga of Benny, a story that does not fit in any
book, the farmer was contradictory, rebellious, but human
and simple as a flute full of music. The musicologist Leo
Brouwer stated: “Benny did what he felt and not what was
convenient for him. But he was faithful to his audience, his
orchestra and his voice, which was enough for those difficult
times. “It was an act of love to whom love was given.”
In the finals, Benny expressed: “I live with the greeting
and recognition of my people.”

CARMEN VALDÉS SICARDÓ

(Havana, April 19, 1915/Havana April 19, 1987)

Carmen Valdés Sicardó was a very important

musicologist and pedagogue in Cuba, there are musicians
who do many things in a country and that does not only
consist of composing or playing. Pedagogues help a lot to
guide many young students. These educators become
natural patrons, that is the case of Isaac Nicola with Leo
Brouwer and Carmen Valdés Sicardó.

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 The teacher used to pick up the “estrallados” or
“estellados”, as she called those who were thrown aside or
missed in their studies. But she knew – like Herman Hesse –
that many of those abandoned by life often grow up and
help redeem the cultural treasure of a country.

Carmen would sit on the phone in her chair and, from

there, she controlled all the music in the country (that's
saying something), she knew lives and miracles about what
was happening in the world of music. When you called her
she would tell you: “You already had lunch.” Then he would
invite you to eat “regiment food”, and he would give you a
plate of food (Rice, egg and French fries), at his residence
on O and 1st streets. , in Miramar.

The house was a place of luminaries: her husband was

Jorge Guerra, son of the eminent researcher Ramiro Guerra,
her children Ramirito and Georgia were very intelligent. The
house was full of cultural books, especially related to
musical education in the world. There I met Leonardo
Acosta, Harold Gramatges, Leo Brouwer, Carmen Collado,
Julio Le Riverend and many greats of Cuban culture.

The teacher was Leo Brouwer's first mother-in-law.

She helped Leo a lot, in that first stage, when he went to
study, in 1959, at the Juilliart in New York with his daughter
Georgia Guerra.

Well, Carmen studied with Ramona Sicardó and Alberto

Falcón and later at the Municipal Conservatory of Music of
Havana, with Amadeo Roldan and Harold Gramatges, and
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concluded them at the Normal School for Teachers.

He created children's choirs at the José Martí National

Library, introduced percussion studies in music schools and
stood out in innovative pedagogical methods. She was one
of the founders of the National School of Art (ENA) and was
one of the deputy directors.

As soon as a musical pedagogical project existed,

Carmen was present, both in the ENA and in the ENIA, in
the Ana Betancourt festivals of peasant women and in the
entire Directorate of Artistic Education.

Radamés Giro, one of her old colleagues writes “The

strength of Carmen's teaching was such that her knowledge,
without pedantry or posturing, was transmitted with the
same naturalness with which she breathed. “It helped you
think and delve into the sources.”

Carmen left a book titled The music that surrounds us

(Art and Literature, 1984); and 5 Latin American musicians
(Gente Nueva, 1988). The book The music that surrounds
us, I had the honor to collaborate on a new edition of its
publication through the Adagio collection.

In memory of Carmen Valdés Sicardó I write this

chronicle for the teacher, for her help, because, in 1978,
she went with me to the National School of Art so that I
could study – old age – and achieve my great dream.
Without Carmen many of us would be nothing in the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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Ñola Sahig, Carmen Valdés in Memorian, Clave, 10/1998, p.
17

COMPAY SECONDO: THE OLDEST AND FAMOUS

TROUBADOR IN THE WORLD
(Siboney, Santiago de Cuba, November 19, 1907 / Havana,
July 14, 2003).

Francisco Repilado Muñoz (Compay Segundo),

continues to illuminate the traditional troubadour song of
Cuba, at the end of the 20th century he was the champion
of the rebirth of trova and traditional son.

In one of the Caribbean Festivals, in Santiago de Cuba,

journalists and some visitors made a pilgrimage to his tomb
which is located right on the Avenida de los Trovadores. I
remember that in one of the Santiaguera La Trova Festivals,
they unveiled the Mausoleum of Compay Segundo, in which
his entire family participated and the song Las flores de la
vida was sung, referring to his tomb that has 96 copper
flowers placed in front of his grave.

Compay became the oldest and most famous

troubadour in the world. It had the sweet perfume of the
old, heir to the lineage of the traditional troubadours of
Santiago de Cuba, cradle of son and bolero. He had the look
of a cursed teenager, but the composure of an English lord.
He became more fashionable than pop stars Madonna and
Michael Jackson.

Troubadours have existed by the thousands, but Compay

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became the myth, the living legend; It was attended by
counts, princes, diplomats, presidents, artists, like a king.
He had a natural grace, a charm rarely seen; Everything
was very natural, folksy, simple as a flute full of music. He
was the easiest musician to ever interview, he dictated the
interview to you, with semicolons, with all the lucidity in the
world. They call his personality elf, charisma,
communication; But I would add that more than all that,
ingenuity is also needed. That is where the artist's
supernatural strength lies, in his ingenuity; Without a head,
there is nothing in life.

Compay's history goes back almost a century, from its

mining town of Siboney, an immensely poor area. “They
were very romantic times, we greeted the ladies with our
hats. I transmit that atmosphere that the public
appreciates.”

In 1916 the family moved to Santiago de Cuba, learning

the trade of cigar maker and barber. Learn music, meet
eminent troubadours in clubs, gatherings and serenades. He
invented a rare guitar called harmonica (six-string guitar
with the G string repeated, to achieve a more harmonic
sound, hence his name. Ñico Saquito called him the
Trilina .”

He began as a clarinetist in the National Band of

Santiago de Cuba, with which he traveled to Havana for the
first time in 1929, at the inauguration of the Capitol. His

The first sonera group was the sextet Los seis aces. In 1934
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the Cuban Stars quintet, together with Ñico Saquito.
He continues with the Hatuey quartet, sharing works with
Marcelino Guerra and Lorenzo Hierrezuelo. At the beginning
of the 1940s he joined the ensemble as a clarinetist.

Matamoros.

Matamoros and I were neighbors, he was a dashing

Indian who gave himself the air of Gardel. He liked
sheet cakes, he didn't use a car or a watch, he told
me that all the cars were at his disposal and all the
clocks in the shops, where he walked in Havana. 1

In 1949 he joined the duo Los Compadres, with Lorenzo

Hierrezuelo; They remained until 1955. That is the second
voice stage. That exceptional second voice, follower of Sindo
Garay. Free voice, very natural, without defined
movements.

Already in 1956 he founded his group Compay Segundo

y sus Muchachos, together with Carlos Embale and Pío
Leyva, traveled to the Dominican Republic. Seasonally he
appears in the Daiquirí hotel quartet and in the Patria
quartet, with which he visits the United States of America,
Guadeloupe and the Dominican Republic. Since 1992 he has
joined the group

Salvador, son of Compra, who ran all of Repilado's

production.
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 In 1994 the gestation of Compay's popularity began: He
participated in the Meeting between son and flamenco
(Diputación de Sevilla); The Spanish rocker, Santiago
Auserón produced a series of three albums of Compay's
work, and in 1995 he arrived in France, breaking language
barriers.

In 1996 they began recording with the Afro Cuban All

Stars orchestra. Compay participates in two of the three
albums and they win the Grammy Award, in the Traditional
Music category. The myth, the legend, the contracts, world
tours, presentations on the most famous stages on the
planet begin. Compay joins the global hit parade, he is the
oldest and most famous troubadour in the world, the one
with the most interviews and writings done about him.

The Compay Segundo phenomenon, the rebirth of the old

trova and traditional son, is due to many factors, more than
a socio-anthropological musical one. Music has its ebbs and
flows, zic zac, ups and downs. Cycles that occur from time
to time, in a spiral, as Leo Brouwer says.

The times demand their music and their throwbacks.

From time to time, fashions wear out and we return to
pristine sources, that is, natural and authentic. All the
conditions were created at the end of the 20TH CENTURY, in

Europe was in fashion, under Asia , World Musician and

other currents that asked for news from the past and from
distant places. More rustic and less refined music, more
sincere, emotional and sentimental. The truth is that all
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these singers and musicians of the old guard were prepared,
trained with many hours of flying and when their big
moment arrived, they jumped on the train of success. They
were also well led by Juan de Marcos González, a musician
with a sense of researcher and producer; he knew where
the ticket was, as composer Frank Domínguez says. In
short, these musicians were next to the goal, waiting for the
golden goal ; the moment, the opportunity, and that
opportunity came when it had to come.

The spirit of Compay Segundo and the phenomenon of

Buena Vista Social Club continue to spread with the
project of Los Cuatro Fabulosos , belonging to the orchestra
conceived to spread the creations of Compay and the
albums released in those glorious years from 1996 to 2003.

1- Consult the interview of Rafael Lam, Compay

Segundo, the oldest and most famous troubadour in
the world, an interview that I dedicated to him three
years before the singer's death was broadcast by the
agency

Prensa Latina and published by Granma International

on June 18, 2000, p. 8 and 9)

CHANGUITO, THE KING OF THE TIMBAL (Havana,

January 18, 1948)

José Luis Quintana Fuerte “Chunguito”, the secret hand

of Cuban percussion, a true King of the Cuban timpani.
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Cuba has true percussion stars: Chano Pozo, Tata Güines,
Mongo Santamaría, Patato Valdés, Orestes Vilató, Candito
Camero, Walfredo de los Reyes, Guillermo Barreto, Blas
Egües “Blasito” and Changuito, among many others.
“I played the hides in neighborhood congas, like almost
all the percussionists of my time. Roberto Sánchez Calderín
introduced me to percussion, I formed groups with my
friends, I was in Los Cabeza de Perro and already in 1956 I
responsibly replaced my father in the orchestra of the
Tropicana cabaret and in the Habana Jazz Orchestra . At
that time you had to knock as a child, to find food; For that
reason I had to play where there was work.”
In that fight for survival Chunguito passes through
groups such as those of Gilberto Valdés, Quinteto José
Tomé, Artemisa Souvenir, Habana Rítmica 7, Los
Bucaneros, Mirtha y Raúl, Orquesta de Música Moderna de
Pinar del Río, Los Armónico de Felipe Dulzaide (1964 ),
“with whom I learn the secrets of jazz.”
In 1967, an important moment occurred in Changuito's
musical life. He joined the group Sonorama 6, where they
met: Rembert Egües, Martín Rojas, Eduardo Ramos, Carlos
Averhoff and Enrique Plá; Musicians for the Iraqere group
and the Nueva Trova Movement came from here. “I
accompanied the troubadour Silvio Rodríguez on his first
album on the Radio Liberación station.
The first percussionist of Los Van is Blas Egües
“Blasito” (brother of Richard Egües), “I joined Los Van Van
in 1979, I have participation in the Songo rhythm, a genre

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recorded by Juan Formell, he is a double bassist, but He had
the grace to make rhythms. Formell guided me with the
rhythmic line, but as a percussionist at last, over time I
made some contributions, introducing cymbals and
expanding the set.”
In the second stage of the “Songo”, Changuito replaces
the drums and uses the timpani, standing tom tom, bass
drum, cowbell and air cymbal. When Mirtha Medina was
doing things with Los Van Van , José Luis returned to the
drums.
Cuban percussionists recognize that Changuito did
wonders in the percussion and rhythm of Los Van Van, one
of those samples is found in the el montuno of
Sandunguera's recording.
Changuito dedicated himself to making special
presentations and albums in Cuba and abroad. He taught
Luis Enríquez, the Nicaraguan singer. In 1996 he was
nominated for a Grammy for the album Ritmo y candela ,
recorded in San Francisco, California with the Cuban
percussionists Carlos Valdés “Patato”, Orestes Vilató, the
pianist Rebeca Mouleón and the saxophonist Enrique
Fernández. He has accompanied Michel Legrand, Tito
Puente, Airto Moreira and Giovanni Hidalgo, Diego El Sigala
and many others.
Quintana has two technical books dedicated to
percussion: Of Master , dedicated to the timpani, published
in the US by Modern Drum. The other book is in the process
of publication, it is titled: The Secret Hand, where it

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demonstrates the importance of the “left” hand called
“Secreta”, Chunguito.
José Luis Quintana “Changuito” is a true theorist, his
books must become books for technical use by percussion
students in Cuba.
CHANO POZO, KING OF THE DRUM

(Luciano Pozo González, Havana, January 7, 1915 / New

York, December 3, 1948)

In Havana at the beginning of the 20th century, drums

were persecuted, sometimes banned, sometimes they were
played in Havana in the marginal areas, suburbs, in poor
neighborhoods, lots, discharges, carnivals, in the resistance.

Only music and drums could make these abandoned blacks

a person.

Chano leaves that tragic world of lots and seedy

areas. He was imprisoned in a juvenile reform school, he
worked as a tinkerer, he made sounds in the cars he
tinkered with, and even from the floor, according to Tata
Güines.

He lived in La timba, Africa, the Coffin. But, he was

born with charisma, skills as a dancer, drummer and
creator. Participate in the troupes of El Barracón, La
Mexicana, La Colombia, La Sultana, La Jardinera, Los Dandy
. He arrived at the radio station RHC Cadena Azul, founded

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the group Azul, together with Chapottín. He works with
Mongo Santamaría in the show Congo Pantera at the lavish
Cabaret Tropicana . He was a member of the Palau
Brothers orchestra and even had a school to offer classes to
tourists interested in rumba.

He was the apotheosis of the starving, according to

García Márquez, in his stage of triumph he speculated - as
they say now -, he dressed in white drill, Petronio, he had a
hundred suits in which he spoke and wore striking perfume.

He was palero and abakuá, his personality, with

marginal characterological problems, went from affectionate
to explosive. On one occasion he destroyed the office of a
businessman who shot him several times and miraculously
survived, living with some bullets inside his body.

Chano wanted to win in the big world, they encouraged

him in 1946 to travel to New York, with the support of
Miguelito Valdés, his friend throughout the years. He started
recording in NY, he was a dancer for Catherine Dunham.
Mario Bauzá recommended him to Dizzy Gillespie who was
looking for a percussion colossus. He toured the US and
Europe.

Chano played on September 29, 1947 at the

aristocratic Carnegie Hall theater, there he played the Afro-
Cuban Drum Suite ; Then came the consecration, with
Gillespie in a concert, on December 25, at the Town Hall, it
was the explosion of the year. It was like a bacchanal of
timbres, an orgy of sounds brought from the center of the
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Caribbean musical tropics.

The audience, mostly white, surprised, perhaps a little

confused, was stunned, overwhelmed for half an hour by
something amazing, as if the drums were bringing out the
sounds of the African jungle. Chano played for the voices of
the black gods, for the lament of the suffering slaves, the
song of hope. It was something not seen by those people at
such early stages in history. Today it would be common, but
those were different times.

With this spectacularity an era closed and another

began that opened the avenues of Afro-Cuban drums in
America. That was in days when racial discrimination was
overwhelming. “The greatest drummer I have ever heard in
my life,” exclaimed Gillespie.

Chano created and recorded his masterpiece Manteca

for history, on December 30, 1947, at RCA. He also left on
album: Tin tin deo, Cubana bop, Woodyin' you ( Something
good ) , Afro Cubana-be, Cubana Bop (Afro-Cuban jazz
suite) , Cool Breeze.

The great drummer crystallized Latin (Cuban) jazz,

redeemed the drum, and elevated marginalized music to the
stage of the best halls in the world. He knew how to adapt
the rhythmic patterns of the tumbadora into traditional
Cuban genres, as Leonardo Acosta and Doerschuk tell us.

But well, after having this experience we return to the

topic of Chano's artistic creation. Chano's most popular

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creation was Manteca , brought to the staff by Dizzy
Gillespie, therefore, the work belongs to Chano and
Gillespie.

The King died tragically in New York at the Harlem bar,

the Río Café and Lounge, on the corner of 111th and Lenox.
He was shot by a certain Eusebio Muñoz (El Cabito), retired
from the army. Chano's death shocked the world of drums,
it began a legend that has not yet ended, nor will it end.
There are no movie images, to further accentuate the myth;
but there are still classic rumba and Latin jazz compositions:

Chano lived at full speed, as happened with sacred

monsters like Mozart, Elvis Presley, Benny Moré, John
Lennon. They knew that the end was near, but successful
art has its price and requires many things. Death also fuels
the myth. This was Chano, a revolutionary of the drum
and music, one of the many musical geniuses that Cuba has
produced.

CHAPOTTÍN AND ITS STARS

(Havana, March 31, 1907/Havana, December 21, 1983)

Chapottín came into the world on the same street

where Juan Formell was also born 35 years later, on
Santiago Street, a small street, at the end of the Electricity
Company, in the Key West neighborhood. He knew the life
of the solars, there were ten brothers and one fostered none
other than the King of the congas, Chano Pozo.

In his youth he advertised a straightening pomade that

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helped make hair straight, he called Minerva. “I liked to
escape from school to take a bath in La Punta, on O Street,
in Miramar and the police took us to prison. I went to live in
Guanajay with my godfather Venancio González, who was a
musician. I played with a comb and thin paper; So my uncle
made me study the tuba at the age of nine. Rather, I
learned by pure practice, the theory was little. I started
playing in the children's band, in retreats, parks, we played
everything, as was customary in bands. He played the
cornet, the euphonium and played in the “chambelonas” of
politicians.” 1

Trumpeter and composer, he began as a musician in

1918 playing in the chamberlain and with the Guanajay
Children's Band. El Chapo began professionally in 1924,
performing danzones at peasant festivals. Later he worked
with the Septeto Orquídea - later Estudiantentina - they
played in the cabaretuchos of the mythical Playa de
Marianao, with the Estudiantentina Orquídea. In 1927 he
joined the Septeto Habanero, becoming among the first to
integrate the trumpet into the sone septets. “In Havana we
brought the son to the aristocratic clubs, because in the
black societies they wanted to be “social blacks”, they
discriminated against the son, their true music.

Other septets where he worked were: Colín, Tropical,

Ricardo Cabana, Agabama by Abelardo Barroso, Universo,
Septeto Universo, Septeto Bolero by Tata Gutiérrez, Bolero
del 35, Anacaona (making an occasional substitution),

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Carabina de Ases (with seven blacks), with Niño
Hechevarría the “Niño Rivera”, Conjunto América, Jóvenes
del Cayo, Gloria Cubana. Muramar (with stevedoring
musicians from the Regla dock, there he met Roberto Faz).

“Roberto's father got us a guitar and a tres so we could

form a musical group. Robertico was only thirteen years old.
“The Champan and Sport soft drink factory supported us to
advertise them.” 2

El Chapo also played the percussion, the double bass,

and the trumpet, an instrument that was highly sought after
in those times of the 1920s when the sone septets
appeared.

Félix played the trumpet in Los Dandy de Belén, along

with Chano Pozo. In 1940 he remained in the Conjunto Azul
with Chano Pozo, in the RHC Cadena Azul. He was present,
along with El Habanero, at the times when son managed to
enter aristocratic societies. “At that time, black societies
such as Unión Fraternal and Club Atenas discriminated
against blacks who were not from “society.” Núñez Ojea
made a mocking song out of them.

Chapottín's name is always mentioned as very close to

Arsenio Rodríguez, but nevertheless, the time that Félix
spent with Arsenio was short. Since September 1949, as
1st. Trumpet, with Oscar Velazco “Florecita” (3rd. Trumpet);
According to data from David F. Garcia and CD Ayala.

In 1949, Arsenio left to explore work contracts in New

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York, leaving the group provisionally, until later Arsenio
himself suggested that he change the name and then they
began to call him Chapottín y sus Estrellas, where figures
such as Pepín Vaillant participated, Félix Alfonso “Chocolate”
on the tumbadora, the piano of Lilí Martínez, the voices of
Miguelito Cuní, René Álvarez and Conrado Cepero.

Félix played his trumpet with a singular, unique style:

In the “solos”, the instrument seemed to laugh, with great
originality.

For Chapo, Arsenio modernized the son, the son that is

played throughout America. “A sound that many young
people who study music do not really know. It is something
to be regretted.”

With his group he traveled to Miami, Curacao, Aruba.

COMPOSITIONS:

He composed boleros, afro-son, songs, guarachas,

guaguancó, proclamations, son montuno. Of the best
known: Yo si como candela (son-montuno), Mariquitas y
chicharrones (guaracha),

GRADES:

Erena Hernández, Music in person, Cuban Letters, Havanas,

1986, p. 166

CHEPÍN: GOLDEN WEDDING (Santiago de Cuba, Oriente,

November 12, 1907 / Santiago de Cuba, April 1, 1984)
Electo Rosell Horruitinier was born at 508 San Basilio
Street between Clarín and Reloj. He studied with his father
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José Rosell and at the Municipal Academy of Fine Arts. He
began his career as a violinist in the Aguilera Theater
orchestra.

Chepín's takeoff was achieved in 1926, a stage in

which he signed up for a tour that lasted three years with
the Arquímedes Pous Variety Company, to Santo Domingo,
Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Panama.

Upon his return, in 1930 he formed a duo in Santiago

de Cuba with the pianist Bernardo Choven. They played on
the CMKD station, at the Maceo and Maxim cinemas. They
also formed a quartet, known as Cuarteto Hatuey and Jazz
King's.

They also conceived Los Siete Ases with a similar base

and Oriente Jazz Band. Finally he joined Choven again and
on June 24, 1932 they founded the Chepín-Choven
orchestra that made an epoch. Both musicians
complemented each other - like Egües and Lay -. Chepín
was very familiar, folksy, typical from Santiago. Choven was
more formal, like Rafael Lay in Aragón.

The debut of that orchestra was very popular, in the El

Comercio Sport Club society, the name was given by the
announcer Matías Vega Aguilera of the CMKD in the Palacio
de la Torre. They played very attractive songs such as: José
Isabel, Negro brafarrón, Mentiste, NosVamos pa´ la
Risueña, Violin Enchanted, Mulatico de cache.

Choven was born Choven very close to Chepín, on 71

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Santa Lucia Street in Santiago de Cuba (February 25,
1910/November 12, 1907) he was really Bernardo Chauvin
Villalón (the first surname became Choven), his grandfather
was an officer mambi. His sister was Bernardo Choven's
own piano teacher, studying piano and violin. Since he was
a child he was with Chepín in street ball games.

In 1950 they separated and Chepín created the

Orquesta Oriental in which the singer Ibrahím Ferrer
performed, who went on to record El platanal de Bartolo y
Murmullo (1937), again popularized with the Buena Vista
Social Club orchestra. By the way, this Murmullo song was
sung in the American film Let Me Whisper , where the actor
Bing Crosby, Ramón Armengol, Elvira Ríos and Jeanette Mc
Donald acted. Chepín's composition was emblematic of the
orchestra and of international fame.

After 1959, Chepín, in the combo fashion, organized

his own group with which he worked at the Casa Granda
hotel and on national tours. Choven worked as a pianist
with René del Mar, in the Hanoi orchestra.

In 1970 they reunited the Chepín-Choven orchestra, at

the request of Commander Juan Almeida. The orchestra was
then reborn with a hug between Chepín and Choven. They
were conceived in secret, the announcement was made with
great expectations, with police officers guarding the
orchestra on its way to Caleton beach. People made the
phrase fashionable: “Again with Chepín,” based on a text
from one of his songs.

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 Between the 1970s-1980s, they invented the Chepison
style, a mix of son with other sounds. The arrangements
were by Chepín. The reopening was tremendous. The
orchestra disappeared after Chepín's death. The teacher's
funeral was tremendous. The Chepín-Choven orchestra has
the status of National Heritage of Cuban Music.

COMPOSITIONS: BOLEROS:

Elba, Murmullo, Tropical Corner, Always, one more. Criolla-

bolero: My desires. Danzones: Romantic Violin, Black
Diamond, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Golden Wedding
(1954), these last two recorded by the Aragón orchestra.
Golden Wedding was written on the 50th anniversary of a
friendly couple, belonging to a Married Club. He composed
more than 80 works.

GUAGUANCO: Let's knock down the coconuts. SON:

Squeezing, Brushing, Son of Nicaragua, El platanal de
Bartolo, created at a carnival in Ciego de Ávila. One of the
streets was decorated with banana trees with a sign that
said “Go to Platanal de Bartolo.”

The announcer Eduardo Rosillo reveals that in 1956,

Golden Wedding had the title of 50 years of happiness. They
consider it the last of the famous danzones. Chepín
dedicated a song to Benny Moré in 1963 on his death:
Oración a Benny Moré.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Data from the journalists Neysa ramón,

Alberto Muguercia, Nancy Robinson, Radamés Giro, Susana

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Reyes, Reinaldo Cedeño Pineda and Michel Damián Suárez
were used, in the book Son de la loma, The gods of music
sing in Santiago de Cuba, Andante, Musical Editor of Cuba,
2002, p. 133

CHICO O'FARRILL, THE MAGICAL ORCHESTRATOR

(Havana, October 28, 1921/New York, June 27, 2001,
Radamés Giro says that June 28) (Dialogue with Chico
O'Farril at the premiere of the documentary Calle 54 , in a
movie theater in Manhattan, New York)

Arturo “Chico” O'Farril is a classic of Cuban jazz music

(Latin jazz), one of the great orchestrators and composers,
creator of Cubop, he collaborated and recorded - in Cuba
and New York - with prestigious musicians, singers and
bands such as Machito and The Afrocubans, Gillespie, Stan
Kenton, Glen Miller, Count Basie, Clark Terry, Gato

Barbieri, Benny Goodman, David Bowie, Wynton Marsalis,

Larry Harlow, Tjader, Miguelito Valdés.
At the presentation of Fernando Trueba's documentary,
Calle 54, Chico was present along with the plethora of
musicians who love Latin music. Chico got out of his black
Chrysler car, everyone greeted him, I took the opportunity
to ask the great Cuban musician some questions. After the
documentary, at the reception I continued the dialogue with
the teacher.
-What memories do you have of your work at the
Tropicana cabaret?

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- That was in 1943 with the Orchestra of René Touzet,
composer of Last Night. Tropicana had started in 1939, but
it was already recognized for those fabulous shows where
Rita Montaner, Bola de Nieve and Chano Pozo participated. I
was simply a music stand musician, then I continued for the
Bellamar Orchestra directed by Armando Romeu – who later
directed the Tropicana Orchestra. Bellamar was a
constellation of stars with Luis and Amadito Valdés, Félix
Guerrero, Ernesto Grenet, Pucho Escalante, Gustavo Más,
Armando Romeu and others. We got to play the Sans Soucí
cabaret. I had a stage with the Lecuona Cuban Boys.
- Did you form your own orchestra?
- I did it with the guitarist Isidro Pérez, at the Montmartre
cabaret, with the best of those moments, that was a
constant. We really enjoyed that project.
-Don't you think that the music you made was a little
complicated.
- People didn't dance to my music, the public didn't accept
it.
- Is that the reason you are going to New York?
- It was partly like that, I dedicated myself to studying
American jazz. Some time later Benny Goodman hired me
to do arrangements.
-Who were your favorite musicians?
- Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, they were very
advanced, they fascinated me at the time when bebop was
starting.
- Is it said that you did not get the most out of Cuban

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music?
- At a certain stage I considered it very simple, although in
every musician there is an evolution.
- But, in music, the complex is not necessarily the
most successful?
- I agree.
- Was it also known that you did not profess rock and
roll in the 1950s, I have read it in Show magazine, do
you still think the same as you did half a century ago?
- As I told you, times change, in New York I made some
forays into rock and roll.
- How was the mambo received in the 1950s?
- I composed music with mambo cells.
- Is it true that you wrote a version of La cucaracha,
that anthological theme from Mexico, inherited from a
Warsaw girl from 1860.
That was in 1965 in Mexico itself The cockroach, the
cockroach/ no longer wants to walk, / because it lacks,
because it lacks/ the circular leg/.
-How did you discover jazz?
- My family was made up of musicians, since I was a child I
breathed that music. At a military school where I studied,
music by Glen Miller, Tomy Dorsey and many more was
heard. From Cuba he admired the Casino de la Playa
Orchestra.
-And what level did you reach musically?
- Well, I studied harmony and composition with the
conductor Félix Guerrero, in New York I acquired a

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specialization in the symphonic domains with musicians like
Wagennar, Wolpe and Overton.
- What do you remember most about your musical
results?
-I have 25 albums, although one of the most popular was in
1995, the Grammy Award nomination for the album Pure
Emotion. Much has been written about my work, but I have
not been able to read it all. Marsalis considered that I am
like the Duke Ellington of Latin jazz and others say that I
am a musical revolutionary.
- Tell me about your masterpiece Cuban Jazz Suite I ?
-I started writing it in 1945, but I recorded it in 1950 with
the Afrocubans, along with Gillespie, Charlie Parker. It was
already beginning to take flight.
- What memory do you have of Havana from the
1940s-1950s?
- A city with a lot of nightlife, many jazz bands were formed
for the great cabaret shows made for tourists. There were
also tasty jazz discharges; I recorded some of those
downloads in 1959, on Radio Progreso for the Gema label:
Download I and Download II. Tata Güines, the black Vivar
and Walfredo de los Reyes participated. Those downloads
were recorded by Tito Puente.
-In 1959, were you a guest of the Cuban Jazz Club,
according to Leonardo Acosta?
- For that occasion I composed a suite that I titled The Bass
Family and we met with old guard musician friends. - When
did you arrive in New York?

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- In 1948.
-What relationship did you have with Frank Sinatra?
- I accompanied many singers like Johnny Mathis, I
organized an orchestra for Sinatra in Mexico.
- Did you talk about the work you did with Gato
Barbieri?
- I composed the song ¡Viva Emiliano Zapata! With many
Cuban-style montunos. / Boy laughs evilly.
-How do you consider Mario Bauzá?
- A musical genius and that is why I dedicated a tribute to
him based on the play Tanga, on Bauzá's 80th anniversary
on Broadway.
- Does the Buena Vista Social Club project owe a lot to
Mario Bauzá, Chano Pozo, Machito and you?
- In Manhattan I met Juan de Marcos González, he told me
that he was inspired by Machito and The Afrocubans and
what we did in the 40s and 50s.
-In 1996 I read an interview by Isabel Leymarie, to
whom she told that Latin jazz was regenerated by the
contributions of Cuban rhythms?
- Do you tell the musicologist that if Latin (Cuban) jazz
disappeared, it would mean the end of jazz in the US, and
the Western musical world would surely suffer a
catastrophe?
- Does that mean that Cuba is essential in
international music?
- Of course.
Note: The 26th Plaza International Jazz Festival in Havana

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(December 2010), dedicated a space to the musician Arturo
“Chico” O' Farrill and for that reason his son Artur O'Farril
performed with his Orchestra.

CHUCHO VALDÉS AND THE IRAKERE

(Quivicán, Havana, October 9, 1941)

Chucho Valdés is a classical-popular musician, he is

one of the great musicians of Cuba, following the tradition
of the Valdés dynasty. Chucho was classified as a child
prodigy, possessor of exceptional hearing. He listened to
movie themes that he later played like a tape recorder. The
family was very musical: his father is Bebo Valdés, one of
the great figures of Cuban music.

From the age of seven he was named Professor Oscar

M. Boufartique then went to the conservatory at the age of
nine and started in the fourth year, due to his progress. “I
was born watching downloads, the kings of Feeling visited
my house: Portillo de la Luz, José A. Mendez. I saw Ernesto
Lecuona playing at my house, I once played La comparsa
for him, and I had no idea that I was doing it in front of
him, then they told me and I almost had a syncope. Other
stars that visited my house were the composer Osvaldo
Farrés, the queen Celia Cruz, the great everyone.”

His first musical work was with his father Bebo Valdés.
“In 1959 we accompanied the singers Fernando Álvarez, Pío
Leyva and Rolando Laserie. In that show my father made

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me play Manuel de Falla, a litmus test.”

In 1962, Bebo Valdés went to live abroad and Chucho

went through the most difficult moments of his life, he
began playing jazz at the El Elegante bar at the Riviera
Hotel. Rolando Estrella supports him: “He gave me a lot of
love, because I was going through a terrible time.”

From there he went to the Musical Theater of Havana,

directed by the Mexican Alfonso Arau. Leo Brouwer, Tony
Taño and Federico Smith were there, which constituted one
of the best schools of his life. Until 1967, the Cuban Modern
Music Orchestra brought together the musicians of Chucho's
combo and many star musicians from the capital. Then
came The Iraqere.

IRAKERE

The Irakere premiered on April 25, 1973, at the

Santiago de Cuba Stadium (after a series of administrative
procedures to get rid of the Cuban Modern Music
Orchestra). I was very close to Chucho Valdés from the time
of the Orchestra and I was a privileged witness of the
beginning of Irakere, all of his musicians, in their youth, had
a contained strength, a thirst for triumph. I know all the ups
and downs and misunderstandings that Chucho and all his
musicians faced. But, for this band of All-Star virtuosos, the
victory proved them right.

“I had done various experiments – says Chucho Valdés

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– from the Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music (OCMM), with
a quintet. By 1971 it was time to make our group
independent of the OCMM. The idea is becoming more
concrete with the entry of metals. Our group started from
jazz, but with a renewal within Afro-Cuban, the electronics
of the moment. Jazz was not very well accepted by many
music administrative circles. We had to fight a lot, impose
ourselves, many times from the outside. But the music does
not stop and is overwhelming in its natural essence. We
were always very optimistic and fighters. We worked hard,
we traveled as much as possible and that is creating an
indisputable international endorsement.”

Irakere assembled an All Stars band that was

unmatched; To the extent that the orchestra became
unsurpassable, no band dared to perform after Irakere. The
most qualified musicians were gathered in Chucho Valdés'
band. Chucho, together with Oscar Valdés, his stellar
percussionist and vocal timbre, undertook a deep
investigation of the traditions and African roots that they
could rescue and modernize with contemporary harmonies.

“We study relegated drums such as batá, arará, yuka.

We went to see the Yoruba masses inherited from slavery
and we incorporated them into popular dance music and
jazz. The difference in the musical world was the Afro-
Cuban power, an invincible, fundamental music .”

Irakere's first smash hit was Cod with Bread. The

timba was already there: off-beat piano, asymmetrical (with

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bow), hit in the heart of the bass drum and the punch of the
amazing brass.

“I prepared that work since September 1972, with that

characteristic piano tumbao, and Carlos del Puerto
suggested the chorus of Bacalao con pan . We open the
doors of the timba, starting with Cod with bread, That
daring, The caramels, Aguanile, Let's break the coconut .
Next came Irakere's masterpiece: Black Mass .

“The Mass… is like an Iraqere anthem,” Chucho

continues, “it was the one that opened the way for the so-
called “fusion” of jazz with Africa. In the world of jazz we
talk about salsa and Latin jazz, before and after Irakere.
However, many “wise people” of music in Cuba did not
understand us, they considered it extensive (17.36
minutes), and did not assimilate that mixture of jazz with
drums; but I was perfectly sure that we would triumph.”

Irakere began to consolidate itself when they played

the Black Mass at the Poland 70 Jazz Festival, before one of
Chucho Valdés' musical idols: Dave Brubeck. “The great
musician recognized the new music we were playing and
that made us understand that we were on the right path.
This friend Brubeck was in charge of spreading the word
about us in Los Angeles and that placed me in the
international ranking among the five best, above Chick
Corea. Then came the takeoff, we were invited to the “Big
Leagues” of jazz music, to the 1978 Newport Festival,
Carnegie Hall, Montreux in Switzerland. CBS released an

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album of five of our songs: “Juana 1600”, Iya”,

“Adagio” by Mozart, “Aguanile” and the live version of “Misa

negra”. Then comes what had to come: the Grammy Award,
for Best Latin Music Recording in the USA, with the album
Irakere (Columbia 35655/ CBSINC. NY).

“We won the 1979 Grammy in the “Latin Music”

category; after that we took off forever. Until 2008, I had
five Grammies and fourteen nominations. The mountain was
high and difficult, but we conquered. Behind all that there
are thousands of hours of study, rehearsals and the
certainty that we would never get tired; "Life's goals are like
that, until the end."

As we see, Chucho was always very dedicated to music,

with total responsibility, owner of a profession of thousands
of hours of flight, perfect training. He was always full of
faith and dreams. He never maintained the pose of a great
star, despite being among the most qualified musical
experts in the world.

On October 9, 2011, on his 70th birthday, Chucho

received 15 nominations and seven Grammy Awards.

EDUARDO CÓRDOVA, the king of the drums

(Havana, July 19, 1963).

Córdova studied percussion at the National School of

Art Instructors. After graduating, he spent a very enriching
period as a percussion teacher and instrumentalist in the
Music Band. Later he graduated as a percussion teacher at
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CENSEA (Center for the Improvement of Artistic Education.

In addition to playing his drums, Córdoba dedicated

himself to building his own instruments decorated with
carved images of Afro-Cuban deities. Its flagship drum is
called Siete Bocas, with a Shangó face, with a wide range of
references that is performed as if four instrumentalists were
playing. These instruments are the reflection of different
syncretic currents of the religion of our cultures.

Córdova also dedicates his creative energies to the

painting he conceives between his drums with the messages
of his ancestors, under the sign of the drum.

He exhibits at Cuban Fairs and in many international

spaces. Every year he attends the Latin American Festival in
Italy.

Currently in 2012, the teacher is musical director of the

Habana Compás Dance Company, which is doing very
innovative work with dancers who become excellent
percussionists, taking advantage of Cuban rhythms.

Critics praise the King of Drum, Il Giorno has dedicated

articles to him, cataloging him in 2003 as the King of Cuban
Music.

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EDUARDO SÁNCHEZ DE FUENTES, THE FIRST HIT OF
CUBAN MUSIC

(Havana, April 3, 1874 / Havana, September 7, 1944)

Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes hit the first hit of Cuban

music, the habanera tú , Sánchez de Fuentes is, according
to Alejo Carpentier, one of the musicians incorrectly called
“semi-classical” who marked with their very valuable works
and enriched the cultural treasure of Cuba with his beautiful
melodic compositions. Sánchez de Fuentes, in my opinion,
has not been given all the place he deserves.” 1

The Havana musician studied at the Hubert de Blanck

Conservatory with Ignacio Cervantes and Carlos
Anckermann. Already at the age of fifteen (in 1910) he won
a competition the 1st. Award with Noemí from Havana. A
year later he won in Spain with his work Spanish Serenade.
He is appointed delegate of Cuba to the Rome Music
Congress. In 1912 he won a gold medal in the competition
of the National Academy of Arts and Letters with the song
Fugue in C major .

And in Havana he was awarded in 1919 with the Hymn to

Freedom.

The maestro organized music festivals, represented

Cuba in many musical events, presided over important
academies, and maintained friendships with famous
musicians in the world: Manuel de Falla, Turina, Martinelli
and Lucrecia Bori. He was a musical researcher, he wrote

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many articles, although with the defects of the Eurocentric
concept. It did not take into account the existence of music
of African origin, the greatest force that Cuba received in
these five centuries.

His display of creative will was immense, he

composed: An infinite number of songs, lied, habaneras,
ballet, boleros, couplet, cantatas, creoles, dances,
mazurkas, operas, operettas, symphonic music, revues,
oratorios, serenades, waltzes, zarzuelas, fugas, guajiras,
interludes, intermezzos.

His crowning work was the habanera Tú , from 1892

(the lyrics were added by his own brother Fernando, in
1894). The work was premiered at Marta Abreu's residence
(Finca Las Delicias, also called the Finca de Los Monos, due
to the number of monkeys, about two hundred that
swarmed the aristocratic compound and terrified the visiting
dancer Isadora Duncan).

Eduardo, invited by his teacher Ignacio Cervantes,

premieres the song in a party where the patriotic concerns
of the attendees were hidden. One of the guests, Renée
Molina, famous for her imposing beauty, is amazed by the
piece performed by Eduardo. He asks the musician: “What
is the title of that melody?” The young Eduardo, doubtful
and faced with the beauty of the lady, answers: “ You ,
Havana You , in honor of the Cuban beauty and thus the
title was sealed.

This is an excellent miniature, full of grace and elf. It

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contains the melodic seduction of the most popular Italian
opera arias; but with a Cubanness that rescues Havana for
the country, by merging the melodic amplitude of the vocal
line with the rhythm of Iradier's famous songs and the
dances of the time, as described by the musicologist Hilario
González.

This Havana has a long history of plagiarism, versions

and debates. It has fox-trot versions with the title Kytty .
There is even a patriotic version published in Mexico in
1895, illustrated by Guadalupe Posada, according to Zoila
Lapique. But, our warriors also used it with a version in
lyrics by José A. Ramírez Céspedes: “ Cubans: / a voice
resounds from heaven, / to give us courage / in the
tremendous fight / that the wise patriot / with glory
undertook /.”

You

In Cuba,

Beautiful island of the burning sun,

Under your blue sky,

Adorable brunette

Of all the flowers you are the queen.

Sacred fire guard your heart.

The clear sky gave you its joy.

And in your looks God has confused

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From your eyes the night

And the light of the sun's rays.

The Palm,

That gently sways in the forest

Your dream lulled

And a kiss from the breeze

At the end of the afternoon, he woke you up.

The cane is sweet but your voice is sweeter

That the bitterness takes away from the heart,

And when I contemplate you my lute sighs

Blessing you beautiful, peerless,

Oh! Because Cuba is you.

(There is a recording of Barbarito Diez on Cuban radio)

GRADES:

See: Alejo Carpentier, Conference “ On Cuban music ”, in

Conferences, Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1987, pp. 33-58

EMILIANO SALVADOR: ONE OF THE KINGS OF AFRO-

LATIN PIANO

(Puerto Padre, Las Tunas, Oriente, August 19, 1951 /

Havana, October 22, 1992)

Emiliano, like many of the best popular pianists in

Cuba, studied percussion and piano at the National School

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of Art (ENA), later he went on to study in the ICAIC Group
(GESI), with teachers Leo Brouwer, Juan Elósegui, Federico
Smith .

He accompanied his father in music and, from that

time on, he admired the follies and inventions on the piano
in the style of Pérez Prado. He founded and directed his own
group which included the stellar bassist Feliciano Arango
who revolutionized bass and Cuban music with NG La
Banda. I also participate in the accompanying group of the
troubadour Pablo Milanés.

Chucho Valdés classifies Emiliano as one of the

greatest and most imaginative pianists of his generation,
with very great faculties, with his own style and with a very
free sense of improvisation, conceiving the piano as an
orchestra. Many American pianists followed the Afro-Latin
path and Emiliano's harmonic innovations.

The pianists who influenced Emiliano were: Chick

Corea, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Thelonius
Monk.

The greatest scholar of Emiliano is Leonardo Acosta

who wrote: “Emiliano's merit, musically speaking, begins
with the fact that he achieved his own, organic and coherent
style, based on Afro-Cuban roots, jazz, Brazilian music,
piano classical and romantic and the very particular
influences of certain pianists. This places Emiliano as one of
the most admired and influential pianists of his time among
great Afro-Latin jazz pianists.” 1
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 COMPOSITIONS:

Angélica, Poly, One Sunday morning, My contradanza, A

Puerto Padre, Zapateo for a beautiful lady, Dance for four,
Then it's late, Those seagulls, With faith, The eclipse, The
montuno, A current volanta, My contradanza, A Sunday
morning, Jazz Plaza, Prelude and vision, Post-vision, Dream
of Ana.

He won the 2001 Cubadisco Prize in archival music for

the album Pianismo.

GRADES:

1- Leonardo Acosta, Emiliano Salvador, portrait of Cuba,

Latin Beat, LA, June-July 1993. Leonardo also
published about Emiliano in the magazine Salsa
Cubana and in an anthology of his writings by the
publisher UNIÓN.

EL CHORI, KING OF THE TIMBAL ON MARIANAO

BEACH

One of the most colorful characters in Cuban music

was Silvano Shueg Hechevarría (El Chori), legend of the
cabaretuchos of Marianao Beach, an area of “frita music.”
Marianao Beach was the most famous area for fast-paced
Cuban music, where the most renowned soneros and
rumberos played; All that authenticity attracted a marginal
audience and, in turn, tourists in search of the real essence
of music and culture.

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 Chori was born - according to data from an old
notebook - on January 6, 1900 on 56 Trinidad Street,
between Reloj and Calvario (where there should be a
plaque) in Santiago de Cuba, he arrived in Havana in 1927,
now he is 80 years after his arrival in the capital. He quickly
made his debut at the Marte y Belona Dance Academy, a
place where people learned to dance by paying a coin a
piece.

From the Dance Academy he traveled by tram to

Marianao Beach, a magnet for those looking for a bed and
table in the dynamic Havana night. The journalist and writer
Leonardo Padura Fuentes says that the musician with great
daring and confidence arrived at the Los Tres Hermanos
club, asking for an opportunity to show who he was.

The black musician, who called himself Choricera, with

his strange outfit and red scarf tied around his neck, with a
wooden cross hanging around his neck, with some mystery,
asked for some bottles of beer, filled them with water, at
different heights, He placed them on the table, then uttered
a terrifying scream, opened his eyes wide, stuck out his
tongue and with his drumsticks began to extract strange,
very hidden sounds from that row of bottles that sounded
like a marimba. He sang with a thick, hoarse, worn and
deep voice, like something out of the jungle. Sometimes he
staged something as if it were a trial. That seemed very
surreal, it's what showbiz people call something eccentric,
and that's what they look for in these spaces for drunks and

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people of all stripes. The songs he performed were named
“La Choricera”, “Hayaca de corn”, “Frutas del Caney”,
“Enterrador, no la llores”.

That unpredictable show left the spectators stunned,

perhaps a little confused, and everyone who witnessed that
musical inauguration. The primitive artist demonstrated that
an artistically musical work is nothing more than the truth
of a feeling, captured in a work of art. It was not “luxury”
music, in the style of elegant Europe.

Later the occurrences were many: he included

kettledrums, horns, frying pans and other strange
instruments in those evenings that were beginning to fill up.
Brilliant stars passed through there at the level of: Agustín
Lara, Cab Calloway, Gary Cooper, Toña la Negra, Berta
Singerman, Errol Flynn, Ernest Hemingway, María Félix,
Imperio Argentina, Josephine Baker, Pedro Vargas, Marlon
Brando. And from Cuba: El Benny Moré, Barbarito Diez,
Ernesto Lecuona, Juana Bacallao, Celeste Mendoza, La Lupe,
Rita Montaner and all those who came curious about those
striking cabarets.

In March 1961, journalist Orlando Quiroga

published in his section “The Sound of the Week” for
Bohemia magazine: “El Chori makes nervous music, it is a
new breed of artists that obeys the heart, the nerves, the
resounding clamor. of blood, and not to the pre-established
rule established by tourism and a few unintelligent
businessmen. Chori is more than just an excellent clown,

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with his string of timpani, bottles, pans, he is a musical
phenomenon. A living example of creative intuition.”

The musician Senén Suárez tells me that the

maximum fame of the Chori and the cabaretuchos of
Marianao Beach takes on mythical status when the
journalist Dreau Pearson, a columnist for the New York
Times, read by many millions, publishes a chronicle in which
he says that “The tourist who Visit Havana and don't get to
Marianao Beach to see Chori, you don't know Havana."

For this reason, in 1956, nothing less than the

monster of cinema reached La Choricera, Marlon Brando
was not interested in seeing the lavish cabaret of Tropicana,
Sans Soucí, Montmartre and asked to be taken to Marianao
Beach to meet the Chori. “I want to find authentic Cuban
music.” After enjoying that show in amazement, he
proposed to Chori to take him to Hollywood to show the
public his immense talent. To make a long story short, the
percussionist was taken by the theatrical agent to the
Rancho Boyeros airport. At the time of departure, the
musician said he was going to have a coffee and
disappeared. Some time later he was in his cave with a
drink of rum and telling his friends, “I'm not going anywhere
by air or by water.”

The musician knew his place; Previously,

Miguelito Valdés had taken him to play at the Sans Soucí
cabaret, they dressed him in tails and everything, but he
finally ended up at his space on Marianao Beach.

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 Senén tells me that one of the musicians who
went to loot the Chori was the pailero Tito Puente, “Tito
took from the Chori those effects and juggling games that
the Cuban percussionist did and transferred them to the
Palladium hall and all over the world.”

It was characteristic of Chori to go throughout the

city announcing himself with white chalk, his name on the
walls, he said that he was “the artist who announces
himself.” I preserve the signature in a photo of another
great madman, the photographer Chinolope who was
responsible for leaving the image of the star of Marianao
Beach for history. The other photographer who dedicated
sensational photos to Chori was Constantino Arias, but
access to those photos has become almost impossible.

The king remained on Marianao Beach until 1963, the

show faded away, the musician took refuge in his labyrinth
of an old ancestral home at Ejido 723, in Old Havana. There
he lived abandoned, only accompanied by a small altar of
Saint Barbara, surrounded by orishas. The building has
already disappeared.

In 1974 Chori died, the rains erased his name

from the walls of the city, the world was already different.
But Chori remains a legend, a myth, a great moment of
Havana nightlife that persists, remembering those
characters who made great Havana famous.

BIBLIORAFY: See a long report by Leonardo Padura

Fuentes, published in Juventud Rebelde s/f
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ENRIQUE JORRÍN, THE KING OF CHA CHA CHÁ (Pinar
del Río, December 25, 1926 / Havana, December 12, 1987)

Enrique Jorrín is one of the great geniuses of Cuban

music, according to Rafael Lay, director of the Aragón
orchestra. The maestro from Candelaria is recognized
worldwide as the champion of cha cha chá.

All the beats bring discussions about their creators and

their previous influences. Culture is the fruit of a long
tradition of men, peoples and civilizations; As José Martí
said: “All men are plagiarisms upon plagiarisms, there is
nothing new under the sun.”

It is enough to observe the famous Western music, it is

nothing more than a copy of the music of the East, in many
aspects. If we study ancient Greek music, we observe that it
is an imported art. No instrument has its origins in Hellenic
soil. Many modes have their origin in Asia Minor. The lyre
comes from the barbarian North, the zither from Asia Minor,
they are foreign instruments, according to the Greeks' own
confession. Of course, what the Greeks did with Eastern
music has no examples and is exclusively their own thing. 1

However, and this must be said: Every man and every

musician, if he has true talent, contributes his grain of sand,
no one is equal to anyone.

In the case of the creation of musical rhythms and

modes, we know that our Latin American music is the result
of grafts, transplants, fusions; a word so in use today.

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 The cha cha chá is the result of a musical process that
starts from the fusion of the danzón complex, which in turn
goes back to the contradanza-danza-habanera-danzón-
danzonete-danzón-mambo. The mambo (fusion of danzón,
rumba, son, guajira and even jazz. At the same time,
according to Leonardo Acosta, the mambo is like a kind of
unexpected and brilliant spectacular spawn of Afro-Cuban
music itself. 2

As we see, Cuban music is unexpected, always

fertile, in perpetual evolution, from year to year it changes,
is enriched, and modifies its instrumentation with useful
technical procedures. 3

THE CHA CHA CHÁ

Let's go back to the times of the Arcaño Orchestra and

its Wonders: Antonio Arcaño himself comments to the
journalist Erena Hernández that he liked to experiment in
his Radiofónica, a true laboratory orchestra. “Jorrín told me:
“Master, I would like that crazy guy…”. I told him: “Yes, my
boy, of course…” And he composed it all crazy: I have many
of his numbers, I recorded countless of them, because he
took his first steps in music alongside us. Every day we
premiered danzones.” 4

The antecedent of the cha cha chá was the danzón-

mambo, which had a very fast air in the last part (the
montuno), accelerated for the dancer. Little by little they
eliminated as much syncopation as possible in the
percussion.
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 In a conference (conversation) that Jorrín prepared to
present at the Music Association of the Union of Writers and
Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), which I preserve in his
handwriting, the teacher explains that to solve the dancer's
difficulties In the danzón-mambo montuno, he began to
write rhythmically simple melodies, with the least amount of
syncopation. He built the cha cha chá melodies by
combining simple figures, such as white, quarter and eighth
notes in 2/4 time. In general, the rhythm of cha cha chá is
distinguished by its simplicity, making it possible to dance
much more easily than danzón-mambo, hence its enormous
popularity. (5)

Jorrín in his presentation clarifies that the danzón-

mambo (New Rhythm) was maintained from 1938 to 1952.
“Cha cha chá cannot be taken as a derivative of mambo.
The dance is completely different, the accents are different.
And also, I finish with the mambo technique. The mambo
was instrumental, the singers were suppressed since 1938,
the directors were afraid that the voices would take away
the timbre when they left the orchestra. With the cha cha
chá I return to singing. Around 1945 I put several
musicians, at least three, to form a kind of choir, since we
were in better tune. In this way we disguised the fact that
we were not professional singers. And this is where one of
the later characteristics of cha cha chá emerges, performed
by the musicians themselves. Starting in 1953, with the
explosion of cha cha chá, the typical orchestras returned to
putting singers.” 6
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 Jorrín acknowledged that “it is very difficult to say “I
am going to create a different genre.” Those who have tried
have rarely succeeded. It is always the product of a lot of
work. From the montunos of some danzones like Whatever
is male , there is the cell of the cha cha chá, was the dance
born before? Impossible. There is no dance before the
music. There is also no first cha cha chá. It was an
evolutionary process. I wrote danzones and more danzones.
And in these a trait grew, which little by little became its
own style. At that moment, it starts to sound like cha cha
chá. After the Silver Star , in the Prado and Neptuno hall,
in the early fifties, the dance was incubated, while the
orchestra played.” 7

The musicologist José Loyola analyzes Jorrín's work

and states that “the maestro separates himself from the
danzón, he is different, he makes changes in the danzón, he
has contributions in the montuno, in the instrumental
structure. A longer ending, montuneado with a chorus that
tells stories related to the title of the work. There is a
certain complexity in the tumbadora and the güiro. Before
the piano was syncopated, in the cha cha chá it changes;
There are new developments in the harmonic rhythmic
base. In The Deceiver, there is a final rumbada instrumental
coda. In the piece I don't walk anymore there are guajira-
son traits. The cha cha chá uses choteo, the picaresque in
its themes. The premontuno has modulations, morphological
transformations, as happens in concert music. It was a true
modernity and on that charanguero march they took the
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dancer to change aisles. Cha cha chá is a genre in itself and
not a modality, it evolved throughout its years of success.
Jorrín with America turned the music. Musically, the cha cha
chá was done by Jorrín, the dancers formed the corridor
through the scratching of Gustavo Tamayo's güiro.”

Some musicologists reveal that danzón-mambo and

cha cha chá is a work of collective creation, which can be
realized in several individuals. Great music and great things
in art are the fruit of the work of the popular collective
genius of creative people. What happens is that there is
always an individual, a genius who captures, concretizes
and synthesizes an era, a movement, a style. It transforms
the collective treasure of tradition into an artistic
production, sometimes preserving it and other times
modifying and destroying it.

The Romanian aesthete Grigore Smeu writes that “art,

whatever its evolution, could never be created without a
minimum of talent, of the corresponding gift. Could all the
members of the primitive community have been the gifted
ones who executed the famous cave paintings? 8

Arnold Hauser defines that since the artist emerges

from priestly anonymity and launches into prominence,
music loses a little of its collective ritual 9

In every artist – if there is talent – there is a copy of

another and, at the same time, some creation. In music,
many times some imperceptible change can produce an
amazing musical revolution. Let's look at rock and roll, the
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pop of The Beatles and the cha cha chá of Enrique Jorrín.

In the early 1950s, Pérez Prado invented his own

mambo and took everything by storm; and whoever got it
got it. In the 1970s, in Cuba, there were many creators of
small contributions, at that time Juan Formell synthesized
almost everything and took the lead. At the same time that
Los Van Van were suffocating popular dances, Los Irakere
monopolized the sphere of Latin jazz (Afro-Cuban), the
embryos of a new timba that other followers did not
materialize. And when everything seemed to be over, a
brilliant madman named José Luis Cortés arrived and, as
Juan Formell himself said: “El Tosco grabbed it, concretized
it and synthesized it all, salsa or timba, that must be
recognized.” Chucho Valdés had the same opinion 20 years
after NG La Banda was created, in a conversation dedicated
to José Luis Cortés, within the International Jazz Plaza
festival.

In the specific case of Jorrín, it is true that he took

advantage of everything that happened in his time, he
swallowed everyone, he was the musical director, the
greatest composer, he was the head of the kitchen, the
operating room specialist, the master who led the musical
project and in this way he stood before the people as the
creator of cha cha chá.

On the other hand, Jorrín was not an amateur, “I

become friends with Jorrín,” defines Rafael Lay Apesteguía,
who was not second to anyone. I always liked him a lot. For

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me there are two musicians that I adore, with forgiveness
from Tchaikovsky, Lizt, Beethoven and all the other greats
in the world, who are Jorrín and Richard Egües. They fulfill
me as much as they do other Tchaikovskys, especially
because of their great musicality: they are geniuses!, both
one composing and the other performing.” 8

Arnold Hauser defines that since the artist

emerges from priestly anonymity and launches into
prominence, music loses a little of its collective ritual 9

WHAT DOES THE CHA CHA CHÁ CONTRIBUTE?

The cha cha chá was the emergence of Cuban music

starting in 1953, “when the number of The Deceiver came
out, the Panart record label was suffering bankruptcy and
became a millionaire at the expense of my composition.
They bought a record factory, my records were sold out on
the Victrolas.

Rolando Valdés, Rafael Lay, Richard Egües and almost

all the musicians of the 1950s recognize that the cha cha
chá, promoted by Jorrín with América, made them eat hot.
“We evicted the big jazz bands from the aristocratic halls,”
says Rolando Valdés. “The cha cha chá varied the
instrumentals of the jazz bands,” adds Jorrín. At that time,
charangas only played in third-rate places, on Marianao
Beach, or at black parties; overnight, with the rise of La
degagadora , they became the favorites. The jazz bands,
seeing themselves displaced, incorporated flutes, timbalitos,
güiros and other elements belonging to charangas. Because
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they, until that moment, played bongoes and maracas, and
they changed these for timbales and güiros. They put mutes
on the trumpets and imitated the flutes. The same thing
happened in the sets. In general, they were looking for a
resemblance, in sound, to the charanga, a characteristic
that is still maintained.”10

The cha cha chá achieved worldwide durability and

became a basic template for rock and roll in the 50s and
60s of the 20th century. A tumbao from 1960, in an
arrangement by René Touzet, on Rosendo Ruiz's cha cha
chá, Amarren al loco , was the basic template as American
musicologist Ned Sublette explains to me. The work Louie
Louie is the most reliable sample and version of La bamba,
by Richie Valens, Satisfaccion by Duke of Earl and many
more.

In China, cha cha chá is the best-known music in

Cuba. Brigiette Bardot danced a cha cha cha in her daring
film And God Created Woman . In the musical West Side
Story , the main piece, Maria is a cha cha chá. The king of
mambo Pérez Prado recorded cha cha chá, Machito y sus
Afrocubanos (kings of Latin jazz), Fajardo y sus Estrellas
took cha cha chá to the great cabaret such as Montmartre
and the Waldorf Astoria, from New York and even to Japan
with his Sayonara . Nat King Cole recorded Richard Egües'
El Bodeguero . In those days, American musicians said,
everything sounded in cha cha chá.

“Cha cha chá is king,” proclaimed music critic John

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Wilson, “it has flooded almost all the parties and dance halls
in the world and especially in this country. A national chain
of dance studios reports that it is now the most popular
dance among its students. San Cooke recorded Every body
loves to cha cha chá (Everyone dances the cha cha chá).
The rhythm has even crept into New York's Greenwich
Village. To gain popularity, many orchestras adapted names
related to Cuban music, cha cha chá and Havana.”

Jorrín with the cha cha chá inspired other composers:

Richard Egües (El bodeguero, La muela, Sabrosona),

Rosendo Rosell Calculator), Miguel Jorrín ( Mocking spirit,

Don't bathe on the boardwalk), Ramón Cabrera (Esperanza
) , María Aurora Gómez ( El baile del suavito), Jorge Zamora
(I don't bother, The garbage), Enrique Jorrín ( The deceiver,
The tunnel, Nothing for you, The show-off)

WHAT WAS JORRÍN LIKE?

In the interview conducted by Erena Hernández with

Jorrín, the teacher recognizes that he was not a completely
happy man, he was a very distressed man. It is said that he
died as a result of an outburst he had over an
administrative matter. Erena – a woman at last – captures
with great subtlety that Jorrín maintained a somewhat
mysterious tone, “and adopts an expression as if he felt
sorry for himself.”

“Although the public flatters me a lot,” Jorrín explains.

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In all places they receive me well, they applaud me, I can't
complain: I am in most popular music books; in
conservatory and school classes.” 11

Jorrín traveled to Mexico more than 25 times, “if I were

not Cuban I would have liked to be Mexican, my second
homeland: in 1955 my fellow artists and musicians gave me
a gold medal for my contribution to popular music with the
cha cha chá. Victrola Award

Wrlitzer and the Musart trophy. All our songs, be it the

guaracha, the cha cha chá or the son, have always helped
to give our country a position in the world.” (12)

GRADES:

1-Curt Sachs, Music in Antiquity , Editorial Labor, Barcelona

1927, p. 72

2- Leonardo Acosta, Another vision of Cuban popular

music, Letras Cubanas, Havana, 2004, p. 43

3- Ramón Chao, Words in the time of Alejo Carpentier, Art

and Literature, Havana, 1985, p.133

4-Erena Hernández, Music in person, Cuban Letters,

Havana, 1986, p.67

5- See also Dora Ileana Torres, “Del danzón cantado al

cha cha chá”, in Panorama of Popular Music, Letras
Cubanas, Havana, 1995, p.173

6-Mayra A. Martínez, “A dance without equal” R/C,

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Havana, 2/83, p. 16

7- Mayra A. Martínez, R/C, Havana, 2/88, p.18

8- Criterios Magazine, Havana 3/4, Jul-Dec 1982, p. 57

9-Arnold Hauser, Social History of Literature and Art,

People and Education, 1977, p. 73

10- Mayra Martínez IBIDEM

11- Erena Hernández OB CIT

12- See Excelsior newspaper of December 14, 1979 and

January 13, 1985)

ENRIQUE LAZAGA, THE GUIRO OF BUENA VISTA

SOCIAL CLUB
(Cienfuegos on April 13, 1939)
Enrique Lazaga, heir to the great Gustavo Tamayo, is a
star playing the güiro, he has played with countless
musicians. He worked at the Rumba Palace, a legendary
nightclub on Marianao Beach, where the actor Marlon
Brando visited, he played at the Buena Vista Social Club, he
directed the Orquesta Ritmo oriental, and he plays with Los
Amigos.

- Lazaga, how do you get to the Rumba Palace?

- I arrived in Havana when I was two years old, at eight I
got into music and at twelve I was already an
instrumentalist at the Rumba Palace.
- What was the Rumba Palace like?
- He called it “fries music”, because fries stands were
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located on the sidewalk of the cabarets. The frita is like the
Cuban hamburger with meat and very tasty fries. In these
cabarets the most authentic music was played, nothing
fancy, everything was rustic, as we like now.
-Who was your father?

- He was a pianist, an arranger, he made arrangements for

Daniel Santos and the sensational orchestra, of which there
is only one.
- Why do you choose the güiro?
- It is one of the first indigenous rhythmic instruments that
are integrated into Cuban popular music, it carries the
rhythm, like a metronome, a true clock, even though it was
not appreciated as much as it deserves, I wanted to dignify
it, like Chano Pozo did and Tata Güines with the tumbadora.
-Is it difficult to touch it?
- Although it seems easy, it is not, you have to master all
the Cuban musical genres, which are many. The güiro has
been like the seasoning of meals, the special flavor, the
wonderful touch.
- Why was Gustavo Tamayo the king of the güiro?
- He was good at everything, he had a lot of dynamics, a
great sense of rhythm, he was just an orchestra, with that I
tell you everything.
There are times when the güiro is like a true protagonist of
the room, you feel and experience tremendous flavor.
Gustavo created the stripe on the cha cha chá güiro within
the Orquesta América; He had great intuition to fit any
piece of music. I remember they called him Popo, he was a
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mulatto like me.
-What other good guireros do you know?
- Julio Pedroso (Arcaño), Panchito Arboláez (Aragón,
created the “aragoneao” style), Rolando Valdés (director of
Sensación, still alive), Miñoso, Piro Alimentao, Pedro Ariosa.
I learned from all of them and intuitively. Tradition is being
lost a bit, music students are interested in something else,
essentially jazz, without knowing that it has some of the
best music in the world.
- Isn't the güiro an instrument to be inventing
“solos”, like the other instruments?
- But I have been able to do it, for example on the album
¡Barbarísimo! By Frank Emilio. Changuito encouraged me to
play a güiro “solo.”
- How do you get to Eastern Rhythm?
- After a tour of Europe, Revé left an orchestra and from
there La Ritmo Oriental was derived. It is the sports
commentator Eddy Martin who suggests the name Ritmo
oriental, because of the oriental rhythm they sounded. It
marks the beginning of the orchestra, in 1958, in one of the
studios of the CNC Reloj de Cuba radio station. I started on
the tumbadora, the güiro was Juan Claro Bravo, when he
got tired, I played him and I stayed there.
- La Ritmo, as people called him, what did he stand
out for?
- It was a hybrid orchestra between Aragón and Fajardo y
sus Estrellas, creating a style is not an easy thing, but we
managed to form a different orchestra with a lot of flavor,

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movement and within the dance show, in Fajardo's way. We
revolutionized the charanga, making the musicians voices.
David Calzado learned in that line, who later made the
Charanga Habanera very spectacular. I directed Ritmo for
more than fifteen years.
- How far did Rhythm go?
- We got to stop beautifully at the Chappe de Lombard in
Paris, and the French men and women enjoyed the Cuban
music, with that I tell you everything.
-Who sang and composed in Ritmo?
- Juan Crespo Maza, Jorge Quiala and Samuel Pérez, made
a trilogy of impressive voices and left hits like: My partner
Manolo, Yo bailo de todo, La chica Mamey, Se baila Así,
Juana does not love me because I don't know how to dance.
- What musician or singer became popular in Ritmo?
- In addition to those already mentioned, Pedrito Calvo from
Los Van Van, Tony Calá from NG La Banda and David
Calzado from La Charanga Habanera.
- Tony Calá had a lot of flavor, I remember him in the
orchestra, I think he invented the “Azúcar” rhythm.
- He invented it with Humberto Perera, then NG La Banda
with Tony Calá, they remodeled the theme with the piece
Échale limon by José Luis Cortés. Calá gave life to La Ritmo
arrives at La Ritmo when Juan Crespo loses his faculties.
Along with Calá, David Calzado enters and trains in
spectacular choreographies.

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- What other musical work have you done after
Ritmo?
- With the group Los Amigos de Fran Emilio Flyn, Orlando
López “Cachaíto”, Changuito, Tata Güines, download stars,
with them I traveled a lot to the US.
-What have you done with the Buena Vista Social
Club?
- I have played on almost all the recordings, I have also
worked on concerts with Zenaida Romeu's Camerata.
- What are you doing now IN 2010?
- With Emilio Morales and his New Friends, to keep the torch
of Frank Emilio and his Friends. I also make inroads into the
Orquesta Cuerdas de La Habana and La Charanga de Oro by
José Loyola. I participate in various album recordings. The
güiro is always present in Cuban music.
ERNESTO LECUONA, THE MELODIST OF CUBA

(Ernesto Sixto de la Asunción Lecuona Casado, Guanabacoa,

Havana, August 6, 1895/Spain. November 29, 1963).

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING CALLED ERNESTO

Lecuona is one of the great kings of Cuban music, for
some the most widespread Cuban composer in the world.
Lecuona transcends and has a deep significance for the
national culture, without a doubt and will continue to have
it. But Ernesto was not only a successful composer, he was
a promoter of our music and a sensational pianist. Leo
Brouwer said: “Lecuona was a sovereign pianist, but, above
being the best pianist, he wanted to be the best composer

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of his time in the works he did and he achieved as much as
he set out to do.”

In the documentary Lecuona, by Oscar Valdés, Leo

declares: “Ernesto may be that, for the newer generations,
he is not a close, loved and cherished reference; but for the
world it still is. Lecuona was a brilliant musician, with
mastery in his compositions. There is a common element for
all of Ernesto's works and that is that to interpret them, you
have to play a lot of piano, you have to be a true pianist. It
is not easy pianism and it is also brilliant, always and with
great beauty. Lecuona's poetic nature and his melodic
beauty will endure."

However, Ernesto was misunderstood by some “music

specialists”, in those times the European (Eurocentrist)
concept was deeply rooted in Cuba, for them the world of
popular music was not really considered.

ICAIC music specialist José Galiño tells me: “I believe

that what happened to Lecuona is that those rival musicians
never forgave him for being so popular and so famous, as is
the case with Pérez Prado.”

There are some evaluations about Lecuona that are

worthy of publishing on days like today: one of them
belongs to Adolfo Salazar (considered the best musicologist
of his time). Salazar published in El Sol de Madrid, in 1932:

“His technique is a timely combination of the traditional

with the most clearly modern. That is to say, music that

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starts from the popular, seeks popularity, is easily
accessible and knows how to avoid falling into the populace.
“He is one of the greatest melodists the world has ever
produced.”
In 1955 the critic Antonio Quevedo published some
opinions of an English diplomat related to musicologists:
“You have a genius for melody and rhythm that does
not exist in Europe, if we had a Lecuona it would be
supported by the State. Ask any Englishman about
Siboney, María la O, La comparsa, Malagueña, etc., and
you will see how they sing it in their own way. I doubt that
you have other musicians of this category in the popular
and typically Cuban, but in England we do not know it; in
France neither. This music by Lecuona is unique, typically
national, it is the most genuine representation of Cuba. That
tasty flavor of the little peasant dances, the work songs, the
cadence of the language, the street life, are admirably
captured in Lecuona's music. It is the essence of the Creole
hedonism of the tasty “Cubaneo”. There is no country on
earth that can match Cuba in the cordiality, generosity and
people skills of its natives. Well, these things are what
Lecuona's music reflects. What Manuel de Falla told me is
true: that Cuban popular music was unique on the continent
and its rhythmic values were inimitable.”
Lecuona's catalog of works is enormous, Odilio Urfé
told me that the maestro had more than 480 works in songs
alone. Their repertoire ranges from ballads, barcarolas,
berceuse, boleros, guajiras, bahiana, balalaika, singing

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(Indian, Karabalí, black, tropical), mosaics (popurrit),
capriccios, criollas, concert, congas, couplet, Afro dances,
Spanish dances, fado, fantasy, fox-trot, two-steep,
guarachas, gavotas, habaneras, hymns, marches, children's
songs, mazurkas, lamentations, lied, sones, pasodobles,
prayers, proclamations, preludes, symphonic poems,
rumbas, romanzas, tangos , habaneras, suites, waltzes,
jotas, lyrical and musical comedies, operas, operettas,
sainetes, hors d'oeuvres, magazines. The recordings and
versions are countless. (Orlando Martínez)
With all this work Lecuona has been placed among the
colossi of music at the level of George Gershwin, Villa
Lobos, Johann Strauss, Franz Lehar, Manuel de Falla and
other classics.
Ernesto worked for six decades in music, he never
turned his back on the people, from the age of twelve he
was forced to play in neighborhood cinemas, for three duros
(Spanish pesos). It is said that from his crib, four days after
he was born, a very old black African beggar approached
him to contemplate him and prophesied these words to him:
“God bless you, genius!”
Today when we talk about Cuba, we must mention
Ernesto Lecuona, a popular classic of Cuban music.
ESTEBAN SALAS

(Havana, December 25, 1725 / Santiago de Cuba, Oriente,

July 14, 1803)

Esteban Salas y Castro, although born in Havana, was

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transferred to Santiago de Cuba in 1764, appointed as
Chapel Master of the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba. He
incessantly composed large quantities of liturgical music:
antiphony, canticles, hymns, invitations, masses, lessons,
litanies, motets, psalms, carols, cantatas, pastorelas.

He was entrusted with the rectorship of the seminary

and the chairs and professorships of philosophy, theology
and morals. He was a very confident musician by trade.

The Havana musician must have been very

perseverant, because in those times of 1764, according to
Alejo Carpentier, secular music was better served in
Santiago than music intended to solemnize worship. What
was abundant at that time were small groups of guitars and
bandolas. 1

But Salas was a very organized musician, with a high

musical level, he deciphered manuscripts, and he had
amazing confidence in the musical profession. His scores are
written with great confidence, with concise and direct
language. He maintained a style connected to the
Neapolitan school, with which he established solid contacts
with European music. According to Pablo Hernández
Balaguer, “his music moved within Spanish models,
conservatives of the preclassical tradition, particularly the
baroque style.”

Esteban left a good batch of scores that have been

considered of importance throughout the continent.
It completes the vision of religious music in America, in an
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interesting and rich period of creations.

It is a true classic of music for the entire Latin

American continent, his work was the bearer of the spirit of
a time of transition towards classicism. Rafael Salcedo
cataloged Salas' work as “the most perfect and finished
work in religious music.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1- Alejo Carpentier wrote a substantial article about

Esteban Salas in Music in Cuba, CNC, Havana, 1961,
p.44

FERNANDO ORTIZ, THE DISCOVERER OF CUBAN

CULTURE
(Havana, July 16, 1881 / Havana April 10, 1969)
Cuban music has one of the most fervent squires in
Fernando Ortiz; his gigantic musical work serves as study
material for all musicologists on the American continent. In
88 years he published a work of enormous value to learn
about the studies of the Cuban nationality.
The maestro knew how to find the lifeblood of Cuban
music, its true meaning: “We Cubans have exported with
our music more dreams and delights than with tobacco,
more sweetness and energy than with sugar. Afro-Cuban
music is fire, flavor and smoke; It is syrup, sandunga and
relief; like a sonorous rum that is drunk through the ears,
that in treatment equalizes and unites people and in the
senses energizes life. “You cannot deny the intense
musicality of the Cuban people.” 1
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 Ortiz describes like no one else that world of the
origins of Cuban music with its vicissitudes, its lust, its
ecstasy, its emotional climate and collective frenzy. He
understood exactly what we were, what we are and what we
will be in the culture.
In reality, the researcher was not exactly a school
musician, he was not what we call today a musicologist; but
music is life, music is culture.
No one can encompass the unfathomable world of
music in all its aspects. Music has many disciplines:
scientific, medical, legal, psychological, educational,
sociological and anthropological. The Cuban scholar worked
on these objectives, for which he had an immense
bibliography (research is bibliography). It is enough to
observe the notes of his, where we can verify the high level
of the books consulted. We found data from Gaspar Agüero,
Mario de Andrade, Olukole, Ayadele Alakija, H. b. Alexander,
Emilio Bacardi, Antonio Bachiller y Morales, Natalie Curtis,
Alejo Carpentier, Sthepen Chauvet, Maurice Delafosse,
James G. Frazer, Curt Sachs
To undertake this enormous task, Ortiz became an
ethnographer, ethnologist, linguist, sociologist, and
ethnomusicologist. Graduate in Law, university professor,
he chaired the Education Section of the Economic Society of
Friends of the Country, he was a representative to the
Chamber in the Liberal Party, president of the Cuban
Folklore Society, president of the Economic Society of
Friends of the Country. He founded the magazine Ultra, the

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Society of Afro-Cuban Studies, created and directed the
International Institute of Afro-Cuban Studies, and presided
over the Cuban-Soviet Cultural Institute.
Both his studies at renowned universities, as well as
the institutions and events with which he was related, gave
him a very general knowledge of the various disciplines that
he had to study. But the teacher was not alone, great things
in this world are done through teamwork.
Ortiz was closely related in his work to the professor,
researcher and composer Gaspar Agüero Barreras (1873-
1951).
Who was Gaspar Agüero Barreras?
Agüero was an avant-garde pedagogue, founder of the
Normal School, he offered university extension courses
dedicated to the studies of Cuban folklore and popular
music, at the Faculty of Letters and Sciences of the
University of Havana. He directed the Santa Amelia
Conservatory.
The intellectual ties between Agüero and Fernando
Ortiz date back to 1919, at the time when Ortiz was
president of the Education section of the Economic Society
of the Country. From then on the interrelation between both
specialists was very intense.
In the 1940s-1950s Agüero made transcriptions of
songs and plays by the santero and batá player Trinidad
Torregosa, for Ortiz's studies.
In Ortiz's book The Africania of Cuban Folk Music
(1950), the Cuban scholar used Agüero's musical thought as

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a source of reference on multiple occasions. “We owe to
maestro Agüero – wrote Ortiz – the beginning of the specific
study of African rhythms in the popular music of Cuba.”2
“Dr. Se is responsible for the beginning of the specific
study of African rhythms in the popular music of Cuba. To
do this, he preceded by analyzing the characteristic rhythms
of some of our typical mulatto dances, establishing their
embryonic or nuclear elements and managed to establish
seven “rhythmic cells”, as he says, of sure Africanity” 3
These seven “rhythmic cells” appear in the bass, in the
intermediate parts of the harmony and even in the turns of
the melody. Agüero also calls these African rhythms
“generative rhythmic cells.” One of these cells is the famous
“cinquillo” that generates the rhythm of the danzón.
With all this knowledge, Ortiz undertook the colossal
work around Africanness in Cuban folk music. What is
important about Fernando is not only his amazing
knowledge and research, but also his cultural concept;
Without concept there is no definition.
Ortiz's cultural concept is this: “Culture is not a luxury,
but a necessity; not a contemplation, but an energy; not a
eunuchoid and sterile narcissism, but a copulatory
cooperation of creations; not a passivist neutrality, but an
active militancy, not an earned quiet that is enjoyed, but a
restlessness that must be ceaselessly satisfied. This concept
of culture, as an effort to improve, must today be
complemented by another, emerging from the
anthropological sciences.” 4

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 At the time when all these researchers were analyzing
Cuban culture, the thick undergrowth of prejudices was
immense. Popular music was not recognized or supported
by the authorities.
“Don Fernando Ortiz,” wrote Alejo Carpentier, “initiator
of what then had to be called Afro-Cuban studies,” said the
people of the Yacht Club and Tennis.
Havana Club: “It seems unbelievable that a man of such
talent wastes his time studying such things…” The men of
my generation: Nicolás Guillén, Amadeo Roldán and Alejo
García Caturla, suddenly discovered the wonderful
contribution of blackness to the Cuban culture. Not only did
we set out to study it with passion but, in doing so, we
launched a kind of challenge to the Cuban bourgeoisie. Deep
down we assumed a pre-revolutionary attitude.” 5
Fernando Ortiz carried out a work of enormous
importance when it came to affirming our identity, he
discovered the meaning of Cuban culture in time. He
abandoned the so-called “luxury culture” (of ornament). He
always knew what he wanted, unlike many others who were
very enlightened but with a borrowed, Eurocentric culture.
Today Ortiz's work is a compass in the understanding of our
nation.
“Every people that denies itself is in the process of
suicide” (Fernando Ortiz)
GRADES:
1- Fernando Ortiz, Africania of Cuban folk music, Ed.
University, Havana, 1965, p. 1

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 2- Dolores F. Rodríguez Cordero, “Gaspar Agüero and
Cuban popular music, in Clave magazine, Havana,
no.2-3, 2009, p. 56 to 62
3- Ibid
4- Luis Báez, Those who stayed, “Culture is the
homeland”, Interview with Fernando Ortiz, Ed. Politics,
Havana, p. 93
5- Alejo Carpentier, Interviews, Cuban Letters,
Havana, 1985, p.283.

FRANK FERNÁNDEZ, A COMPLETE MUSICIAN (Mayarí,

Holguín, March 16, 1944)

Frank Fernández Tamayo is one of the most combative

and persevering musicians in Cuba. From his classrooms in
the conservatories, his composition table, his piano, the
cultural dissemination of which he is the object, all of this
always admirable for its laboriousness.
But Frank also has a natural talent and has shown it in
his creations and concerts, which are many, throughout
Cuba and the world. From the time he was four years old, in
the hands of his mother, he already showed signs of
intelligence. Later he studied, in his own municipality of
Mayarí, at the Orbón academy, directed by his mother, with
professor Esteban Forés and later, in Havana, at the
Amadeo Roldán conservatory with professor Margot Rojas.
Perhaps many do not know that Frank Fernández, in
his youth, in Havana at night, in 1959, made his forays into
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clubs and cabarets. Participate in a contest for art fans on
television, was selected

Rising Star, which allows him to work for two years on

television with artists he always admired. That is the reason
why Frank does not discriminate between a son and a
sonata. He was born in a land of very important rhythms for
Cuba and he takes advantage of them and assumes them.
“In that pre-revolutionary Mayarí – he commented to the
writer Marilyn Bobes in Bohemia magazine in 1989 – and far
from the preferences of elites and cenacles, I became
accustomed to living with sounds in a double aspect.
On the one hand, the first academic lessons I received
from my mother prefigured the acquisition of a technique
that, years later, Margot Rojas (heir to Cervantes, Lizt,
Lambert and Lecuona) would be in charge of perfecting. On
the other hand, the intuitive world of traditional
troubadours, with their cinquillos and montunos of boleros
and sones, entered my ears definitively to mix – who knows
through what complex process – giving rise to a style, a
way of playing.” Let's remember in the 1980s when Frank
signed up with recording and production, in the EGREM of
the group Son 14 of Adalberto Álvarez. With them he has
put his hands on some recordings and concerts.
But Frank had many concerns and after winning a prize
for piano performance at the UNEAC, he acquired a
scholarship to study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in
Moscow, a mecca of piano teaching in the world. There he

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studies with Merchanov and receives perfect technical-
musical training. He graduated with excellent grades in
1971. In 1981 he was the first Cuban pianist invited to
perform in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, in
1984 and the first Ibero-American to premiere a Concert
Hall in Berlin, the Schauspielhaus, at the opening of the
Great Piano Masters cycle.
"From then on," writes Professor Guillermo Rodríguez
Rivera, "Frank began a successful career that has led him to
offer concerts and recitals in countless countries and
throughout the island, making him a remarkably well-known
musician."
Frank's enormous concerts with Beethoven's
symphonies are proverbial and the favorable national and
international reviews are many and very good.
The students trained by Frank at the National School of
Art are gems, starting with Jorge Luis Prats who won
several awards in 1977 in the Margueritte Long 1977
Competition. The long list of students is endless in Frank's
work in pedagogy where he must be placed among the
greats in the history of Cuba along with Margot Rojas, the
Nicola family and dozens of great music specialists. NG La
Banda's pianist, Peruchín, tells me that Frank is the best
piano teacher in Cuba.
Fernández was one of the pianists invited to the
reopening of the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, in March
2012.
He performs masterfully in the composition of works

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for choir, orchestration, record production, artistic shows,
for documentaries, films and various television media.
The eminent pianist has visited nearly forty countries,
produced almost four dozen albums, many awards and has
composed hundreds of works for ballet, cantata, historical
places, incidental music for film and television, for
symphonies, piano, etc. The criticism about Frank is very
complimentary worldwide.

GENEROUS, how good you play!

(Cruces, Las Villas, July 17, 1917 / Miami, USA, September

15, 2007)

Generoso Jiménez García was the stellar trombonist of

Benny Moré “Generoso, how good you play!” The great
musician came from Cruces, the same town where two
greats of the Aragón orchestra were born: Pepe Olmo and
Richard Egües.

The musician studied in Cruces and debuted as a

musician in the Municipal Band, 80 years ago. He arrived in
Havana 65 years ago, around the time Benny Moré arrived.
Debuts in Armando Romeu's Tropicana Orchestra. Then he
goes to the Police Band. I work with Pérez Prado, Chico
O'Farril, Obdulio Morales, Bebo Valdés with the batanga
rhythm. In 1955 he played with Benny Moré in the Tribu,
the Giant Band. Although he makes download recordings
with Cachao and others. In 1958 he recorded albums with
Lucho Gatica and Mario Romeu's orchestra. With Benny he

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traveled to New York in 1959. He conducted orchestras at
the Las Vegas cabaret, at Radio Rebelde and the Sierra
cabaret.

In 1991, Generoso, in his little house on Cerro, told me

the journey of his musical career: With the sensation he
recorded Charanga with brass for the first time: “Danzón-
chá”, it was a revolution. “Benny knew about me, because I
did repairs for Cascarita, we met in 1952 on Route 58, he
had just returned from Mexico, he was dressed very bizarre:
suspenders, earrings, sandals. I was dressed as a police
officer and he kind of made fun of me. I got off the bus and
he followed me hesitantly, saying he was going where I was
going. He walks into a bar and asks me to invite him for a
drink, I invite him; Then he invited me.”

It turns out that Generoso was on his way to Radio

Cadena Azul, just like Benny. “There Bebo Valdés introduces
him to me. So in 1953 he put together his band, he sent for
me, they didn't give me the message; but on April 29, 1955
he recorded with Benny: “Santa Isabel de las Lajas”, “Oh
vida” and other songs. In 1956 I began to make
arrangements, we went together to Marianao Beach, an
important musical focus to look for songs that would work
for him. There he discovered “Mucho corazón” by Alberto
Barreto. Benny came up with tumbaos and dictated them to
me.”

The fabulous trombonist revealed to me the secrets of

improvisations and orchestrations: “To improvise you have

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to be born, there are musicians who know the transfers of
harmony and do not have the facility to download. I
downloaded like you know I do and I never studied
harmony. I studied alone, self-taught, using little books and
with many ideas. It seems that I was born to be a
saxophonist. That historic recording of “Generoso que bien
tumbao tú” was a spontaneous download in Caracas,
Venezuela, from a tumbao by Castellanos. The essence is
nothing more than a sound that was played on the banks of
the cautious river. I dictated: “Start in F. ” Benny had a
privileged memory, when he couldn't remember something,
he invented it, it was a phenomenon. My secrets in
orchestrations: the first thing is that the introductions
should be short, so as not to make the listener impatient.
The important thing is to arrange for the singer, not for the
orchestra, not to mix the trombones with the trumpets or
saxophones in the harmonies. The metals should not stun in
the accompaniment. The trombones with Benny do the part
alone, accompanying his voice and avoiding noise, so he
feels more comfortable. The bongo player should not
unload, unless asked to do so. The tumbadora must simply
keep the time, the march, the rhythm. We use mute a lot –
hardly anyone anymore
uses-. It must be used again to search for atmospheres. In
many orchestras today there is a lack of flavor, elasticity, a
lack of sound environment.”

Generoso remembers Benny as something

supernatural: “A daughter baptized me, he was a brother
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and friend. A good son, noble, humane, altruistic, he sought
work for people like a good Samaritan. The last time I heard
him sing was at the Sierra cabaret, he was no longer with
the Band, but he advised her. Benny was colossal, of
course, as in the beginning. He no longer drank, it was
something fabulous, the greatest thing in the world, there
was never anyone like him, that was the end of it.”

GONZALITO RUBALCAVA, THE MODERN PIANO OF

CUBA

(Havana, May 27, 1963)

Gonzalo Julio González Fonseca, Cuba's piano man, is

listed as one of the most appreciated pianists in his style in
the world. In 2011 he already has 14 recorded albums, 15
nominations and five Grammy Awards, in just 48 years of
life.

He was born in the midst of Beetlemania. Heir to a

dynasty of musicians: his father Guillermo González Camejo
(Rubalcaba), pianist of the Charanga Rubalcaba; his
grandfather Jacobo González Rubalcaba, band director,
classical danzonero from El cadete constitutional .

The Havana pianist was catapulted by Dizzy Gillespie and

Charlie Haden. Gillespie said that “it had been a long time
since he had encountered a musician with these qualities.”
And Haden considers it the great unexpected appearance in
the universe of jazz.”

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 He is an academic musician, he studied at the Caturla
Conservatory, at the Amadeo and finished at the Higher
Institute of Art (ISA). His father Guillermo tells me that in
Gonzalito's presentation in the test, the teacher canceled
him for lack of rhythm. Guillermo explained to the teacher
that he would have Gonzalito do a tumbao on the piano to
see if she could play it too. “The teacher told me: “Leave
that” and ended the discussion, offering the degree to my
son.”

Like many of Cuba's good pianists, Gonzalito began

with percussion (Emiliano Salvador is one of them). “My first
approach to music,” Gonzalito tells journalist Magda Resik,
“is in the world of percussion: tumbadoras, pailas, bongoes.
I watched Changuito Barreto, Tata Güines, in the first stage.
It was at the age of eight that I began regular studies. I
started on the piano because I wasn't old enough for
percussion. There was always a piano at home, but I wasn't
interested. I got into piano at school. In the fifth year I was
offered percussion, without leaving the piano, and I
completed both courses up to the intermediate level. In the
conservatories they were reluctant to popular music; That
was the stage in which I began to become interested in jazz
through musicians who came to Cuba. I discovered 78 rpm
jazz records by Tommy Dorsey and Gene Krupa. My fellow
students connected me and in the Cuban avant-garde there
was Chucho Valdés with Irakere and Los Van Van by Juan
Formell. I watched Frank Emilio, Cachao; until someone
appeared who definitely marked me: Dizzy Gillespie and his
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combination with Chano Pozo”

While Gonzalito was studying, he made substitute

performances in groups such as the Orquesta Aragón in the
1980s, with which he traveled to Europe and Africa. He also
played with the group Síntesis, Sonido Contemporáneo,
Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, Todos Estrellas and
Los Van Van. I accompany Beatriz Márquez, Soledad
Delgado, Ela Calvo, Pablo Milanés. Alina Sanchez.

In 1983 he founded the group Proyecto (septet, later

quintet) and performed at the 1st. International Jazz Plaza
Festival (since 1980 it was a national festival). On one of his
visits to Cuba, in 1985, Gonzalito, with great simplicity,
offered him the opportunity to perform with Dizzy. The
American monarch is surprised and expresses: “He is the
best pianist I have heard in many years.” With that
accolade, Gonzalito skyrocketed into the world.

Gonzalito's lucky meeting with Gillespie occurred at the

1985 Plaza International Jazz Festival. Then begins the
musician's international saga. They invited him to the North
Sea Festival in Holland, from where he continued on his way
to London, for the Festival of Cuban Latin Jazz Groups at the
Ronnie Scott Club, at the Club Paraíso in Amsterdam,
Montmartre, in Copenhagen, Spinks Antwerp Festival. He
went to the Cuban Culture Day in Spain, to Mount Fuji in
Japan, and appeared triumphant at the Lincoln Center in
NY. He traveled throughout Europe, where he performed
before notable figures such as: Gato Barbieri, Michel Camilo,

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Astrid Gilbert, Al Dimeola, Ray Barreto, Tania María,
Irakere, Tete Monteliu, Charlie Haden, Patitucci, Ron Carter,
Dizzie Gillespie and many others. . Firms such as Blue Note,
EMI, Tshiba, GKM, organized their international concerts.

The alliance with Charlie Haden and the president of

the Blue Note Record company was in 1986 in Havana. A
leap in his career begins, all the doors open. Haden
integrates him into his musical group. They participate in
the Montreux Festival, they record live. By 1993, they
suggested that he settle in the Dominican Republic for the
transit of his international presentations. With Haden he
made an album of boleros Noctume and Land of the Sun
that won two Grammy Awards.
In 1993 he was declared Artist of the Year in Japan for
the second time, the specialized magazine Jazz Time of the
USA, placing him as the Best Jazzist of the moment. In
1999 he recorded the album Inner Voyage with Blue Note.
In his endorsement he has standards such as his work
Caravana, where he demonstrates the mastery of formalist
aesthetics and the cherished influences of the music of his
origin, Cuban, creating a version full of traditional Jazz and
the feeling of Afro-Antillean music made the most of by
their knowledge of the subject and academic instruction.

He obtained the Palmares de Jazz awards (French Academy

of Arts), Basel Grand Prix. Nominated for the Latin Grammy
for the album Supernova , Best Latin Album 2002.
Supernova is a return to the danzón to which he feels

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indebted. With the Cuban singer Pancho Céspedes they
recorded the album Con permit del Bola. (Warner Label)
“Bola is a true illusionist full of fantasies.” These years are
documented in a series of recordings from the EGREM
Studios in Havana and the Messidor Studios in Franckfut.
Three superior quality recordings are included in this last
label, such as “Mi Gran Pasión”, “Live in Havana” and
“Giraldilla”.

His latest album released by Blue Note is called,

synthetically, Solo, where he performs alone. “You come to
want to be alone on stage for various reasons. First of all,
there is something that has to do with rescuing something
that is natural for one. It is studied, composed, played,
most of the time, alone. With the instrument itself you get
to have an intimate, confidential relationship of dialogue.
With the piano and with its music, with the way you want it
to sound. Playing alone is a way to explore oneself, to stage
the aesthetic evolution, the growth of one's music. And it is,
of course, a goal. When you play in a group there is not so
much load; “The responsibility is shared.”

He began an international recording career for

Toshiba/EMI and Blue Note Records which has resulted in 14
Grammy Award nominations and 4 Grammy Awards in the
last 13 years.

CONCEPT

“My career – he revealed to Diego Fischerman – is a

continuous search, I play the traditional, but with a different
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angle. My album Supernova is an exploratory work, like a
summary of my work. In the beginning I leaned more
towards the rhythmic (every young person wants to
demonstrate virtuosity, complexity), now I am evolving
towards the melodic, connecting the melodic with the
phrasing in jazz and the Cuban vocabulary. I leave the
typing, the “notism”, to enter the poetic. More than a
musician who plays fast, I am a musician who thinks fast.
Evolution is everything today, I look for risks and aesthetic
ambition.”

In improvisations, Gonzalito has mastery of

percussion; he believes that the world is full of theoretical
improvisers, with good preparation. They try to break
codes, “but they have lacked teamwork. I'm not talking
about planning, but about going deeper, about improvising
in an organized way, with head and foot, so as not to enter
into chaos, and decorative discharge. I use the possibilities
of rhythmic formulas that remain intact or little used. I work
on Cuban piano playing, in a certain way on the “drawing of
the still hand”, on the display of harmony with the left hand,
on some rhythmic patterns. “I work seriously with the
traditions that fertilize my creation, open to evolution.”

Gonzalito is chosen by the prestigious Piano and

Keyboard magazine, among the sixty most important
pianists of the 20th century, sharing that honor with sacred
monsters such as Duke Ellington and other colossi of world
music. Ron Carter considers it “A sound library.”

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 Gonzalito considers his father Guillermo to be his most
important figure, “in my education, he expanded my
grammar, gave me discipline, showed me the tools and
instruments to concentrate and maintain focus, stimulating
curiosity. Through my home all Cuban music reached me
and I contacted many consecrated people. In the music of
yesterday there is refinement and elegance.”

Gonzalito loves Cuba, “my country, against all odds,

has made a great effort in education in general and in
particular in the studies of school musicians, academics. The
Cuban musical school is one of the best in the world.
“American musicians should look at our music.”

Gonzalito was always a very simple and very

responsible boy, of few words, he is not a lover of wasting
time, when something does not synchronize with him, he
feels very distressed. His life is centered only on studying
and playing, on creating music, that is his life.

LATEST NEWS FROM GONZALITO

Gonzalito is like a musical ecumenism, a kind of

synthesis of his studies in Cuba, his experimentations, his
natural talent and the projects with many of the most
famous pianists in the world of modern jazz. At the Mella
theater he presented the music from his latest album Siglo
XXI, an account of his musical work. He has already left
behind that concept of virtuosity linked to speed, quickness,
anxiety about “notism” (many notes) to impress in the first
fifteen minutes. Now look for the quality of the sound, the
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integral use of your instrument, the management of
dynamics, the study of balance, of sound, in the musical
structure, the ensemble work with other musicians.

The Havana pianist, in his performances, shows

maturity, he interprets sounds unusual in jazz pianists,
owner of perfect training, he knows how to play with all the
possibilities in harmonic ideas, colors, dynamics; the true
“touché” that Europeans talk about.

Harold López-Nussa explained to me at the end of the

concert: “All the music students, established performers,
teachers and dilettantes in the world were attentive to
Gonzalito's performances. It's like a music class, a school.
He is a master in the way of approaching music, metric
value, diction, measurement, he has the knowledge of
impressive, high-level pianism. Beyond profound virtuosity,
he is a creator of something new, a true avant-garde that
summarizes many years of music. He has a general
command of world music and knows popular music widely,
we are not used to hearing things like that; It leaves you
speechless, it is off the level, it is a monster of world music
that we always want to listen to to check out something new
in music. “He has us all by the neck.”

“I apply the concept of an “elastic art”, Gonzalito

revealed to me at the end of his presentation, “I consider

very rich programs, my international work gave me a new

vision, especially through Dizzy Gillespie. The stage tells you
where you are, I am always in many long-range projects
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with musicians of various styles.”

Gonzalito has already restarted his bond with his

country, “I have never been outside of Cuba, I am part of
this reality. I am not a Cuban who wears a guayabera, but
my roots are in this land. Who tells me that I was not born
in Maternidad de Línea, with a Cuban doctor, that I studied
in various Cuban music schools, that I ate rice with black
beans, roast pork, fried plantains? I work abroad, and I
think that from a distance you see everything closer, as
Alejo Carpentier said. I am in favor of the unification of
Cubans, we cannot lose the connection and the embrace.
We must establish communications, look for what unites us
and what differentiates us. I hope that American politics
understands that we must learn to listen to others, to
understand other points of view.”

The visit of Gonzalo Julio González Fonseca (Gonzalito

Rubalcaba), has left the public as if they were attending an
authentic Musical Revolution, it is the most resonant
cultural event of the end of the year in Cuba.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Magda Resik, La Gaceta de Cuba magazine, Diego

Fischerman page 12, Eliseo Cardona CDNOW Portal,
Interviews with Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Gonzalito at various
times.

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GONZALO ROIG: ONE OF THE KINGS OF CUBAN
ZARZUELA
(Havana, July 20, 1890/Havana June 13, 1970)
Julio Gonzalo Elías Roig Lobo, composer and orchestra
director, is one of Cuba's distinguished musicians, for his
work as a creator of emblematic works and for his
promotional work with concert and zarzuela music.
He initially worked as a violinist in Havana theaters,
and was one of the founders of the Politeama and Miramar
Garden theater orchestra. On December 15, 1922, together
with Edwin Tolón, César Pérez Sentenat, they signed the
Regulations of the Board of Directors of the Havana Concert
Society, the beginning of the Havana Symphony Orchestra,
whose first concert was held on October 29 1922, in the
national theater of Cuba (today the Great Theater of
Havana).
As an orchestra director he had a fruitful job for many
years promoting very Cuban music, in times of
Europeanism. The eminent musician Eduardo Sánchez de
Fuentes ( habanera tú) , considered that Roig” is a
connoisseur of instruments and their timbres in the art of
instrumentation. As a creative artist, his compositions have
a fine spirit and an unusual sensitivity.”
The maestro held important positions in musical fields,
in foundations, academies, societies, bands, radio stations,
theaters, philharmonics, conferences, and musical
companies.

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 COMPOSITIONS:
He created boleros, various songs, barcarolas,
fantasias, clave, congas, berceuse, whims, criollas, guajira,
Cuban dances, danzones, guarachas, habaneras, incidental
music, proclamations, waltzes, zarzuelas, musical revues.
Leo Brouwer considers that Roig achieves what is
fundamental in his stage music, “in particular the famous
Cecilia Valdés. A sociological analysis must be made of his
work because he has taken his highly refined work to
massive levels, with aesthetic and historical permanence in
national culture . Cecilia Valdés , can be listened to with
more pleasure than Verdi and sometimes with more depth
than Mayerbeer or Bellini . ”
Cecilia Valdés has a libretto by Agustín Rodríguez and
José Sánchez Arcilla, based on the literary work of the same
name by Cirilo Villaverde. It premiered on Saturday, March
26, 1932 at the Martí Theater.
Quiéreme mucho , has the text by Ramón Gollury and
Agustín Rodríguez (1911), a criolla-bolero; premiered by
Mariano Meléndez, in Havana. It was sung and recorded by
hundreds of performers, especially MIreille Matheu, Julio
Iglesias who spread it further in the world, Omara
Portuondo in the film The Beauty of the Alhambra, and
many international tenors.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
See Radames Giro's Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cuban
Music, Cuban Letters, Havana 2009, volume 4, p. 65. Helio
Orovio, Dictionary of Cuban Music, Cuban Letters, Havana,

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1981, 394 ,
Hamilé Rozada, When you really want, Bohemia, December
7, 1990, p. 16
GRENET: A MUSICAL FAMILY
The Grenet family is one of the most eminent in Cuba,
it is made up of three stars: Emilio, Eliseo and Ernesto.

ELISEO (Havana, June 12, 1893/November 4, 1950)

Eliseo began studying at the age of five and at the age

of nine he premiered his musical magazine La Geography
Physique at a school party. Since he was thirteen he has
been working to entertain silent films in capital cinemas, at
the age of 16 he directed the orchestra of the Politeama
Habanero theater where he premiered several zarzuelas. I
am a member of Regino López's company at the Cuban
Theater. In 1926 he toured the Island, on tour with the
orchestra of the Arquímedes Pous Company, later he left
with a group of musicians on tours to various nations in
America.

In 1925 he founded a jazz band to perform at the

Montmartre cabaret and the Jockey Club. In 1927, the
Regina Niña Rita theater premiered, a work in which Rita
Montaner debuted with the tango congo Mamá Inés,
incorporated into the libretto by Aurelio Riancho and music
by Eliseo Grenet and Ernesto Lecuona.

Alejo Carpentier commented in Carteles magazine

about Rita's successes for her "authentic suburban joy",
those triumphs were achieved in no less than where the star
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Raquel Meller triumphed.

In 1932, upon his return, he had to leave the country

persecuted by the henchmen of President Machado. He then
went to Gijón, Spain where he performed as a singer and
pianist. In Madrid he premiered his operetta The Morena
Virgin ; supported or by a very traditional troupe of congós
with eight drums, with the pounding of piano and cowbell
with the support of choreographers and couples of
rumberos. Triumph in Barcelona and Paris and even a film
was made called Princess Tam-tam, with Josephine Baker, a
Music Hall legend. He presented all of his lounge conga
ideas at the La Cueva cabaret he owned, with Julio Cueva's
orchestra. In that place he visited the high society of the
European nobility. Cuban music triumphed without
resistance in those times. The success also moved to
London at the Prince of Wales theater.

Finally he took his project to Havana and from Havana to

New York with the couple Carmita Ortiz and Julio Richard,
one of Tropicaba's star choreographers. In 1936, on
Broadway and 52 Manhattan, he founded the El Yumurí
cabaret where the quartet of Pedro Flores and Panchito
Riset performed with the compositions El maraquero and El
marimbulero.

In those days, Jorge Negrete had come from Mexico to

try his luck in the city of skyscrapers. The singing charro
was stranded, he went to live in the Latin “El Barrio”, they
only offered him work for the tip, as a waiter, at the Yumurí

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bar.

The singer had to go through bohemian life, as

happened to Carlos Gardel years before and Benny Moré, in
the 1940s. But art has its coincidences, one day the lead
singer of the Yumurí bar was missing and Negrete took
advantage of his great opportunity right there. The success
was tremendous and that same night he was hired as a
crooner and master of ceremony.

In 1938 Eliseo presented the magazine La conga with

Jorge Negrete, when the Mexican singer was looking for a
place under the sun. From New York to Hollywood promoted
by Negrete. Then the war came and all twelve major film
projects were cancelled. He decided to move to Mexico
where he scored two films: Escándalo de estrellas, Conga
bar and Estampas coloniales. He acted in the

XEQ Radio. From Mexico to Argentina to work on the film

Milonga de arrabal, with Libertad Lamarque. Miguelito
Valdés participates in another

He returned after the fall of the dictator.

He has provided music in several films: Scandal of

Stars, Conga Bar, Empampas Coloniales, Milonga de Arrabal
and other plays such as Niña Rita, La Canción del Mendigo,
Bohemia, Como las Golondrinas, La Virgen Morena, The
Cuban Submarine and some verses. by Nicolás Guillen:
Motifs of son.

Danzones are distinguished in his work: La mora, Si

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me asking for the fish, If I die on the road, Papa Montero. It
has excellent songs: Tabaco Verde, Boquita Azucarada, El
Mendigo (Zarzuela), Tabaco Verde, Lamento Slave. Sones:
Cuban lament, Facundo, Negro bembón. Romanza: My life
is singing from the operetta The Brown Virgin Pregones:
Rich pulp, El tamalero. Bolero: Sad pilgrim, The pearls of
your mouth (lyrics Armando Bronca) conga: Camina
palente, The golden key, Walk ahead Tango congo:
Espabílate, Mamá Inés. Sucu-sucu: Felipe Blanco
(Recreation of the folklore of the Isla de Pinos, belonging to
Felipe Blanco and Domingo Pantoja), a song that is said to
have caused him many problems with the “catones” of
Cuban music. He also wrote many works of lyrical theater.

He recorded many of his music with Brunswick in New

York. In 1948 he won 1st Prize in the Cuban Songs Contest
with El sitierío.

EMILIO: “Neno” (Havana, 1901/1941)

Composer and pianist, study with Armando Laguardia.

He worked as a pianist in New York in 1923 with the Marx
Brothers' plays. He also lived in Spain where he contacted
Joaquín Turina who introduced him to Conrado del Campo,
his harmony teacher.

In Cuba he appeared on the Ministry of Education radio

station and became a musical researcher. He wrote the first
book on Cuban musical genres, widely cited in various

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musical materials: Cuban Popular Music (1939). He
recorded with Eliseo Grenet's orchestra. He was the teacher
of Enrique González Mántici and Vicente Gonzales Rubiera
·”Guyún”.

He set to music texts by Nicolás Guillén: Motivos sede

son, in the book Songoro cosongo. Quirino with his three,
Dedicated to Rita Montaner. He also composed Sabia
absence (song), La torrecita (pregón), Son: Curujey, Vito
Manué, Yambambó, Quirino con su tres (pregones), some
sung by Bola de Nieve. Maraca and bongo (choral piece). He
was one of Rita Montaner's favorite composers, along with
Moisés Simons; He helped in the consecration of Cuban
rhythms in Paris, they shone with their own light in the
cabarets on the banks of the Seine. In the 1930s he played
piano in Julio Cueva's orchestra.

He was attacked by a shark that tore off his arm and leg on
the Malecón in 1930.

ERNESTO (Havana 1908, Miami, Fla. August 5, 1981)

Ernesto, according to information provided by his

colleague Senén Suárez, worked in Paris with Julio Cueva
and in 1933, he stayed in a Madrid cafe, in Spain where he
also fought in the Civil War. At the end of the war, in 1939
he returned to Cuba, where he formed his own group to
play at the Tropicana cabaret. I accompanied Ernesto with
his group – says Senén – from 1948 to 1950, he was a
tremendous drummer; although with his group he only sang
chorus and played the güiro. In 1950 we traveled to
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Maracaibo where we met with Celia Cruz. Upon his return
from Venezuela, Ernesto retired from music to run a dry
cleaning business he owned. “Then he left me the outfit.”

He composed Drume bold, Canción de lullaby, Sueño

guajiro.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Works by Cristóbal Díaz Ayala, Edgardo Martín, Alejo

Carpentier, Mayra A. Martinez,

Radamés Giro, Ramón Fajardo, Emilio Grenet, Senén

Suárez.

GUILLERMO BARRETO, PERCUSSIONIST WITH A

UNIQUE SOUND
(Santa Amalia neighborhood, Havana, August 11,
1929/December 14, 1991)

Guillermo Barreto, one of the best percussionists in

Cuba, annually dedicates an event to him called La Fiesta
del Tambor, Guillermo Barreto In Memoriam.
The musician from Santa Amalia had a long career in
Cuban percussion, orchestras always had to have an
excellent percussionist to maintain the rhythm and Barrero
was the great star there, in times when there were valuable
percussionists such as Walfredo de los Reyes and Blasito
Egües, Emilito del Monte, Amadito Valdés, Ulpiano and
Danielito.
He fell in love with the paila in 1952, when Xavier

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Cugat's orchestra came to Tropicana in Havana; although it
must be said that he mastered the tumbadora, the bongoes,
and the güiro. He perfected the paila in the 1960s to master
the danzonero rhythm.
He came from a musical family, his father worked in
the Police Band; They were Bebo Valdés' family. He began
playing maracas as a child at the age of five, then became
interested in drums, listening a lot to the radio that
broadcast jazz. He organized small groups with Bebo Valdés
and his friends.
He began studying the piano, he loved that instrument
of which he said that "every percussionist must pay close
attention to the piano, a rhythmic, melodic and harmonic
instrument, ideal for musical arrangements."
He was a star on both the timpani and the drums, his
favorite instrument. He was the classic orchestral
accompaniment percussionist, who keeps time, offering the
rhythmic basis to the soloist. “You have to play with
panache, respect the melody in front of the soloist, without
throwing those styles so characteristic of young musicians.”
In the 1940s he worked as a drummer in the
Tropicana Orchestra, directed by Armando Romeu, who
assured that “Barreto has a privileged ear for any type of
music we play. Maintains rhythmic stability, something
essential for a percussionist. “It maintains the balance of
the brass in large orchestras.”
In many of the rehearsals in the Cuban Modern Music
Orchestra and later in Los Irakere, Barreto told me about

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his experiences in Tropicana, in the golden stage he
performed before Nat King Cole, Tito Puente, Lucho Gatica,
Johnny Richard, Tomy Dorsey, Buddy Rich (his favorite
drummer and guide in his studies) Stan Getz, Billo Frómeta.
He chatted with Dizzy Gillespie during his visit to Havana in
1977.
He worked in the Orchestra of the Sans Soucí cabaret,
under the direction of Rafael Ortega. In 1957 he joined
Bebo Valdés' orchestra at the Sevilla Biltmore Hotel. He
accompanied the dancers Alicia Alonso and Antonio Gades,
he spent time with Sergio Vitier's Oru group, and he also
had a special participation in his later years.
In summary, Barreto went through various radio
stations: Radio Lavín, Radio Cadena Habana, Mil Diez. With
the orchestras of: Mariano Mercerón, Obdulio Morales,
Generoso Jiménez, Roberto Valdés Arnau, National
Symphony, Instrumental Quintet and Modern Music, Cuban
Orchestra of Modern Music (1967). With the Cuban jazz
group he had a rich career with the group Los Amigos, by
Frank Emilio Flynn. (Interview by Mayra A. Martínez,
“Barreto, percussionist with a unique sound”, Letras
Cubanas, Havana, 1993, p. 288
CONCEPT
Barreto was a complete musician, very imaginative
and intuitive on the instrument, with exquisite sound,
according to Sergio Vitier. In the 1957 Downloads , Barreto
created an 18-inch diameter cymbal for the pan to bring out
greater sound. Barreto has been a school for Cuban

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instrumentalists.
Barreto's thesis was that “drummers are like a
“stewardess” on an airplane: neither calm nor exalted
(harmonics), managing the decibels with measure, with
moderation so as not to disturb the ensemble.
Every stellar Cuban percussionist deserves a good
book, there is a lot to talk about them, they are true music
schools.

IGNACIO PIÑEIRO, THE POET OF SON

(Havana, May 21, 1888/Havana, March 12, 1969)

Ignacio Piñeiro Martínez (IP) is one of the three kings

of son, he “ havanized ” the rhythm of the eastern part of
Cuba, an authentic champion of American music. He added
spice to the music of all of America. According to Emilio
Grenet, Piñeiro “made the transformation from the son
montuno to the dance song ( son habanero) , as Emilio
Grenet called it.”

IP was the Afro-European fruit of a black woman of

African heritage, Petrona Martínez and an Asturian named
Marcelino Rodríguez Sánchez. The surname Piñeiro comes
from, according to data from Omar Vázquez, from the
youthful times when he worked as a cart driver, when his
brother Prudencio transported goods from the port to
Piñeiro's warehouse. That is the surname he adopted in art
since people always said “here come the Piñeiros. In those

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times, many poor people took the surname of their boss, or
of someone of economic importance, as was the case of
Arsenio Rodríguez.

The great musician was born in the folkloric and

marginal neighborhood of Jesús María, around the port of
Havana; But very early he went to live with his family in the
Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood (La Victoria). I knew the
environment of Jesús María, Los Sitios, Ataré, El manglar,
San Leopoldo.

These neighborhoods were a kind of “tribe”, as they

call them now, ghettos, where jungle drums sounded,
sanctuaries of Cuban music. Piñeiro began interacting with
babalawos, ñáñigos, black Congos Lucumíes. La Victoria was
a neighborhood of brothels called Pajarito, long before
African councils, Congos and Lucumíes swarmed with fear.
“But I wasn't afraid of them, for me it was natural. They
took me as a pet, as an errand boy, and I took the
opportunity to be taught the tricks and secrets of their
mysterious music that came from so far away, from the
intricate ancestral Africa. Since I was a child I was
interested in listening to the conversations of wise black
people; I absorbed everything, like a sponge.

They were times of the War of Independence, of waves

of immigrants, of the great moment of the gestation of
many of the Cuban popular rhythms. Poverty devastated
the country and war ruined the population.

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 “I can tell you – Ignacito speaks – that many of us
children conspired, of course! All my life I have conspired
making music. We played war between Cubans and
Spaniards and the war was burning, so I composed my little
decimitas:

Stop who's going/ the guerrilla!/ boys with machete in

hand/ those are our brothers/ but of bad seed.../ lazy,
misunderstood/ drunks and perverts/ who for a single bitch/
sell Cuba/ their land/ the homeland where they have grown
up/.

The number of jobs that Ignacito had to do were

many: stevedore in the port, cart driver, tripe cleaner, cigar
maker, bricklayer; but there was always time for music, he
sang in school choirs, and his mother sang like a
nightingale. He played the tres , the guitar, the double bass
and the drums, at that time all the blacks played drums in
the lots that were a kind of percussive conservatories. It is
estimated that the boy was self-taught, although in 1928,
he confessed to Roberto Branly, “I studied some music
around 1928, with the methods of Slava and the Solfeggio
de los solfegés . I know the guitar, the tres, the double bass
and the drums. All kinds of rhythms.

KEY CHORUS

At the beginning of the 20th century, the authorities

prohibited the expressions of Afro-Cuban drums, which
forced the creation of clave and guaguancó choirs.
According to Martha Esquenazi, under this name a series of
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choral groups are known that arise in imitation of the
Spanish choirs - sometimes linked to cabildos of African
origins - that proliferated in Havana and Matanzas since the
19th century. They were generally made up of guitar,
harpsichord and viola (banjo without percussion strings; a
guide (clarin or bugle). They sing with four voices, two
female and two male.

With great precocity, the ten-year-old child joins

musical groups; it is related to the creation of the “ñáñiga
clave” and merging the guajira with the son in 2/4. But it
was at 16 when he joined the key The Golden Bell , shortly
after he was named director. “When “emoluments” (fees)
were not received, it was for the love of art. I have my best
memory when I worked in the neighborhoods for the love of
art, then when I had to earn money to live, I lost my
romanticism.”

Piñeiro became a professional with his entry into the most

popular guaguancó group of the time, Los Roncos – so
called because they sang very clearly. He would also
travel through La Unión, by Pueblo Nuevo, La Discussion,
Juventudes, Los Sitios, Arpa de Oro, Morality, El Botón de
Oro, by Jesús María; many of these groups made up of
hundreds of voices.

“Ignacio Piñeiro – says Rafael Ortiz – was above all, a

poet of son ; They called him that because they knew in
depth the key songs, the yambú and the tahona,

complements and predecessors of rumba, guaracha and

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son. He also had recordings of Abakuá music, and he was
an excellent rumbero. But with respect to the son, there is
no one equal to it, there will be no other stanza like that of
"the son is the most sublime thing for the soul to
entertain, / one who does not consider it good should die ."

NATIONAL SEPTET IGNACIO PIÑEIRO

The Septeto Nacional began in 1927, after Ignacio

Piñeiro traveled to New York to play and record in New
Jersey, together with María Teresa Vera. Ricardo Oropesa
reveals that Piñeiro forms his own septet, since the West
remained playing at the Rialto dance academy.

In October 1926, Ignacio Piñeiro joined María Teresa

Vera, in Septeto Oeste, with the aim of performing and
recording in New York. The project arose at the request of
the Columbia record management to which María Teresa
Vera belonged. Ignacio Piñeiro, according to Eduardo
Hernández (Nandín), loved María Teresa Vera very much.
“He was always in love with her. I don't know if it would be
a platonic love, the affection of a brother or an artist. She
taught him to play double bass, so that he could play in the
Sextet Occident. Because he really wanted to go on a trip
he was going to take to New York.”

Previously, in October 1926, before the cyclone, Ignacio

Piñeiro had traveled on a passenger ship called Havana Red,
they recorded and played at the legendary Apolo theater to

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a full house. Upon their return they played at a dance
academy, later, for religious reasons, María Teresa
abandoned her musical activity and Piñeiro decided to found
her own Septeto Nacional, which would later be called
Septeto Nacional Ignacio Piñeiro.

The National Septet starts up between the month of

October and December, the organization, according to
researcher Jesús Blanco, was at Pocito 56 -talls- in Pueblo
Nuevo with the following members: Ignacio Piñeiro (double
bass and conductor), Bienvenido León (vocals second), Juan
de la Cruz Hermida (third voice and manager), Alberto
Villalón (guitar), Francisco M. Carriera Incharte –el Chino-
(bongoes), Francisco González, actually called Francisco
Solares González -Panchito Chevrolet- (three).

In 1927 the National Septet had to record in New York

and that is when the singer Abelardo Barroso joined -
replacing Juan de la Cruz - and Lázaro Herrera on trumpet,
becoming a septet. The first septet was the Habanero with
the trumpet of Enrique Hernández who recorded many
albums.

In 1929 the Septet undertook new changes, a decisive trip

to Spain for the Exhibition was presented.

Ibero-American of Seville. Then Cheo Martínez joined

Barroso and Agustín Gutiérrez replaced Chino Incharte on
the bongoes. Guitarist Eutimio Constantín replaces Alberto
Villalón. Juan de la Cruz was included in the delegation to
perform a duet with Bienvenido León and accompanied by

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Eutimio on guitar. During the boat trip, on July 2, 1929,
Cheo Martínez died – he was thrown into the sea – but with
the reinforcement of the tresero Panchito Chevrolet and the
voice of Juan Cruz, the problem was solved. In Spain they
are joined by the dancer Urbana Troche who brings a dance
dimension unknown in these countries, and they achieve
total success, performing before the King of Spain in the
Palace. At the Ibero-American Exhibition in Seville they won
the Gold Medal, which they celebrated with all their might,
at the hotel. One of the guests, a priest, became furious,
but the frenzy of the music was able to calm the priest so
that he could toast the success and dance until dawn.
Lázaro Herrera remembered that on that tour even the
kings moved to the sound of the music.
They toured all of Spain in 1929, at that time the Spanish
people had no idea that such hot music existed.

In 1930 they performed in Havana at the Sans Soucí

cabaret with the couple Margot and Elpidio. 1931 Alfredito
Valdés replaces Juan de la Cruz. In 1933 they traveled to
the Chicago International Fair, there they filmed a short
musical titled The Fruit Bowl. Between 1935 and 1937 the
Septet dissolved. In 1937 Bienvenido Granda (first voice)
entered and shared with Marcelino Guerra (second voice).
They perform at the La Campana cabaret with the couple
Alfredo and Aida. In 1938 they appeared on Radio Cine on
Galiano Street. In 1940 Alfredito came back Alfredito (first
voice) with Bienvenido León (second voice). On this same
date they recorded sones with Miguelito Valdés and

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performed at CMQ and COCQ (Data from Cristóbal Díaz
Ayala)

COMPOSER

IP's compositions are countless, some give the figure of

350, the Havana musician was like an old bard, rhapsode
and African griot who kept hundreds of creations.
Sometimes he forgot many of his works, “they stole many
melodies from me, but I had lots of reserves with my
natural job of composing as a decimista of the groups.
Everything I heard from old traditionalists stuck to me, I
started composing, inventing the melody and accompanying
myself with two sticks: the keys. He also composed through
the guitar. I was looking for another style, new paths. I
knew all the patches and zapateo, I know all the styles: the
tahona, and above all, the greatest thing, the son. I made
the guajiras danceable, I transferred the time of the guajira
to the two-four beat of the son. My genuine son – known as
Alma guajira , is the one that opens the way to the guajira-
son that Cheo Marquetti sang. I remember that at the
beginning I made parodies of Calderón de la Barca.”

The trumpeter Lázaro Herrera revealed to me that IP was

the most sought-after composer of that time, “because his
music was very elaborate and was the most profound of the
soneros. Imagine that he would make a joke out of any
sneeze, he would always bring some composition from the
street.”

The musicologist Cristóbal Díaz Ayala specifies that IP

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carried out important innovations, “on the one hand he
broke with the established meter by composing outside the
quatrain and incorporating freer verses. This approach to
trova resulted in the production of his texts, in some of
which an air of troubadour style and language can be seen.”
For his part, the
Radio Progreso host Eduardo Rosillo adds that IP introduced
lyricism to the limited possibilities offered by son, achieving
a broader musical and thematic evolution.

The poet Raúl Ferrer wrote: “IG achieves a melodic

crystallization of Cuban music, taken from successful
combinations from which the wonderful variants came
(mambo, cha cha chá).” Today we would add Latin, Cuban
and much of what the Caribbean does to salsa.

The researcher Tomás Jimeno observes in IP a

representative synthesis of the creative musician, coming
from religious ancestors towards popular music. “It has a
complicity connected with rumba and religion that are
inserted automatically, naturally with unconscious
impregnation . “He fuses son with rumba and Abakuá
music.”

In 1932, the American composer George Gershwin

visited Havana and frequented the CMCJ radio station where
the Septeto Nacional IP broadcast, there he became friends
with it and collected musical notes of the works of the
Cuban composer. The result of these notes is the Cuban
Overture, in which Gershwin uses themes from the son-
pregón Échale salsita . This composition is inspired by the
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sausages from El Congo that were produced in the town of
Catalina de Güines. The musicologist Orovio considers that
it is one of the most ingenious masterpieces of Cuban son,
pure poetry of gozadera.

In the United States, IP, seeing people walking down

Broadway Avenue – the most famous in the world – upon
seeing a typical Cuban woman with the tasty “meneíto”
questions her and, upon confirming her Cuban identity,
inspires her: “Those are not Cubans/ the Cuban is the pearl
of Eden/ Cuban is pretty and dances well /”

IP changed the typical sonera quatrains for more

elaborate stanzas, including the tenth. In New York he was
also inspired and wrote Suavecito , dedicated to a woman
named Carola who lived in the city of skyscrapers. In Spain
the National Septet was called “Los Suavecitos”, motivated
by this IP song.

IP's work covers multiple themes: love, homeland,

politics, philosophical, bucolic, satirical, humorous and even
children's themes. “Piñeiro – analyzes the musicologist
Miriam Villa – achieves a diversification that is more
advantageous than his contemporaries...In many of the
works the text assumes a narrative character in verse...He
enriches the structural scope with various combinations that
range from the conformation of the long call or initial
recitative in two repeated phrases with contrasting motifs
that lead to the montuno.”

Some of the classic sounds of IP: Throw salsita (1932),

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Those are not Cubans (1926), Don't play with the saints
(1928), Suavecito (1930) The punisher, The old ox, (1931),
San's hookah Juan (1931 ), Lie Salomé ( 1932 ), Bardo,
Entre tinieblas, Cuatro palomas (1924 ), Among precious
palm groves (1932), Tupy (1934) , Who will be my good
(1908), Where were you last night (1908 ), Unveiled
(1932 ), El rey de los bongoseros (1926) He composed
sones, guaguancó-son, guajira-son, bolero-son, pregón-son,
criolla, carabalí, guaracha-son, afro-son.

IP continues to guide the paths of Cuban music, many of

the rhythms, the modes, the variants of current music, have
the cells, the concept, the structure of what the brilliant
musician left for history.

Bibliography:

Ricardo Oropesa, Fernández, Ignacio Piñeiro, Pontífice de

la rumba, Clave magazine, Havana, no. 1-2, 2008, p. 43

Leonel López-Nussa, cited by Omar Vázquez, “ The dawn

of the first of January”, Havana, Feb. 2008, p.3

Rafael Lam, Polvo de Estrellas (Cuban Singers), Adagio

editor, Havana, 2010

ISRAEL LÓPEZ VALDÉS “CACHAO”

(Paula Street, Havana, September 14, 1918 / Miami, USA,

March 20, 2008)

Israel López (Cachao), coincidentally lived in the same

house where the apostle José Martí was born. Havana has a

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lot to do with his life, it is one of the living myths of the old
guard of danzonera and the Cuban mambo; a musician who
covered almost an entire century of great musical events,
both in Cuba and in the United States. He was one of the
architects of the so-called “ New Rhythm” within the
Arcaño y sus Maravillas Orchestra. He composed danzones
as if by magic – it is said that there were around 1,500 –
and, with his bass, he was present at the legendary Havana
Jazz Sessions , recorded in the historic San Miguel y
Campanario studio, which could well have been called
Buena Vista Social Club.

Cachao comes from one of the great dynasties of

Cuban music. His brother Orestes, six years older, was
guiding him. “I started as a bongosero player when I was
six in small groups around the city. In 1926 I was already in
a septet where Roberto Faz sang and Félix Chapottín played
the trumpet. From the bongo I moved on to the trumpet, I
imitated the calls made by the military barracks and, for this
reason, the head of the barracks took away my trumpet and
then in 1927 I began to study the double bass. My first job
was, playing in silent films, at the Carral theater, where
Bola de Nieve also played.” (1)

Cachao and his brother were very tenacious musicians,

they sometimes composed up to 28 danzones in a week,
they made all of Cuba dance, the demand for the dances
was intense and they had to fight very hard to live. He often
combined his work in popular orchestras with the Havana

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Symphony Orchestra. He participated in almost all types of
formats, from a piano duo to an orchestra with a hundred
teachers.

In 1949 the double bassist left the Radiofónica to go

play in the 50-piece orchestra at the Blanquita theater -
now Carlos Marx -, in the style of Broadway-type musical
revues and the Radio City Musical of Nueva

York. The musicologist Cristóbal Díaz Ayala catalogs Cachao

as the most complete musician in Cuba (Richard Egües
should also be included).

“I remember Cachao especially in “three times” –

Leonardo Acosta speaks. One like the serious double bassist
of the Philharmonic Orchestra. Two, as the explosive creator
of a style of improvising that would be fundamental for Afro-
Latin jazz and that combined the jazz language with the
typically Cuban tumbaos and phrasing; particularly in the
releases of the Cuban Jazz Club (1958-19960), with the
sensational pianist Pedro Justiz, Peruchín, who were
completed by two great percussionists: Guillermo Barreto
(drums and pailas) and Tata Güines (tumbadora). But,
perhaps, what I remember best is the lesser-known facet of
Cachao, the exhilarating conversationalist and humorist who
had nothing to envy of Zumbado. Every night Cachao could
be seen at a table at the Celeste bar-restaurant, half a block
from Radio Progreso, a meeting point for musicians who
worked in that area of large hotels and nightclubs in the
1950s. I had finished working at the Capri or the St. John,

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for example, and I was heading to the Celeste. Cachao
motioned for me to go to his table; His brooding appearance
would suddenly change and he would begin to tell one joke
after another, all of them absolutely unprecedented, since
they were his own invention. I had the privilege of attending
the “preview” of many of those popular jokes about which
later it was said: Who will invent them? In
Cachao's creativity and ingenuity were not limited to his
production of danzones.” (2)

BASS GUITARIST

Cachao was hobbled as the great bass star in Cuba; Its

concept is that the musician must understand the national
dance. “Everyone dances with the bass, that's why the
bassist must have a great sense of rhythm and a lot of
imagination, because it is a rough, hard instrument, and if
you don't play it well, it looks like an elephant throwing
stones. It's hard to be a good bassist" (3)

“The great importance of Cachao,” Leonardo Acosta

continues, “in our music lies, above all, in the fact that he
made the double bass a solo, improvising instrument; he
made the instrument that was previously a rhythmic base or
“anchor” sing, but it did not sing until it he came. Does it
seem little to you? Cachao knew how to do the same with
his versatility, because he knew danzón, son and jazz well,
because he mastered all the tumbaos that existed on the
bass and “invented” many others. In addition, there is his
contribution - undoubtedly important - to the beginnings of

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the mambo rhythm and the spread of the Cuban discharge,
which is like saying Afro-Latin jazz. With his contribution to
the rhythmic and melodic development of the double bass,
the mambo rhythm and the Cuban discharge, Cachao's
musical greatness and personal charisma do not require
titles or labels” (4)

COMPOSER

El danzón- Mambo , written in 1937 and premiered in

1938, is one of the compositions that belongs to the bone of
contention

Many researchers affirm that in 1940 the work Se va

el matancero and 1942 the composition Rareza de
Melitón , are considered the first danzones where a
syncopated tumbao appears written, but both are later
than the piece Mambo by Orestes López . Let us remember
that Arsenio already played and called it mambo or
candela , which is why the paternity of the danzón -
Mambo is attributed to Israel and not to his brother
Orestes. Rather, we should talk about a collective work,
very united between the family, between the musicians of
the orchestra that was an all-star.

In the danzón Three for coffee and two for sugar ,

by Israel López, the use of parallel fifths between the bass
and the tenor appears. This same danzón presents chords
structured by fourths. In the Liceo de Peñalver danzón,
descending parallel fifths are formed between the lower
voices. In the Danzón Permanganato, ninth and seventh
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chords are used. Musicologist Dora Ileana Torres explains
that “the use of parallel fifths in chord links, the
construction of chords by fourths and fifths, and the use of
numerous ninths and elevenths chords, are some harmonic
aspects in this style of danzón. “Mambo.” (5)

Cachao's works are endless, in his danzonero time he

was constantly composed by the competitive demands of
the dancers in the halls of black societies.

The work was intense, I had to write for each of the

fourteen musicians of the Radio Orchestra, because danzón
has to be written, it is not like the case of discharges in
which everyone starts from a pattern and does their own
thing. Many times not even Israel itself could identify its
own recordings.

DOWNLOADS

Cachao is one of the founders of Cuban, Afro-Cuban or

Latin jazz (Latin Jazz), according to Leonardo Acosta
“Cachao, in both Havana and New York, was the main
promoter of Cuban music, he fused jazz with Cuban
phrasing, together with the pianist Peruchín.”

In 1957 he recorded the LP 3134 Diseño Cubana

with Negro Vivar (trumpet), Guillermo Barreto (Paila), Tata
Güines (tumbadora), Yeyo Iglesias (bongó), Gustavo
Tamayo (güiro), Generoso Jiménez (trombone), Emiliano
Peñalver (sax tenor), Virgilio Lisaña (baritone sax), Richard
Egües (flute), Israel López (piano).

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 In 1958 the album Camina Juan Pescao (composition
by his brother Orestes) was recorded, with Cachao y su
Típica, in the Radio Progreso studios. Other major works:
He who enjoys the most, The Electric Moor
(composition by Orestes). Cachao must be included in his
author's catalog the famous instrumental Club Social
Buena Vista (Buena Vista Social Club) , which was
reborn with world fame after the 1997 Grammy of the
homonymous album by the band Afro Cuban All Stars,
directed by Juan de Marcos González . Other compositions
by Cachao: Luisito y el Colorao, Pueblo Nuevo, Los
twenty solitos (a Havana society) , Los tres grandes
(joined to an American song) , África viva, Adelante,
Jóvenes del rhythm.

NEW YORK

In 1962, Cachao decided to reside in New York; he was

already one of the most recognized musicians in the Latin
world. He works as an arranger and composer. The singer
Tito Rodríguez claims it, he joins the maelstrom of the
beginnings of Latin salsa; although, according to Leonardo
Padura, his figure does not appear on the covers of the
most important albums of the period, until in 1976 the
Puerto Rican musicologist and producer René López put
together a great band so that, under the direction of the
Cuban double bassist, they recorded two unusual albums in
the panorama of the time: Cachao Uno and Cachao Dos ,
very relevant albums from the times of salsa, but with little

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commercial fortune (6)

In March 1995, the music media received the

sensational news of a Grammy Award for Israel López
(Cachao), for his Master Sessions Volume I, the Best
Latin Tropical Recording co-produced by Cineson, Crescent
Moon Record and Epic (CDMI 477282); in 12 cuts. It
contains sounds played in the manner of the 1920s. Two
danzones: Isora Club and Club Social de Marianao , both
with voices and the flourish of the flutist Nelson Torres, the
sax of Paquito D'Rivera, the tres of Nelson González and the
voice of Daniel Palacio. Also included is Cachao's original
Mambo , the evocative Mi Guajira. As a special touch is
the voice of Cuban actor Andy García, reciting Federico
García Lorca : They are from blacks in Cuba , with
Cachao giving the classic touch with the double bass. (6)

With this album a new air began for Cachao in the

musical world, the rebirth of traditional son and trova in
Europe was approaching. “Luckily for Cachao – indicates
Leonardo Acosta – and Cuban music, fame (although
somewhat late) came to him during his lifetime, as
happened with his countryman and friend Mario Bauzá. And
as the saying goes “It's never too late…” (7)

GRADES:

1- Leonardo Padura Fuentes, The faces of salsa, Unión,

Havana, 1997, p.127

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2- Leonardo Acosta, Another vision of Cuban music,
Unión, Havana, 2004, p. 266
3- Leonardo Padura ob cit
4- Leonardo Acosta ob cit.
5- Dora Ileana Torres, “From danzón sung to cha cha
chá, in Panorama of Cuban Popular Music, Letras
Cubanas, 1998, p. 173Leonardo Padura Ob cit.
6- David D. León, “Cachao created the mambo in
1939”, El Financiero, June 4, 1995
7- Leonardo Acosta ob cit.
Record notes by Cristóbal Díaz Ayala and Manuel Villar.

JORGE LUIS PRATS, MARGUERITE LONG AWARD –

JACQUES THIBAUD
(Central Violeta, Camagüey, June 3, 1956)

Jorge Luis Prats Soca is one of the great

representatives of Cuban symphonic piano, collecting an
astonishing and long list of international awards. In 1977 it
dominated all the musical news on the planet. In his first
international experience, at only 21 years old, having just
graduated from Intermediate Level, among 57 contestants
of much higher level, he won all the prizes in the prestigious
Margueritte Long 1977 Competition. He performed the feat
of the century on the international piano. He was the first to
achieve this success on the entire American continent.
Harold Gramatges told me at his residence in Miramar,
“we sent him to the contest knowing that he was not going
to win anything; but if there had been more prizes I would
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have taken them all.”
The musicologist Alejo Carpentier, Cuban cultural
attaché in France, could not fail to publish something about
this Parisian musical event, in the newspaper Granma, on
June 22, 1977, writing: “Something unusual happened at
the Theater des Champs-Élysées. Before an implacable jury
of the highest qualification, with an expectation in the
French musical environment, before 57 candidates he won
all the awards conferred The First Grand Prize “Margueritte
Long, Chevillon-Bonnaud Prize for Best Performer and
Maurice Ravel Prize, for the Best Interpretation of a work by
Ravel. Unanimous awards, something rarely achieved in this
contest. We are witnessing, according to expert
impressions, the beginnings of the global career of an
absolutely exceptional talent, with an unusual musical
temperament. “Today a phenomenal pianist was born – the
great pianist Honryk Szerying told me – that was the
unanimous expression about our compatriot who is only 20
21
years old.”
According to Alejo Carpentier, Jolivet's widow told him:
“When listening to his compatriot he thought he heard the
author's own interpretation. Advisor to the jury, I told its
members that, for me, the winner was already marked and
there were many who shared my opinion.”
When I was studying at the National School of Art
Instructors, in 1976, the conditions of this piano monster
were already being discussed. It had passed through the

21 - Alejo Carpentier, The extraordinary triumph of Jorge Luis Prats”, Granma, Havana, June 22, 1977
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hands of Barbará Díaz Alea, Cesar Pérez Sentenat, Margot
Rojas and Frank Fernández, a wizard of piano teaching. He
had reached the Amadeo Roldán National Competition,
where he was awarded special congratulations. Since then,
the young man had the thesis that "life is the best and most
rigorous competition, wisdom is acquired along the way, at
the age of 20 I already learned Cervantes' dances by
watching María Cervantes, we must get to the origin." of the
composer, respect him and unfold yourself.”
“What happened was that I prepared myself not only in
the technical elements, but also in the possible way the
psychology of the works and the composers that I had to
interpret, intelligently penetrating into many factors. There
the approach to art was evaluated, it was not to do
virtuosity of which specialists are already exhausted, but to
make music. Since I was a child I have lived for music with
22
a lot of tenacity and willpower in the study of music.”
In Paris he received classes from Magda Tagliaferro,

and at the Vienna Conservatory of Music he was a disciple of

Paul Badura-Skoda, a specialist in Mozart, Beethoven and

Schubert. At the Moscow Conservatory, he worked with

Rudolf Kerer. Afterwards, Jorge Luis continued studying and

winning awards in various countries.

Prats says that the piano came to him through a

tradition from his grandfather and who knows what elf.
Coincidentally, Jorge Luis's hands have short, but strong
22 -Interview by Hamilé Rosada
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fingers; According to his teacher Frank Fernández, “he has
great conditions in the psyche and that is where I
understand that Prats has piano possibilities.” For his part,
23
Prats says that “music is in the soul, not in the fingers.”
force. He invented choruses, he could think of anything, he was born for music, he was
like a chameleon in the orchestra. He was the one who elevated timba and made it
bigger, more open in global music, in the 1990s. He has a lot of grace to communicate,
that's Olofi's move. “He was one of the best musicians who passed through Irakere.”
What does José Luis Cortés really contribute?
In NG La Banda, Cortés blends son, guaracha, mambo and rumba, seasoning it
with jazz and Caribbean timbres, forming a kind of “Cuban-style funky.”
NG rescued the authentic music of the neighborhood with direct lyrics, a
reflection of life during those difficult times. They took great advantage of the tumbaos,
montunos, choruses and popular choruses. The piano rescued the tumbaos inherited
23 -Radamés Giro, Encyclopedia of Cuban Music, Cuban Letters, 2009, T. 3, p. 261

JOSÉ LUIS CORTÉS, INITIATOR OF THE SALSA BOOM (Santa Clara, October 5, 1951)

José Luis Cortés, celebrated his 60th birthday on October 5, the director of NG
La Banda, was one of the initiators of the Cuban salsa Boom. In November 1989, NG La
Banda embarked on a tour of the neighborhoods of Havana, imposing a new musical
concept that revolutionized the music of the 1990s, at the end of the 20th century.
In the midst of the salsa boom, in 1998, in a conference at the Matamoroson
Festival , Juan Formell revealed: The Los Van Van orchestra and the Irakere band began
the development of salsa or timba, but it was José Luis Cortés who grabbed it, It
synthesizes and concretizes the entire massive movement of the 1990s. In Los Van Van
Cortés he was a driving force, he composed, orchestrated, and helped in the choirs.
From the moment he put the flute in his mouth, the first time, we knew he was a
phenomenal musician.”
Chucho Valdés ten years later, in a tribute to José Luis, at the 2008 Jazz Plaza
International Festival, acknowledged that “Cortés helped me a lot in my work with the
band Irakere, making some compositions and arrangements, especially in the prelude
to modern timba. . He put energy, enthusiasm,
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from Peruchín, Lilí Martínez and Rubén González. The rhythmic base (sound engine)
was very precise and exact in tempo and meter, within a dynamic and grip that
captured the dancer. A concept also applied to brass with highly complicated passages,
called by Brazilians “hallucinatory brass”. All this within a professional label, in the
orchestral mass assuming a responsibility in modern sound.
In every era there are musicians who summarize the work of various musical
groups, we see it in the mambo phenomenon of Pérez Prado and in the cha cha chá of
Enrique Jorrí with the América orchestra. Every musical movement forms a concept
that culminates with a musician with a special talent.
“I was learning and capturing the simplicity of the music conceived by Juan
Formell to make the masses dance. Then from Chucho Valdés in Los Irakere, I learned
the rigor of the most elaborate music that was made in those days. I fused all of this
into NG La Banda, using a band of stars on each instrument. In the rhythmic base I
integrated percussionists from Los Van Van (Wikly, El Yulo and Joel Drick), in the brass I
had several instrumentalists from Los Irakere (Germán Velasco, Carlos Averhof and José
Miguel Crego –el Greco-. I also incorporated members of La Ritmo Oriental (Tony Calá),
Pachito Alonso's group and new blood from Cuban music schools. We offered all of this
with the greatest possible appeal, looking for an attraction, taking into account the new
era in which we lived. It was like a summary of our time. That was a job of many years
of rehearsal, work and experimentation. When there are talented musicians, when
there is youth and desire to succeed, something good always appears.”
José Luis comes from one of the most prestigious schools at the beginning of the
Revolution, the National School of Art (ENA), which produced figures such as Adalberto
Álvarez, Emiliano Salvador, Pachito Alonso, Joaquín Betancourt, Demetrio Muñiz and
many more. “I came from a very humble world, entering such an important school was
the challenge I had to face. I knew this was an opportunity I couldn't miss. I promised
my mother that I would become a musician, that I would help the whole family and that
I would honor the culture of my country. At that time it seemed daring and even crazy,
because music is not a simple thing. Anyone can play, but doing something new is the
most difficult thing in the world.”
I knew the work system within NG La Banda directly, the orchestrations were
largely a collective work. Every orchestra that works on that path is enriched. It is worth
mentioning musical arrangements by Germán Velazco, Giraldo Pilot and others. The

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choruses of the compositions were rehearsed at the dances in the La Tropical hall. “The
conductor of an orchestra – explains Cortés – has to know what he wants, and do it all if
possible. He must look into the eyes, at the faces of the musicians and keep time with
the dancers who are part of the collective creation as active participants. This is how we
formed the song Échale limon , we added tumbaos to reggae and we experienced it in
one of the presentations at the Amphitheater of Old Havana. “We looked for a way for
the lyrics to have to do with the problems of the daily lives of Cubans.”
When NG La Banda premiered on April 4, 1988, at the Bertolt Brecht Theater, all
the musicians raised a glass and swore that if the project did not succeed in a year, each
one would go their own way. The project turned out to be a musical phenomenon, the
trigger was the carnival in the summer of 1989. For November, the Tour of the
Neighborhoods of Havana is organized, direct contact with the masses of dancers
throughout the capital. This is the moment in which the Cuban salsa boom was formed,
the explosion of new groups, singers, musicians, record labels,

“one of the most flourishing bands of Cuban popular music.”

Ben Tavera King of the Express-News wrote that “NG La
Banda, probably the best salsa band in the Western
Hemisphere.” And Richard Gehr of Spin, World Best, states
that “the best popular music shines with magical
sophistication: NG La Banda.”
The Salsa Boom promoted by NG La Banda brings rich,
lively and universal music to the future of Cuban music in
the 21st century.

(Published in Granma Internacional, December 4, 2012)

JUAN BLANCO, PIONEER OF ELECTACOUSTIC MUSIC

(Mariel, Pinar del Río, June 29, 1919/November 4, 2008)

dance halls, international tours. The new Cuban music was going to the rescue of a new
audience within the international commercial circuit. Since the 1960s, a harsh cultural
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blockade was imposed on Cuba.
Total that NG La Banda conquered many of the best stages in Europe and the
US. In New York, Peter Watrous The New York Times considers NG as

Juan Blanco is one of the initiators of the

electroacoustic music movement, he directed his musical
work towards the experiments of the National Laboratory of
Electroacoustic Music that he created with the support of
ICAP, where Jesús Ortega, Luis Manuel Molina, Edesio
Alejandro, Juan Pinera, Jorge Berroa, Calixto Álvarez, Sergio
Vitier and their son: Juan de Marcos.
Juan studied at the Peyrellade and Municipal
Conservatory of Music in Havana with José Ardévol and
Harold Gramatges. In the paths of electroacoustics, he
relied on Alejo Carpentier who made him aware of European
technical trends. At that time in the 1960s, the Italian
musician Luigi Nono came to Cuba, who also supported
Blanco in his musical goals. In this first stage he interacted
in Cuba with Leo Brouwer, Carlos Fariñas and Harold
Gramatges, Sergi Fernández Barroso and Manuel Duchésne
Cuzán of the National Symphony Orchestra. In the technical
domains it is supported by the Progreso radio recorder
Medardo Montero.
I work for radio, TV, dance, film and theater. It joins
works by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea ( The Dice Chairs ), Jorge
Fraga ( The Robbery and also, On Days Like These ).
Blanco dedicated more than four decades to
electroacoustic music, concrete music and computing in
musical creation.
The composer, with very diverse techniques, was
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writing music for open spaces, although he also wrote works
about 15 symphonies, chamber music, choral, incidental,
instrumental, string orchestra, voice and piano, etc. From
the first stage we must go back to 1961 with a radio
oscillator
Blanco won several awards, including the Cubadisco
2003, with Edesio Alejandro ( Tecnotrónicas )
ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC IN CUBA
Electroacoustic music in Cuba is inspired by the
European avant-garde creation that has been produced
since the 1950s with figures such as Stravinsky, Bartók,
Schoemberg, Berg, Varése, Schaeffer, Xenaquis.
In Cuba, Blanco created the “Multíorgano” in 1942,
which exceeded the possibilities of the tape recorder. It
consisted of a polyphonic keyboard capable of reproducing
any sound that could be recorded in a set of wire loops . It
is the first (analog) sampler, patented in France, that is
known. It was included in the collection of the International
Center Archive-Memorial of the Art Science of
Electroacoustic Music in Paris, under the direction of
Xenakis, UNESCO and SACEM.
On February 5, 1964, Blanco organized the first public
concert of electroacoustic music at the Union of Writers and
Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), where he premiered Ensemble V,
Studies I and II. In that same year, Duchésne conducted
the first OSN concert dedicated to avant-garde music.
Starting in 1981, the Varadero Spring Electroacoustic
Music Festival (later Havana Spring ) was created, the

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Electroacoustic Music Festivals that were held in Varadero.
Cuba was visited by great figures of electroacoustic music:
Nono, Appleton, Brincic, Kessler, Kupper, Scholoss.
On one occasion Cuba was chosen to celebrate the
XXVII International Computer Music Conference.
Leo Brouwer wrote: “I started in 1961 at the V Warsaw
Autumn Festival of avant-garde music. The audition in
Warsaw was a vital impulse, a definitive starting point for
the Cuban avant-garde.” Juan Blanco wrote electronic music
for massive events of the Revolution, sporting events, in
1966 we were commissioned to write the music for the Cuba
pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal and Expo 70 in Osaka. In
1968 I composed my first acoustic work, Asalto al cielo,
premiered at the 1969 Havana Cultural Congress. Cuban
cinema is another example. All this deserves a separate
essay.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Consult: Leo Brouwer, Music, Cuban and Innovation, Cuban
Letters 1982
Radames Giro, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Music in Cuba,
Cuban Letters, 2009 t.2, p.52
Clave Magazine, year 4, no. 3, dedicated to Juan Blanco and
electroacoustic music (Marta Ramírez, Zoila Gómez
JUAN FORMELL: THE KING OF SONGO AND THE VAN
VAN ARRIVED AT 69
(August 2, 1942),

Juan Formell is of the Chinese sign, the horse belongs

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to him, as does Paul Mc Cartney (bassist too). Juan Climaco
was actually born on Santiago Street, a street of only four
blocks, from Zanja to Carlos III, parallel to Belascoaín
(where the trumpeter Félix Chapottín also lived).
Afterwards, the Formell family moved to the Cayo
Hueso neighborhood, at the bottom of Radio Progreso, the
“Onda de la Alegría”, a few meters from where the Feeling
movement was born, in the Callejón de Hamel.
“Key West was a typical neighborhood of Havana,
where many of Cuba's most famous musicians lived. My
training has a lot to do with that neighborhood. We were a
very poor family. My dad's name was Francisco Formell
Madariaga, he was a musician, an arranger, born on
October 5, 1904 (the same day as my colleague José Luis
Cortes). He played the flute in a Military Band and in a
Municipal Band. I also played in a band at the beginning. He
conducted several orchestras, composed songs for the
theater. and won many awards as a composer. “He
orchestrated music and was even a music journalist.”
Juan's father spent hours composing music, next to a
thermos of coffee. It seems that the son inherited that
vocation or had the genes of music in his blood. “That was
my true vocation, although my father did not realize my
interest. Maybe I wasn't very interested, because music, at
that time, wasn't enough to eat and they wanted me to
have a university degree. That's why it was difficult for him
to teach me. When my mother gave me a guitar, I learned
to play it by ear, because it seems that I was going to be a

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musician of all kinds. I tell you that when the Victrolas were
playing on every corner of the neighborhood, it was a
symphony of music that invited you to get into the music in
some way, as a spectator or performer: Benny Moré,
Roberto Faz, Abelardo Barroso. And on the other hand: the
rock and roll that came with Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and
his Comets; “It was an impressive musical bombardment,
like a musical revolution.”
Juanito's mother was called María Magda Cortina, I
interviewed her when she was 82 years old, she lived on
222nd Street between 71 and 73, in La Lisa. ·”As a child,
Juan was very calm and affectionate – María tells me –, he
was always next to his father, watching him and listening to
what he did. I realized that he liked music and I bought him
a little guitar that gave him a lot of joy. I washed clothes for
the street and when that wasn't it was easy to offer my son
a gift. Juan was very in love and had to follow them, just
like his father who died on October 14, 1964, Juan had not
yet triumphed. His father would have been very happy with
his son's successes. In 1964
Juan was fighting a lot to achieve something in music, he
worked a lot, he was very responsible.”
“Mom knew how to give me advice – Juan tells me –
when I missed it, I was very sorry, you know that mothers
understand their children very well, she always understood
me. When I died, in 1995, it left a very big void in my life.”
Few people know that Formell took a bass over his
shoulder and, together with some friends, went to play in

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the bars of Marianao Beach (a cabaretucho area famous for
spreading the most authentic music in Cuba), where Chori
played and they visited figures like Marlon Brando, in search
of tumbadoras.
“That job was what, in the long run, gave me the
training that later helped me so much to create my
orchestra on December 4, 1969. It seems like we all have a
destiny, and I also have my destiny in music, that's all.”
Formell received classes from his father, Orestes López
of the “Cachao” family, Odilio Urfé. Professionally he joined
the Music Band of the National Revolutionary Police in 1960.
Later, around 1965 he worked with the Peruchín group,
Rubalcaba at the Barbarán Club, in 1966 he joined the
orchestra of the Caribe cabaret at the Habana Libre hotel,
conducted by Carlos Faxas and arranged by Juanito
Márquez, in the production Madame pa´ AC. In 1967-1968
he served as musical director and orchestrator of the Revé
orchestra, inventing the Changüí-Shake variant.
Finally, on December 4, 1969, when man reached the
moon, Formell formed his orchestra with the songo rhythm.
Then begins a saga that is now more than four decades old.
For contemporary Cuban dance music, Juan Formell
represents its greatest figure.

JUAN CARLOS ALFONSO

(Bejucal, Havana, March 30, 1963)

Juan Carlos Alfonso is a pianist, composer and director

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of the Dan Den group. He studied piano at the Caturla
Conservatory and harmony at the Ignacio Cervantes
Professional Improvement School, with Armando Romeu.

He began playing at the El Gallo de Bejucal restaurant,

later joining Nelo Sosa's Colonial group. There he works
with the singer Román Román who connects him with
Rolando Valdés and Elio Revé.

Revé made him musical director of the Charangón in

1984, in 1988 they caused a changuicera explosion. In 1988
he left and formed his own Dan Den orchestra.

It is sought after in Latin American countries,

especially in Colombia and Peru where it travels almost
every year.

Among his compositions he popularized: I know that

you know that I know, Don't catch me for that, Older than
yesterday, younger than tomorrow, The boy Súchel, Smoke
or life, The bells of Dan Den, Ataré, My body It is not made
of metal. Many of those hits were placed on the hit parade
of Latin American radio.

Dan Den is one of the orchestras of the prelude to the

Cuban salsa Boom. Juan Carlos Alfonso used a new rhythm
DAN DEN : Elements of habanera/ air of merengue with
conga cadence/ march of the son (in the güiro)/ touches of
batá on the tumbadora/ La reja of the Bejucal conga/
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tumbao del constant and live piano, with a Caribbean air/
Traditional son bass/ Dan Den comes from two syllables
that recall the call of Ochún. It is the union of several fused
rhythms.

JUANITO MARQUEZ

(Holguín, Oriente, July 4, 1929)

Juan Rafael Márquez Urbino, guitarist, composer and

arranger, is one of the great musicians and creators of
Cuba. He invented the Pa'cá rhythm in 1964 and in the US
he has made arrangements and anthological recordings.

He studied with his father Juan Márquez Gómez,

became a professional in the oldest orchestra in Cuba, the

Avilés Brothers of Holguín. With them I traveled to

Venezuela. He began working as an orchestrator for
orchestras such as Emperatriz del Ritmo y Melodía.

He was part of the Hermanos Avilés orchestra from

Holguin, the dean of musical groups on the Island, and
began writing orchestrations in the early sixties for this
group and the Riverside Orchestra. The musician joined a
jazz group with the trumpeter Nilo Argudín, the pianist
Rafael Somavilla and the percussionist Guillermo Barreto.
Already in 1952 he began to orchestrate for Riverside,
for which he performed the version of The Barber of Seville,
by Gioachino Rossini, and also for the CMQ orchestra,
directed by Enrique González Mántici . In 1958 he founded
the Alta Fidelidad orchestra and later his own combo called

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Siboney.

After the success of pa'cá, in the Caribe cabaret of the

Habana Libre hotel, around 1966, Silvano Suárez (TV
director) premiered the production Madame pa'cá , in which
musicians such as Carlos Faxas (piano), Juan Formell
participated (bass) and Juanito Márquez, musical director.
The choreography was by Maricusa Cabrera

He played with figures such as Julio Iglesias, Israel

López “Cachao”, Paul Muriat, Gloria Estefan, on albums such
as Mi tierra, Abriendo Puertas and 90 Millas . "He has had
an outstanding career as a composer, arranger and
conductor in Cuba, Spain and the United States. In 1964 he
imposed the pa'cá rhythm, (a swaying Cuban variation of
the Venezuelan joropo)", spread by the Aragón orchestra in
1965 and by other musical groups. “The pa'cá –explains
Juanito- marks the strong beats of the beat with a stick on
the side of the tumbadora and a syncopated key, together
with other beats that combine these basics on the pailas,
bongoes and güiros. I took the name of the rhythm from the
most popular piece of the genre, called Arrímate pa´cá ”.

In August 2008 he received the Board of Directors

Award from the Latin Recording Academy. The award is
awarded by vote of the Board of Directors to individuals
who, during their musical careers, have made significant
contributions—excluding performances—in the field of
recording.

The Board of Directors Award of the Latin Recording

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Academy has also been awarded to the Venezuelan
composer and singer Simón Díaz and the American salsa
singer and keyboardist Larry Harlow. "This is a diverse
group of awardees that represents the history, rich diversity
and true foundations of Latin music," said Gabriel Abaroa,
president of the Latin Recording Academy, according to the
entity's note. "The passion and artistic quality of those
honored has spread for several decades throughout many
countries, demonstrating the preeminence and importance
of Latin music throughout the world. The Board of Directors
of the Latin Recording Academy is honored to pay tribute to
these creative and innovative visionaries who have made
prolific contributions to Latin culture," added the director.
The award ceremony will take place on November 12 at the
Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in Houston. The
Academy's statement also announces the Musical Excellence
Award, which has been awarded to Viki Carr, Cheo Feliciano,
Astrid Gilberto, Angélica María, María Dolores Pradera and
Estela Raval.

In the 1970s he went to work in Spain, where he

recorded several albums and worked as an orchestrator and
musical director for the Hispanovox label. He then settled in
the United States, working with the most important Hispanic
artists. In Florida he was the orchestrator of the group
Miami Sound Machine.
COMPOSITIONS: Like a miracle, Arrímate pa'cá
(1964), Alma con alma (1956) , Que desesperanza , Like a
miracle , Dulce de guava , Those tender eyes , Little cold
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nose , It's your name, Dulce guava, Pituka la bella , My
comay has arrived, and it is gone, The flower I gave you,
My illusion is gone, It will be loneliness, I now have a little
girl, Be careful with the candle , Joropero and I now have a
little girl .

JULIO CUEVA, ONE OF THE PRECURSORS OF MAMBO

(Trinidad, Las Villas, April 12, 1897/Havana, December 30,

1975)
Julio Cueva, composer and conductor, is one of the
precursors of the mambo within jazz band orchestras. The
famous Trinidadian musician had the privilege of being the
trumpeter who participated in the recording of the famous
“son-pregón”, El Manisero.
The musicologist and writer Alejo Carpentier
immortalized Cueva in the character of Gaspar Blanco in the
novel The Rite of Spring. Of his stay in Paris, Carpentier
wrote: “Julio Cueva, an admirable instrumentalist, is one of
the best trumpet players in the world, with his instrument
he allows himself to perform unusual acrobatics, he attacks
extremely high notes, setting the rhythm with his entire
body, he makes people run agile dice on his miraculous
trumpet…His trumpet surpasses all possible praise, in the
spell of our rhythms” (Posters 1934).
But there is something that is also very significant in
Cueva's career, he was the trumpeter 80 years ago in the
recording of El Manisero, in the Justo Don Azpiazu
Orchestra, with the voice of Antonio Machín, in May 1930 in

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New York. That recording paved the way for the Latin music
boom in the industry. On that visit to New York, they were
at the inauguration of the Umpire State building, a
memorable event.
After this experience he worked with different
orchestras in Europe, including the Afro-American Snow
Fisher Orchestra in the 1930s, a stage in which he met
Carpentier in Paris.
He became so famous in Paris that he was invited to
manage a cabaret in Paris named in his honor as La Cueva.
The cabaret was visited by renowned figures and they were
forced to close their doors due to overcrowding (today we
would say “due to capacity”). In the midst of the
shipwrecked ships that filled Fontaine and Pigalle streets,
there were no nights with little audience where Julio Cueva
conducted his orchestra with pianist Eliseo Grenet, a musical
picket that was scary. “With such an “element,” who doesn’t
win battles?” said Carpentier. The congas, the rumbas, the
sones exploded one after the other. We cannot forget that it
was the distant 1930s, a period of tangos and jazz music,
when the mambo, the cha cha chá, had not yet arrived. In
those distant times, these Cubans laid the foundations of
Cuban culture in Europe, a tradition that continues to this
day.

As a trumpeter he played in the Hermanos Palau

Orchestra at the Sans Soucí cabaret. In the founding of his
own orchestra he included the famous Ernesto and Eliseo

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Grenet, who internationally popularized the conga and the
sucu sucu). He directed the Cuban Boys of Amado Trinidad,
later called Montecarlo, and stars such as pianist and
orchestrator René Hernández, Felo Bergaza and Bebo
Valdés appeared on his staff. In 1953 he dissolved his
orchestra, from which many of its musicians joined the
beginnings of Benny Moré's Giant Band.
Recognized pieces in his orchestra were El Coup de
Bibijagua, Tingo Talango, El Marañón, Sabanimar, El Ciruelo
de Lever, Disintegrated, Trinidad, Cuba in the War, They
Will Not Pass Again, Santa Clara, We Don't Want War,
Yankee, Tell Well, Chucumbún, Bronca in the solar, I am a
spiritualist, El chicharrón de lever, Los atolondrados, La
mane, Shanghai, Silver wedding, Bronca in the solar, Zero
Hitler in '42.
Among the voices of his orchestra were the star
Orlando Guerra “Cascarita”, Manuel Licea “Puntillita” and
René Márquez, father of Beatriz la “Musicalísima”.
“My great opportunity,” Puntillita told me in one of her
presentations with the Buena Vista Social Club, “ came in
1947, when Julio Cueva arrived in the city of Camagüey
with his Afro orchestra, one of his singers became ill. They
called me to replace him, I performed a tango that was
fashionable at that time: In a kiss of life and Manola by
Electo Rosell “Chepín”. It is at that moment that Julio
suggests I take the leap to the capital. At that time I
declined the offer; but in the long run the singers Roberto
Faz and Roberto Espí encouraged me to settle in Havana.

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With Julio's orchestra I sang alongside René Márquez and
Víctor Valdés. We got to sing in the aristocracy club where
we made the song “El Coup de Bibijagua, Pobrecita la Mujer
” fashionable.
Cueva, according to what Odilio Urfé and Leonardo
Acosta told me, is the first orchestra to incorporate the
elements of the mambo in the jazz band format with the
support of the orchestrations of René Hernández who
became of enormous importance in Latin jazz (Cuban ) In
New York. “The thing is that Julio Cueva – Urfé points out –
was an architect of the music of his time, especially in his
youth, in the 1930s. We cannot forget that Julio was a
stellar trumpeter, he played in one of the most renowned
orchestras of those times, Justo Don Azpiazu's band, I think
the first to invade the US and Europe. In addition to that,
Cueva remained in Paris, at a time when bohemian music
was booming. And, later in Havana he worked in the best
cabarets like Sans Soucí. He was also very close to René
Hernández, who was a very innovative orchestrator.”
“The idea that I had – Cueva explains – of
incorporating the oriental sonero montunos fused within the
mambo in the orchestra, I invented them at the same stage
in which Arsenio Rodríguez was making his experiments
with the “Diablo” or “Mazacote” (oriental montuno soneros
with Afro music with the singer Cascarita). That was my
contribution in those times when many of us worked
oriented towards the modern mambo”
When it comes to rescuing the great figures of music,

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Julio Cueva will be one of the most appreciated personalities
of Cuban music, he was spreading to impose and popularize
national rhythms in a daily struggle within the old continent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Enrique G. Zayas Bringas, A trumpet to respect, Tropicana

Internacional magazine s/f

LEO BROUWER, A CONTEMPORARY GUITAR CLASSIC

(Havana, March 1, 1939)

Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mesquida (Leo Brouwer) is a

classic of guitar composition, he has the privilege of
revolutionizing the world of the guitar, taking it out of the
Andalusian ghetto and making an authentic revolution of
contemporary creation.
His birth was spectacular, precisely on March 1, 1939,
at four in the afternoon, in Havana. The child comes into the
world several days late, in a diastolic birth with forceps
(instrumented birth), he is born depressed, cyanotic,
without crying, presumed dead. The doctor managed to
revive the child and little by little he breathed and began to
cry, to revive. It was predestined to revolutionize world
music.
His parents were Juan Brouwer and his mother Caridad
Mesquida, residents of 852 Infanta Street, paternal
grandson of Juan Bautista and Ernestina Lecuona.

“My childhood was like many others, I played ball,

tennis, occasionally I ran away from school... things like
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that. At the age of six I studied painting, but very soon I
discovered that I had no talent for that discipline. However,
painting has always accompanied me in my artistic thinking.
When I was twelve years old my mother died, she was
diabetic. My adolescence was sad and hard, I did not have
the company of a brother, I became a nostalgic and shy
child; But it was convenient, in some sense, because music
became a need for expression for me, a substitute for
human company, an escape from sadness.”
Leo's mother, Mercedes Berta de la Esperanza
Mesquida (1913-1951) was a notable musician, she played,
with great grace, several instruments in the Hermanas
Mesquida orchestra. The father was the son of Dutch Dean
of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Juan was a friendly,
friendly man, a cancer doctor and a music fan. He sang in
1935 with the Los Bohemios Quartet, he performed works
by Portillo and José Antonio Méndez, those were the times
of Feeling. “Then my father says to me: “What do you like
about the guitar?”, and I answered yes, and without
speaking he asked me to play the instrument. After three
months I learned compositions by Granado, Tárrega, the
flamenco style and some scales.”
“Imagine, my adolescence was sad and hard, I was an
introverted child, I became a nostalgic and shy child; but it
was convenient, in some sense, because music became a
need for expression for me, a substitute for human
company, an escape from my sadness. My father dazzled
me with the guitar, I clung to music with an instrument that

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turned out to be more than just a magical toy.”
In 1953 Leo's father took him to meet the maestro
Isaac Nicola, "The maestro took the instrument and began
to perform works from the repertoire of the Spanish
Renaissance of the 16th century, the classicism of the 19th
century with Fernando Sor, the baroque of the 17th century
that He blew me away. It was the first time I faced that
fabulous musical world. The result was a catharsis at the
level of sensitivity. Since then I couldn't take another path,
I heard some of the most sublime things in the history of
music and that marked me forever."
Nicola told me about the many visits I made to
her house in El Vedado, behind the Cuban Film Institute. “I
saw in Leo a special light in his eyes, a very great interest, a
great passion and love. I never liked to pretend to be a
prophet, that's why I didn't make any predictions, but at all
times I observed an interest that grew and was surpassed in
the rigor of the study and a very severe concept. That made
me understand that I would go very far, that it was worth it.
Between Leo and I there was like an affection between son
and father; As time went by he took off and we saw little of
each other, but when we did meet there was a lot of
affection.”
Leo visited his great-uncle Ernesto Lecuona, the
greatest composer in Cuba, “I saw him composing with the
papers fanned out on the table; a practice that over time I
also do. Lecuona is a reference for the world. Far-reaching
composer, despite being popular, I mean it in the most

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serious sense. With Lecuona, music transcends and has a
deep significance for the national culture, without a doubt it
will continue to have it.”
In 1959, Leo won a competitive scholarship to study at
the Juilliart School of Music in New York, a stage of
enormous musical experience, where he could compare
himself in the great world of music. At that time he was
already well equipped with technical studies and perfect
guitar training, through the mastery of Maestro Nicola and
on his own, having the motto that knowledge is learned
directly through highly accentuated personal interests in the
sacrifice. In the United States he acquired a social
understanding of the world in which he lived. Since then he
became aware of the ambitions and loneliness generated in
large industrial cities, a world that did not interest him at
all.
He returned in the mid-1960s, looking for a more cultural,
more human climate; In Cuba, a cultural and artistic boom
never seen before began: art schools, music centers, dance
centers, theaters and all the arts.
Already in Cuba he joined various musical media:
radio, the Musical Theater of Havana, he directed the Sound
Experimentation Group of the ICAIC, preparing figures of
the stature of Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés. He writes
music for film, for the guitar and various musical media.
In that battle of Leo, to leave in a little more than half
a century an enormous work that revolutionized the world
guitar repertoire, not to mention his orchestrations,

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versions, orchestral direction and all his work with the ICAIC
Group and the New York movement. Trova.
After the experience in the ICAIC Group, Leo
undertakes a musical crusade around the world, performing
hundreds of concerts as a guitarist. Later he did so by
conducting renowned orchestras.
“I am lucky to work at home, and when I say work I
mean it. I distribute the work, I prepare concerts, but I
have always done my creative work at home, in the shelter
of my family, where I have found a balance between
professional work and my social duties.”
Finally the honors arrive:
Leo Brouwer has all the honors received in music, the
triumph crowned his efforts. He has more than ten national
and international medals and distinctions. In 2009 he
received the National Film Award and the National Music
Award, in 2010 he earned
Madrid the 10th Tomas Luis de Victoria Prize, awarded by
the General Society of Authors of Spain (ESGAE),
considered the highest recognition in the Spanish-American
and Portuguese-speaking field. To complete, Leo won the
Latin Grammy last year for one of his albums.
Brouwer is capo Scuola (head of school) in European
and Japanese conservatories, he already has almost all the
honors granted to the great classics of music. He has in
Cuba all the awards, medals, orders, prizes, Honoris Causa.
At the 22nd of 1988, the Assembly of the International
Council of Music of UNESCO (1988), placed it as a classic, in

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the status of Honorary Member of Music for Life.
In the 1980s, in The History of the Greatest Guitarists,
published in London in 1982, he appears among the four
most outstanding living musicians of the last two centuries.
As if there was nothing left to achieve, in the month of
November 2010 the Latin Grammy Award, the award had to
surprise him enormously; He had told the press that the
Grammy Awards were conditioned by many factors;
although I understand that the awards are decided by some
two thousand qualified musicians from different latitudes.
The Havana musician started playing the guitar for
entertainment, he performed flamenco things, to ward off
the loneliness he experienced in his childhood. Little by little
He fell in love with the guitar, musical studies and
composition; He did it with all passion, like someone who
gives his life to an artistic goal. What started as a hobby
ended up being an immeasurable musical career.
LEO COMPOSITIONS
Leo has composed countless works for the guitar, the
orchestra, various types of instruments, the song, the choir,
chamber music, symphonic, electroacoustic, for cinema,
ballet, percussion, piano. Many orchestrations, versions and
paraphrases Some of his most renowned creations:
Tradition breaks..., but it costs work, Canticum, The Eternal
Spiral (1970), Tarantos, Controversia, Exaedros I, Exaedro
II, Exaedro III.Countless music for films and
documentaries: The Days of Water, Wifredo Lam, Papers
are Papers, Lucía, Stories of the Revolution, The Young

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Rebel, Cecilia, The Days of Water, Time to Die, Amada.
CRITICS
Leo Brouwer has taken the guitar out of the Andalusian
ghetto and placed it at a contemporary level. (France Soir,
Paris/ 1977)
Leo Brouwer is the most important living composer of works
for guitar (Athenas New/ 1978)
Leo's guitar compositions bear the stamp of his perfect
training in the classical tradition. And at the same time, all
his works are the result of an artist who has freed himself
from the usually limited perspectives of the classical
guitarist (The Times of London/1980)
It is the magic of versatility in the era of musical
specialization, he remains one of the giants of the concert
guitar (Toronto Star/ 1982)

LILÍ MARTÍNEZ, THE PEARL OF THE EAST

(Guantánamo, August 19, 1915, / Havana, August 26,
1990)

Lilí Martínez, together with Peruchín and Ruben

González and Rubalcaba, are true schools of Cuban sonera
piano music.
His first musical studies were with his sister Ana, he
continued with José Gallard and Rafael Inciarte Brioso,
although much of his knowledge was acquired self-taught.
“I had studied a little, they weren't formal classes, because
I didn't have money to pay for them. Then I read many

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music books; and I continued studying everything, so I
prepared myself as a self-taught person.”
Professionally he began as a pianist at friends' parties,
in cafes, he played Cuban and American music, in dance
academies such as the so-called Country Club of
Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba, the academies were
true music schools where the trade was acquired at any
cost. .

His great moment came in 1945 when Ruben González

left Arsenio Rodríguez's team. Rubén tells me this way:
“I knew Lilí from my trips to the eastern zone, I
recommended him to Arsenio, although Lilí was afraid to
work with a group of Arsenio's stature. I assured him that
he had all the conditions to take on the piano within
Arsenio's ensemble; But he was very attached to the rural
world, to provincialism, so I left contact with Arsenio who
was in charge of calling him.”
Lilí, in turn, says that Arsenio sent her a telegram and
since she didn't know what to think about it, she decided to
go to sleep. Hours later he received a phone call from
Arsenio on Santo Tomás Street, in Plaza Dolores. “With that
hoarse voice he had he told me: “Hey, come here, you're
Lilí. I'm looking for you, what do you need? "I'm going to
send you a wire transfer with money for the trip and
expenses." So I bought a sweet ham (ironed) that was in
fashion. I ate it on the way to the capital. When I arrived
there were no papers (scores) in the set, you know how it

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was. Arsenio marveled when he heard me and one day he
said to Arcaño, referring to me: “Come here so you can see
the iron I brought.” Little by little I adjusted to the
requirements of the typical son.”
With Arsenio Lilí he learned the secrets that he was
missing within the domains of contemporary son (of his
time). In the group he made arrangements with striking
effects, with the freedom that the tresero gave him to
innovate within the strict sonic framework.
“What if I learned with Arsenio? Listen, if I hadn't
played with him, I'm sure he wouldn't know son so much. I
had to learn his side, because he was a true sonero. He was
the teacher of all the musicians who passed through his
group, he was a true genius. For years I was Arsenio's
arranger. When he got inspired, at any time, he would go
look for me at the house so that he would forget the
number. He sang it to me and I copied it. With his hoarse
voice he said: “When is that”, “I want it for the afternoon”.
We released two or three issues a week. That was like that,
although it may seem like a lie, I made the arrangements,
at most in two hours. I wrote them wherever I wanted,
because I don't need the piano to arrange. Arsenio never
hinted to me that he didn't like something. I mastered the
concept of the piano and the ensemble when doing the
orchestration. We had to work quickly, because our lifestyle,
as a popular group, was very hectic. It was not easy. Don't
think about it. We played a lot with Arsenio in the Marianao
Beach area, “We started at 9 at night, with no time to finish,

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dawn caught us there. They called that the Academia del
Son. During the day we played in picnic areas, Lilí assured.
We earned 73 cents each musician, per performance and
sometimes less. Of course, with 73 cents you could eat it.”
124
CONCEPT
“Lilí was recognized – Ruben González continues to tell
me – for some “little steps” in the “solos”, and for his
specialty in the octaves, when he opened his hands with a
double note and a lot of concept.”
“I don't like boasts,” Lilí reveals to Mayra A. Martínez-
but yes, I am Sonero. I keep my secrets when playing.
First, the sweetness. I don't play the piano with scandal. I'm
not interested in looking like a virtuoso. I play softly and
apply all the elements of traditional and modern harmony,
but always taking care of the sweetness that should be
imprinted on the sound. Now, there's a secret...Well, I've
never told it, but I'll tell you. It is in making syncopation,
passing note, passing chord, always resolving in the main
key, to deliver to the singer or choir at the time. Did you
score correctly? Because that is one of my secrets when
playing son, when improvising. As for improvisation, it
cannot be achieved without knowledge. It is not easy, as
some think. No way! I believe that this capacity can be
developed, but it is necessary to have a very great
harmonious and theoretical mastery. Nothing by ear. You
have to study a lot of music. I could tell you that

24 -Mayra A. Martínez, Cubans in music, Cuban Letters, Havana, 1993, p. 216

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improvisation requires several requirements: knowledge
that is basic; the imagination and taste of the individual.
“You have to deeply feel the music that is being played.”
Regarding Chopin's influences on Lilí, the maestro
reveals to Mayra Martínez: “The sweetness of his
compositions attracted me greatly. Chopin is tender at the
keyboard. That detail is impressive because it later
influenced what I did in my sonero stage. I use elements of
concert music, jazz that has favored me in its harmony. I
use seventh, ninth, eleventh chords, dissonances and fill a
lot on the piano, taking advantage of the ten fingers on the
keyboard. I apply impressionism techniques, because I am
influenced by that, I have studied it. Always without
forgetting the sweetness, the softness, as circumstances
demand. When a guaracha comes, I go up and if it's a
bolero, I go soft.”
Lilí admired the pianists Jesús López, Rubalcaba,
Rubén González, and Peruchín, a great friend, without any
rivalry, both substituted for each other in moments of
absence, “he was the one who stimulated me the most in
popular music.”
The Guantanamo pianist remained with Chapottín until
1967, then he played in charanga orchestras
In addition to his extraordinary talents as a performer,
he combined those of a composer. He has more than three
hundred works: sones, guarachas, boleros, danzones:
Among the best-known works are: That's called wanting,
You can't leave me (bolero) and the sones : Let them fuck,

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Stop
Songo, Maya is burning, Take advantage, chickens, Even if
your mom doesn't want to, My son, my son, Seasoning, The
handsome ones from Yateras are over.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Texts by Mayra A. were used. Martínez, Lil Rodríguez “The
sweetness of Chopín is present in the Cuban son”, El Diario
de Caracas, June 1, 1986, Omar Vázquez, Lilí Martínez,
living legend of Cuban music”, Granma, Havana, March 15
1986, p. 4 and by Rafael Lam, “ The three greats of Cuban
sonero piano”, Tropicana
International, Havana, no. 10, 2000, p. 17

LOPEZ GAVILAN
The López Gavilán family – including the teacher and pianist
Teresita Junco – is very valuable to Cuban music. It is made
up of: Guido López Gavilán and his two children: Ilmar and
Aldo. These two children are the fruit of the talent and,
furthermore, of the care of their own parents who, with a
high educational level, managed to intelligently direct these
two colossi of Cuban music.
GUIDO LÓPEZ GAVILÁN (Matanzas, January 3, 1944)
Guido is a composer, teacher and choir and orchestra
director. He studied choral conducting at the Amadeo
Roldán Conservatory where he concluded in 1966. He also
received classes from the Russian Danil Tiulin. He came to
study at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory where, in
1973, he learned from Leo Guinsburg.

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 He has made presentations with the National
Symphony Orchestra of Cuba; For many years he has been
a music professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA)
and directed the Camerata Brindis de Salas. He is classified
as a refined, elegant and high-level director.
He has several awards and regularly participates in
international events and tours. It has several compositions:
Cantatas, versions and his masterpiece, the miniature:
Camerata en guaguancó, theme of radio and television
programs and magnified by the recording of the Camerata
by Zenaidita Romeu.
ALDO LÓPEZ GAVILÁN (Havana, December 20, 1979)
Aldo studied at the Manuel Saumell and Amadeo
Roldán Conservatory and at the Academy of Music in
London, England.
He was a child prodigy, from early on he surprised the
public in the concerts he offered in theaters and on TV.
Since 1990, at the age of eleven, he obtained the Grand
Prize and Special Prizes for the performance of Cuban music
and works of his own creation, in the Amadeo Roldán Piano
Competition; prize in the Junior category of the I UNEAC
Piano Competition, 1994. Prizes in the Danny Kaje
competitions, from UNICEF, Holland, Sinigalia, Italy, 1998.
2nd. Place in the Teresa Carreño Piano Competition of
Venezuela 1998. First Prize in the Trinity College Music
University Piano Competition,
England, 1999. 3rd Prize in the SGAE International Spanish
Composers Piano Competition, Spain, 200. 1st.

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International Piano Soloist Competition Prize, 2002,
organized by Trinity College in London, England.
Aldo composes various works and cultivates Jazz-
fusion with special attention. It is presented in various
international venues, including the Royal Festival Hall in
London and the Jazz Plaza Festival. He has the 2000
Cubadisco Award for the album La Antet y el Elephant, First
Opera and shared Grand Prize.
ILMAR LOPEZ GAVILÁN (Havana, March 8, 1974)
He studied violin at the Manhattan School of Music in
New York, with Glenn Dicterow. He has won awards in the
Amadeo Roldan competitions in Cuba and in Poland and
Mexico.1er. Award at Manhattan School Music in New York,
as a soloist in 2000 and in other US cities.
He is concertmaster at the Manhattan NY School of
Music. He regularly performs in venues such as Lincoln
Center, Royal Albert Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and New
Jersey Center alongside Cuban saxophonist Paquito
D'Rivera. He has been a personal guest of Claudio Abbado
to perform with the Gustav Malher Youth Orchestra under
the direction of Pierre Boulez. He has the Cubadisco Award
for Aires y legends, the 2001 First Film Award.
Producer Robert Díaz tells me that Ilmar ranks as one
of the most qualified violinists in the world.

MANUEL SAUMELL, FATHER OF CUBAN MUSICAL

NATIONALISM
(Havana, April 19, 1818 / Havana, August 14, 1870)

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 Manuel Saumell Robredo, is the father of the
contradanza, the habanera and musical nationalism, father
of the contradanza, promoter of the habanera and the
guaracha; a true foundation musician.
His work is full of discoveries, with an exact profile of
the Creole and a melodic, harmonic and rhythmic
atmosphere that was closely followed by his followers.
He studied with Juan Federico Edelmann and Maurice
Pyke, he played the piano, the cello, and the organ. He was
president of the Music Section of the Santa Cecilia
Philharmonic Society and founder of the Artistic and Literary
Lyceum of Havana. Member of the Santa Cristina
Philharmonic Academy.
According to Alejo Carpentier, Saumell came from a
very poor family, he led a dispersed existence full of
troubles. He had to work wherever he could: he played in
the Philharmonic, performed at concerts and dances, played
the organ in churches, gave music lessons and did not stop
studying, a hard worker, sensitive and generous. He even
composed a national opera in which he made Indians and
blacks sing; for some it was a delirious work. Those were
the times when it was seen through the eyes of Italian
operas, it was something unprecedented in America.
Even today we often hear the contradanza Pepa's
Eyes, performed by the group Irakere. Other widely spread
works: The Pretty Girl, Sad Memories, Laments of Love,
Tomás, Tomás, La Territorial, La Josefina, La Luisiana, El
Somatén, La Tedezco, La Amistad, La Matilde, La Nené, Los

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gossips de Guanabacoa, La dengosa, The soft one, The
charity. Among the styles we must mention: the
contradanza, the habanera, the danzón, the guajira, the
clave and the criolla.
Saumell's work is classified as vital within nationalism,
a difficult task that he undertook in times of identity
confusion. He traced the exact profile of the Creole, a
contribution that would last over time. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Music in Cuba, Alejo Carpentier, Havana, 1961, p. 102 to
111
MANUEL GALBÁN, THE FIFTH STAR OF THE
SAPPHIRES

(Gibara, Holguín, January 14, 1930 / Havana, June 7, 2011)

Manuel Hilario Galbán Torralbas, is the famous
guitarist, composer and former director of the Los Zafiros
Group, he is one of the great stars of the Buena Vista
Social Club, with more than six decades of artistic life and
170 musical tours. It remains now with The Fab Four.

Together with the vocal group Los Zafiros (Cuban

Platters) he left a sharp legend, at the Olympia in Paris,
where no one succeeds, they were applauded for nine
minutes. She has the Shield of the City of Gibara,
Distinction for Cuban Culture, Adolfo Guzmán Distinction,
Raúl Gómez García Medal, La Gitana Tropical, she is only
missing the National Music Award.

At his residence in El Vedado, we observed his

collection of guitars, the one he used with the group Los

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Zafiros and a Fender gift from Ry Cooder. There are photos
with film and music stars.

-Galbán, let's remember the stage of the first steps in

music in Gibara?

- Gibara is a fishing village where many boats arrived from

Nassau. In our Galbanes house the whole family played oral
tradition music, I performed with two of my brothers in
serenades and played the “tres” in amateur groups. I also
played percussion, which has been very useful to me in my
work as an accompanist for singers. I came into the world
with music inside me and I learned many of the instruments
on my own, I master the piano as a hobby.

-When did you start playing professionally?

- In July 1944, he had been playing at dances since 1944

with the Villa Blanca Orchestra, he mastered the guitar, the
drums and when necessary he did it on the piano. In those
days I liked the musical work of the Avilés Orchestra, the
oldest in Cuba.

- When are you arriving in Havana?

- In 1956 I arrived in the big city with some crumpled bills

in my pocket, a change of clothes and a toothbrush; I began
to make my fortune, it was the great moment of Cuban
music, the mambo was hard. I tune pianos, I'm a carpenter,
I still have my tools. I recorded some “jingles”
(commercials), sometimes I played in the streets, we would
pass the brush “the hat” to look for some talk. I started with

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a trio, we went to downloads, serenades, we performed at
Club 6 Panamerica, I spent some time with Conjunto
Casablanca, we performed at Club El Escondite de
Hernando. I accompanied the singers Lino Borges, Caridad
Hierrezuelo and Evelio Rodríguez.

-How do you get to Los Zafiros?

- Three months after the group's premiere in December

1962, that is, I joined them in March 1962. Reinaldo
Hierrezuelo proposes me to replace the previous guitarist.
Los Zafiros were empirical singers, they needed a musician
to accompany them, arrange their songs and play the guitar
and piano and put them together in a group for the
recordings. It was difficult to accompany them so that they
did not have a harmonic clash, it was an atypical quartet,
different, very special.

- What were Los Zafiros like musically?

- Very musical, they had natural talent, out of the league -

remember that they were mixed race and street-; They
moved to the rhythm of the key, they were spectacular,
unique.

-Your only tour abroad was the trial by fire of Los

Zafiros?

- We went in 1965 with the Music Hall of Cuba to Paris and

continued to some countries in Eastern Europe. We, with
only one guitar and four voices, entertained the demanding
audience of the great French theater, the Olympia in Paris

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. We were the most applauded of the large and prestigious
delegation, which included stars such as Aragón, Los
Papines, Elena Burke. You can ask Ricardo Díaz, one of the
directors of the delegation. "In Moscow they touched
Ignacio Elejalde's throat to see what he had inside his
privileged throat."

- Didn't the world end after Los Zafiros?

- I finished with Los Zafiros at the end of 1972, the

withdrawal was stormy and sad, as happens in great loves;
but the show must go on. Another stage began, I founded
the group Batey in 1973, with more traditional music and
the project worked, we traveled 87 times. At that same
stage, Los Irakere by Chucho Valdés appeared.

- Already at the end of the 20th century did the Vieja

Trova Santiaguera arrive?

- In January 1998, in the midst of the Cuban salsa boom,

that was the rebirth of the old troubadour guard. With them
he played the Spanish guitar, he also helped in the editing
of voices. We recorded two albums: “La manigua” and
“Mambo sinuendo” , with Ry Cooder.

-How did you get to the Buena Vista Social Club

Orchestra?

-The arrival at the Buena Vista Social Club is due to the

surprise that Ry Cooder experienced at the way I play the
guitar, very similar to the legendary guitarist Duane Eddy.
Then Ry said: “Locate Galbán”, he named me the “guitar

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wizard”, he gave me the Fender guitar and asked me to
make an album with him.

-What work did you do with Ry Cooder?

- We recorded the album Mambo sinuendo, which was

crowned with the Latin Grammy in the Category of Best
Tropical Music Album 2003. We improvised on the
recordings without having rehearsed, we had stars like
Orlando López “Cachao”. It was an album with different
tones, very varied and rich, there was success.

-What is your technical concept of guitar playing?

-I combine fast passages with arpeggios, while making

adequate use of the bass, in this way I give the impression
that more than one musician is playing. I synchronize and
turn off with the other hand, a trap that Kika's way of
singing in Los Zafiros led me into.

-Is that the reason why the great pianist Peruchín

said that to replace Galbán in Los Zafiros it was
necessary to have two guitarists?

-Exactly, I did the work of two guitars, do not forget that we

made an economy of instruments as a result of the
difficulties of finding pianos and other instruments in
nightclubs, in the 1960s.

-What compositions have you written?

-Three compositions recorded with Los Zafiros: Oye Nicolás,

Today the sun shines, By very far. With La Vieja Trova

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Santiaguera: The motorcycle stopped, From contén a contén
(dedicated to the sweepers). Other songs: Tender sunrise,
Dance my guaguancó, Tambó, tambó.

-What is going to happen with Manuel Galbán in

2011?

In March 2011, a film dedicated to an album of mine will be

released and will premiere at the Carnegie Hall Theater in
New York. It is a CD with seven great musical stars who
participate, among them is Omara Portuondo for Cuba. The
musical production is by my daughter Magda Galbán and
her husband Juan Antonio Leyva. The executive producer is
Daniel Florestano of the firm
Montuno, the one that serves Buena Vista Social Club.

-Galbán, has luck been with you?

-I have been very lucky, I have seven lives. He has already

had four health hits, but I always get up and say like
Compay Segundo: “I ask for an extension.”

(Interview published in Granma Internacional and on

various websites, on the occasion of Galbán's 80th birthday)

MARACA, AN INTERNATIONAL FLUTIST PLAYER

(Havana, September 5, 1966)

Maraca is one of the flutists of the new times, he

studied at the Manuel Saumell, Amadeo Roldán
conservatories and the Higher Institute of Art. His great rise
began with the third stage of Chucho Valdés' group, Irakere,
where he established a position as an excellent
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instrumentalist. But it was in 1994, in the midst of the
Cuban salsa boom, when he decided to start his own
musical project with his group Nueva Visión, which included
his partner, the flautist Celine Chaubeau... That same year
he worked with the

Latin Goleen Stars Orchesta, by Tito Puente at the Blue Note

club in Tokyo, Japan.

He began to rub shoulders with greats of world jazz

and Afro-Cuban music: Tata Güines, Changuito, Giovanni
Hidalgo, Mongo Santamaría, Patato Valdés, Poncho
Sánchez, Raph Irizarri, Winton Marsalis, Seis del solar, Nora
de Japon (La Luz orchestra) and many more. He performs at
almost all major jazz festivals and international salons:
Montreux, La Villete, Jazz Jamboree, New Morning, La Java,
Quasimodo.

He recorded his albums: Sonando (Firma Ahí na má) ,

Total Download (Fusión Cubadisco Award 2001) , Tremenda
rumba ( Grammy Award), an album with Cesárea Évora,
Caetano Veloso, Justo Almagro and others in All Stars. The
piece Total Download is an essential work in the timbre and
the Maraca concept. Her work should guide her along that
path.

Orlando Valle (Maraca) was awarded the Optimus

Trophy as the Most Outstanding Young Figure of Cuban
Music, through the Casa Michoacana, at the San Miguel de
Allende Culture Day, in Guanajuato Mexico, this time
dedicated to Benny Moré .

At one stage, Maraca was President of the Organizing

Committee of the Benny Moré International Festival, in
Santa Isabel de las Lajas.

The creator of the work Total Download , is one of the

young musicians with the longest musical career in Cuba
and abroad.

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 Maraca has toured the United States, in New York he
played at the Lincoln Center, Canada, Italy, Germany,
Austria, France, Japan.

International critics catalog Maraca with executions

and arrangements, impressive blocks, efficient, unusual
rhythm section. Creator of a line on the flute within avant-
garde jazz-fusion, uniting Cuban rhythms with
contemporary sound.

“I am doing several jobs simultaneously: An

international line of Latin jazz (or Cuban jazz), another line
with songs linked to dance music, within salsa or timba in
traditional songs with a new treatment. For this year 2008 I
am doing the project of albums and presentations. The
international tour continues in the month of May.”

Orlando Valle, very young, already has a space in

contemporary flute, composition and instrumentation.

MARIANO MERCERÓN AND HIS PEPPER BOYS

(Santiago de Cuba, Oriente, April 19, 1907 / Mexico City,

December 26, 1974)

Mariano Mercerón “the ugly one who plays tasty”, is

one of the most experienced musicians in Santiago de
Cuba; He created several orchestras in which stars such as
Benny Moré, Pacho Alonso, Fernando Álvarez, and Camilo
Rodríguez sang.

The restless musician had the inheritance from his

mother who played the guitar. He studied clarinet,
saxophone and trumpet. He made presentations in the
Palma Soriano Municipal Band. At the end of the 1920s he
founded The Peeper's Jazz (Peepers Boys) to play various

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fashionable rhythms. It is considered that Mercerón formed
the first jazz band in Santiago de Cuba.

They performed in Havana in 1932 at the National

Theater, and in 1947 he traveled with his group to Mexico.
There he recorded the songs Desdichado and Me voy pal
pueblo with the voice of Benny Moré. They participate in
movies. At one point he named his band Pancho
Portuondo and his boys.

Upon their return they performed in Santiago de Cuba,

in the Eastern Chain and in 1951 at the CMQ in Havana and
in nightclubs. In these presentations Bernardo Choven
leaves and is replaced by Isolina Carrillo. Upon returning to
Santiago, the Mariano Mercerón y sus Muchachos
Pimienta orchestra formed. The jazz band was Cuban-
style with Creole percussion instruments.

The Panamanian singer Camilo Rodríguez, Roberto

Duany and Rudy Castell sang in their ranks. Then they
arrived: Fernando Álvarez, Pacho Alonso and Benny Moré.
Benny had recorded with Mercerón in Mexico and also, in
1951, upon his definitive return from Mexico.

In Mexico Benny recorded with Mariano: Desdichado

and Me voy pa'l pueblo. In Santiago de Cuba, they
recorded: Candelina Alé and La chola ( La cholanguengue )
for RCA Víctor. Other voices that recorded with Mercerón
were Pío Leyva and the Trió Los Roberto, Alfonso Elisea
(Juan Carón) and Eugenio Colombat. Many of the musicians
from Mariano's orchestra, such as the brothers Fello and
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Mauro Gómez, from 1953 onwards joined Benny Moré's
Giant Band.

Between 1957 and 1960 he alternated between Mexico

and Cuba until he settled permanently in the Aztec city,
where he was baptized as the Father of Danzón . He
dedicated 27 years to the dissemination of Cuban music in
Mexico. His music supported Tin Tan films. Allá recorded
more than 20 albums, one of them titled: Mirna, Aguanta
mulata, sold half a million copies. Their albums continue to
be released all these years.

Enrique Bonne considers that Mercerón is one of the

great instrumentalists that Cuba has had. He was a fabulous
arranger. Jorge and Armando, Mariano's sons, consider that
“Mercerón's orchestra had a very fresh timbre, finished
harmonies and peculiar arrangements. Towards
counterpoints between metals achieving a kind of
bitonalism. A true futuristic musician in orchestrations
exploiting all timbral levels. As a person, Mariano was very
witty and friendly. Their motto was: No news .”

The people of Santiago consider that Mercerón is the

great forgotten of the first-line Cuban musicians. In my
book Los Reyes de la Salsa he could not be included due to
lack of space, but now I do justice to the great musician.

COMPOSITIONS:

Prayer of love, Earth is going to shake, Sad and

sentimental, A world of colors, I am the conga, I have a

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tumbao, Hold on mulata, Coco pelao, Heart without cha cha
chá, When the cornetín sings, Negro ñañanboro, I don't
believe in witchcraft

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Reinaldo Cedeño Pineda and Michel Damián Suárez,

Son de la loma, the gods of music sing in Santiago de Cuba,
Andante, 2002, p.123

Mario Bauzá, the inventor of Latin jazz

(Key West neighborhood, Havana, April 28, 1911/New York,

July 11, 1993)

Mario Bauzá Cárdenas, without much pomp or fanfare,

is the initiator of Latin jazz (Latin/Cuban/or Afro-Cuban jazz,
whatever you want to call it).

He was a clarinetist, trumpeter, composer and

orchestra director. He began his studies at the age of five
and in 1918 he entered the Municipal Conservatory of
Havana where he graduated in 1927. Since he was fourteen,
during his studies he has been working with the groups of
Felipe Valdés, Juanito Zequeira, and Raimundo Valenzuela.
He even played in the Sans Soucí and Montmartre cabarets.

He was able to continue higher studies in Italy, but his

thing was popular, from the Malecón to here.

In 1926 he was able to travel to New York with the

orchestra of Antonio María Romeu, king of danzón. In that

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city he came into contact with the black jazz of Harlem.

In 1928 he worked with the orchestra of José Curbelo

(father). By 1930 he joined Justo Don Azpiazu's orchestra
and participated with the Machín Quartet.

The first time he traveled to New York was in 1926,

when the septets were going to record in the United States.
Accompany the magician of the keys Antonio María Romeu,
genius of the danzón. In Havana he played in the
Philharmonic, in the orchestra of José Curbelo (father),
together with Machito he worked in the septet Redención,
passing through the Los Diplomáticos orchestra.

In 1930 he traveled to New York, with the Don Azpiazu

orchestra and the singer Antonio Machín who recorded “ El
manisero ”, which opened the first Latin music boom in
history. He continued with the Machín Quartet, in just two
weeks he learned to play the fifteen dollar trumpet, to
accompany the quartet. In 1931 he played in Noble Sissle's
orchestra, in 1932 with Hy Clark's at the Savoy in Harlem.
In that same year he was with Chick Webb's orchestra and
in 1933 he directed that orchestra until 1937.

Chick Webb joins Bauzá, explaining that they had to

learn a lot from both of them. “You have something I need
and I have something you need. And the day you truly
understand the phraseology of black American music, with
what you know about Cuban music, you will be a respected
musician." "I made an effort to understand it," Bauzá
reveals to Leonardo Padura, "and I think I succeeded. .
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Chick taught me what I did not learn in any conservatory,
above all to be able to combine Cuban and American
syncopation, to put it in a single pattern, and therein lies
the seed of Afro-Cubans jazz .”

From 1937 to 1939 he played in several groups: Don

Redman and Flecher Hernandez. In 1938 in the Cab
Calloway orchestra, he met Dizzy Gillespie.

So that we have an idea of the musical feat carried out

by this Cuban, we are going to read his testimonies: “The
Machito Orchestra and his the Afro-Cubans that he
organized in the summer of 1942. I named the orchestra
Machito, because Francisco Raúl Pérez Grillo was associated
with me, he was the singer, an excellent sonero and
spectacular maraquero player. He had played with Abelardo
Barroso and María Teresa Vera at the Rialto academy. He
taught Bauzá to master the key of Cuban music, essential to
master it. In his first performance at the “La Conga”
cabaret, he managed for the first time to mix Cuban
rhythms with jazz, in the hands of black, Cuban and Latin
American musicians, all playing in the central neighborhood
of the Big Apple of Manhattan. For the first time, diverse
audiences forgot their differences and gathered in the same
room: whites, blacks, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, jazz fans,
Cuban music fans, dancers. After that success, the owner of
the “ Palladium Balroom ” wanted to bring Caribbean
music to Broadway and we managed to impose the
explosion of Latin music in New York , promoted by me.

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For a long time we were not given that recognition, even
though everyone copied us Cubans.” (See documents by
Umberto Valverde and Luc Delanoy).

MACHITO AND HIS THE AFROCUBANS

It was in 1942 when he organized Machito and the

Afrocubans. The band consisted of a full Afro-Cuban
percussion section (conga, bongoes, güiro, maracas) piano,
bass and brass. It was not unusual to hear the conga in 6/8,
the timpani in 2/4 and the bongo in 5/4 in the orchestra.
Musicians from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the United States,
Italians, Jews, Filipinos, Irish, Panamanians, Dominicans
passed by, a true tower of babel. “I had a true society of
nations,” said Bauzá, “led by a civic rights activist. My goal
was to blend the sound of the great American bands, but
play Cuban or fusion music. At the time that seemed crazy.
We were the architects, we built a building with foundations
of Afro-Cuban rhythms and the structure of jazz.” (LP
Sources)

On May 20, 1943, Machito's sister, Graciela Pérez,

Bauzá's wife, joined as a singer. Graciela was born in the
Jesús María neighborhood (August 23, 1915), she had
worked with María Teresa Vera, Las Anacaona, Alfredito
Valdés. He arrived in New York to complete the party with
his mischievous rumbas and tasty boleros. The orchestra
begins an era of bebop , key to the emergence of the
cubop movement. In 1950 Bauzá composed “Mambo Inn,
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with René Hernández and Bobby Woodlen. Count Basie
records it. Cuban rhythms dominate in the United States,
Machito's songs “Sopa de pichón”, “La paella” and “Tingo
talango” by Julio Cuevas were already very famous among
Latins in the orchestra.

“The Afro-Cubans are like a perfect marriage,” he

continues to say. Or like a tree that has the same root, the
same trunk and two different branches, which was what I
united: son and jazz.”

The orchestra went through ups and downs at the

expense of fashions. But in the first half of the 1970s there
was a triumphant return with modern orchestrations of old
songs and the talent of Israel López (Cachao) and Alfredo
Armenteros (Chocolate). And the inclusion of Dizzy
Gillespie.

They recorded in 1975, in the cathedral of St. Patrick “Jazz

Moods”, work by Chico O'Farril,

Bauza and Graciela separated from Machito and in

1976 Mario formed his own orchestra. On November 27,
1981, Bauza received the Honor Award for Arts and Culture
from the mayor of New York. In 1986 they recorded a
powerful album, “Afro Cuban Jazz”, with Daniel Ponce, José
Antonio Fajardo, and other Latin musicians.

During 35 years Bauzá wrote around five hundred

arrangements, something enormous. Now marks the 65th
anniversary of the creation of “ Tanga ”, in the concept of a

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“Jam Session”, that is, a download . Machito introduced
this piece with a few words to accompany the song that
would allow him to showcase his talent as a scat singer.
The first recording was made in 1944. was the presentation
theme of the La Conga cabaret. The diffusion had the effect
of a bomb, according to Luc Delanoy, it had unprecedented
success. And when it comes to forming the All Stars of
Cuban and Latin musicians, Mario Bauzá has a place of
honor. We, historians and chroniclers of music in Cuba, do
not overlook such an important brother.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

See interview by Leonardo Padura, The faces of salsa,

UNIÓN, Havana, 1997, p. 29

MIGUEL FAÍLDE, KING OF DANZÓN (Guacamaro,

Matanzas, December 23, 1852 / Matanzas, December 26,
1921)

Miguel Faílde, musician, composer, cornetist and

orchestra director. He is considered the creator of danzón
with the work Simpson's Heights. Although, Radamés Giro
tells us that by that date the danzón had a long life with
pieces created many years before, even by Faílde himself.
Alejo Carpentier writes that the danzón, as it was played
after 1880, included “all the musical elements that were on
the Island, whatever their origin.” (1)
Miguelito comes from a musical family, his father
Cándido was a trombonist and at the age of twelve Miguelito

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was already playing the cornet in the Matanzas Municipal
Firefighters Band. The boy climbed on a stool to reach the
lectern. Later, with the help of teacher Federico Peclier from
the Paris Conservatory, he mastered the viola and double
bass. He worked as a musical teacher. He participated in
conspiratorial activities against Spanish colonialism.
In 1871 he founded his typical orchestra with two of
his brothers Eduardo and Cándido. A newsletter from the
time, written by Milanés, says: “Miguelito will play, which is
equivalent to saying that the dancers will have an orchestra
that will take them to heaven, because in that place they
transport the beautiful danzones, lilting waltzes and happy
polkas played by the famous orchestra.”
Among the orchestras of the time, Miguelito's was one
of the most famous, not only in Matanzas, but also spread
to other provinces. He was known as Miguelito I, the king of
the cornetín with his famous and modern orchestra. “An ace
in each instrument and a marvel as a whole” Fernando
Romero Fajardo wrote: “Whose fame in the confines / Of
the world pleases resonates / He has a very good
orchestra / the king of cornets!”
PRESENTATION OF THE DANZÓN
In the newspapers Diario de Matanzas and Aurora del
Yumurí of December 1878 the following announcement from
the Matanzas Club appears: “The Board of Directors has
agreed to give a dance on the first day of the year, which I
inform Messrs. Partners. It will start at 9 and presentation
of the entrance ticket is essential.”

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 The Matanzas Club was based in the Liceo de
Matanzas, later it was the Youth Circle.
WHAT MIGUEL FAÍLDE WAS LIKE
According to Raúl Pérez Hernández, who knew him
personally, “Miguelito was very straight, of average height,
with bulging eyes and a sad look. He never stopped using
his fob and gold watch, as well as his inseparable umbrella.
He was a mulatto with fine features, excessively modest,
simple, very dignified, with correct manners. He read and
wrote impeccably, which is why at certain times he worked
as a clerk at the Matanzas City Council.” (2)
MUSICAL PIECE
In addition to his classic danzón Las Altos de
Simpson , he has in his catalogue: Antón Pirulero, Los
tirabuzones, La Malagueña, A La Habana me voy, El
mondonguito, Cuba Libre, El amolador, Los Chinos, La
goddess Japonesa, El Malakoff. He also produced:
dances, waltzes, pasodobles, marches. In 1920 he played
his last dance, in the municipality of Palos.

GRADES:
1- Alejo Carpentier, Music in Cuba, Economic Culture Fund,
Mexico City, 1972, p.10
2- Osvaldo Castillo Faílde, Miguel Faílde, CNC, 1964.
MATAMOROS, THE KING OF THE ORIENTAL SON
(Santiago de Cuba, May 8, 1894 / Santiago de Cuba, April
15, 1971)
Matamoros is what we can call a classic of Cuban music,

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a musician of what we call foundation. The highlight of
Matamoros is having established the structures of the son .
In every musical genre there is always a major architect, a
supreme creator who establishes the concept of technical
laws with his genius.
The king of Santiago with his trio gives a new category to
the oriental son, they are in 2/4 time, with that form of
solo-chorus singing, in which the quatrain is used. A
structure that consists of chorus-copla-chorus , appearing
from a very early date in the eastern region, as found in the
oldest sounds that have come down to us as: They are from
a machine.
Matamoros uses that mysterious “anticipatory touch”
(syncopated anticipatory bass) expressed in oriental
bungas, acquiring the instrumentation of guitar, tres, botija
or botijuela, marímbula, bongó. The guitar invariably
supports an accompanying pattern, a scratch (semi-
percussive rasgueado), in 2/4 time.
But the story of Miguel Matamoros does not end there,
the colossus musician from Santiago - according to what
musicologist María Teresa Linares informs me - he did not
create the bolero-son, although he was the main promoter
of that style that produces the integration of the vocal
lyricism of the bolero, with the rhythm of the son.
In this form of the sonado bolero , the timbral and
stylistic quality of the solo singers is taken advantage of. It
is sung with one or two voices (First and second), to the
accompaniment of the accompanying instruments, in a son

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rhythm. In that style Matamoros sang anthological boleros ,
and Cuban and foreign performers became known. (Jose
Loyola)
In the domains of composition, Miguel Matamoros is
one of the most sought-after Cuban composers in the world,
a true pillar of Latin salsa, a classic of American music.
In 2003, the CD Lágrimas negra, recorded by Diego el
Sigala and Bebo Valdés, was listed as Record of the Year by
the New York Times .
Matamoros' compositions are worthy of study: Lágrimas
negra is a classic of the bolero-son, in the 1960s the Puerto
Rican José Feliciano gave it a new look, with an abolerated,
balladistic, rumbéado and jazzy air, he made it fashionable
in everything the continent and in the youth parties of 1960.

black tears
Although you have left me abandoned, although all my
illusions have already died, instead of cursing you with
sweet resentment, in my dreams I shower you, in my
dreams I shower you with blessings.

Miguel fuses the pain of love with gloomy and humorous

propositions of great Cubanness. Antonio's wife is a true
example of chorus, copla and poetry in the Cuban son:

The neighbor across the street/has noticed/how people

walk/

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when it leaves the market/.
(LONG)
Antonio's wife walks like this/
when you go to the market
walk like this/
in the early morning/
walk like this/
when he brings the yucca / he walks like this /
(MONTUNO)

He who plants his corn is a crazy and spicy anecdote, like

an inventory of delirium. Some believe that songs must be
understood in every sense, it is enough for a work to have
charm and freshness; grace in the content, so that it is
attractive, this is what the writer and musicologist Alejo
Carpentier proposed. The poets consider that the structures
of the Matamoros songs have a rigidity, where rhyme and
unalterable repetitive patterns predominate. The truth is
that their songs were rhythmically effective and the result
ends up being exemplary.
Amazingly, Matamoros composed more than two hundred
compositions, with a catalog that exceeds 250 phonographic
records: sones, boleros, guarachas, criollas, congas, afro-
sones, habaneras, corridos, rumbas, pasodobles, bolero-
son. His creations were dedicated to divorce, nudism, love,
women, family, bohemia, cane carts, the Civil Defense
Code, mulatto women, baseball, the maraca, proclamations,
coffee growers, war, the sugar mills, the beggars, the

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Chinese, the congas, even the gravediggers, the paralyzed
and Lucifer. Imagine there are more than two hundred
compositions
But Miguel Matamoros is not only a composer, he is an
amazing instrumentalist. “Guitarists – explains Miguel –
were content with producing a monotonous strum, they did
it with snare drums and no one thought of using thin strings
and plucking in passacaglia or introductions. I started that
new modality of vibrating tapping. In Spain, the gypsies,
flamenco stars, couldn't believe how I managed to get such
a strong and clean sound from the guitar when I pulled the
metal strings with my fingers . They told me that no man on
the planet is capable of sounding the instrument like I did.
The Trío Matamoros was characterized by an extremely
expressive scratching and the tumbao performed by Rafael
Cueto in the accompaniment, thus achieving a polyrhythm.
To this we should add the parades that Miguel created with
a very particular style and an exuberant Creole flavor.
The oriental musicians were imposing a rhythmic model
on the trio. Miguel was the lead vocal and lead guitar.
Rafael Cueto is said to have been the most musical, he gave
the magic touch to the trio. Siro Rodríguez, second baritone
voice, beautiful timbre, ideal to pair with Matamoros. At first
they were out of key, out of time, which is noticeable in the
first albums; but they liked it because it was very authentic
and original, essential factors in popular music.
In the realm of trios, Matamoros is the creator of that
type of format in 1925, along with Rafael Cueto, Siro (with

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S) Rodríguez, his battle companions. With his group he
imposed another sonority with the reinforcement of the
voice of Benny Moré, the greatest of Cuban music.
Matamoros formed various musical formats, from the trio
to the septet and the ensemble, of which Pepe Reyes
considers that “it presented an atypical disposition in
relation to the use of the clarinet, the tres, a cuatro,
trumpet, sometimes a bocú –curious violin- , and even a
Chinese cornet, a format to which he would later
incorporate the piano.”
The Matamoros traveled 28 times, in 32 years, to the
countries: United States of America (9 times – Miami and
New York), Mexico (2), Santo Domingo (3), Puerto Rico (1),
Spain (1 ), Portugal (1), France (1), Venezuela (5),
Colombia (1), Argentina (1), Chile 1, Panama (1).
This is the saga of a classic of son, boleros and Cuban
music. There are many countries with dying folklore that
would have given anything to have a musical colossus of
this magnitude. Cuba has in
Matamoros one of his classics, along with Ignacio Piñeiro
and Arsenio Rodríguez.
“Matamoros takes from the traditional Cuban troubadour
melody, a result that in turn has European lyrical roots,
adapted and restructured, in the Cuban through typical
phrase closings, specific inflections, special phrase
segmentations, among other features. The way of
performing the choruses (not the chorus itself), with a
tendency to be successively shortened, small incomplete

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“assembled” phrases or suggested missing syllables,
underlining short fragments with a certain periodicity. All of
this has the Hispanic spark, but at the same time, the way
of segmenting from the Bantu (Afro) root adapted to
another context where the Cuban crystallizes. Some old
Hispanic romances and songs (in the verses and melodic
formulas) also serve as nutrients for Miguel's musical work,
which he apprehends through traditional transmission.”
(Danilo Orozco).

MOISES SIMONS, “THE MANISERO”

(Moisés Simons, Havana on August 24, 1889 / Madrid on

June 28, 1945).

El Manisero by Moisés Simons, is one of the most famous

songs in Cuba, it opened the way for all Latin music starting
in 1930, with the singer Antonio Machín, with the Justo Don
Azpiazu Orchestra of the Casino Nacional , one of the
most aristocratic salons from the 1920s.

Certainly the person who premiered that song by

Moisés Simons was Rita Montaner in 1928 (recorded on
February 27, 1928), recorded by Columbia, along with
Canto Siboney and Mama Inés. But it was Antonio Machín
who took it to the top by recording it in May 1930, at the
RCA Víctor studios (matrix 62152), in Camdem New Jersey,
with the Justo Don Azpiazu orchestra. From then on, the
first great Boom of Latin music began in terms of
commercial diffusion.

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 I have published the resonance of that success in this
cultural portal and in the newspaper Granma Internacional
July 23, 2000. Antonio Machín, with his can of roasted
peanuts, dressed as a town crier, turned that proclamation
into the blockbuster of the century.

El Manisero was played in the most prestigious halls,

theaters, films, musical shows and even an ice cream made
with walnuts was invented called El Manisero. Queen María
Victoria included it in the balls at Buckingham Palace, where
Marion Sunshine –sister-in-law of Justo Don Azpiazu- sang it
in English. The tenor Tito Schipa recorded a version. The El
Manisero fever made people forget a little about the
imperial problems and the economic depression of those
times.

The first recording sold a million records. It has about

a thousand versions. Noro Morales merged it with pop. Stan
Kenton gives it a touch of Latin jazz. Laurino Almeida
merges it with the choirs of Norman Lubos. Machito with the
Afrocubans includes him with rare dissonances, La Casino
de la Playa put him in a lounge vibe, Arsenio Rodríguez flirts
with him with “Diablo” (they are montuno), Pedro Vargas
gives him a touch of Latin tenor. Ernesto Lecuona takes him
to Hollywood to score the film The Cuban Song, with the
theme of El Manisero. Judy Garland sings it in a fragment
of the film A Star is Born.

HOW WAS THE MANISERO COMPOSED?

The journalist Félix Soloni publishes that Simons

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composes it at the La Campana bar (former dairy), famous
for its croquettes and lunch. A famous place for gatherings
of artists such as Eliseo Grenet, Jorge Anckermann and
Moisés Simons. It was in the surroundings, in the Zona Rosa
of lavish shops, businesses, hotels, cabaret, bars, cafes,
cinemas, radio stations of the time.

Soloni says that Simons composed the song in 20

minutes, on a napkin, he framed it in a “son-pregón”, at the
request of record recordists. It may have been inspired by
Chinese sellers of roasted peanuts who roamed the big city.

WHO WAS MOSES SIMONS?

Moisés Simons was born in Havana on August 24, 1889 /

died in Madrid on June 28, 1945). He studied music with
renowned teachers. In 1908 he was already working as a
church organist. He directed the orchestra of the Martí
theater where Lecuona's musical comedies were presented.
Later he moved to the Payret Theater to musically direct the
zarzuelas. He traveled throughout Latin America.

His brother Fausto connected him in Europe, he was

very successful in Paris, Alejo Carpentier in one of his
chronicles in the magazine Carteles (Dec. 23. 1934) offers
direct testimony of Simons' success in Paris:

“Simons premiered an operetta: Toi c'est moi , on

October 18, 1934, in what is considered the “Temple of light
music in Europe”, the Bouffes Parisienses (written in
collaboration with Henri Duvernois). The resounding success

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broke box office records. Paris has matured the musical
talent of Moisés Simons. In 1936 he also premiered another
operetta: Le chan t des tropiques. The Cuban Antonio
Machín performed with El Manisero, and Roger Bouedin
(from the Paris Grand Opera) performed there. From this
operetta is the song Cubanacán, which later formed part of
the repertoire of Raquel Meller and Tino Rossi. Simons has
triumphed. And with him and once again, the cause of
Cuban music…”

Simons composed several songs, works of different

genres, lyrical theater. But his crowning work was El
Manisero , which brought him to glory:

Peanut, peanut, peanut

If you want to have fun for the hell of it

Buy me a peanut cone.

Caserita, don't go to sleep

Without trying a peanut cone.

How tasty and good it is

When the street is alone

Homemade from my heart.

The manisero sings his proclamation

And if the girl listens to his cry

He calls from his balcony.

I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I tell you I'm leaving...

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NENO GONZÁLEZ, the pasha

(Havana, August 20, 1903 / Havana, June 8, 1986).

Neno, he's already dancing the cha cha chá/ ricachá.

With these notes, the Luis González Valdés orchestra (Neno)

presented itself, one of the orchestras with six decades of
experience and three musical stages. Neno was a musical
institution, he founded his first orchestra in 1926, always
defending Cuban music. Belisarius, Neno and

Arcaño formed like a dean of charangas: the Tres Grandes,

before Arsenio, Arcano and Melodías del 40.

First stage

The members of the first stage in his orchestra: Neno

González (director and

flutist), Fernando Urzaís (double bass), Belisario López

(flute), Federico González (drums), Primitivo Guerra
(timbal), Eladio Díaz (guiro), Alfredo Urzaís (violin).
Then José Antonio Díaz replaces Belisario López.

Second stage

In 1932 the entry of Paulina Álvarez “La Reina del

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danzonete” caused a sensation, with the new fashion. The
double bass was assumed by Pedro Cachao, the father of
Israel and Orestes.

Third stage

In the third stage Neno assumed the cha cha chá fashion,
with the singer Ignacio Urbicio (Mazacote), a high register
tenor like the good soneros. It began in 1946 in dance
academies, El Pompilio, El Niche, Mi Bohío, with the
Conjunto Supremo of Berto Ramos and Bolero of Enrique

Perez. He then joined Chapottín y sus Estrellas for five years

and finally retired in 1988 with Chapottín. He coined the
nickname “Mazacote” in 1963, on Radio Cadena Habana,
when he shouted that word, in the midst of ecstasy. The
word means that the rhythm is good. In Venezuela they call
it “Atrincao”. Mazacote, at the end of the century with the
label Envidia, had a rebirth with the recording of an award-
winning album at Cubadisco. With Neno, he popularized:
Viejo jealouso, Lunita round, The seasoning of your beans,
El molote, Linda Cuba, Juan simplón, How María walks, Let's
parboil, The spring dried up, El Gangulero.

Neno composed symphonic works, lyrical songs, dances,

danzones, cha cha chá and piano works for pedagogical
purposes. The Havana musician always knew how to ride
the fashion train, “when the cha cha chá arrived, he was 50
years old and said: “This is something truly new, Jorrín is an
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incredible melodist.” The maestro retired in 1968 and
continued to advise his son Carlos (voice and cello). At this
stage I remember the train crashes between Neno, La
Aragón and Pello el Afrokán.

Neno managed to maintain more than one orchestra,

just as Fajardo did.

I had an orchestra – Neno told Alicia Valdés – to

play in dance academies and in the cabaret.

Sans Soucí I maintained another orchestra that gave

me a lot of use.

The Neno Orchestra was one of the pioneers in radio and

television. Other voices that passed through the Orchestra
and owe it a lot: Alberto Aroche and Orlando Contreras.

“I owe my whole name to Neno González,” said

Orlando Contreras, the most famous singer of sparkling
boleros and bartenders. On December 23, 1983, Odilio Urfé,
at the Popular Music seminar, dedicated a tribute to Neno.
Urfé specified:

Neno as a pianist played impeccably and elegantly.

As a composer he is very creative.

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I appreciate the collaboration of Neno's son, Luisito, in these
notes about the Neno González Orchestra.

NILO MENÉNDEZ, A RENEWER OF THE BOLERO

(Matanzas, September 26, 1902/California, USA, September

15, 1987)

Nilo Menéndez Barnet is one of the most renowned

Cuban musicians in the US. He was a composer, pianist,
orchestra director, composer of music for films, he worked
for important record companies, he has a work titled Those
green eyes with lyrics by Adolfo Utrera) which is
paradigmatic in the renewal of the bolero.

Her mother was the first pharmacist and the second

woman to graduate from the University of Havana. His
grandfather was a Professor at that University and one of
the best Cuban chemists, he was Commander of the
Liberation Army.

He studied at the Municipal Conservatory of Music in

Havana, he was a pianist in danzonera orchestras, and in
his youth he was the dominant musician in the halls of his
native province. With the advent of Aniceto Díaz's
danzonete, Nilo remained a pianist, as well as in charangas
by Aurelio Hernández and Ramón Prende. When he arrived
in Havana in 1922, the son was already beginning to
explode. During those days he worked in the orchestra of
the Havana Park amusement park and the Olimpic theater.
In 1924, he worked in the company of Ernesto Lecuona and

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the Trío Cubans Boys, with Adolfo Utrera and J. Martínez
Casado.

During a stay in Mexico he was the accompanying

pianist for the composer Guty Cárdenas. He settled in New
York in 1924, becoming one of the first to promote Cuban
music. He stands out in concerts of European symphonic
music and in popular groups such as Pedro Vians and his
Cubans Boys and Xavier Cugat. He meets Adolfo Utrera in
the Trío Cubans Boys, along with José Martínez Casado.

The maestro accompanied Rosita Moreno on piano at

the Havana Madrid cabaret, the Stork Club, the Moroco
Club, the St. Regis, New York, the Clover Club, the
Mocambo, El Ciro's and the Saratoga Spring, Tito Guizart's
Hollywood, Louisiana, at Frank Sinatra's Palm Spring, on
NBC, he was accompanied by the Grays Harbors Symphony
orchestra at the Gays Harbors College of New York. I work
with the flutist and saxophonist Alberto Socarras

I work as a conductor for record companies and for the

film company 20th Century Fox and others, in one of those
films Jorge Negrete stars and in another Arturo de Córdova.
He composed works for ballet dedicated to Alicia Alonso.

Menéndez's work has been performed by hundreds and

hundreds of performers and orchestras, especially that of
Tommy Dorsey, Justo Don Azpiazu, for the voices of Chick
Pullacek, Juan Arvizu, Helen O'Conell, Rita Montaner, Guty

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Cárdenas, Alfonso Ortiz Tirado , Esther Borja, Los Panchos,
Nat King Cole, Alfredo Kraus, José Carreras, Rosita Fornés,
Antonio Machín, Julio Iglesias. 1

Those green eyes

The bolero Those Green Eyes was released on June 21,

1930, around the same time that the song El manisero by
Moisés Simons was broadcast in New York, by the singer
Antonio Machín with the Azpiazu orchestra. In Cuba it
premiered on June 21, 1930 by María Cervantes, at the
National Theater. Adolfo Utrera was a tenor singer and poet
who illuminated himself with some verses he titled Those
Green Eyes, dedicated to the green eyes of Adolfo's sister
Conchita. Then Nilo sets those verses to music. They were
the first attempts to create boleros on the piano, instead of
using the troubadour guitar.

Unlike other standard boleros that always had the

same rhythm, the first part was slower, in six by eight (6/8)
time, almost recited and said:

were your eyes

The ones they gave me

The sweet theme of my song;

Your green eyes, clear serene,

Eyes that have been my inspiration.

And after that introduction, the bolero itself begins:

Those green eyes

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 With a serene look

They left in my soul

Eternal thirst for love...

(Many singers like Nat King Cole record it without the

recited introduction)

The success of the bolero was instantaneous. The

bolero took on a new, freer dimension. The piano created
new harmonic possibilities, a more complex
accompaniment. The way of singing it becomes different
too. The intimate voice of the troubadour will be replaced in
a first stage by the lyrical voices from opera and zarzuela.
Many composers like Lecuona and Roig begin to compose
boleros in their style. 2

Vicente González-Rubiera “Guyún”, Rosendo Ruiz

Quevedo and Abelardo Estrada make the following analysis
of Those Green Eyes: “ The piece – which turned out to be a
worldwide success – presents characteristics that must be
analyzed, and these are the use of notes that define certain
subsections or melodic phrases, which do not correspond –
as happened with the traditional bolero – with those that
make up the simple triad chord (natural, major or minor
chord of three sounds), but rather become complementary
transgressions of the tonic (sixth added, major seventh and
ninth), while in the dominant, these notes are above the
ninth. The innovation that appeared in this work was the
result of the influence received from French musical

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impressionism, which had passed through the United States
riding on the black-white sonorities of jazz. The pragmatic
management of these

resources by the Americans – who, for the most part, had

visited France as officers, classes and soldiers during the
2nd. World War -, was the guideline followed by Nilo
Menéndez for the production of Those Green Eyes, and after
his triumph it became common for elements of
impressionism to appear in the melodies of our songs - and,
sporadically, in the harmony. . 3

Menéndez composed many other works: boleros,

congas, danzones, ballet. Some of his works have lyrics by
Adolfo Utrera and Rubén F. from Olivera. Helio Orovio
explained that “Nilo composed very successful songs. “He
set music to poems like Adolfo Utrera.”

According to data from Omar Vázquez, in the Granma

newspaper (December 10, 1990), fulfilling Nilo's last will,
his ashes are in the Colón cemetery in Havana. The ashes
were brought to Havana by his niece, the filmmaker Perla
Negrete, who brought other belongings from Nilo for the
National Museum of Music.

GRADES:

1- Radames Giro, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Music in

Cuba, t.3, Letras Cubanas, 2009, Havana, 2009, pp.
99-100

2-Cristobal Díaz Ayala, When I left Havana, Ed.

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 Centennial, PR. 1999, p.79.
3- Vicente González-Rubiera, Rosendo Ruiz Quevedo,
Abelardo Estrada, “The thirties: central nucleus of the
intermediate trova, in Radamés Giro (anthologist),
Panorama of Cuban Popular Music, Ed. Cuban Letters,
1998.

NINÓN MONDEJAR, THE COOK OF CHA CHA CHÁ

(Calimete, Matanzas, September 25, 1914/Havana,

September 25, 2006).

Anacario Cipriano Mondéjar Soto is known in the

musical world for Ninón Mondéjar, singer, composer and
director of the Orquesta América, where the cha cha chá
was created.

Before the end of the 20th century, I arrived with the

photographer Llamely González Quesada (Fania Lam's
mother), to Ninón's apartment, at the back of the Capitol,
where there was a hotel, already half collapsed. To go
through a wooden staircase and reach the top floor we must
have done wonders.

Ninon was over 80 years old, he was already blind, his

wife accompanied him, he lived in a certain abandonment,
without any type of luxury. Half a century had already
passed since the great moment of cha cha chá.

I was not here to discuss the creator of cha cha chá, a

lot of water had passed under the bridges, when the cha
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cha chá diatribe between Jorrín and Mondéjar began in
1964.

We already know that cha cha chá has a long path that
begins with danzón, followed by danzón-mambo, produced
in the Arcaño y sus Maravillas Orchestra with the “ New
Ritmo”; where Jorrín played.

The Orquesta América began in 1942, Enrique Jorrín,

musical director, orchestrator and star composer, joined. It
is said that the one who decides the sound and path of an
orchestra is the man with the pen, the one who writes the
arrangements. Of course, we must take into account that
the musician believes in a musical concept about a fashion,
in the path of a musical current.

Thus, Ninón imposed his Orchestra against all odds,

because they were supporters of the Popular Socialist party.
America was eliminated in many spaces, but they slipped in
here and there. There is nothing more persistent than a
musician, Ninon was stubborn, persevering, a fighter. What
today we would call a “fighter”, similar to José Luis Cortés
from NG La Banda.

La América played at the Julio Antonio Mella Club, on

the Mil Diez stations (of the Socialist party), on Radio Salas,
CMX, La Voz de los Ómnibus, La Cadena Roja

(sponsored by El Gozo cookie), The Young People of Silence,

Silver Stars, Inter Social, The Federation of Youth Societies.

Ninón devises a danzón for each one of that club,

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earning the name “The creator of the sung danzón.” Of
course, Jorrín was behind that mechanic.

Suddenly Jorrín launches the big hit of the century: La

Engañadora , a song that is considered the first hit of the
cha cha chá, the one that opened the way, the fever, the
hecatomb, the atomic bomb of the new Cuban music.

Suddenly, old and dilapidated charangas or danzoneras

become fashionable, new instruments become essential:
violins, flutes, pailas, hammered güiro carrying the rhythm.

White aristocratic societies have to open the doors to

the cha cha chá brass bands. The detractors once again had
to hide. A composer writes a song called A Hide That Here
Comes the Garbage. America, so vilified, was now called to
the most glittering halls, to the best theaters, parties,
carnivals, fairs, brass bands.

America is claimed everywhere, La Melodías del 40, La

Ideal, Fajardo y sus Estrellas, Aragón, Sensación. “America
fed all of us charangueros,” Rafael Lay and Rolando Valdés,
kings of Aragón and sensation, told me.

Rice was linked with black beans, milk with

chocolate, and in the vanguard was the Orquesta América
with Ninón Mondéjar, the fat girl is formed between Ninón
and Jorrín, misunderstandings and disagreements begin;
but the cha cha chá was already at the top and did not
come down until Pachanga , by Eduardo Davidson, arrived
in 1959.

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 Throughout that journey, even Queen Isabel danced
the danzón and the cha cha chá. Brigiette Bardot includes it
in her film And God Created Woman, the modern musical
West Side Story, includes a mambo and a cha cha chá, in
the great musical, the main theme is titled Mary, a
sovereign cha cha chá. A cha cha chá tumbao, Amarren el
loco , by Rosendo Ruiz, became a rock and roll theme of
the sixties, according to musicologist Ned Sublette from the
United States.

Mondéjar composes the cha cha chá , I don't walk

anymore, included in the Mexican film Amor y sin, starring
Ninón Sevilla, the Cuban artist who brought the Orquesta
América to Mexico.

Other works by Mondéjar: Mexico Lindo, I'm Going to

Veracruz, The Green Royal Palm, The Widows of Reyna,
Rico y Tasty.

ORESTES LOPEZ

(Havana, Orestes López “Macho” (Havana, August 28,

1908 / Havana, January 26, 1991)

Orestes López, along with his brother “Cachao”, are

two of the geniuses of danzón-mambo within the Arcaño y
sus Maravillas Orchestra.

Orestes López was classified for a long time as the

creator of the mambo . He was the composer of one of the
bones of contention, the Mambo danzón.

Certainly, the mambo is a collective rhythm where many

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Cuban musicians put their ingenuity: José Urfé, Aniceto
Díaz, Arsenio Rodríguez, Orestes López and his brother
Israel (Cachao). Until the “sublime madman” arrives, the
“sacred monster” who has no equal in the world, the
musician who turned – in the words of Gabriel García
Márquez – “the world upside down”; I'm talking about
Dámaso Pérez Prado and there he came and stopped.

Orestes played the Chello and the piano, he worked in

the orchestras of Armando Valdespí (1930), Los Hermanos
Contreras, the orchestra of Miguel Vázquez (El Moro),
Armando Romeu, Ernesto Muñoz, La Ideal de Joseíto Valdés.
He founded the López-Barroso orchestra as director –
together with his brother – and later La Unión, he came to
play with the Havana Symphony Orchestra in 1924. Finally
he stayed with Arcaño, which was the orchestra that played
the most . It began with Arcaño in 1937, until 1958 when it
was dissolved. He was the first to play the trumpet in a
sextet, in the Apolo sextet, in 1926, before El Habanero did
so in 1927.

“In the Arcaño charanga, up to four danzones were

created daily. From my danzón piece 'mambo', the formula
of adding syncopated montunos (sonados) in the final
section of the danzones began; That was already new
music. That montuno produced a climax for the performers
and dancers. We also gave the danzón a new speed that
was more adjusted – perhaps more romantic – to the
dancer. That was what we called “New Rhythm”, which was

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very innovative. From then on, new music emerged, such as
cha cha chá.

In 1960 Orestes founded the National Symphony

Orchestra and in his later days he organized a small
orchestra, to keep me in shape.

OSCAR VALDÉS, THE VOICE OF THE IRAKERE (Havana,

November 12, 1937)

Oscar Valdés lives in the Pogolotti neighborhood, in a

kind of musical fortress built for his musical sessions. One of
the rooms has a collection of various drums, where he
teaches classes to many percussionists from around the
world. He continues playing at La Zorra y el Cuervo and the
jazz Café, with his group Diákara.

-Oscar, exactly where were you born?

- I was born in the Hill.

-When do you start playing?
- At twelve years old with my dad.
- Did you study percussion or are you empirical?
- Music is always studied in one way or another, one learns
from everyone. In 1949 I received percussion and drums
classes from Guillermo Barreto, with Walfredo de los Reyes
(father), he was the first to introduce the paila and timpani
with drums, in 1957.
- Where do you start professionally?
- In the orchestra of the La Campana cabaret, of Infanta
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and Manglar, it was a gigantic cabaret, an immense nave
with musical revues: Spanish dance couples, the rumbera
Estela and Litico. It was a second-class cabaret, a very hot
suburban area, visited by Benny Moré after his arrival from
Mexico in 1951 until 1953. Benny lived in that neighborhood
of La Victoria (Pueblo Nuevo). Then I joined the CMQ
Orchestra, I learned how to play the bongo and the paila.
Well, I worked for many hotel cabarets, at the Hotel
Nacional, almost everything was for tourists. I did a lot of
substitution at the Tropicana cabaret. I came to play drums
with the Benny Moré Orchestra, after the departure of
Rolando Laserie (55-56) who dedicated himself to singing
victrola boleros and competing with Benny's popularity.
They were boleros with handsome looks that were very
popular for that daring. I stayed with Benny for two or three
years. -How was working with Benny Moré, the king?
- It was recorded in a single take, they were tremendous
musicians, when it was not recorded in sections, all
together, with great intelligence, everything very ingenious.
- What was your social life like in those times?
- He lived as a dancer in La Tropical, he dressed in
impeccable white denim or a rancher or a guayabera, and
two-tone shoes.
- Why have you come to Pogolotti?
- It is a very old, folkloric black neighborhood, as a rule and
Guanabacoa, Cesar Pedroso “Pupy” was also from here. - I
see a tremendous collection of drums, where did you
get them from?

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- I am a drum maker, I made them to work with the
Irakere.
- How are The Iraqere organized?
- I joined the Cuban Modern Music Orchestra in 1967, with
some of the members who later formed Irakere. Chucho
Valdés and I knew each other. Since 1970 we began with
concerns of young people. I was 30 years old and Chucho
was 28. In 1972 we decided to form a group apart from the
Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music (OCMM), we wanted to do
something more advanced. Chucho and I went on my
motorcycle “side car” to see Paquito de Rivera, the drummer
Bernardo García, the tumbador Lázaro Alfonso “El Niño”,
star of the tumbadora, my little brother that I trained. He is
already deceased, the drink hurt him a lot. To make Los
Irakere official, we had to wait about a year for all the
members to meet, we had to find a place for those who
were leaving the OCMM.
- Where did the rehearsals begin?
- In my house, the experiment was the same as the one I
did with Diákara, I was in charge of the rhythm, logically.
Chucho was the one with the ideas, the genius, but I
applied those ideas to percussion. Jazz did not fit into
folklore, but I worked on it and this new trend, very
advanced and daring for those times in the 1970s, was
created. Batá, arará, abakuá and chekere drums.
-How was the piece Cod with bread recorded?
- Actually, I had never sung, my dad was a first-class
singer; Furthermore, Irakere was eminently an instrumental

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group, to highlight the virtuosity of Chucho and the
instrumentalists. In 1973 we recorded Bacalao con pan,
initially it was an instrumental download, we recorded it in
1973, the composition did not yet have a name, so Chucho
told me why we didn't put voice to the recording, after the
piano montuno at the wrong time, asymmetrical " with
bow.” I refused; but I had to fill part of the piece to
introduce the choir, and they convince me to release it with
my voice, I start singing like the Los Compadres Duo and
with that somewhat playful way, then the bassist Carlos del
Puerto and the Other musicians thought of placing a chorus
and lyrics in the tumbao part, and that's how Bacalao con
pan came out. That was the story of how I introduced
myself with my voice in
The Iraqere . In short, Irakere ended up with my vocal
timbre as part of the label.
-How do you classify Irakere?
- A Team Cuba from those times, I tell you that the band
achieved its first Grammy in 1979, but in 1980 we were also
nominated for the second Grammy, we could have achieved
it, but it couldn't be.
- Over the years, what did you think of NG La Banda?
- NG contributed, following, in the beginning, the line of
Irakere, José Luis Cortés remained with Irakere in a period
of great popularity from 1980 to 1988, he made
arrangements and was very enthusiastic, he had the devil in
his body, that is why he arrived where he arrived. The
download What is going to happen, has a very

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complimentary participation by José Luis, he is a
tremendous musician.
- Were you in the army?
- In the Army Band from 1959 to 1961, we formed the band
and the rebel choir, with Mántici, Valdés Arnao and
Duchésne. I was also with the Symphony Orchestra with
Mántici and Duchésne.
- Let's talk about the Diákara group?
- and when I left Iraqere in 1994-1995 I started working
with my sons: Oscarito (drums (, Diego (bass).
We accompany the troubadour Silvio Rodríguez. Afterwards
I started working more on Cuban and Afro things. We
started at UNEAC, Zorra y el Cuervo, Jazz Café, we
performed Latin jazz classics: Manteca, Tunicia, influenced
mambo, Caravana. I have rescued some emblematic songs
from Irakere. I have done many orisha songs with batá and
even with electric guitar.
- Where have you offered master classes?
- In Argentina and France.
-Do you have any interesting musical projects?
- I would like to record an Orisha album with Afro jazz, a
very personal work.
-Did you receive a lot of criticism in your work with
Irakere?
- At the time when we started, especially when working in
the Mambí hall, when it was filled with thousands of
dancers, we made the guaguancosero song El atrevimiento,
by Ricardo Díaz, fashionable. In fact, some people censored

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it, because it was a hard topic, as is African music. Some do
not understand that very well, they are Europeanizing
critics, of which there are many in our country. But, now,
Irakere today is a classical-popular orchestra and everyone
is face down, no one speaks now. Music is like that, very
difficult to understand. You have to continue studying at
school.
-After Iraqere in 2000, when you separated, what did
you do?
- I formed the group Diákara with my sons Oscarito (drums)
and Diego (bassist), in June 2001 . In the group we do I can
do with more depth, I work for my drums that I build
myself.
I perform some songs from Irakere, sounds from
Matamoros and other various songs.

PANCHO AMAT, A KING OF THE CUBAN TRES

(Güira de Melena, April 22, 1950)

Cuba is the paradise of treseros, an essential

instrument in the origins of son; Pancho Amat is one of
those immortal Cuban tres virtuoso. The great musician has
just won the National Music Prize, at the moment in which
he celebrates his 60th birthday, reading documents from
yesteryear I think that Pancho could be an heir of that
guitarist and doctor, Joan Carlos Amat who in the distant
1596 published a curious little book titled: “Spanish guitar
and bandola”.

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 Francisco Leonel Amat Rodríguez grew up in a humble
world, but full of music, drums, and street congas. He is one
of those artists who knows that he is going to be a musician
no matter what happens, that's why he signed up as soon
as a party or club appeared in the neighborhood. In music
bands, vocal groups, rock festivals, congas and rumbas.

There is never talk of the theoretical domains that

Pancho has in music, in 1990, at the time when I was
playing with Adalberto y su Son, I made some trips with
the sonero group through different provinces with Pancho,
in the gatherings that were formed, I verified the musical
domains that Pancho Amat possesses.

-Pancho, were you expecting the National Music

Award?

- I have always worked for the love of music, without

expecting awards. We are music workers, I play tres for
pure pleasure and with this I defend the most traditional
music of Cuba. Of course, work pays off, that is known, we
are human beings with feeling and heart.

-When you played congas and rumbas in your town of

Güira de Melena, did you also do it for pure pleasure?

- Music should be played for pure pleasure, to enjoy it, of

course, times pass, one studies, becomes a professional and
things change; But when interpreting music you always
have to try to give it that touch of fun and pleasure.

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- I think you came to the guitar by chance?

- Look what things life has, my dad was a charcoal burner,

one day one of his clients did not have the means to pay
him for a sack of coal and instead gave him an old and
dilapidated guitar that was nothing more than an invented
tres . The titmouse assumed that this would be the best gift
for the titmouse's son. Then I sought the support of a
tresero named Herminio Pérez and a certain Lucumí, from a
sonero band. Everything was a bit empirical.

- When did you start studying music?

-I began studying at the Ciudad Libertad Pedagogical

School, in 1971 I graduated as a Chemistry and Physics
Teacher. During those days, the Kilapayún Group from
Chile, the Union of Young Communists and the Directorate
of Culture visited Cuba, taking the initiative to create the
Manguaré group, along the lines of the highland music
groups with barricade music. The group is advised by Frank
Fernández. In the cuatro, the tiple and the charango, they
selected me. I stayed with Manguaré from 1971 to 1988, at
that time they called me “Pancho Manguaré”.

-Who supported you musically in your plans?

-Frank Fernández guides me in the work of musical

arrangements, I am researching the music of the highlands,
I continue studying at the Ignacio Cervantes Professional
Improvement School supported by teachers Juan Elósegui
and Rafael Lay.

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-Specifically, who was the one who guided you
towards the instrument of tres?

-It was the guitarist Martín Rojas who suggested that I

dedicate myself entirely to the instrument of the tres due to
the importance of these instrumentalists within the
traditions of sonero folklore.

- What research did you carry out related to the

instrument of three?

-After Martín Rojas's suggestion, I began to carry out

research on my own about the most renowned treseros:
Nené Manfugás, Niño Rivera, Neneíto, Luis Lija Ortiz, Isaac
Oviedo, José Antonio Castañeda, Felito Molina, Alfredo
Boloña, Panchito Chevrolet , Hilario Ariza, Eliseo Silveira,
Liviano the Wilson brothers, Chito Latamblé, Arsenio
Rodríguez.

-Would I like you to tell me about the properties of

three?

The third was born in Baracoa, he was taken to Santiago de

Cuba by the troubadour Nené Manfugás in 1892. This
instrument summarizes and symbolizes an Afro-Hispanic-
Cuban cultural interaction. It is smaller than the guitar, it
assumes harmonic, melodic and rhythmic functions. It
consists of three double steel strings on an arm and a
wooden box. It is played with a tortoiseshell plectrum. Its
fundamental use is in son groups and in the guajiro point.

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-Surely you went beyond the possibilities of three?

-I was also studying the possibilities of the lute, all the

instruments gave me a special background.

Trying to learn the secrets of tres , I placed a lot of

emphasis on harmony. It also helped me a lot having played
bongos and percussion instruments in street congas in his
youth. Let me tell you that I do not discriminate between
Niño Rivera and Paul Mc Cartney. “My concept is based on
trovaring the son and sonear la trova .”

-Are the fields of collaboration that you have carried

out with many singers and musicians known?

-I have collaborated with many musicians, groups and

cultural entities: Since 1972 I was linked to the direction of
the Nueva Trova Movement. I participated with Silvio on
Silvio's album Días y Flores , and with Silvio I also recorded
a song by Miguel Matamoros. I worked on concerts and
albums by Pablo Milanés, Vicente Feliú, Sara González,
Miriam Ramos, Alina Orraca, José María Vitier, Noel Nicola,
Cuní and Chapottín. With Adalberto Álvarez I did some
“solos” for three in recordings by Conjunto Son 14 and
from 1987 to 1995 I remained permanently with the group
Adalberto y su Son.

-Tell me about the international work in which you

have participated?

-I have worked with Papo Lucca, Sabina, Cesaria Évora,

Oscar D'León, Ry Cooder, The Chieftain, Yomo Toro, John

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Pearson, Mongo Santamaría, Andy Montañez, Giovanni
Hidalgo, Alfredo de la Fe, Víctor Jara. He stayed in Spain for
a year with Juan Perro's project with a rock

montuno. I have many presentations with the Cubanismo

project,

- With Leo Brouwer have you also participated in

many guitar festivals?

-Together with Leo Brouwer I was in various Festivals and

Guitar Competitions in Havana between 1984 and 1986. We
organized programs dedicated to the guitar family, in which
instrumentalists from half the world participated. Through
various paths I have had the opportunity to take the trio to
the best settings in Europe, the US, Latin America and the
Caribbean.

- In recent times what have you done?

- Since 2000 I founded the group El Cabildo del Son,

which I have taken to many countries, we have recorded
several albums, one of them with the duo Las Hermanas
Fáez from Santiago de Cuba. I currently maintain a club at
the National Museum of Music and I am in the Café Vista
Alegre project, a work that will have good results in the
international field. I recently recorded an album for ALBA, in
an alliance between the cuatro from Venezuela and the tres
from Cuba.

- Let's move on to the compositions?

-In the composition I already have a large folder: The

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tresero arrived, In the cafe, Clean dough, To give you a gift,
A bongo player in New Orleans, After you tried what,

A song for my grandfather, On a safe path . I have music

for documentaries and television stories, productions on
albums by David Álvarez, Aliamén, Gina León, Sara
González. Pancho has done almost everything in music and
in tres.

I finish with some evaluations about Pancho

Amat :

“Pancho Amat is the best tresero in Cuba” (Adalberto

Álvarez)

“Pancho elevated the tres to the classical, concertante

category” (María Teresa Linares)

“Pancho has been representing the field of Cuban tres , he

has excellent sound and a balanced combination of styles, in
his capacity as a stellar improviser.” (Danilo Orozco)

PAQUITO D´RIVERA

(Havana, June 4, 1948)

Paquito D'Rivera is one of Cuba's great musicians, star

saxophonist and clarinetist. His first teacher was his own
father Tito Rivera, until he went to study at the Municipal
Conservatory of Havana.

Carmen Valdés Sicardó told me that she was present

at Paquito's debut at the National Theater,
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where he appeared to play the composer Carl María Von
Weber's Concerto no. 2, for clarinet and orchestra, with the
Havana Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of
Gonzalo Roig.

“The boy Paquito – Carmen told me – was only ten

years old, his father was enormously demanding and
imposed a discipline on him that served him well in his
profession as a musician.”

Five years later we already find Paquito at the Musical

Theater of Havana, always with his partner Chucho Valdés.
When the Modern Music Orchestra was formed, in 1967,
Paquito was there, along with Chucho and Armando Romeu.
There is a stage in which Paco directs the Cuban Modern
Music Orchestra and gives it a seal of modernity and
spectacularity. He danced in the style of Pérez Prado.

When Chuco founded the group Irakere, Paquito

followed him and they were together revolutionizing the
Latin jazz of the 1970s. They traveled to every festival that
was organized in the jazz world. Chucho Valdés has said
about Paco, “He is a true saxophone genius.”

In 1980 he settled in New York where he founded

Havana New York Ensamble with the pianist Michel Camilo
and Danilo Pérez. In 1988 he founded the United Nations
Orchestra with Dizzy Gillespie.

He won several Grammy Awards, especially in 2001,

for the album Lives at the Blue Note, as Best Latin Jazz

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Album.

He has composed several works: Wapango, Samba for

Carmen, To Brenda witc Love, Song for Maura, Elegy to Eric
Dolphy, The New York Suite and many more creations.

PÉREZ PRADO, THE KING OF MAMBO

(Matanzas, December 11, 1917, according to his biographer
Carlos J. Sierra, according to the statements made by Pérez
Prado to the Mexican immigration authorities. Others, such
as the Oxford Dictionary, García Riera and Helio Orovio, give
the year as 1916. Manuel Villar agrees with the date that
Orovio and PP's daughter Julia Pérez offers as 1916. The
Penguin Dictionary gives it a different date for 1918. The
birth certificate no. 995 of September 2 1919, is the date of
the first marriage and passport) He died in Mexico City, on
September 14, 1989, when the Cuban salsa boom was
beginning in Havana. (Data from Cristóbal Díaz Ayala)
His real name is Pablo Dámaso Jesús, he was born at
Casas del Río 166, e/ Mujica and San Carlos. Mother a
teacher, father an insurance agent and a piano salesman.
Receives musical influences through familiar brass band
instrumentalists.
He began studies in Matanzas with Professor María
Angulo, and also did so with Professor Somavilla.

He started in Matanzas, playing piano with a charanga-type

orchestra. Approximately in the early forties he was in
Havana. Senén Suárez, a fellow countryman and musical
partner in Matanzas, affirms that it was established in 1942

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and Leonardo Acosta says that in 1942 PP was already
making arrangements for Cascarita, in the Hermanos Palau
orchestra. He plays at the low-class Kursaal cabaret in the
docks area, and in Pennsylvania on Marianao beach, a true
school of Cuban music. Many claim that he also played with
the Cubaney orchestra, from Pilderó, where Marcelino
Guerra had been. In many of these arrangements, there are
already identifying elements of what the PP mambo would
be.
PP IN HAVANA
Gathering information about PP in the capital, many of
the musicians who knew him tell me: He lived at Neptuno e/
Industria y Consulado, then he moved to the third floor of
Neptuno 912 e/ Hospitales y Aramburu. The manager used
to say: “something important is creating that genius.” He
always walked through Los Parados, where he used to have
gatherings, he passed through Los Aires Libres, in front of
the Capitol. He played a lot with lottery tickets, he got into
fights at Naranjo and Lucas's barbershop. While many made
fun, one of the barbers said: “Make fun of us, that barbarian
knows what he is doing.” The teacher wrote down all his
experiments and inspirations in a small notebook. He drank
beers with chicharrones de viento and remained as if in
limbo, many times he fell asleep on the piano. He really
liked duels or hand-to-hand combat with piano virtuosos.
Helio Orovio assures that the mambo was born in
Havana, that since 1943, in the arrangements he made for
the Liduvino Pereira orchestra, the mambo rhythm is clearly

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captured, brilliantly executed on the piano by Matanzas
native. (1) Although some PP recordings can be identified in
certain aspects. Manuel Villar, a recording specialist,
considers that “pieces like Mambo are not. 5, What a rich
mambo they have a tessitura in the brass with high notes,
typical of Mexican trumpet players with those possibilities,
especially the star of Chilo Morán. In addition to a physical
echo chamber system that was passed by cable to a
basement and reached the microphones and speakers.”
“The truth is that in 1945 Cascarita began singing and
recording with Casino de la Playa – published by Cristóbal
Díaz Ayala – and some time later, Pérez Prado joined the
orchestra as a pianist. Identifiable elements of what would
be Pérez Prado's mambo begin to be noticed. His solear
style, with few and emphatic notes, can be detected in some
recordings from the following years. There are the records
to back him up, that at the beginning of 1946 -perhaps
before entering the Casino, or during-, he recorded four
numbers with his “Congrupo” for the Víctor accompanying
Tito Guizar, and another four accompanying Myrta Silva;
and that in November of that year, he also recorded four
numbers with Víctor, with the “Orquesta Pérez Prado”, two
of which are released on the album 23-0813, one singing
Cascarita and the other instrumental; and that two other
cuts made on the same date, matrices 1565 and 1566 that
are not edited, which contain two numbers, one titled
Caballeros abre path a guaracha that Cascarita sang, and
Trompetiana a mambo, according to the archives, which

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were never edited , apparently. The ones released, on disc
23-813 matrices 1564 and 1567, Suavecito is a very
mambeated guaracha, like those made by Pérez Prado, and
the other number is a fantasy with a long piano solo by
Pérez Prado. The curious thing is that these four numbers
were recorded on the same date, November 20, 1946, when
four others by the Casino de la Playa orchestra were
recorded with Cascarita as singer, and apparently, Pérez
Prado as pianist... (2)
Rosendo Ruiz Quevedo, a defender of Cuban
musicians, through the publisher Musicabana, publishes a
very important document where he exposes that PP was the
victim of an unusual conspiracy. “The representative of the
Southern Music Co. Peer International, Fernando Castro,
called a group of composers to a meeting in the office of the
Cuban branch of the Peer. The official stated that “Cuban
popular music was being adulterated and was in danger of
losing its original values.” As the main cause, he pointed out
the
“extravagant” orchestrations that (especially in the format
of jazz band-type orchestras) some arrangers had been
creating.”
And without further clarification – adds Rosendo – he
expressed that he had taken the measure that “from that
moment on, no musical creator attached to the consortium
that he represented could deliver his music to PP, to
orchestrate it” (3) By the way, PP He received two pesos for
each arrangement and he earned five pesos, which at that

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time was a lot of money. Imagine that with only ten cents
you could eat fried rice in the Plaza del Vapor, which would
make anyone faint. One of his novel arrangements, in 1947,
was that of the song Dos gardenias, by Isolina Carrillo. In
the instrumentation, the bandoneon of Joaquín Mora, a
black Argentine musician, is applied.
According to data from the PP itself, a Cuban singer
named Kiko Mendive, for whom he made arrangements,
went to Mexico and told him that his future was in Mexico,
where many films were made and there was abundant work.
“He introduced me to Ninón Sevilla, who gave me his
house: he arranged his films and visited the “cabareces,”
the dance places. Then I saw that Mexico was a very
rhythmic town, and I started recording with RCA Víctor and
practicing mambo music, which was very syncopated
music.” (4)
In the frivolous Tele-radiolandia section of Bohemia
magazine, the editor heard incredulously from
PP: “I'm going to Mexico. If luck helps me, I'm going to
form my mambo orchestra there. And I have absolute faith
that the mambo is going to triumph. I have always been an
ambitious person. I have had ambitions, monetary, artistic,
personal.” (5)
The Matanzas musician Ángel Barani Alfonso – born,
coincidentally, on the same date as Pérez Prado – assures
that PP was not a tremendous musician, very mischievous,
a magnificent orchestrator arranging all the instruments in
unison.

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 It seems that PP makes several visits to Mexico, there
are documents that show that he went more than once.
With her scores under her arm and her ideas boiling inside
her head, only those who had had dealings with him knew
her. On his second visit he befriends Félix Cervantes, an
employee of businessman Alfonso Brito. The Cuban
explained his plans, the response was discouraging: “I don't
think the mambo thing will be liked here, man. “The Cuban
music that is popular here is danzón.” But Cervantes did
have faith in the mambo and in PP. And to carry out the
company on his own, he requested financial help from his
boss, who did not deny it. Since their resources were not
many, the help was nothing like the other Thursday. El
Dámaso was able to form an orchestra and have a modest
stage to perform with it: the one in the tent that stood
where the Margo theater was. And in that humble setting,
under the dirty and patched tent, the mambo came into the
world.
This is how PP was trying its hand, with unfailing
perseverance, until it was established around 1949. Every
person who emigrates, who settles forever in a country,
engraves like a cliché in their mind, the date on which they
decide to settle in that country. Producer Mario Rivera
Conde commented on PP: He had me crazy, he played me a
little piece of his creations to show me a special effect and a
little piece of another with a different effect. I told him to
play something complete. That's how I heard the new
rhythm for the first time, but I was afraid of it, because I

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doubted its commercial possibilities. However, what made
me hesitate at first made me define myself in the end: the
novelty. “PP was half a century advanced in music, he was a
sublime madman.”
“I arrived in Mexico in October 1949,” PP told Erena
Hernández. That same year I recorded an album with RCA
Víctor called José y Macamé. They took him to New York
and said that he was very advanced in music that was very
progressive and he should do more commercial things in the
same style. So I recorded Mambo no. 5 and Qué Rico
Mambo...Those were the ones that opened the gap. Then
they followed Mambo no. 8 , La chula linda, Lupita, El
routero. (6) ´
PP maneuvers with the mambo, with the most
advanced timbres and standard elements, seeking balance.
“I forgot about the classics and started my path again,” said
the musician. It is a general offensive, in which personal
presentations are added to the music heard on the Victrolas
(or jukeboxes as they are called in Mexico) and the radio.
With those two crushing cannon shots: not Mambo. 5, Qué
Rico Mambo (23-1546) Loose, simple, single, dated March
7, 1950. On June 27 he recorded the second album: Mambo
no. 8 and El routero , to top it off). His first album (23-
1546) began the explosion with the sale of more than four
million records around 1951, an overwhelming figure for
those times. The Cuban was no longer so crazy, it is known
that triumph proves you right. Immediately, an
uncontrollable and impetuous torrent of Mexican pesos

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began to flow into the pockets of PP and its businessman
Félix Cervantes, who with the many millions took over the
Margo, Cervantes and the Insurgente theaters, built with
mambo money. So that there would be no shortage of
novels and tears, his previous boss, Alfonso Brito, was in
misery and did not have a long light. The mambo invaded
everything: the theater, the cinema, the radio, the bullring.
PP's name rubbed shoulders in popularity with the
consecrated Cantinflas, Agustín Lara and the entire great
Aztec world.
What the Cuban does in Mexico is told and not
believed, the mambo begins to gain momentum, it runs like
a loud thunderclap throughout Mexico until it explodes
throughout the world. Sound power and dynamism never
seen before with those orchestrations called “rompecueros”,
with the Afro temperament. The Cuban made guttural
sounds (grunts) that characterized him and gave him a
picturesque note. “It was the cry of nature,” as he himself
described.
I publish PP's formula below: “Mambo is a Cuban word,
it is the syncopated combination, about that syncopation of
a rhythm that the saxophones carry, in all the motifs. The
melody is carried by the trumpet, the flute or whatever you
want. The bass carries the accompaniment, combined with
bongoes and tombs. The bass gives a combination of a
quarter note with two eighth notes. A quarter note on the
first beat, two eighth notes on the second beat, a hold
measure on the third beat and another enters on the fourth

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beat, a hold measure on the third beat and another quarter
note on the fourth beat. The drums go with the rhythm of
the cowbell in four beats. From that combination of music
and rhythm comes the mambo that classifies a genre.” (7)
The musicologist Leonardo Acosta explains the mambo
in this way: “The saxophone section is reduced by Dámaso
from five to four (eliminates a tenor sax) since the
saxophone string is used by PP almost always in unison and
the low register, except Isolated cases such as the alto sax
solo in Mambo in saxo and the alto duo of La chula linda.
And the phrasing of trumpets and saxes responds to the
polyrhythm established by percussion, double bass and
piano. In short, in the face of the tendency of jazz
orchestrators to increasingly blur the sound of the band,
they came to merge instruments from many passages. PP
establishes different sound planes with two basic registers:
a high one with the trumpets and a low one with the saxes,
both in constant counterpoint and with a more melodic-
rhythmic than melodic-harmonic function. The solos of the
Mexican trumpeter Chilo Morán are formidable, as are the
ones done by PP himself who introduce clusters - or clusters
of notes - into popular piano music, just as Thelonius Monk
did in jazz. PP's imprint was present in the best Cuban
musicians and orchestrators, such as Bebo Valdés, Peruchín,
Armando Romeu, Generoso Jiménez, Cabrerita and Benny
Moré's band. PP must be congratulated for his tenacity and
for doing what he had to do at the right time, neither before
nor after." (8)

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 In the great boom of PP he was called to the USA,
mecca of jazz, he signed a contract for 96 thousand dollars,
with none other than the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the most
exclusive and sumptuous in New York. They paid him 12
thousand a week, a real fortune, in the days when a car
cost a hundred dollars. Two mambo concerts were offered
at Carnegie Hall, which critics and the most relevant
personalities in NY attended to marvel at. Upon arriving in
NY, Stan Kenton, Dizzy Gillespie, Artie Shaw and other
creators of American music were interested in meeting the
“sacred monster”, they excitedly shook his hand, he was the
genius who had shaken the world, before the king of rock
and roll, Elvis Presley.
“I am a supporter of the mambo,” confessed, in 1951,
Alejo Carpentier, an avant-garde musicologist, “that rhythm
will act on Cuban dance music as a shock, forcing it to take
new paths. There are mambos of extraordinary invention,
both from an instrumental point of view and from a melodic
point of view. All the audacity of jazz players has been left
behind by what Celibidache calls “the most extraordinary
genre of dance music of this time.”
The writer and Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel García
Márquez could not ignore the mambo, in 1951 he published:
“PP is an immortal, one of my oldest and most tenacious
idols, as must be stated in the archives of the newspapers
in which I wrote my first notes. I am happy to see that my
passion for him and for Caribbean music is well
reciprocated. PP carried out a coup d'état against the

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sovereignty of all known rhythms. It turned the entire
planet upside down. He mixed slices of trumpets, minced
saxophones, drum sauce and well-seasoned bits of piano, to
distribute that miraculous salad of mind-blowing nonsense
across the continent. And all Americans, those who admire
him and those who repudiate him, preserve a lasting
memory of the master in the strident mambo of NY.” (9)
As time goes by, other composers and mambo
performers emerge. Pérez Prado understands that he does
not have a monopoly. Start looking for other markets. In
1951 he made his first tour to Los Angeles. Wisely, as he
did in Mexico, he only used some Cuban musicians residing
there, especially on percussion such as Modesto Durán on
the tumbadora, Aurelio Tamayo on the timbales, Clemente
Piquero on the bongos and Florecita and Perique on the
trumpets, to The United States does not have an orchestra,
it is formed there, in part, with Latin musicians from the
area. On that same trip he made recordings in New York
with another orchestra formed there, as we can see from
the list of recordings. They are all North American, except
for the rhythm, which includes, among others, Chino Pozo –
not Chano Pozo – and Mongo Santamaría. In 1952, on
another tour, he made new recordings.
Come back to Mexico. His immense success is raising
envy. In 1953, a strange incident arose in the film studios
when he was working on the film Singing, Love is Born and
he was accused of trying to bribe an inspector (in the
country that is famous for “las mordidas” or bribery). He

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was expelled from Mexico and sent to Cuba on October 6,
1953. He wastes no time in Cuba: He made a few
recordings there in November 1953. But the atmosphere,
like that of Mexico, is critical. Apparently, Mambo has been
created by everyone except him: Arsenio Rodríguez, the
López “Cachao” brothers (Israel and Orestes), Antonio
Arcaño, Bebo Valdés
It is said that lightning does not strike purslane, when
a musician absorbs everything, many envious people
appear, and everything has an economic background,
geniuses take away food from those who have not done
something new. The Cuban, who only made music, was
kidnapped at gunpoint, locked in a narrow and dark cell
incommunicado from relatives, lawyers and consular
officials. They kept him locked up until dawn, taken to
Havana where his wife and daughter were proud of the
teacher's enormous popularity. He returns for the first time,
indignant, after the enormous success.
An interview with PP about the conspiracy is published
in the magazine Bohemia de Cuba. Journalist Don Galaor
with photos by Charlie Seigle: “I feel affection and
sympathy for the people and government of Mexico,”
expressed the musician, “which have nothing to do with the
reprehensible actions committed by some of their agents. I
have been the victim of a cowardly and dastardly intrigue
involving Antonio Panama, an employee of the Immigration
Department. . I have triumphed in Mexico resoundingly, my
orchestra, already famous, is made up mostly of Mexicans.

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In such a way that there has always been an indissoluble
unity between them and my orchestra.
My successes are common to Cubans and Mexicans
who accompany me in their triumphs. Lately I was
performing to packed houses at the Margo and at the
Waikiki cabaret, I was filming the movie Love is Born, with
my music. I was detained when leaving the Actors Society,
four men intercepted me, I was with my brother Pantaleón
and an artistic representative from the United States. They
took me to discuss certain matters, they pointed a gun at
the lawyer. In the previous Waikiki days they had
threatened me with death and forced me to sign false
documents, accused me of bribery, of not paying income
taxes. Behind all this must be the hand of Judas, of certain
theater entrepreneurs. Popularity is worth what it costs, I
consider Mexico my second homeland.” (10)
But above all, cinema welcomes Pérez Prado in a
fabulous way. Apparently Ninón Sevilla and Kiko Mendive
help in this. In the film that began filming on February 7,
1949, Coqueta, the mambo Maravillosa by Pérez Prado is
heard, and he appears as Musical Director of the dances in
the film; In Perdida, also with Ninón, which begins filming
on October 17, he appears in charge of the musical
arrangements and in Aventurera, also by Ninón, which
began filming on November 28, the musical arrangements
are also in charge of him jointly with Antonio Diaz Conde.
But in 1950, Pérez Prado, his orchestra or at least his
mambos, will appear in 18 Mexican films; of a total of 124

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that the country produces; In other words, one in every
seven films has the presence of Pérez Prado in some form,
whether it was the maestro himself with his orchestra, and
rumberas like Ninón Sevilla, Lilia Prado, Amalia Aguilar,
Rosa Carmina, Las Dolly Sisters and others, or dancers like
Springs. How delicious the mambo is performed in three
different films this year, and the same happens with Mambo
No.5 . In later years, although with less intensity, the
madness continues: In the 1951-52 binomial, there is the
presence of Dámaso in the same way, in 20 films. And
since, unlike radio or theatrical presentations, Mexican
cinema is present throughout Latin America, this helps
increase the sale of its recordings everywhere.
In the United States, it has achieved a good position
in the “mainstream” of American pop music: large dance
academies like Murray teach the mambo. Everyone fools
around. But Damasus is not calm. He had listened to
Machito's orchestras and those of Tito Puente and Tito
Rodríguez, and he realized that they were working on a
faster, more innovative mambo than his own, generally with
arrangements by René Hernández. Start thinking about new
products, and experiment. He had already been doing it,
creating varieties such as Mambokaen, Batiri and suby.
Although there is always a lot of jazz in his mambo,
especially those recorded in the United States, in 1954 he
experimented more thoroughly with Afro-Cuban jazz with
the recording of the Voodoo suite in four movements. Not
much happens with this novelty, but instead in 1954 he

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creates an exotic arrangement of the melody of Cherry Pink
and Apple Blossom Time that in 1955 will spend 10 weeks in
first place on the North American hit parade and a total of
26 weeks among the first 40. . It will also be the song
among the 100 “top” albums from 1955 to 1984 that spent
the most weeks in the top 40, above artists like Elvis
Presley.
In 1958 he got it right again, creating a bizarre
combination of organ and orchestra, to produce Patricia,
which took first place in the Hit Parade for one week and
was a total of 17 times in the top forty. This great success is
used by the Italian film director, Federico Fellini, in the film
The Sweet Life , the great scandal of the 1960s. More than
four million copies were sold. All this allows him to continue
enjoying the title of “King of Mambo” that Víctor has given
him, even if Tito Puente doesn't like it. He made other
excellent works that should have been more successful:
Suite de las Américas, in 1962, a beautiful semi-classical
work, and the formidable Bongo Concerto in 1965. But keep
trying. In 1961 he recorded the rockambo album, and
released the new rhythm “la chunga” with the endorsement
of Arthur Murray. But it's useless. People's taste is for
chachachá and pachanga, which are easier to dance than
mambo.
He returned to Mexico in 1964, launched dengue, then
mambo bump, and mambo twist, mambo a gogo, baklan
and other attempts. Dengue, according to Helio Orovio, is
performed with an outstanding rhythmic element, it is

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stated on an iron, struck with two drumsticks, which repeat
the same figure throughout the piece. The fury of the
mambo does not revive again, but Mexico welcomes it, and
makes a place for it in the spectrum of its musical nostalgia,
as it has always done for danzón. There, the mambo
continued to be the mambo, and Dámaso was able to
continue working with his orchestra almost until his death.
There were also presentations in France in his career
and in 1956 and from 1959, according to Sierra, more than
30 presentations in Japan. He died in Mexico City on
September 14, 1989.
GRADES:
Helio Orovio, El mambo was born in Havana, Tropicana,
Havana, no. 22 of 2006, p. 17.
Facts about Cristóbal Díaz Ayala
Rosendo Ruiz Quevedo, The musical exile of Pérez Prado,
Clave, Havana s/f
Erena Hernández, Music in person, Cuban Letters, Havana,
1986, p. 28
See Bohemia, Havana, August 1, 1954 and Signos
magazine, CNC, Havana, no. 17, 1975, p. 151 Erena
Hernández, ob cit.
Alberto Dalla, Mexican dancing, Ed. Oasis, Mexico, 1982, p.
174
Leonardo Acosta, Who invented the mambo? , see book El
mambo, Letras Cubanas, 1993, p. 36
Gabriel García Márquez, El Heraldo (Barranquilla), January
12, 1951 and April 17, 1951.

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See Bohemia of November 1953 and Cristóbal Díaz Ayala.

Bibliography: Cristóbal Díaz Ayala, Carlos J. Sierra: Pérez

Prado and the mambo, Ed. The Wall, Mexico, 1995. Nat
Chediak, Mac Masters, Penguin, Emilio García Riera,
Documentary History of Mexican Cinema PERUCHÍN, EL
PIANO CON MOÑA (Banes, Oriente, January 31, 1913 /
Havana December 24, 1977)

Pedro Nolasco Justiz Rodríguez “Peruchín”, the

Márquez of ivory, king of the keys, of Cuban funk, star of
the piano with bow, (asymmetrical, off-beat)
He began his studies in 1923 with his mother, in 1928
he moved to the Antilles and continued with Emilio
Rodríguez his grandfather, director of the Municipal Music
Band. I also study piano with Juan Pérez. In 1933 he went
to live in Santiago de Cuba, where he began his artistic
career with the Chepín-Choven orchestra. Later he settled in
Havana.
In Havana he joined the Casino de la Playa orchestra
at the end of the 1930s, the most famous of its time. From
that moment on he stands out making brilliant
arrangements. Later he joined the Swing Boys staff with
whom he traveled to Panama. There he joined the orchestra
of

Carlos Boza, later he was a pianist for the Miguel Matamoros

ensemble and the orchestras of Armando Romeu de

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Tropicana, the best cabaret orchestra of his time (1940),
Mariano Mercerón (1941), Benny Moré's Banda Gigante, the
ideal orchestra and the Riverside in 1950 with the singer
Tito Gómez. Leonardo Acosta reminds us of those legendary
presentations on CMQ's El show del día , where Germán
Pinelli announced in Peruchín's “solos”: “The pianooo of the
East!”
He formed a trio, in the Cuban Jazz Club he had an
important participation with Walfredo de los Reyes,
Guillermo Barreto and Tata Güines. In the 1960s he joined a
group with Tibo Lee on drums, Armandito Zequeira double
bass and Regino Tellechea singer. He shared with Frank
Emilio in the group Los Amigos (Gustavo Tamayo güiro;
Frank Emilio piano; Tata Güines tumbadora; Guillermo
Barreto, drums; Tata Güines, tumbadora). He was a pianist
for Merceditas Valdés with Jesús Pérez on the batá. Member
of the Cuban All Stars of Justico Antobal. Finally he founded
his own group to work at the Tropicana cabaret.
As an arranger Peruchín was one of the most sought
after, he shone with Casino de la Playa, Mercerón, Benny
Moré, Armando Romeu and Riverside.
CONCEPT
Peruchín was a piano revolutionary, he used chords
that were little used in his time, managing to change the
usual interval relationships. His tumbaos, his variations are
full of harmonic inventiveness. He managed to merge Cuban
phrasing with jazz, especially one of his favorite George
Shilling. He collected the sound of the eastern area where

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he was born and made it his own forever; although his
rigorous craft allowed him to master other national rhythms.
The piano sounded to him like a percussive, rhythmic and
harmonic three. His trademark consisted of the entrance he
made for the mambos, after finishing a “solo”, in which he
issued a final effect: tiqui, tiquití .
Cuban pianists have a great tendency to understand
the piano as a percussion instrument: Gonzalito Rubalcaba,
Emiliano Salvador and the predecessor Peruchín. Specialist
Frank Figueroa and Max Salazar state that “Peruchín's right
hand could be described as percussive and lightning-like.
His left hand was similar to a rhythmic bass. Using these
styles he created tumbaos on the piano such as a tumbador
and tresero. In Latin music there is a close relationship
between bass and tumbadora, between tumbao and guajeo.
Peruchín's formula confirms this, he was a genius in
guajeos. In many of his albums you can see abundant
versions of syncopations. He does a vigorous session with
improvised passages in the right hand.” (Latin Beat
Magazine)
Peruchín was the typical jaunty, affable oriental, an
unconventional forward, the true king of Cuban “funky”, a
global musician.
The Peruchíns make up a dynasty: Pedro Andrés Justiz
Márquez, guitarist, composer and pianist (Havana,
November 30, 1949). Rodolfo Argudín Justiz, pianist
(Havana, October 3, 1964). UNEAC Music Prize, finalist of
the Teresa Carreño Competition, I also participated in

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international competitions in Europe, in the Espinal of
France, Yamaha Grand Prix of Sweden.
True heir of his grandfather Peruchín. In 1988, together
with NG La Banda, he imposed the timber piano, inherited
from his grandfather with the piano con moña. In 1990,
with NG, he imposed the Boom of Cuban salsa and timba.
COMPOSITIONS:
The great Peruchín composed: cha cha chá with
mambo, melodic Guajira, Mambo in diminuendo ; the
sounds: Eh mamey colorao, Spain in flames, Cashew seed.
The boleros: What a mistake, Your truth, A song for you.
The Peruchín family is a true musical dynasty: Pedro
Justiz Márquez (son), guitarist with a long career. Rodolfo
Argudín Justiz de Márquez, pianist of NG La Banda. With NG
Perucho he imposed the Boom of Cuban salsa and timba,
with some tumbaos taken from burning Africa. He has
awards at the Montreaux Festival, France and is a pianist for
one of Buena's projects.
View Social Club. It perfectly masters the traditional and the
modern. Together with José Luis Cortés and Todos Estrellas,
he revolutionized contemporary popular dance music to its
foundations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: See: especially the Encyclopedic Dictionary
of Music by Radamés Giro, the book by Leonardo Acosta,
Choose your que canto yo, in the chapter of “The Peruchín
dynasty”, Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1993, p.83, Rafael Lam:
“The three greats of Cuban sonero piano, Tropicana
Internacional, Havana, no. 10, p. 17. Data from Omar

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Vázquez, Joaquín Borges Triana and a dozen works by
Rafael Lam on the Salsa Boom were also used. Thanks to
Peruchín's son: Pedro Andrés and his grandson Rodolfo,
both my good friends. With Rodolfo I traveled hall by hall,
party by party with NG La Banda in the glorious days of the
salsa Boom.
PUPPY

(Havana, September 24, 1946).

César Pedroso Fernández (Pupy) comes from a musical

family. His father was a pianist for the Sensación Orchestra.
Pupy studied at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory with
Ramiro Reyes and later took courses with Odilio Urfé and
Bola de Nieve. He played in the Bolero group and in 1967
with Revé.

“In 1967 I worked with the Fascinación orchestra and

was a substitute in the Sensación, where the pianist was my
father Nené. Revé saw me playing on the Radio Marianao
station, and sent an emissary to kidnap me in a car and
take me to Radio Progreso. He hired me for his charanga.
Then came the phenomenon of Juan Formell, at the end of
1967, we met and an alliance began that lasted until the
end of the 20TH CENTURY.”

It turns out that in 1969 the atmosphere gets bad,

Formell decides to set up a separate store and many of the
members leave with Juanito. The big deal was made,
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because Revé was not easy. But that is another story.

“The Los Van Van orchestra was put together and I

didn't understand the musical writing, the concept was
totally different from the traditional. It had changed until
the downbeat . So, we were cutting cane in the harvest and
I told Luis Masillí (El Chello) that I was leaving the orchestra
because I didn't understand the complicated mechanics of
Los Van Van. Masillí mentioned it to Formell and he came
and told me: 'How are you going to break me and abandon
me right now?' In short, he convinced me and I continued
with the troop for three decades.”

With Los Van Van he recorded the songs The

aluminum bat, Six weeks, The good people, After you got
married, It will be over, Advice from an old man, Tranquilo
mota, The instrument burns, Azúcar, The fruit, The
herbalist, The black is cooking and the bomb is me.

PUPY AND THOSE WHO ARE ARE

(It was founded in Güines on October 4, 2001)

It receives a lot of support from the radio and TV and starts

with some hits: The neighbor moved away, The cat feints
and doesn't scratch, I'm bothering you, be happy and play
it, The town crier, Mommy behave well (La voluminosa),
What things does it have? life and some of the old themes
remodeled.

The voices: Armando Cantero (Mandy), Tirso Duarte

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Lescay and Pepito Gómez. Pupy played the card with a
different concept than what he did with Los Van Van. He
was not interested and took advantage of the songuera
simplicity of Los Van Van by applying a stronger timba. The
voices are more aggressive and the dancing is more
dizzying. In the montunos and choruses he has placed some
that remain in Cuban salsa: “Where Pupy is going to play.”

As a person, Pupy is characterized by his kindness and

correctness. The public appreciates it very much.

RAFAEL LAY, THE CAPTAIN OF THE ARAGÓN

ORCHESTRA

(Cienfuegos, August 17, 1927 / Cienfuegos, August 13,

1982)

Rafael Felipe Lay Apesteguía (Cienfuegos/1927), the

Captain of Cuba's flagship Charanga, the little music school
of our youth, the popular symphony in miniatures. This
interview is the last one conducted with Lay, before his
death. We talked during the break, after the rehearsal of
the Cuban Television program, Together at 9, where I was
the writer and musical advisor. The dialogue took place in
the bar of the La Roca restaurant, one hundred meters from
the Television studio. There the musicians met to have
drinks and chat. Frank Emilio Flyn and Richard Egües were
in the interview. Lay – like many of the musicians – did not
waste time on frivolities. Under his responsibility he had the
most famous orchestra in Cuba in a long time, he had to
control, especially its two stellar voices that were not easy
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food. Lay took advantage of any moment to talk about
music, he loved his job; and this is very important to say,
because although it may seem paradoxical, there are many
musicians who do not love their music. He told Frank Emilio
his usual thesis: “Always be a sponge to catch everything.”

-Lay, when does it start in Aragón?

- When I was twelve years old, amateur musicians started

very young, the school was the orchestra itself, and the
street school.

-Almost all musicians had a second job, what was

yours?

- As a dental mechanic, many of the musicians from Aragon

have jobs done by me. We only earned three pesos per
dance, when we played.

-How many musicians did Aragón have in that first

stage?

- Seven musicians.

- What was the motto?

- All for one and one for all, Orestes Aragón was not
considering stars, but rather creating a “tutti”, a whole.
Profits were shared, it was like a cooperative, and there was
a fund for illnesses of some of the members. We worked as
a team, a creation system similar to what The Beatles did
later.
Oh, alcoholic beverages were not allowed in the orchestra.

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- Are we going to remember the early days of the
Orchestra, what those first days were like?

- The Orchestra began with the name Rítmica del 39, at the
initiative of Dr. Humberto Duarte, from the CMHJ radio
station in Cienfuegos, on September 30, 1939 and later
became Aragón. They rehearsed at Rufino Roque's house
and later at Alberto Ribalta's, where there was a piano. The
Orchestra went on air with the theme of La bella cubana, by
White. The first dance was organized on October 9, 1939, at
the celebration of the fifteenth party of Ramón Rodríguez's
daughter, on Cristina and Línea streets. He charged forty
cents. The costumes were designed with sacks of bread
flour, obtained by the first flutist of the Efraín Loyola
Orchestra. Later in black society in the Minerva Club or
Society. Afterwards we showed up in the town of Remedios,
followed by Camagüey and Vertientes. Those were the first
presentations outside of Cienfuegos.

- What music was performed?

- Fashionable music: boleros, danzones, fox-trot,

pasodobles, chotis, cuplés and other songs.

- Let's talk about your vocal work in the Orchestra's

choir, it is known that you have an excellent charanga
choir voice, you gave some tremolated notes and
sometimes you even did a very nice falsetto, when Bacallao
was exhausted ?

- The Aragón choir was the best brass band in Cuba, Olmo

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had a very sweet voice. Indeed, sometimes I supported
Bacallao with his falsetto, when he was exhausted. Let's not
forget that the Orchestra worked a lot, several dances with
three sets a day, the voices were very powerful. My voice
was like the final decoration of the chorus, like mayonnaise
on bread.

-Did the Orchestra reinforce the recordings?

-The record labels demanded reinforcement in search of

better sounds, Benny Moré reinforced his Giant Band, we
reinforced the violin strings with symphonic musicians, we
were looking for a round sound. Fernando Álvarez, with his
peculiar voice, recorded many albums, especially before the
entry of Felo Bacallao in 1959.

- When were the first recordings?

- In 1953, we recorded: Tres lindas cubanas, Mentiras

criollas, Ahora and El agua de Clavelitos.

- Let's talk about the great takeoff of Aragón, the

arrival in Havana?

- That was on August 7, 1955, we arrived supported by

Cristal beer with the aim of playing a daily program on
Radio Progreso. We reinforce our charanga with new
musicians.

- How was the fight in the capital?

- In those times the competition was strong, the “Big Three”

(Arsenio, Arcaño and Melodías del 40) dominated; after the

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popularity of cha cha chá in the summer of 1953, Ninón
Mondejar's Orquesta América and the brilliant talent of
Enrique Jorrín; although they marched towards Mexico and
left the road clear. We felt blocked, there was like a mafia, I
have already talked about that and the support of

Benny Moré, our countryman, was a lifesaver, there are

many photos of Benny with us.

- Where did they play?

- Preferably in the various halls of La Tropicana, in black

societies, because in many aristocratic societies they were
interested in other music, many of them foreign. They said
that the danzón was a horse music, they preferred the
waltz, pasodoble, charlestón. A lot of instrumental music
was made, until the sung cha cha chá arrived. It must be
said that the arrival of the new unparalleled dance of the
Orquesta América made charangas fashionable over
ensembles and jazz bands. We were able to enter the large
halls, the cha cha chá saved us all from ruin; That is a story
that must be told and Enrique Jorrín has a lot to do with it,
a true genius, for me, one of the greats of Cuba, along with
Arsenio, Piñeiro, Matamoros, Pérez Prado, Egües.

-What role does Richard Egües play in Aragón?

- Egües is one of the backbones of Aragón, for some it was

the timbre of the orchestra, united with the voices of the
choir. My friend of the difficult and great moments. Among
the best compositions are those of Egües, his

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orchestrations, his incredible executions. I have always said
that my favorite musicians are Egües and Jorrín, two
classical-popular geniuses. I said in 1954, if Egües agrees to
stay in Aragón, the orchestra will surely triumph. The
winemaker is the second most famous cha cha chá in the
world; We wrote it so tasty between the two of us, it plays
the theme of the queen of the solar, suburban music.
Bombón chá, El Cuni, Gladys, La muela, Cero penas, La
cantina, Maloja, Cero penas.

- Mention your best-known compositions?

My ideal love, You are not understandable (boleros), Zero

elbows, zero headbutts, Guido postalita, So tasty (With
Richard Egües); All of these are cha cha chá. My charlestón
cha (charlestón), Nobody else, Mario, Nick and Humberto,
How well we are, Yes, envy (danzones), Mambo inspiration
(mambo), Dalia's pachanga (pachanga), Chaonda con onda
(chaonda), El world ball (they are montuno)

- Exactly, when do you become the director?

- I started in 1940, and I assumed direction in 1948.

-What was Jorrín's support for Aragón?

-In 1952, Jorrín wrote the lyrics of the famous song: “If you
feel a tasty sound/ put the stamp that is Aragón/. If you
hear a delicious danzón/ put the stamp on it, which is
Aragón/.” Enrique offered us 48 danzones, in the cha cha
chá experiment stage, that repertoire strengthened us.
Then America left for Mexico and left the way open for us. A

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statue will have to be made for Jorrín one day and also for
the cha cha cha in the Sociedad Amores de Verano, in Prado
and Neptuno, there should be a cha cha chá museum, that
is our musical Havana and we must respect it.

RENÉ HERNÁNDEZ

(Cruces, Las Villas, January 21, 1916 / San Juan, Puerto

Rico, September 5, 1987)

René Alejandro Hernández Junco, pianist and one of

the most brilliant orchestrators known to Cuban popular
music.

He began musically with the Cienfuegos orchestra,

later he moved to the capital where he worked in the
Hermanos Palau, Casino de la Playa and Julio Cueva
orchestras, where he was replaced by Bebo Valdés.

At this stage his way of playing was simple, but with a

very good style; under the influence of danzón-mambo on
the piano. Already at this stage he began to be known as an
arranger like Pérez Prado.

Frank Figueroa explains that Hernández “incorporated

jazz chords in the harmonies and an interaction between the
saxes and the trumpets; but always with very Cuban roots.”

In 1945, Joe Loco joined the military, due to loss of the

Machito and his Afrocuban orchestra; Then Mario Bauzá
requests the services of Peruchín in New York, the pianist
declines and suggests to René Hernández who was at that
time on tour with Julio Cueva in Camagüey. The pianist from
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Cruces requests permanent residency in the US and moves
to New York to work in the legendary orchestra of Machito
and Los Afrocubanos.

In those days Machito was presented as the most

important band in the Latin scene, no less than at the
Havana Madrid Club on Broadway, where they had achieved
a great reputation with Joe Loco. Already in 1946 Machito
was like the big orchestra at the famous Palladium on
Broadway and 53rd Street in Manhattan. In the foreground
was the star of René Hernández.

He remained with Los Afrocubanos from 1946 to 1956,

a stage in which he moved to Tito Rodríguez's orchestra
with Israel López “Cachao”, but he continued making
arrangements for Machito, Vicentico Valdés, Panchito Riset,
Celia Cruz, Daniel Santos, Arsenio Rodríguez, Miguelito
Valdés, La Lupe, Eddie Palmieri and Miguelito Miranda, later
in Puerto Rico. He stayed with Tito Rodríguez until 1969
when he began to reside in Miami.

He wrote to everyone's needs, both in small groups

and in large formats. His concept was to achieve a guide for
the double bass, that governed everything, it was
fundamental in Cuban music.

From what you can see, René was very simple,

modest, dutiful and calm; I always want to be a pianist and
orchestrator. He had enormous talent and kept a perpetual
smile, according to Frank Figueroa.

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 Other musicians he worked with include Herbie Mann,
Francisco Aguabella, Mongo Santamaría

ORCHESTRATIONS:

Taking into account the year he arrived in the USA,

René is credited with having imposed Cuban piano music in
the US. Let's not forget that at that stage of the 40s,
mambo and bop began to be introduced. In this way,
Hernández bet on Afro-Cuban Jazz for singers like Miguelito
Valdés. Those were the days when they talked about
“Rumbop”, a fusion of music from the USA and Cuba.

Leonardo Acosta catalogs Hernández as “a stellar

orchestrator in the wind section and in the use of the typical
“tres” instrument. In a general sense it was very innovative,
the trumpets interacted very well with the saxes. He had
many jazz influences and never abandoned his Cuban
identity. He moved the same in the rhythmic as in the
romantic, for example with Graciela, Vicentico Valdés, Tito
Rodríguez, Celia Cruz and many others.

His orchestrations were decisive in the founding of

Latin jazz (Cuban or Afro-Cuban). Introduced the mambo

in Machito's band with his arrangements and piano style.

Their composition Zambia is considered a masterpiece of
Afro-Cuban jazz.

Chico O'Farril said about René: Excellent pianist and

orchestrator. He wrote with a flavor full of riches that I
could never capture. I used him on many occasions since in

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the recordings no one performed like him.”

Mario Bauzá said of René: “He was the best Cuban

music arranger I knew.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

About René Hernández wrote: Frank Figueroa of the Latin

Beat, Leonardo Acosta, Radamés Giro, Cristóbal Díaz Ayala,
in the book When I left Havana, Puerto Rico.
2001. I appreciate the collaboration of José Galiño in the
tradition of some data from René in the Latin Beat
magazine.

REVÉ, THE KING OF CHANGUÍ

(Guantánamo, December 23, 1930 / Limonar, Matanzas,
July 23, 1997)

Elio Revé Matos was born in Loma del Chivo de

Guantánamo, a folkloric area, with Haitian influences,
changuisera music, sones and a lot of popular
entertainment.

Elio was born in that land, into a family of very poor

peasants. To liven up life he played in the bembé, the
rumbas, he learned to play the snare drum and the Haitian
bembé caller , there was nothing else to do in that humble
life.

“I learned to play the bongó, the güiro and the

marímbula, when you had to know all the percussion

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instruments. I got to play in the Los Hoyos conga, where no
one else plays, even if you have gone through a
conservatory.”

Revé's story, before becoming professional, was a real

anguish; To jump back in time, I remember that the
changuisero, in his own residence in the Santo Suárez
neighborhood, told me that in 1949 he was already working
in the Típica Armonía orchestra. In 1955 he began
playing with Pao Domini's Nueva América ensemble . He
was also accepted into the Almendra orchestra of
Abelardito Valdés with the singer Dominica Verges and in
the Silver Stars orchestra of Cloduardo Miranda.

It was in 1956 when he managed to found his own

orchestra at the Alloy cabaret: Revé y su Ritmo Changüí ,
“it is the first time that the Changüí rhythm has been
mentioned in a professional orchestra,” said Revé.

It is not possible to tell the entire story of the

orchestras that Revé organized: La 440, and another from
which La Ritmo Oriental emerged. In 1967 – 40 years ago
– the ensemble of

Juan Formell with Revé, causes the explosion of the

Changüí-Shake , which shook the dance floors, face to
face with the Mozambique of Pello el Afrokán and the
explosion of the quartets: Los Zafiros, Los Meme.

It is at this stage when Revé, together with Formell,

begins to revolutionize the charanga format: electronic

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bass, big bell, organet. Then introduce the trombones.

Then came another outbreak in 1984 with the pianist

and orchestrator Juan Carlos Alfonso who caused the
“Explosión del Charangón”. The project began in 1980, but
it was in 1984 when Revé, inspired, perhaps, by the visit of
Oscar D'León, used youthful voices and sonera nasality
(high-pitched voices), in the style of Caíto and Carusito. It
incorporates the voices of Valentín Larrondo, Alfonsito and
the Godfather. It was the prelude to the Cuban salsa boom
of 1989, in which Dan Den and NG La Banda also
participated.

Revé creates a seal, a style, a formula for dancing,

when he dies, due to a traffic accident, he had already
conceived his replacement in his own son Elito who had
studied piano. Elito continued to maintain his father's
musical concept.

WHAT DOES REVÉ CERTAINLY CONTRIBUTE TO

DANCE MUSIC AND TIMBA?

Juan Carlos Alfonso – his pianist and orchestrator –

explains to me that “Revé had as a concept something
learned since his youth: Music has to enter into key,
there can be no interruption. The instrumentation had to
be strong (macho), with its rumbeao beat. The playing of
his paila, with all its simplicity, was a code that the entire
orchestra had to follow, based on that style. The piano and
the güiro have an essential role. Everyone who played with
him ate from that mechanic, and there are still many people
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eating from that concept. Those who worked with Revé:
Chucho Valdés, Manolito Coipel, Vicente Rojas, Germán
Velazco, César Pedroso, Lele, El Yulo, Formell and I,
accepted that rule. Revé dominated the percussion, he
didn't know how to do anything else and you had to enter
there, it was always the same rhythm, with a simple,
empirical technique, but it worked for him. New talents
revolutionized that sound, but Revé knew what he wanted;
They say that the devil knows how old he is.”

“Revé knew how to take the business forward,” adds

Formell, “he was a fighter with his orchestra and always had
work and made the dancer move, which is what is
important.”

The first drummer of Los Van Van, Blas Egües (brother

of Richard Egües), before he died, explained to me Revé's
technique on the paila: “He achieved an identifying timbre
with the “fan” touch, a five-note roll, hand to hand (hand
in hand). The other seven-note touch (chorreao), like that
of the Aragón orchestra, must be studied and mastered very
well, to be able to articulate it correctly.”

Personally, I traveled with the Charangón de Revé, in

1988, throughout the country, in the midst of the explosion
of the Charangón, I was surprised by the train, the rhythmic
engine, applied to the voices, the percussive base and the
brass; all of this made up of Juan Carlos Alfonso.

Revé's compositions had a lot to do with the triumph of

his orchestras, some of those best-known songs: Lo brought
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Revé, Se va pal monte, Juaniquica, Ritmo changüí, Yateras,
Pulmerón, Samá, El changüí está en la calle, Rumbantela to
dance, Changüí bell ringer, What a story that is, Papa
Elegguá, Changüí original, My salsa has sandunga. The
latter was the theme of the television program “Mi salsa”,
which was like a salsa anthem in the midst of the Cuban
salsa boom of 1997.

Revé slept on the guagua (bus) until 5 in the morning,

the time when the amanezco (dawn playing) began, the
influence of the areítos in indigenous festivals. Revé's work
schedule was amazing, immersed in the musical business,
visiting radio stations, attending to the press, rehearsing,
playing, traveling. There is no doubt that when it comes to
writing the history of popular music schools, we must count
on Elio Revé, with his charangón and his musical
foundation.

(Taken from Rafael Lam's book “The Kings of Cuban Salsa”)

KING MONTESINOS

(Pinar del Río, August 23, 1944)

Reinaldo Montesinos Muñoz, guitarist, orchestrator and

orchestra director. He has been a student of many teachers
in his long career: Alejo Carpentier, Vicente González-
Rubiera “Guyún”, Hilario González, Alfredo Diez Nieto,
Manuel Moreno Fraginal, Edgardo Martin, Odilio Urfé.

He has worked with many Cuban singers and in

countless groups. In 1964 he joined the Radio and

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Television Orchestra and later became director of the
orchestra. Participates as a jury in national and international
festivals and competitions. He has traveled through Latin
America, Europe, Africa.

He accompanied Elena Burke, Ela Calvo, Omara

Portuondo, Fernando Álvarez, Mundito González and dozens
of singers. He is one of those musicians that is very useful
to Cuban music.

RICHARD EGUES, THE KING OF THE CHARANGA

FLUTISTS
(Cruces, Las Villas, October 26, 1923 / Havana, September
1, 2006)

Richard Egües Martínez is the greatest charanga flutist

on the entire planet, recognized by almost all flutists in
Cuba and half the world, they unanimously place him as the
king of the charanga flute. They call him “the wild one”, he
is a highly qualified and gifted flutist, his experiences in
music bands, piano studies, piccolo, flute, clarinet and some
percussion instruments helped him. Rafael Lay considered
Egües – along with Jorrín – to be the classic European
geniuses.

The real name of the Cuban flutist is Eduardo Egües

Martínez. “As a child I was hyperkinetic so my classmates
began to call me “Richard Talmadge, a Hollywood movie
actor known for his physical prowess.”

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 Eduardito was born into a musical family. His father,
Eduardo Egües, was director of music bands in Cruces,
Ranchuelos, Manicaragua and Santa Clara. He became a
notable music teacher. His older brother played the clarinet
and his younger brother Blas became the timpanist of the
Orquesta Aragón after Orestes Varona left this position. He
was also a drummer in the orchestra of the Caribe cabaret
at the Habana Libre hotel, where he captured it Juan
Formell for that inaugurate the
Los Van Van orchestra

From Cruces, the family Egües HE transfer to

Ranchuelos and some time later to Manicaragua, tobacco
area. The magnate Amado Trinidad, owner of the national
radio station RHC Cadena Azul, was from that land. “At
many of Amado Trinidad's parties, I played since I was little.
That way I met the Arsenio Rodríguez Ensemble, the Chano
Pozo Blue Ensemble, the Arcaño charanga, Celia Cruz, the
Lebatard Brothers Orchestra, Mariano Mercerón (with its
singer Camilo Rodríguez, father of the well-known
"Azuquita") and many others.

“The first instrument I studied more or less was the

clarinet, but when that was done you played any instrument
and wherever you were called. He made his debut playing
the cymbals, the bass drum, and the timpani with the
Ranchuelos Band orchestra, which dad directed. After the
clarinet I went on to study the saxophone to play in jazz
bands where the saxophone always played. From the

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saxophone I went on to study piano. With the mastery of
these instruments I came to play between 1930-40: with
my father's Monterrey Band in Manicaragua (where
everything was played and very effective training was
acquired), with the Ritmo y Alegría charanga orchestra in
Santa Clara, I played the piano. And I even signed up with
seedy circuses, I had to bite wherever I went. Just telling
you that I worked as a tobacco roller and even wanted to
study commerce. When I started living in Santa Clara I had
to dedicate myself to tuning pianos”
In 1947 Eduardo began to seriously study another
instrument that would take him to posterity: the flute . He
decided to join a legion of Cuban musicians who stood out in
the use of the flute in the evolution of danzón and cha cha
chá.

Richard's musical qualification allows him to have a

rigorous job, which helps him work in the Municipal
Orchestra of the City of Santa Clara, one of the best on the
island. But he soon began to play popular music, filling in
for other flutists, such as Rolando Lozano, flutist of the
Orquesta Aragón de Cienfuegos. Lozano and Egües were
friends, they played together in the Ritmo y Alegría
orchestra, the piano was played by Richard.

On September 30, 1939, Aragón was founded. In that

same year Rolando Lozano replaced Efraín Loyola as flutist
of the orchestra. La Aragón began to travel to the capital,
between 1953 and 1954 they made their first recordings,

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for RCA Víctor in Havana: El agua de Clavelito, Pare
Cochero, Cero codazos, Mentiras criollas.

At the same moment that Aragón's triumph began in

Havana, Rolando Lozano received an offer, very promising
at that time, from the Orquesta América – the most popular
brass band that made cha cha chá fashionable. The contract
is with the objective of traveling to Mexico for a series of
presentations. As is natural the

Aragón chooses his close friend and collaborator Richard

Egües as Lozano's temporary substitute. Egües tells the
musicologist Raúl Fernández:
“They proposed to me to replace Loyola in Aragón –
Richard explains to me -, and I refused to replace him, I
was never ambitious, nor was I interested in going to
Havana with Aragón, I was doing well in my job as a tuner
and musician. He replaced Rolando on Sundays at Aragón.
Lozano did have the plan to move up, he wanted to fly far
away and he got on the plane and went with the Orquesta
América to Mexico. The story is as I tell it to you: Lozano
was not treated well in Aragón, so America saw a shadow, a
ghost in Aragón and his stellar flutist pirated him. In Havana
I foresaw that Aragón had a future, victory was coming and
I wrote to Lozano explaining that. But Aragón did not want
Lozano to return, it was too late. If Lozano returned, the
musicians would return to Cienfuegos. “That is the whole
truth that has never been told.”
It was precisely on January 5, 1954 that Egües entered

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Aragón, according to data from Julio Quiala Aranda. “If
Richard Egües agrees to stay in Aragón, the orchestra will
surely triumph,” Rafael Lay said in 1954. Richard began to
travel frequently to Havana with the orchestra, since the
piano repair and tuning business in Santa Clara represented
a more reliable economic base for Richard than that of an
itinerant musician.
Rolando's return was delayed. After a successful tour
of Mexico, and his participation with the Orquesta América
in several feature-length films, the flutist continued on his
way to the United States where at the end of the fifties and
in the sixties, he would develop an interesting musical
career. as a performer of Cuban music and, especially, Latin
Jazz, shining with the Charanga Nuevo Ritmo, the combos
of George Shearing and Cal Tjader, the Orchestras of Tito
Puente and René Bloch.

But destiny exists and Richard Egües was predestined

to be the central, essential figure in Aragón. “The compadre,
Richard Egües – Lay explained – is our column, a fantastic
orchestrator and a great flutist. For me, the best this
century has given. Egües and Enrique Jorrín are my two
favorite musicians in the entire existence of the word, both
in so-called classical and popular music.” Lay with great
sincerity once said: “Throughout time, which has been so
long, we have tried not to lose the timbre, which according
to Pepito Palma was given by the flute.”

Rafael Lay considered his group as a cha cha chá

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sonera orchestra. No one could better represent the sound
flavor of the orchestra than its flutist from Cruces. Specialist
Raúl Fernández explains that Rolando Lozano was a master
of the five-key flute, possessed of a large and round sound,
played with ease in high tones, and made use of very catchy
street rhythmic phrases in his inspirations. His "pitazos"
became synonymous with the sound of Aragón. Listening to
Lozano was like hearing the singing of the fifth drum in a
street rumba ensemble.
Efraín Loyola, the first flutist of Aragón, revealed
to me that “with my flute I left a sound, which Rolando
Lozano later knew how to maintain. Until the integration of
Richard Egües who followed the line of the orchestra. There
is no doubt that Richard knew how to do his thing, his own
unmatched style, with a career that demonstrates it in
hundreds of recordings.” Richard's son, Ricardito, told me
that at the beginning Lay asked Richard to keep up with the
charanga, because the fanatic dancers know note by note
the style of their favorite orchestras; But, after some time,
Lay loosened Richard's ties and told him: “Do what you
want, you are the king. Over time the orchestra began to
adapt to Richard's style, as demonstrated with the
composition of his first work Picando de vice , recorded on a
single album on May 10, 1955 with the backing of Noche
azul. With the sound of Richard and his orchestrations,
Adalberto Fernández, and all the promoters and dancers
began to call Aragón: “The stylists of cha cha chá” (a phrase
taken from the slang of boxing, different from

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heavyweights). Richard's style was so evident that when he
made a clandestine recording, for example with Cienfuegos
native Julio Valdés, the businessmen quickly realized that
Richard's timbre was ringing there, and they had to define
Julio Valdés' recordings, inventing an invented orchestra
group for him. : the
Cuban orchestra of Julio Valdés.

Pancho Amat explains to me that the way Richard

Egües played the flute was like a kind of “ quinteao” that
responds to what Beethoven did with the work Fifth
Symphony.

The flute of Richard Egües, the arrangements of Lay

and Egües, the voices of the Aragón and the Ensemble ,
the tutti , achieved with the orchestra make the Aragón the
undisputed, the queen of cha cha chá, the emblematic
eternal charanga of always , the symphony in miniatures.
Perhaps they inspired that famous phrase: “Let's enjoy and
enjoy with the National Symphony.”

I remember that in Santa Clara Richard assured me

that Aragón outperformed the Arcaño y sus Maravillas
orchestra, “I gave food to Aragón.” The giving of food that
Richard talks about refers to the high-level arrangements,
to the daring of those musicians who, through rehearsals,
craftsmanship, and playing a lot, became true stars of the
profession, creators of a label.

Raúl Fernández clarifies that as a flutist Richard Egües

made an effort to communicate with the public and the
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dancers. For this purpose, he used or "quoted" known
melodies, sometimes from children's songs like "Mambrú
went to war," other times fragments of classical music, and
other things like that, pieces of his inspirations that were
easily recorded. in the memory of the listeners; On certain
occasions he imitated one of the singers, or did the calling
part in the call-response pattern of the montunos. He also
decorated the entrances and exits of the singers with his
flute, making his instrument an inseparable part of the vocal
aspect of the numbers. Richard also made sure that his live
performance was as accurate a reflection as possible of
what the audience already knew from the recordings. The
result was that people whistled and hummed to the sound
of Richard's flute at the Aragon dances. In short, Egües
truly comes close to occupying the role of the singer in the
sound of the orchestra; In turn, this causes Aragón to be
promoted not only as a group but also highlighting the role
of Richard Egües as in "the Aragón Orchestra with its flutist
Richard Egües," phrases previously reserved only to
announce or promote the singers of musical groups.

In his studies, and later as a flutist, Egües was first a

master of the Bohm system flute, playing it with the Santa
Clara symphony orchestra, and acquired mastery of the
five-key flute by serving as Lozano's substitute at the
Aragón in Hundred fires. His easy handling of both systems
also served him well in his work with Aragón, playing the
Bohm system flute in slow numbers and boleros, such as
Noche azul , or Nuestros , and switching to the bright, high-
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pitched sound of the five-key flute for the flavor of the
guarachas and the sones montunos. This timbral versatility,
unattainable for a singer, should be added to the dominance
that his flute exercised as a soloist in the Aragón Orchestra
of his classical period.

Richard Egües's ability as a soloist, and as a complete

musician, was not only a discovery of the dancing and
rumbera masses. The best musicians in Cuba recognized his
talent and ability from the beginning. That is why Richard
Egües also appears as a soloist on flute in several of the
famous ' Downloads ' recorded in Havana in the 1950s. In
this way, we find Richard Egües playing in Surpresa de flute
for the Miniature Downloads of Israel López "Cachao;" with
Chico O' Farrill, Download Number Two ; and with the
exceptional pianist Pedro Justiz "Peruchín" in numbers such
as Lágrimas Negras, and Bilongo . Likewise, Bebo Valdés
convinced Richard to record with his jazz band Sabor de
Cuba. For this reason, other charangas in Havana also
turned to Richard Egües as a substitute pianist when the
regular pianist was absent for some reason.
Although he came from a school music background as
far as the flute is concerned, Egües had the genius of
composing lyrics with a great village flavor, which increased
his popularity. It is obligatory to mention some of the most
memorable: Tan tastyna ( shared with Lay) , based on the
queen of the solar, from the slum world; El Trago , which
reflected the concern of Egües, who liked to raise his elbow,
to stay sober and ready for his musical duties; The tooth ,
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inspired by his sister Norma's toothaches; The cantina ,
which described a very typical way of having lunch for an
urban worker; The cuini has a flag , dedicated to a black
society; Gladys, dedicated to her daughter's fifteenth
birthday; Picando de vice , a criticism of those addicted to
cigarettes; The winemaker, with his unforgettable refrain of
"Take chocolate, pay what you owe." This last issue,
dedicated to my friend Carlos Franco – from Santa Clara –
and to all the winemakers. (Bodega or pulpería is a place
where food is sold) Richard used in his chorus the song of
an ice cream seller from the port of Casilda on the southern
coast of the province of Santa Clara. The winemaker is,
along with The Deceiver , the most famous cha cha chá.
Even Nat King Cole himself recorded it. Other works by
Egües: The tasty ones, Long live the cha cha chá, Maloja,
Españolita, El bolón, Bella muñequita, El cerquillo In co-
participation we must note: Amorós de la comió, Bombón
chá, Aguardiente de cane.
On August 13, 1982, on the Trinidad-Cienfuegos
highway, in a traffic accident, Rafael Lay Apesteguía died;
Then Richard Egües replaced him. At the end of 1984
Richard retired from Aragón, René Llorente occupied his
space and on July 25, 1985 Egües created his own charanga
and premiered it at the Círculo Las Mercedes of the
DAAFAR.
Simultaneously, Richard successfully ventured into the
field of classical music, and is continually requested to
record equally classic pieces of popular Cuban dance music,

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which he has done on several occasions in the company of
Chucho Valdés and other prominent musicians. His sound
came to shine once again during the Buena Vista Social
Club boom when he offered us a great flute improvisation in
the recording of Tres lindas cubanas made by Rubén
González. He left an album EGREM, accompanied by Esther
Ferrer, with themes and adaptations by Tchaikovsky,
Beethoven and others.
Richard raised two musical sons: Rembert, symphony
orchestra conductor, composer, orchestrator and music
producer in France. Ricardito, flutist, directed the Sensación
orchestra for a time. Gladys is a journalist and had another
son who served as her representative.
I am a close friend of the Egües family, I have
musical ties with their children and I published many
articles to Richard, publications for which he always
appreciated with great humility. Richard was not much of a
talker, he was simply a music-making man; Sometimes I
thought I saw my Chinese father, of few words and very
industrious. “The flute Richard plays!/ so that people
start dancing” ( Composition created by Víctor Marín)
I retire with El bodeguero, released in November
1955, recorded at the beginning of December and
popularized at Christmas 1955.
Always at home

Present is
The winemaker, and the cha cha chá.

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Go right away

run over there

That with silver, you will find it

On the other side of the counter,

Very accommodating will serve you,

Winemaker, what's happening?

Why are you so happy?

I think it is a consequence

What's in fashion.

The winemaker goes dancing

And in the winery they dance like this,

Between beans, potatoes and chili,

The new rhythm of cha-cha

Take chocolate,

Pay what you owe.

Take chocolate

Pay what you owe.

ROLANDO VALDÉS, THE MAJOR CHARANGUERO

(Havana, November 6, 1923 )

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 Rolando Valdés, the creator of the Orquesta
Sensación , crossed the barrier of 85, after having left the
creation and triumphs of the Orquesta Sensación, of which
there is only one, to history.

Rolando is a true charanguero, the only one who could

face the powerful Aragón orchestra. The musician is still
elegant, a gentleman, holding gatherings at “Los Parados”
(artists' cafeteria) and in front of the Rosseland store.
Talking to the teacher is as if we were taking a time
machine back half a century.

Rolando, how was the beginning of the Sensation?

-In summary, I tell you, in the spring of 1953 three

musicians asked me to organize a brass band orchestra. I
told them, now is not the time, the Three dominate the
game.

Greats: Arsenio, Arcaño, Melodías del 40. But, in the

summer of that same year, the Cha cha chá fever arrived
with “La Engañadora” and the América orchestra. So I told
them: Now is the time! I suggest playing the orchestra La
Farándula or La Sensación. They selected Sensation and I
said “There is only one.”

-And what happened?

- Oh boy, stop that, the world is over!, 223 recordings, 23

LPs, several Gold Records. 1956, the most listened to on the
Victrolas of Cuba. 1957 Radio and TV Critics Award, Most
Listened Orchestra and Gold Record, one million records

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sold. 1958 Rey Momo, the Best Orchestra of the Venezuelan
Carnival. 1960. Bohemia Magazine Popularity Award. 1991
Gold Record, Ivory Coast, awarded by Daniel Cuxac. Tours
Hollywood, New York, Canada, Africa, Latin America. “Little
girl, listen” (Little girl is her sister)

What singers went through the Sensation?

-Dandy Valdés, Celio González, Cheo Junco, Cheo Marquetti,

Alfonsín Quintana, Mario Varona (Tabenito), Barroso, Pablo
Milanés, Luis García. Presentations were made by: Paulina,
Vicentico Valdés, Juana Bacallao, Carmen Flores.

-Can you give me a list of some of the Sensación's

staff singers?

- Dandy was the first, Celio put Roberto Faz and Orlando
Vallejo in crisis with those bolerons from the heart. Cheo
Marquetti was the best repentista in Cuba. Luis Donald was
like a Cuban Lucho Gatica. I found Tabenito asking for
money and he became a star with the song “Sanluisera”.
Tuned like no one else. He was ugly, a boxer, handsome, a
neighborhood boy, but friendly, charismatic, wherever he
came he took everything, they adored him; He suffocated
Barroso with “Sanluisera”, “Danzón chá”, “La paella”. He put
a strange spin on the number and made it a success.
Achiever like Chino from Los Zafiros. Barroso was the
master of son, he had two good moments, but his
breakthrough was in 1955, when he had four hits in a row,
a monster: He opened with the son “En Guantánamo”, it
was over! “El huerfanito”, Juan simón's daughter”, “El
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panquelero”, “El brujo de Guanabacoa”, “Macorina”, “It has
flavor”, “El guajiro de Cunagua”. And in the boleros, be
careful! He was good at everything. Barroso was very
jealous – like all singers – but I took advantage of that
controversy with Tabenito; That heats up popularity, that's
what music is, it's life, and forget about goldfish.

-Who put together the doll with such tasty

orchestrations?

- Rubén González, Rodolfo Reina and Juan Pablo Miranda.

The ideas – the biggest things – were mine, there is always
an idea that dominates and lights the way. I requested
many of the choirs, the montunos, there's the chicken in the
arroz con pollo.

-How did you start?

- My father was a musician, their defender. I was a fighter,

who moved in the business, that's what you now call
"marketing." Before, musicians bought a music theory book
for 25 ctv., I studied and then, a lot of intuition. I worked
with my father, played the guiro and went through many
orchestras in the 1940s.

-I think you had relations with José Antonio Fajardo?

-He was my friend, I named his 1949 orchestra “Fajardo y

sus Estrellas del mambo” (mambo was in fashion). The song
“Ritmo de pollo” was my idea. Later Fajardo created a
musical emporium with three orchestras.

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-Am I sure you had problems with Aragón?

- With Rafael Lay we had a “girigay”, as the people of

Santiago say; record label problems that wanted to compete
for the release of the recordings. In music there are always
rivalries, its pluses and minuses; but we musicians always
end up eating from the same plate, we are from the same
union. We were like La Charanga Habanera now, more
streetwise than Aragón, they were finer, more stylist, the
best.

We greatly exploit the prominence of the solo singer, the

stardom.

- What was the world of dances like in those times of

societies and salons?

-There were black and white societies. The white people

were such great dancers, the black people have a fortune
and they buy a suit and go to the dance, and the next day
for work, they are the ones who move the popular
orchestras. Sometimes it was played for free (as is also
done today at some festivals) to help black societies, the
poorest. I put 16 thousand dancers in the Gran Casino (a
society in Central Havana where the soneros were), La
Tropical we knocked it down, Prado and Neptuno (Amores
de Verano), the floor was shaking and Buena Vista Social
Club, in front of a twelve avenue streets were filled with
people.

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-Tell me about today's salsa and timba?

- I discovered the pianist Juan Carlos Alfonso, I gave him to

Revé and they had an explosion, a prelude to salsa. The Van
Van are the Matamoros of today. La Charanga Habanera
(like the sensation), Adalberto is the sonero of these times.
Chucho Valdés is the barbarian of Latin jazz. José Luis
Cortés is like an Arsenio, what a genius that boy has. NG La
Banda is the steamroller. Much of today's music has
instrumentalists with excellent school technique, but they
lack more flavor, more street, more passion.

-Are you still in music with the Sensation?

- I left it a while ago, now it continues under the direction of

a brother of César Pedroso. I play the güiro with La
Charanga Rubalcaba, I continue in music until death.

ROMEU: A DYNASTY TO RESPECT

Pedro de la Hoz writes that “one of the most splendid,

continuous and fruitful sagas of Cuban music of the 20th
century, which extends into the 21st century, is marked by
the surname of Romeu.

ANTONIO MARÍA ROMEU, THE WIZARD OF THE KEYS

(Jibacoa, Havana, September 11, 1876 / Havana, January

18, 1955)

Antonio María Romeu, the Magician of the Keys, is one

of the colossi of danzón, composer, orchestrator, promoter
of musicians and singers, initiator of piano “solos” and the

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so-called “French charanga” format. a true genius of Cuban
music.

His real name is Antonio María Jacinto Vicente Romeu,

he was born on Comercio Street in Jibacoa, in the port of
Santa Cruz del Norte, where the Habana Club factory
refinery is located.

He was a child prodigy, he began his studies at a very

young age, guided by the priest Joaquín Martínez, then he
continued as a self-taught person with a piano given to him
by his father. Already at the age of ten he was doing it self-
taught and at the age of twelve, wearing shorts, on August
5, 1888, he played his first composition, at a dance, Cariño
no hay mejor café que el de Puerto Rico, at the Liceo del
town of Aguacate. When that started very early.

In 1878 danzón had arrived from Matanzas to Havana

and on January 22, 1899, Antonio María began making soup
(playing for diners), with the piano and an accompanist who
played the güiro, at the Café La Diana, in Reina. and Eagle.
From then on they began to call him El bizco de La Diana.

One fine day, accidentally, the Maestro of Café La

Diana is invited to take part in the intermissions of a dance
at a party at the El Golpe society, on Monserrate Street,
corner of Obrapía. There he would play the danzonera (kind
of orchestra) by Leopoldo Cervantes; At that time, the
danzonera orchestras did not use the piano, they “played
straight”, sometimes they used the Creole harp. Once the
dance has started, Romeu has the idea of incorporating the
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piano into Leopoldo Cervantes' orchestra and thus,
accidentally, the “Charanga Francesa” is officially
formed for the first time in history. The members of the
orchestra were: Leopoldo Cervantes (flute), Ramón
Cervantes (violin), Avelino Ceballos (double bass), José de
los Reyes (güiro), Remigio Valdés (Cuban timpani). All were

amateurs and they played danzones, rigodones, lanceros,

cuadrillas, one.steps and pasodobles. 1

They call the danzonera orchestras “ French

Charanga” because the instrumental group of Cuban dance
adhered to the French tradition through the use of the
piano, violin and flute. Other instruments such as the double
bass, the piano, the pailas and the güiro were incorporated
into this “ French trio” . 2

From then on, Romeu began to distinguish himself as

an excellent musical orchestrator for the entire family of
instruments, even for a giant band of one hundred teachers,
in the Navy Band. With these possibilities he formed a Giant
Orchestra in which he fused the instrumentation of the
charanga orchestra with the typical orchestra, made up of
trombone, trumpet, clarinet, achieving a perfect ensemble.

Romeu creates a piano style, his musical concept was

explained by one of his family heirs, Gonzalo Romeu, who
works as a music teacher in Mexico. “His style consisted of
playing with great brilliance, but with all the simplicity in the
world, with few fingers, so that that simple way would stand
out. A style that was continued in some way by the greats
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who preceded him such as Neno González, Bebo Valdés,
according to their own statements.”

“As a child – the musician Neno González recalled – I

would wear long pants to go see him play, it was the
greatest thing of my time.” For his part, Bebo Valdés
reveals to me in the Calle 54 studios, “From a very young
age I watched Romeu play and, based on what I heard, I
began to create at home with a piano invented with stones.
He left a school that we all followed in one way or another,
even my son follows that style from time to time.”

The stellar pianist from Jibacoa was one of those who

made classical European versions brought to danzón
fashionable: The Barber of Seville (Rossini), The Magic Flute
(in collaboration with Alfredo Brito who was one of his
flutists).

Many symphonic composers: Amadeo Roldán and the

Frenchman Darío Milhaud, introduced fragments of their
danzones into their works. Amadeo in his work Three Poems
, in the third, includes the musical sequence of the last trio
of the danzón África. And Darío in the work Saudades do
Brasil, takes fragments of the danzón titled Ojos
triumphadores.

Special mention deserves to remember the golden

stage that Barbarito Diez had in Romeu's orchestra, an
invincible alliance. They began in 1937, at El Progreso
Cubano (today Radio Progreso) until 1955, when the
orchestra later took the name Orquesta de Barbarito Diez.
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During that stage with Barbarito, Romeu premiered the film
Estampas habaneras on April 10, 1939, where Romeu
performed the danzón Tres lindas cubanas, the first danzón
where a piano “solo” is played. The RHC Cadena Azul radio
station hired Romeu and his orchestra, which was then
called Orquesta Gigante, with typical instruments.
Barbarito with Romeu sang one of the richest musical
anthologies known in Cuba.

“It was Graciano Gómez who contacted me with

Romeu at the Café Vista Alegre, in front of figures like Sindo
Garay, Sánchez Galarraga and Eduardo Robreño. –Barbarito
told Ciro Bianchi-, Graciano told Romeu: “I have had a
manatee boy with me for years who I am sure will be able
to replace Fernando Collazo.” Although Romeu was not very
convinced, the next day he gave me a test. Our
headquarters was Vista Alegre.” 3

The teacher received all honors during his lifetime:

Gold Medal at the Seville Expo (1928), Medal at the
Philadelphia and Seville Expos. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
Medal, from the Fiftieth Anniversary in 1952.

He composed more than 1,500 danzóns, many of them

recorded by Columbia and La Víctor, in the United States.
His first danzón was Míster Pircher no come pelotas, Ten
Dollars, followed by: Beneath the stairs, El Barbero de
Sevilla , Halley's comet, Count Liborio, Sanguily, let me
enjoy, The dredging goat,, Zayas is not going, The
chamberlain, On foot, The conga, The ally, Germany, guard

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your cannon, The Cuban currency, The Compulsory Service,
The Conga, Memories of the Alhambra, The Boys on the
Louvre Sidewalk, La Macorina, The 20th Century, Eva,
Prepare your cannon, The Dance of the Millions Jibacoa, Oh,
I'm Falling, The Magic Flute (with Alfredo Brito) , The
Magician of the Keys and Tres lindas cubanas (made on an
old son by Guillermo Castillo). The maestro adjusted
operatic works such as Rossini's The Barber of Seville to the
popular danzón.

“My most popular danzón was The Magic Flute, the

best paid, but the most popular was Tres lindas cubanas,
which for more than twenty years asked me in the
orchestra. The part of danzón that I like the most is the
piano “solos.” I was the first in that modality, in the Black
Fraternal Union Society in the Jesús María neighborhood of
Havana. The night of the dance I couldn't write the danzón
that was announced; The dance started and I couldn't write
the danzón that was announced. In one of the hallways of
the building I wrote two parts of the danzón, I told the
musicians to play it and at a signal I would give them to
interrupt the written part, which I would continue alone.
That way I started on the keyboard in a coming and going
of colorful and rhythmic filigrees; The dancing audience
stopped dancing, approaching the piano in a large chorus.
Since then, the custom of improvised “solos” began as
something inherent to the danzón form itself, giving rise to
a characteristic element of style.” 4
He was an architect in the orchestrations that allowed
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him to be a kind of co-author of many works by troubadours
and musicians such as Sindo Garay, Graciano Gómez,
Ignacio Piñeiro, Moisés Simons, Rosendo Ruiz Suárez,
Manuel Corona, Alberto Villalón,

Antonio María Romeu, in the words of musicologist Odilio

Urfé, “was like a mambí musically, with his pen he
symbolized the machete of combat, with the pentagram, on
the battlefield and with his music the Cuban offensive.”

1- See Ezequiel Rodríguez, “El maestro del Café La

Diana”, in R/C, October 1976, p. 22 and Eduardo
Robreño, “ In the Centennial of Danzón”, Cuba
Turismo, no. 2 of 1979, p. 25 and Ada Iglesias, Cuban
Folk Music Course at the Summer School of the
University of Havana, 1951
2- -Olavo Alén, Musicological Thought, Cuban Letters,
Havana, 2002, p. 252
3- Ciro Bianchi Ross, “ Want to talk to Barbarito Diez”, La
Nueva Gaceta s/f
4-Ada Iglesias, ob cit.
ARMANDO ROMEU MARRERO

(Jibacoa, Havana, October 22, 1891/ Texas, USA, October

8, 1991)

Armando was director of many bands in Havana, he

performed in Philadelphia, he received the City of Tampa
Award and the New York World's Fair. He founded the
charanga. He was the father of Mario Romeu with whom he
made a long tour of 36 cities in the United States.
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ARMANDO GONZALEZ ROMEU

(Havana, July 17, 1911/Havana, March 11, 2002)

Flutist, saxophonist, orchestrator and conductor. He

studied with his father Armando Romeu Marrero, Alfredo
Brito and Antonio Arcaño. He began in 1919 as a piccolo
player in the Regla Municipal Band. In 1924 he played with
Ted Naddy's orchestra, at the Céspedes cinema, with Nacho
Alemany, and at the National Casino with Earl Carpenter.

He worked with the first jazz orchestras in Havana,

since 1929 he has performed with Los Hermanos Palau, Los
Diplomáticos, Siboney de Alfredo Brito at the Country Club;
He traveled with them in 1932, together with Los
Matamoros, to Spain, Paris, together with Maurice Chevalier
at Montmartre.

Upon his return he founded his own orchestra to debut

at the Eden Concert (Zombie Club), with Rita Montaner, and
they also performed at the Mitsouko cabaret, at the National
Hotel. In 1936 they traveled with the Trió Matamoros and
the couple Julio Richard and Carmita Ortiz to South
America: Lima, Chile.

By 1940 he created the Bellamar Orchestra, a true All-

Star. They perform at the Sans Soucí.

Later he attended the Tropicana orchestra, at the time the

best in Cuba (1942-1967), with this orchestra he
accompanied and arranged four recordings by Nat King Cole
at the Panart in San Miguel.

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 In 1967 he grouped the Cuban Modern Music
Orchestra, with another All Stars, from which came Los
Irakere with Chucho Valdés, Paquito D'Rivera, Arturo
Sandoval, Oscar Valdés, Carlos Emilio, Enrique Plá,
Guillermo Barreto, Jorge Varona.

Armando's work as a harmony teacher was decisive for

many musicians who later became greats in Cuban music.
The maestro is considered one of the fathers of jazz in
Cuba.

MARIO ROMEU

(Rule, Havana, April 27, 1924)

He studied with his father Armando Romeu Marrero

and with his sister Zenaida Romeu, in 1938, in Philadelphia,
with the pianist Jascha Fircerman. He traveled throughout
almost all of the US. After 1940 he developed an intense
career as a concert pianist, composer, arranger and
conductor. I work at the Encanto theater, in the Auditorium,
with Ernesto Lecuona.

Since 1950 he spent a year in the Venezuelan

Broadcasting Orchestra and the Caracas Symphony
Orchestra. Upon his return he conducted the Television
Orchestra

Cuban replacing Alfredo Brito. I accompany Liberace and

Carmen Cabalaro, Sarita Montiel and Lucho Gatica.

Since 1959 he was director of the Cuban Radio and

Television Orchestra (ICRT). It is said that Mario is a man
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with excessive shyness, despite the praise received for his
extraordinary talent. In 1967 he was the musician who
collaborated in the introduction of the troubadour Silvio
Rodríguez on television. “I appeared on television for the
first time – Silvio said in May 1979, in Bohemia magazine –
especially at the instigation of Mario Romeu and some
family and friends, I dared to sit, guitar in hand, in front of
a television camera, and to perform two songs. That night
of the Música y Estrellas program, a space hosted by
Orlando Quiroga as writer and Manolo Rifat as director and
Mario Romeu himself, decided my change of profession. It
was a day after my demobilization from the FAR; on
Tuesday, June 13, 1967.”

Design, with the support of Gonzalo Romeu, the music

with synthetic versions for Enrique Pineda Barnet's film La
bella del Alhambra , with works by Ankermann in the
repertoire of the Alhambra theater, from the beginning of
the 20th century. The works were La Isla de las cotorras
and La Señorita de Maupín . They also used a paraphrase of
the composition Quiéreme mucho (Roig, Gollury and
Rodríguez. They included their own songs such as Rachel
(Rachel's ballad with Adolfito) (Coral Award for the best
soundtrack at the XI Festival of New Latin American Cinema
1989.

ZENAIDA ROMEU GONZÁLEZ

(Havana, June 5, 1910/September 21, 1985)

He studied with his father Armando Romeu Marrero,

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mandolin and guitar. . She was a student of Jascha
Fischermann and Ernesto Berumen. He was a pianist at the
Tosca theater, he performed on the CMBN station founded
by his father. He was soloist of the Sin fóbica Orchestra of
Havana directed by Gonzalo Roig. In 1930 she remained as
director of operettas and zarzuelas with the CMQ Orchestra.
In 1941 he was in the RHC Cadena Azul with his brother
Mario Romeu.

In 1946 she went to Santo Domingo hired by Radio

Yuma, then she traveled through the Caribbean and Latin
America. He became a pianist for the Community House of
Havana, the Cuban Chamber Music Society at the Lyceum
Lawn and Tennis Club. In 1947 she became director of a
popular music orchestra. In 1948 he joined the CMZ station
of the Ministry of Education.

In 1960 he worked in Tía Tata's story-telling children's

programs, in 1965 he formed a children's choir, and he
dedicated part of his life to teaching. One of his students
was Chucho Valdés.

MARIO ALBERTO ROMEU VALDÉS MIRANDA “MAYITO”

(Havana, May 9, 1955)

Guitarist, arranger, producer and composer. I studied

at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and the National School
of Art (ENA). He received master classes from Antonio Lauro
and Ichiro Suzuki and in electroacoustic music with Juan
Blanco. He has joined various groups GMR (1990), Cuban

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Music Orchestra (1993-1995), Televisa de Cancún México
(1993). I work in the groups Síntesis, Amaury Pérez as
musical director and guitarist.

He has orchestrated for the OTI festivals, where he

became musical director in Cuba. , participated as a jury in
La Canción Caribeña, La Canción Cubana Chany Chelacy and
in a religious music festival.

It has a Prize in the Eduardo Saborit de Música Campesina

1982 contest. Caracol Award 1982.

He worked on an album by Carlos Santana, in Cuban rock

music he has offered his contribution. He composed a work
broadcast on rebel radio, for producer Luis Domínguez from
Spain.

BELINDA MARIA ROMEU VALDÉS MIRANDA

(Havana, August 10, 1949)

Actress of Cuban Television, and of the Escambray group.

She appeared as a troubadour at the Casa de las Américas
Protest Song Meeting in 1967, leaving her traces in the
Nueva Trova movement. He worked in the Teatro Estudio
salsa.

His works have been sung by María Luisa Güell, Miriam

Ramos, Pilar Moraguez, María Remolá, Mirtha Medina,
Miriam Bayard, Leo Montesinos, Las D'Aida. He has traveled
through Europe, the USA; and Latin America, she is
currently Cultural Attaché of the Bolivian embassy in Cuba.
He has a book dedicated to immigration. In 1966 –as
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Zenaidita informs me-, Belinda was Silvio's girlfriend and,
through that, she met Belinda's father: Mario, musical
director of the Music and Stars program on Cuban
Television. Mario proposed Silvio to appear on the Música y
Estrellas program. Due to the importance of that event, I
publish the anecdote.

“That night of the Música y Estrellas program, a

program hosted by Manolo Rifat and Orlando Quiroga and
Mario himself, decided my change of profession. It was a
day after my demobilization from Military Service; It was
Tuesday, June 13, 1967... It was something new, beautiful,
fascinating that was enriched in conditions with the first
visits I made to the radio and television studios, where I
met famous people, some of whom I had admired for a long
time. I remember, for example, one time Maritza Rosales
sat listening to me in a hallway where I was singing to
Froilán, Elena Burke's accompanying guitarist, and the
strong impression produced by a phrase she said when
saying goodbye, about my song Y Nada. further. She
doesn't know it, but at that moment I felt important for
doing what I did so naturally, which even helped me think I
was on the right path.”

( Confessions of the troubadour, change of office, Bohemia

Magazine, May 22, 1979, p. 14)

Professor at the Adolfo Guzmán School of Music, 1979.

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ZENAIDITA ROMEU

(Havana, December 4, 1952)

In the 1980s, the first interview with Zenaida Castro

Romeu appeared in Opina magazine. The young woman
was very charismatic, with a youthful presence, she was
always very attractive and unique. He has the talent of his
family.

In that interview I baptized her Zenaida Romeu,

because she is from a dynasty that comes from the 19th
century. Zenaidita recently turned 55 years old, with a true
musical career worth telling. Very hard-working and fighter,
with natural and inherited talent. I remember when he
organized and rehearsed his orchestra in his own residence
in Miramar. We went to see it with the Barcelona producer,
Luis Domínguez, we knew that it was a true novelty that
would go very far.

“I started as a choir director, I founded the mixed choir

Cohesion and the Lyric Study Choir in 1982 directed by
Alina Sánchez. I was in charge of training the actress
Beatriz Valdés to sing in the film La Bella del Alambra.

I directed some choral and orchestral groups in Cuba and

abroad: Choir of the University of Góthenburg, Sweden, that
of the Higher School of Music of Weimar, Germany and the
Cuban Symphony.”

Those opportunities to conduct a large orchestra made

Zenaidita think about her future. Finally, on September 4,

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1993, the Camerana Romeu premiered with the support of
the Pablo Milanés Foundation. “I knew the musical scene of
countries like Spain and I noticed a cultural gap and I
thought that we have a lot to show in our country and
abroad. “I organized this Women's Camerana that I named
Romeo as a tribute to my family, which is one of the
greatest in Cuban music.”

Zenaidita declared to the journalist Mireya Castañeda

(Granma Internacional December 7. 2003) that she belongs
to a culture of a family that has defended national values.
“We inherited a pejorative concept from musicians who
thought that Cuban music is not important, because they
think that the capitalized culture is Central European. I do
believe that we must transcend national culture. At the end
of ten years I stop to look and I realize that he was right,
because we have made our way in many places, not only
here in Cuba where we have a popular, professional
audience, children, dilettantes, not only those who go to the
Minor Basilica of San Francisco de Asís, but a very large
audience.”

The brilliant director is one of the pioneers in the

renewal of Cuban vocal music of the 1980s. Her great leap
to popularity occurred in 1989, when the Salsa Boom was
beginning, the organizers of the International Festival of
New Latin American Cinema selected her to direct the
Concertatorio , a complex and vast symphonic vocal work
by the composer and musician Michel Legrand, which had

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dedicated to the Bicentennial of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.

Legrand predicted a beautiful future for Zenaida in the

musical world. “He surprises me with his youth, but even
more so with his ability to understand each and every detail
of my work.” (P.H. Cuban Salsa, 1997, no. 2)

After this experience with Legrand, Zenaidita directed

the music for the film The Century of Lights , by José María
Vitier, live. A task of great responsibility.

In the domain of the album La Camerana has recorded

several albums, especially La bella cubana (1997) is
remembered. The second was Cuba mia, the theme of a
danzón by his grandfather Armando Romeu. A documentary
was produced with this album, which premiered in 2002 at
the Film Festival and has won six international awards.

He produced with Bis Music an album with works by

Leo Brouwer, JM Vitier, Roberto Valera, Carlos Fariñas. The
third album, recorded in Cienfuegos with Bis Music, Dance
of the Witches, (2004) contains Latin American music.
Fourth CD, Te amaré, music by Silvio Rodríguez and Leo
Brouwer, recorded for a Bolivian film, The Day That Silence
Died. Another album with Chucho Valdés and music by Noel
Smith. He has a Grammy nomination with an album by the
SGAE, together with the flamenco guitarist Serranito,
Sueños de ida y return , Cuban music with flamenco
arrangements, a gem of the album.

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 Zenaidita and Camerana have come a long way, but
there is still a long way to go. The dream of music is to play
at Carnegie Hall, as many Cuban popular musicians have
already done.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE ROMEU DYNASTY:

Consult the works of Leonardo Acosta, Radamés Giro, Pedro

de la Hoz, Rafael Lam

RUBALCABA, A DYNASTY WITH A SEAL OF QUALITY

(Pinar del Río, January 10, 1927)

Rubalcaba is a dynasty with a seal of quality, dating

back to the 19th century with Jacobo González Rubalcaba
(Sagua la Grande, November 28, 1895-1960/ trombonist,
composer, teacher, band director and director of the
Rubalcaba Orchestra, he composed El cadete
constitutional )///Guillermo González Camejo “Rubalcaba
violin, saxophone, clarinet, pianist, director of the Typical
Cuban Concert Charanga “Rubalcaba”). Gonzalito Rubalcaba
(Havana, May 27, 1963, award-winning pianist and ranked
among the ten best in the world). There are two other sons
of Guillermo: Jesús (pianist) and William (bassist) - both
deceased - who were stellar musicians.

Gonzalo already has more than half a century of

experience in music, amazingly, he is in his greatest
moment, at the quintessence of his career. I wanted to have
a big meeting in his little house in the suburbs of El Vedado,
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next to the Almendares River, where the second Havana
was.

In his house, well cared for, with many photos and

posters of Buenas Vista Social Club, of the Estrellas del
Bar Buena Vista Social Club orchestra, of many fellow
musicians: Adalberto Álvarez, Frank Fernández, Artemio
Castañeda (Maracaibo), Revé, Diego El Sigala, Rubén
González, Papy Oviedo, Xiomara Valdés, Leo Vera, Julito
Padrón, Reinaldo Creagh (92 years old), Harold Gramatges,
Paulo FG, Tata Güines.

The teacher has spent about six years throughout

Europe and has reached Australia and New Zealand. He
takes good care of himself, he stopped smoking, he drinks
some whiskey, he eats a lot of fruits and vegetables. His
wife Felicita takes care of all the details, she is on top of
everything.

-Rubalcaba, let's start by taking a look at your

musical career?

- I started doing things at the CMAB station in Pinar del Río,

I was a violinist in the orchestras of Ñico Suárez, the CMQ in
Havana, the Montecarlo Orchestra, and the Combo Los
Churumbeles. In the 1960s he worked at Club Maxim, El
Gato Tuerto, St. John'sy the Barbarán. In 1963 I joined the
Jorrín Orchestra and we traveled to Mali, Akra, Morocco,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, Germany, Hungary and in 1967 I
was present at Expo 67 in Canada. In 1968 he took over the
direction of the Charanga Típica Cubana de Concertas
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(converted into the Charanga Rubalcaba).

-There is a very interesting fact in the Barbarán Club

with the integration of Juan Formell (creator of Los
Van Van), in its musical combo. Let's talk about Juan
Formell with Rubalcaba?

- Juanito talks to me, he asks me to stay playing in my

group, I accepted it, he was 23 years old, he was very
collected and also very respectful. He came from a musical
band, he was not a musician with great technique, but he
was very well trained, he was already developing a trade;
That is why when he arrived in 1966 at the Caribbean
Cabaret Orchestra of the Habana Libre Hotel, he performed
with professionalism. Formell really liked the jazz band
orchestra format, he likes the world of jazz and rock. In the
show Madame pa'cá, he stands out and that is where Revé
discovers him and takes advantage of the fact that there is
a nightlife crisis in the city and then takes him to the
Charanga Orchestra.

- Is there a long period of Rubalcaba in danzón, why

does danzón have its difficulties for instrumentalists,
and do we find conservatory students in Cuba who do
not master that craft?

- Certainly not everyone knows how to play the danzón, it is

a very syncopated music, with cinquillo, traditional cuts, a
whole style that must be learned with skill. You have to
know how to improvise and that goes beyond the academy,
you have to have “touché”, as the French say; You have to
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have “soul”, feeling and heart.

- On the piano, who was the teacher that you

followed?

- Antonio María Romeu, for his way of playing, for his

inspirations, for his special style that he interpreted very
personally, is a true treatise on piano music. He used only
three fingers, with short notes, sarteado, picadito, very
simple, without complexity, but surprising, with a cocoyé
conguero-style sound. They followed that mechanic from
Bebo Valdés, Chucho Valdés and, although many want to
imitate Romeu, very few can do it, quality is quality.

-And what style have you selected?

- We all have influences from the genius master Romeu, I

am very close to the style of Rubén González, a balance
between Peruchín and Lilí Martínez, stars of sonera piano
music.

-Of course I'm not going to waste this opportunity to

tell me about your son Gonzalito?

- Gonzalito is a pianist with natural conditions, his left hand

greatly benefited him, a good rhythm that gives him a lot of
yunfa (strength). He became immersed in rhythm through
his studies of percussion and drums, as is the case of many
young Cuban pianists: Emiliano Salvador, Gonzalito and
others. My son sounded the pans with a fearsome clatter; I
remember that in the piece Gandinga, mondongo y
sandunga, by Frank Emilio, with those setbacks that he

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learned and Guillermo Barreto, such a critical and
knowledgeable musician, was amazed to see him play, how
he doubled with perfect accuracy, he could not believe that
He mastered that difficult technique so well. Europeans
cannot have that dominance that Cubans possess. Gonzalito
learned Cuban and Latin American things with me. In Spain,
when they met Gonzalito, they were stunned by his
fingering and piano mechanism. For some reason, Dizzie
Gillespie gave him that accolade at the International Jazz
Plaza Festival, and he was not wrong. That made a lot of
people very jealous.

- Speaking of Gonzalito, is there an anecdote that I

know about his entry into the Conservatory?

- The story was the following, it turns out that the teacher,
head of the class, who gave him the test, disapproved him
due to lack of conditions, they said he had no rhythm. I told
him: -I am a musician and I show you that my son has
rhythm, we can give him a very complex exercise well
syncopated with a complex tumbao, my son is going to play
it magnificently and then you are going to play it to see if he
can play it.

- What did the teacher tell you?

- Let him leave that...

- When does the Charanga Típica de Concert arrive?

- In 1974, the musicologist and promoter Odilio Urfé asked

me to offer educational Sunday dance programming.

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-Let 's talk about your experience with Jorrín and the
cha cha chá?

-I started with Jorrín in 1963, Rubén González took me and

he went on to the Radio and Television Orchestra. I was
with Jorrín from 1963 to 1974, I got to know the African
countries with Jorrín; In Africa they love Cuban music, we
are their children in music. In the 1980s I worked
accompanying Tito Gómez and Barbarito Diez.

-Let's move on to the new stage with Diego El Sigala?

- We recorded with Diego El Sigala the album Two Black

Tears , which was a best-seller.

- Who are the Cuban musicians who participated in

the album?

- José Luis Quintana (Changuito), Tata Güines, before his

death, and me.

-How did you meet Diego El Sigala?

- He was interested in locating me, I was playing in Berlin,

he found out and went there. I gave him a demonstration
on the piano and he said: “This is what I was looking for.”
Then he invited us to record the album, they sent me
several emails to invite me to Madrid.

- How is this album composed Two black tears.

- It is a fusion between Cuban music and flamenco, many

cantinero boleros that José Feliciano sang in the mid-1960s
and that were very effective.

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-Did you make any other album?

- An album with women in the brass band: Beatriz Márquez,

Omara Portuondo, Osdalgia and others.

- I understand that in 1967 you were at Expo 67 in

Montreal, Canada.

- There we began to spread our music from the 60s, it was

also Senén Suárez who took the combo out of the Cuban
stand.

- Did you participate in the Afro Cuban Orchestra Al,

Stars, which created the Buena Vista Social Club
phenomenon?

- Since 1996 I have participated, like Rubén González.

-How is your Charanga Rubalcaba going?

- La Charanga continues to play, defending danzón and all

Cuban music.

RUBÉN GONZÁLEZ, THE PIANO MAN (Encrucijada, Las

Villas, April 29, 1919 / Havana, December 9, 2003)

This 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the recording

of the album Buena Vista Social Club (Grammy in the
Tropical Music category, 1997) and also commemorates 25
years of the album Introduction, Rubén González
(nominated for the 1997 Grammy).

After those memorable events, Rubén González

reached the status of world pianist, journalists and

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photographers from all over the world captured him in
newspapers all over the planet, the most renowned theaters
received him with the Afro Cuban All Stars Orchestra of
Juan de Marcos Gonzalez.
I visited Rubén at his house on Lucena Street in the
center of Havana. In the 1980s he was at half-time, he had
some rheumatism problems. His treatment was very kind,
he came from a very educated family, in the town of
Encrucijada (Canarian area), former province of Las Villas.
In those days I published an interview with him in the
magazine Opina , the virtuoso pianists (Peruchín, Lilí
Martínez) were a little forgotten; It is in 1984 when a young
man named Juan Carlos Alfonso from the Revé orchestra
appears, who takes up those spectacular tumbaos of the
1940s and 1950s.
Ruben González Fontanills (March 26, 1919 / Havana,
December 8, 2003), began in 1925 with his sister Josefa,
later with Amparo Rizo in Cienfuegos. He graduated in 1936
and moved to Havana in 1940, on the same date as Benny
Moré. He performs with Paulina Álvarez's Charanga and
Paulina's. He works at the Marte y Belona, La Gaviota and
Rialto dance academies with the Elósegui orchestra. He was
in the CMQ Orchestra, Sans Soucí cabaret with Rolando
Laserie. In Havana he interacted with good pianists such as
René Hernández,
Elton Añejo “El Ñato”, Anselmo Sacasa, Jesús López,
Facundo Rivero.
The first turn of interest came in 1943 with his entry

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into the Arsenio Rodríguez ensemble where he acquired the
true school of son. “Arsenio taught me to keep the time
coherent within the key, taking care of the rhythm above
all, so as not to mix up the notes. After following that line, I
can do whatever I want, but always in the measure, square;
with cleanliness in expression. In the “solos” he told me that
I must enter with force, give emphasis and strength to what
I do, so that it is noticeable that I am performing a “solo”.
When you go to enter again, he told me that I should stop
to know where the music is going and then enter again. All
of these instructions seem simple, but there are mechanics
to it. Arsenio taught me everything, he told me: “Up
Rubén,” and I applied his teachings.”
After a stay in the Arsenio complex, he lived for a while
in Panama at the end of the 1940s. From Panama it passed
to Venezuela in 1956 until 1962. Upon his return he joined
the Kubavana ensemble led by singer Alberto Ruiz, creator
of a special style within the modern bolero.
At another time he joined Senén Suarez's ensemble, in
the jazz band Siboney, Riverside, América del 55, Jorrín,
Orquesta de la radio y la Televisión.
In 1994 he was retired, Rosillo, Raúl Planas and the
tresero Arturo Harvey “Alambre Dulce” arrived at his house
to pay tribute to Lilí Martínez; It was the precursor of what
would come later.
Ruben's great moment occurred in 1996 with the
project of Juan de Marcos González in the Afro Cuban All
Stars Orchestra (Buena Vista Social Club), where they

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recorded three albums, two of them nominated: Buena
Vista Social Club and Introduction Rubén González . Finally,
he won the 1997 Grammy for the album Buena Vista Social
Club. He also won another Latin Grammy for the album
Chanchullo, Best Tropical Music Album. “With those wins I
feel as if I had won the lottery,” he told me on the last visit
to his house on Lucena Street in Central Havana.
CONCEPT:
Rubén is a performer who does not like to make
phrases in the style of American jazz players, but rather in
the Cuban style. Work the scales with elasticity and
cleanliness in the phrases. A rigorous craft of perfect
training is observed “I like to sound like Cuban son;
although I am a fan of standard jazz. I have more contact
with Lilí Martínez than with Peruchín, I use my timbral
variants that identify me in the phrases and the concept. In
the “solos”, the important thing is not the speed, nor the
number of notes, but the saying of the phrases, the
rhythmic flavour, the alternation of chords and arpeggios, in
the musical motifs. Inspirations are like quick and fleeting
compositions in
in which natural intuition plays a role, that natural gift for
which one has to be prepared.”
Every time I met Rubén I asked him about his
rheumatism, but he was so stimulated by his successes, by
his travels around the world that he did not give the
slightest importance to his health problems. At that stage of
the Buena Vista Social Club, the prestige of his work, his

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entire family and his country rested on his shoulders. They
were musicians who had a career, sometimes a little
forgotten, but who were prepared for the great opportunity.
That opportunity came with the explosion and rebirth of
trova and traditional son.
Papo Luccas spent hours copying Rubén's "solos",
which he heard on the radio from Puerto Rico, "I consider
Rubén my father in music" -Papo confessed to me in 1978,
on his first visit to Cuba, in the Havana-Jam ( Cuba-USA
Meeting ).
Nick Gold stated: “I have never seen anyone who
enjoys what they play so much. He would spend twenty
minutes practicing fingering exercises and then he would
jump right in. “There was no one who could stop it.” Ray
Cooder calls Rubén “the best piano soloist I have ever heard
in my life. “It's like a Cuban mix of Thelonius Monk and Felix
the Cat.” Daniel Barenboim commented in the presence of
Pedro de la Hoz: “What I like about González is that he
makes a tremendous amount of music easy and
transparent.” The composer
Emilio Cabahilón composed the song for the great pianist:
Rubén piano sounds.
TATA GUINES, THE KING OF THE CONGAS (Güines,
Havana, June 30, 1930/February 4, 2008)

Federico Arístides Soto Alejo “Tata Güines”, along with

Chano Pozo, was one of the most renowned drummers of
the 20th century. Born 80 years ago, throughout 2010

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tributes are being paid to a true legend of the drum. Like
almost all percussionists, he played with a huge number of
bands and musicians from Cuba and the world. In Cuba he
worked with Arsenio Rodríguez, Chano Pozo, Changuito,
Bebo Valdés, Israel López “Cachao”, Guillermo Barreto and
all the greats of Latin jazz (Afro-Cuban), Tata is the creator
of a style, a true classic of drums.
He was born in the Legina neighborhood, a black area
of the town of Güines, a pure street university, where the
son star Arsenio Rodríguez grew up. His father and uncles
played music, the neighborhood was rich in drums and folk
rhythms, he always preferred rumba and son.
As a child they began to call him Tata, he played on
the top of the school desk, he made a pair of bongos with a
can of condensed milk and chorizo. He listened to
fashionable sextets and, to support himself, he worked in a
shoe factory, sold newspapers, and cleaned windshields.
At a very young age he began to play the double bass,
he would climb on a stool with the group Ases del Ritmo,
Partagás, the Típica Montoro, the jazz band Swing Casino,
the group Los criollitos and the charanga Estrellas
Nacientes. Tata plays the bongó, the güiro, the bass and it
was at the age of twelve when he began playing the
tumbadora within the group Las Estrellas Nacientes.
December 4, 1946, professor and music specialist Raúl
Fernández tells us, is a key date in the history of Tata
Güines. That night Tata replaced Arsenio's tumbador, and
Güines' percussionist knew the entire repertoire, he played

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very well and Arsenio invited him to join his group in
Havana. Tata couldn't sleep from excitement, in the
morning he got on bus 33 and joined Arsenio's troop of
Africans. It only lasted a few months, Tata was very crazy,
he did not yet have maturity.
“In Havana they discriminated against the drummers,
they paid us less. It was the last thing! And I said to myself:
“I'm going to give prestige to the instrument.” That's what I
said! I always considered that a violin, a piano or a
tumbadora had the same importance in the orchestra.
Everything requires your art, your craft, your specialty.
Furthermore, without percussion there is no rhythm and
without that, where is Cuban music? Some criticized me:
“You are a dreamer.” And me, looking for a rhythmic
format, bringing out timbres on the leather, to define my
sound. He used his nails, they kept saying he was crazy,
pure fuss. Afterwards, the rest of the percussionists grew
their nails and took advantage of my initiative.” (Interview
by Mayra Martínez)
Then Tata's saga began in the capital: he played the
fifth drum of “candela” in every troupe conga that appeared.
They ended up urinating blood due to the enormous effort.
To find oregano (money) he played harpsichord, bongo,
güiro, timbale, tumbadora, double bass and even sang. In
one of his adventures, Tata met Chano Pozo, and he got to
play with him at some carnivals, where he led Los Dandy de
Belén. “The experience was hard! –he told me in his
apartment in El Vedado- “It was tremendous to play non-

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stop, with the tumbadora hanging, playing it loudly, all over
Prado, from the Malecón.”
Tata was in the cabaretuchos of Marianao Beach and in the
dance academies – another great musical school. He played
with Los Jóvenes del Cayo and La Sonora Matancera. On
Radio Mambí with Guillermo Portabales, with Pao Domini's
New America, La Típica Belisario López, Conjunto Camacho,
in 1952 with the legendary Fajardo y sus Estrellas, in 1949
with Arcaño y sus Maravillas.
With Fajardo he traveled to Venezuela in 1954 and in 1956
to New York where he collaborated with Frank Grillo
“Machito”, Mario Bauzá and Dizzy Gillespie.
In the era of downloads in Havana, he puts together a
group to recordDownload no. 1, Download no. 2. In 1957 he
recorded Miniature Download , a true milestone of Cuban
jazz. Tata's “solos” place the tumbadora as a solo
instrument, taking the role that Cubans have always
dreamed of.
Between 1957 and 1958 he traveled continuously to
New York and Miami where he presented his own five
tumbadoras show. Very few instrumentalists manage to
correctly master five tumbadoras on stage. Thus the
drummer settled in the Waldorf Astoria, “in the cabaret I
improvised, sang and made my repertoire. I decided to put
five tumbadoras with the intention of ambiance that, with
different tunings. Although I tell you that with two
tumbadoras I get the sound of five, the quantity does not
matter, the point is knowing how to combine them. Not

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everyone entered that hotel, everyone was rich. At the
Waldorf fame lasted until the stage. Then, as the signs said
“Only for white”. They paid me well, I had a car and
everything. But I never adapted to that life. I wasn't happy.
And I didn't learn three words in English. He lived at Pasia,
a hotel for blacks in Manhattan. I went to Harlem, the jazz
district. He was always surrounded by jazz musicians. In
Birdland I unloaded with Maynard Ferguson and Chico
Hamilton. At the Palladium he participated in Latin
performances, it was the great moment for Latin people in
New York. In Florida he played at the Fontainebleau in
Miami Beach, the hotel where Sinatra visited. In all these
spaces I left my mark, the mark of Cuba.”
1959
In 1959 Tata returned permanently to Cuba,
interacting with the best in the tumbadora: Yeyo Iglesias,
Agustín Gutiérrez, Chocolate, Alambrito, Armando Peraza,
Candito Camero, the “Colorao” – the one who opened the
gap, placing the tumbadora within the orchestras.
Then he joined the Modern Music Instrumental Quintet,
founded by Guillermo Barreto with Frank Emilio (piano),
Gustavo Tamayo (güiro), Papaíto Hernández Orlando López
“Cachaíto” (bass). They record Gandinga, tripe and
sandunga . After May 15, 1960, Tata participated in “jam
sessions” at the Cuban Jazz Club in Tropicana. In 1962 they
recorded Scheherezada cha cha chá , a standard by Piloto
and Vera. The Revolución newspaper recognizes Tata, Pello
el Afrokán, Los Papines.

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 In 1964 he founded his own group Tata Güines y los
Tataguinitos . They made an epoch at the Salón Mambí,
with the song El perico is crying .
In 1966, on Radio Progreso, he recorded Carga Latina
with the Combo Siboney and the Conjunto Guaguancó
Matancero (later converted into Los Muñequitos de
Matanzas).
In 1974 he returned to New York, reunited with the
Típica '73 orchestra, those were the times of the Latin salsa
boom. Recorded Drum Party by Mariano Mercerón and Pa´
enjoy by Félix Reina with Juan Pablo Torres, Barreto,
Johnny Rodríguez, Alfredo de la Fe, Guillermo Barreto and
Mario Rivera.
In 1978 he participated in the Cuban delegation at the
Cuba-USA Meeting (Havana Jam), at the Carlos Marx
Theater in Havana. A momentous event with stars from
here and there.
Later he participated, in 1979, in the series of five albums
Estrellas de Areíto , organized by Juan Pablo Torres, with
stellar figures of the moment: Jorrín, Chapottín, Sandoval,
Rubén González, Orestes Varona, Pío Leyva, Niño Rivera,
Richard Egües, Guillermo Barreto, Amadito Valdés, Teresa
G. Caturla, Gustavo Tamayo, Tito Gómez, Miguelito Cuní,
Pepe Olmo and Felo Bacallao.
At the beginning of 1980 he returned with the group
Los Amigos (former Modern Music Quintet). He played in
1987 with the group Irazú, led by Chilean Raúl Gutiérrez
Villanueva. In 1994 he recorded the album Pasaporte , with

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Miguel Angá – considered the new Chano Pozo. An album
with Orlando Valle (Maraca) follows, the CD Formula One .
He works with José María Vitier on the album Habana
secreta , he is a guest artist of the Cubanismo project of
Jesús Alemañy, based in London. With Alfredo Rodríguez he
recorded Cuba linda in Paris, together with the Conga de
Los Hoyos. With Jane Bunnet he records Chamalongo . In
1995 he participated in the album Tumbao All Stars with
Chucho Valdés, Frank Emilio, Cachaíto, Richard Egües,
Miguel O' Farrill, Alberto Corrales, Pedro Arioza, Eduardo
López. The album came out in 1997.
In 1998 they paid tribute to Tata in Mecca, at the
Lincoln Center in New York, with the Cuban Quintet of
Modern Music and the artistic direction of Wynton Marsalis.
The only ones left alive were: Tata and Frank Emilio, in
homage to Frank Emilio they performed Scheherezada, Pa´
gozar, Gandinga, mondongo and sandunga . In that same
year he traveled with Changuito to Colombia to the
Barranquijazz Festival where he was honored. Participate in
the Buena Vista Social Club project. Finally he recorded the
album Reflejos ancestrales with Frank Emilio.
In the new 21st century, Juan Pablo Torres called him
to make the album Son que chévere . In 2002 they filmed
the documentary and CD Cuban Odyssey: Spirits of
Havana , produced by Jane Bunnet. He returns with Alfredo
Rodríguez to record the album Cuban Jazz . In 2003 he
recorded Habana Report with Ernán López-Nussa. Daniel
Amat quotes him for The piano that I carry inside . In 2004,

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Fernando Trueba invited him and Changuito to Spain for the
album Lágrimas negra, with Diego el Cigala and Bebo
Valdés. The album was the most popular thing of that year.
CONCEPT
Tata Güines has the merit of having established a “sui
generis” technique for playing the tumbadoras and elevating
the instrument to the highest level, according to Raúl
Fernández. For his part, Leonardo Acosta considers Tata
elegant and sometimes explosive.
It is indisputable that the father developed a style, his
own technique, intuited by himself. Its essential objective
was to find a clean sound, with many nuances. That style
constitutes a school, which is why many percussionists
follow it.
“Every teacher has his or her little book. There are some
who raise their hands very high. They are effective,
launching the blow from above. They “fight” with the
tumbadora. An absurd fight! It's a mistake. That's why I
work close to the patch. Otherwise you lose speed and you
get tired at half the number.”
In this way it maintains stability, in reality hard hits do not
produce pleasant and sweet sounds, capable of reaching the
ear without disturbing. “I am recognized as one of the
fastest “left hands” on the drum. Some think I'm left-
handed. Not so, the left hand determines the rhythm. There
is the truth. It is not a matter of practice or strength. I'm
not big. When I started in Havana I didn't even weigh half a
pound. “I was always fast.”

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Indeed, Tata produces the same sound intensity with either
of his hands. The left gives the rhythm, the right the dry
sounds, and the melody is born between the two. But its
secret is found in the left-handed blows and these
combinations have found their followers not only among
tumbadores, but also in paileros, and pianists. “I listen to
the orchestras and recognize, without difficulty, the touches
created by me.”
Tata creates, in about forty minutes, a real show with
the tumbadoras, he seeks out the audience's mechanics, he
puts people in his pockets, he knows that what counts is the
emotion, the soul, the atmosphere and the correct
technique. Tata is not afraid of the public, he has stood on
the best stages in the world as a monarch of Cuban sounds.
URFÉ, A DANZONERA FAMILY

José Urfé González (Madruga, Havana, February 6,

1879/Havana, November 14, 1957)

José studied in Madruga and in the capital where he

arrived in 1895, he studied clarinet, in 1910 he founded the
Casino Musical Academy, directed music bands and founded
his own charanga where his sons José, Esteban and Orestes
played. José also had a musician brother named Jesús.

In 1902 he worked with Cheo Belén Puig in Enrique

Pena's orchestra with whom he traveled, in 1896, to the
United States and Mexico where danzón was very beloved
music.

José's great contribution consists of creating the

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famous danzón El bombín de Barreto (dedicated to Julio
Barreto), giving a new structure to the last trio, with that
expressive liberality, in which he defined the later form of
Cuban danzón by fusing it for the first time with the son,
defining since then the future novelty of the danzón. It was
the first revolution of the danzón that would later receive
another new air in 1929 with the danzonete of Aniceto Díaz,
with the work Rompiendo la routine.

Other of his danzones are: Fefita, Nena, El churrero, El dios

chino, El progress, Así es el mundo, Aurora I, Blanca Lilia,
Casino Musical, Cienfuegos, Cuyaguateje, Mariposita mia,
Se mata Goyito, Viva Romay.

JOSÉ ESTEBAN URFÉ GONZÁLES: (Madruga, Havana,

December 26, 1910/Havana, December 23, 1979)

José Esteban was a clarinetist and orchestra director.

He studied with his parents and with Amadeo Roldán in the
capital, Serafín Pro and Carlos Fariñas. He worked with his
brother in the Charanga Urfé and was director of the José
Martí theater orchestra. In Barcelona he performed as a
pianist for a long time. He was a composer with a lot of
Cubanism, as was his entire family.

Compositions: Beautiful nightingale, In my distant

loneliness, Let me tell you, He wrote many songs such as
The corner of Havana (lyrics by Eduardo Robreño), The
secret life of Don Juan Tenorio (text by F. San Pedro), Fear
(shared with lyrics by Nicolás Guillén), Your looks (Lyrics by
EN Rodriguez). He also composed works for piano and
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clarinet.

ODILIO URFÉ: (Madruga, Havana, September 18,

1921/Havana, June 18, 6, 1988)

Odilio Luis Esteban Urfé González, pianist and musicologist.

He studied with his father and the piano with his mother
Leonor Gonzales, his father and with María Josefa Pardiñas.
At the Municipal Conservatory of Havana he was a student
of María Luisa Chartrand. He founded and managed Joseíto
Valdés' ideal orchestra and played the flute with the
Municipal Music Band. He stayed for a time with Cheo Belén
Puig and with Armando Valdés Torres' Gris orchestra and
came to work with the Chamber of Commerce Orchestra.

On October 19, 1949, he founded and directed the

Folkloric Research Institute with the objective of rescuing,
collecting, disseminating and defending Cuban music. The
Institute was of enormous support to music scholars who
passed through that facility in large numbers. From
Francisco Formell Madariaga (father of Juan Formell),
Ignacio Piñeiro, Manuel Moreno Fraginal, the Urfé family and
many other eminences.

In 1963, this Institute was renamed the Seminar of

Cuban Popular Music, a kind of conservatory for the
improvement of musicians like Juan Formell himself. Since
1988 it began to be called the Odilio Urfé Center and
Information and Promotion of Cuban Music. It currently
belongs to the Music Museum.

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 In 1955 he founded the Urfé Academy belonging to the
Borges Conservatory; In 1954 he was advising the Mexican-
Cuban film La rosa blanca (Moments in the life of José
Martí), on that occasion he had contacts with the Spanish
musicologist Adolfo Salazar. Later he also advised the films
Cuba canta y baila, Danzón Lecuona, La rumba.

Odilio had countless musical positions: In the Bulletin

of the Cuban Commission of UNESCO, in 1962 he organized
the I National Festival of Cuban Popular Music.

Already during the period of the Revolution, almost the

entire world traveled as a juror, official and Cuban
representative. He became a Cuban representative in the
UNESCO International Music Council. He even appeared as a
lecturer at the Carnegie Hall theater in New York.

He fought for the decolonization of Cuban music, which

was very alienated in certain sectors. He was a true
defender of everything Cuban. He talked a lot with the
teacher, he was tireless, he offered me many of his
publications. When Los Irakere were unknown to many
musicologists, at the UNEAC Music Association, he very
resolutely raised the validity of the new Cuban music of
international reach.

ORESTES URFÉ GONZALES: (Madruga, Havana, October

31, 1922 / Havana March 9, 1990).

He studied with his parents and was a violinist in the

Charanga Urfé directed by his own father. He had a turning

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point when he studied in 1947 at the Berkshire Music Center
in the USA with excellent teachers. He went on to play
double bass in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He also got
to play with the Boston Pops Orchestra at the Wardorf
Astoria hotel in New York.

In 1956, a great moment in music, he was already in

the effervescent Havana as double bassist of the
Philharmonic, in 1961 with the Theater and Dance
Orchestra, the National Ballet Orchestra and the National
Concert Charanga, directed by Odilio Urfé. He was a
professor at the National School of Art founded in 1962.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Data from Odilio Urfé, Helio Orovio,

Radamés Giro, Virgilio Diago Urfé.

XAVIER CUGAT, THE KING OF SWEET MUSIC

(Gerona, Spain, January 1, 1900/Barcelona, October 27,

1990)

Xavier Cugat was the main promoter of sweetened

Cuban and Latin American music, he was born with Aché for
the music business and knew how to give a twist to the
complicated and resounding Cuban rhythms such as the
conga and the rumba to adapt it to popular and mass taste.

To a certain extent, he must be classified as Cuban

because, although he was born in Spain, he lived in Havana
from the age of three, studied until he was twelve at the
Peyrellade Conservatory and absorbed the tasty Cuban
music at the beginning of the 20th century and later with

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the musical emissaries that They arrived in New York.

He became a professional at the Payret theater with a

trio composed of Moisés Simons ( El manisero ). At the age
of twelve he became First Violin of the National Symphony
Orchestra of Havana. In this way, at the age of twelve, he
made a caricature of Caruso and became a friend of the
Italian divo who invited him to New York to perfect himself
on the violin.

In New York he worked with Rita Montaner, they

worked on Broadway for 18 months and then he joined his
friend Caruso on a tour and perfected his studies in Berlin.

He returned to New York in 1924, performed in a

concert at Carnegie Hall, on that occasion he came to the
conclusion that he would never be a violin superstar, he did
not want to be a “second player”; He thought about leaving
music when he enrolled as first violin in Vicent López's
orchestra. They tried to experiment with popular music, but
found a way to get into business in Los Angeles. In one of
the antique exhibitions he exhibited his caricatures of
Hollywood stars, they were very successful, he was hired in
the mecca of cinema, and he got to know the genius Charles
Chaplin.

He married the singer Carmen Castillo (he met her

while modeling for the actor Dolores del Río). Carmen is the
one who introduces him back to music. In 1927 he formed
his orchestra, specializing in Latin and Spanish music. They
performed at the Montmartre in Hollywood with the
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presentation song Estrellita . Latin music began to be
introduced in the United States until the arrival of the great
Boom of 1930 with the Cuban song El manisero, recorded
by Antonio Machín with the Justo Don Azpiazu orchestra.

Cugat's success became a celebrity in Hollywood, the

great Cuban and Latin hits began to spread. He hired tango
dancers presented as “gigolos.”

The great global breakthrough was achieved in 1932

with a contract for the ballroom in the prestigious Waldorf
Astoria hotel in New York. Latin music becomes popular
from coast to coast. He participated in various films, they
called him King of Tango and King of Ballroom Rumba.
Recordings were pouring in for the RCA Víctor label.

They began the inexhaustible tours throughout the US,

their thesis was based on these words: “Americans don't
know anything about Latin music; They do not understand
it, nor do they feel it. So the music given to them should be
more for the eyes than for the ears. 80% visual, the rest for
the ears.”

He accompanied a huge number of singers, especially:

Lena Roma, Rita Cansino (Rita Haywort), Bing Crosby,
Frank Sinatra, Miguelito Valdés, Bobby capó, Desi Arnaz,
Fernando Álvarez, Alfredo Sadel, Daniel Santos, Tito
Rodríguez and Miguelito Valdés " Mr. Babalú”, who gave the
orchestra an Afro-Cuban touch.

“The rhythms of our orchestra,” said Cugat,

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“captivated the American public who only used music as a
background for conversations. The Latin rhythms introduced
another atmosphere that forced them to move and get up
from the tables to dance and live a new experience.”

Finally the musician settled in the Ritz hotel in

Barcelona with the desire to set up a phenomenal casino in
Ibiza, a radio station called Radio Cugat. The wishes were
not fulfilled despite having lived 90 years. In the Gerona
cemetery, he is remembered with a tombstone that says:
“Xavier Cugat, Catalá Universal” and as an epitaph “Cugat,
que va viure”.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Album Notes Xavier Cugat and his Orchesta With Miguelito

Valdés, Tumbao TCDO23. Courtesy of Professor Sergio
Santana ( Great Orchestras of America ), and thanks to
Uninorte FM Estéreo by Rafael Bassi Labarrera from
Barranquilla Colombia.

FINAL:

Cuban musicians made a circular journey of five

centuries: They came from tribal units – like all men on the
planet – in societies with oral tradition, that is, at the
beginning of society. From then on, the musicians were
always eternally disturbing and permanently revolutionary.

They made an effort to express through their

instruments everything that is within us and beyond our
reach. In all these years they made a call for union - like

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love - with everything that, although it is within us and is
part of us as well, is also, and for this reason, greater than
us, as the Professor Arcy Hayman.

Cuban musicians were not content with discovering

reality and interpreted it like no one else did for others.
They helped understand cultural realities. They were
present in all the memorable moments of the founding of
the Cuban nation. They gave solemnity to the most decisive
moments of the country.

In the fields where the mambises shed their blood in

abundance, the troubadours were there to sing the heroics,
the feats, the great epics for the freedom and independence
of Cuba. They faced cannons, they were more effective than
bullets. They ignored geography, they did not need a
passport to send their music by sky and sea.

The musicians conquered our vital environment, they

are the officiants of the true Cuban culture; They set up
shop wherever they went and quickly climbed the stairs of
success. At no time could music be excluded from Cuban
life. It is the driving force of Cuban rhythms. They threw
sparklers into the world of sounds, they narrated the story,
the chronicles, they transmitted the story with a musical
support. They created epic poems, and it is thanks to these
artists that many unforgettable songs survive. They also
reproduced and made their own instruments; They were
part of the unfolding of everyday life events.

They were at the ceremonies, parties, weddings,

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births, baptisms, bohemian downloads, parties, parties,
festivals. His music was the driving force to communicate
and promote peace between people. They were interpreters
of celebration , of good times, escorted by the trumpets of
fame, as the Greeks said of their aeds, bards and
rhapsodes. They put us on the musical map of the world
and engraved the name of CUBA in stone.

INDEX:

INTRODUCTION

I- The empire of Cuban music

II- Cuban musicians

III- The kings of percussion

IV- This is Cuban music

V- The island of music

VI- The mecca of rhythms

VII- Understand Cuban music

VIII- Cuban music concept

IX- Music gave Cuba: unity, identity and joy

MUSICIANS

1-Adalberto Álvarez

2- Alejandro García Caturla

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3- Alejo Carpentier

4- Alfredo Brito

5- Amadeo Roldan

6- Amadito Valdes

7- Aniceto Diaz

8- Antonio Arcaño

9- Armando Orefiche

10- Arsenio Rodríguez

11- Azpiazu

12- Bebo Valdes

13- Benny More

14- Carmen Valdes

15- Compay Second

16- Changuito

17- Chano Pozo

18- Chepin

19- Chico O Farrill

20- Chucho Valdes

21- Eduardo Cordova

22- Eduardo Sanchez de Fuentes

23- Emiliano savior

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24- The Chori

25- Enrique Jorrin

26- Enrique Lazaga

27- Ernesto Lecuona

28- Esteban Salas

29- Fernando Ortiz

30- Frank Fernandez

31- Generous Jimenez

32- Gonzalito Rubalcaba

33- Gonzalo Roig

34- Grenet

35- William Barreto

36- Ignacio Pineiro

37- Israel Lopez

38- Jorge Luis Prats

39- JoséLuis Cortés

40- Juan White

41- Juan Formell

42- Juan CarlosAlfonso

43- Juanito Marquez

44- July Cave

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45- Leo Brouwer

46- Lilí Martínez

47- Lopez Gavilan

48- Manuel Saumell

49- Manuel Galban

50- Maraca

51- Mariano Mercerón

52- Mario Bauza

53- Miguel Faílde

54- Miguel Matamoros

55- Moses Simons

56- Neno González

57- Nilo Menendez

58- Ninon Mondejar

59- Orestes Lopez

60- Oscar Valdes

61- Pancho Amat

62- Paquito D´Rivera

63- Perez Prado

64- Peruchin

65- Puppy
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66- Rafael Lay

67- Rene Hernandez

68- King Montesinos

69- Richard Egues

70- RolandoValdes

71- romeu

72- Rubalcaba

73- Ruben Gonzalez

74- Tata Guines

75- Urfe

76- Xavier Cugat

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475
476
477
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479