Musical
Revolutions – what is happening in Cuban music today?
Interviews with Juan de Marcos Gonzalez and Carlos Alfonso August
2004 La Habana, Cuba by Cristina Dio
It is because of Cuba’s revolution
in 1959 that musical traditions have been preserved on the island,
and musicians are able to study music at the expense of the state
for up to 20 years! But has the system actually oppressed musical
development? Post-revolution, progress ceased on many levels due
to the US trade embargo, but is Cuban music also stuck in a time
warp? Or is this the perception of a world over-exposed to Buena
Vista Social Club branding? I asked the question while recently
in Havana of two of the most prominent producers of music there
today, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, ex-Sierra Maestra,
director of the Afro-Cuban Allstars and responsible for the Buena
Vista Social Club, and Carlos Alfonso, director
of fusion group Sintesis. Not everyone was in agreement on the
state of musical affairs in 21st Century Cuba. You can also read
the comments of Oscar Valdes’ (co-founder
of Irakere and now director of afro-Cuban jazz ensemble DIAKARA)
here.
I caught up with Juan De Marcos at the plush art deco Hotel Cohiba,
the largest and most prestigious hotel in Havana, presiding over
the city’s bayside stretch, El Malecon. We settled on the
comfy lounge with a few friends and mojitos all ‘round.
Cristina:
Havana feels like it stopped in the 50’s – we meet
up in a hotel like this and its very 50’s! What do you think
about that? (We laugh)
Juan De Marcos:
“In fact, you know because of the American embargo we have
been stopped in time and at the Triumph of the Revolution in 1959,
every kind of commercial relationship with the States, who is
the owner of this part of the world…stopped. So we stopped
in time as well, so that’s why you can see very old cars…and
besides we are 50’s people! We love that time – it
was the golden period of the Cuban history and the time where
we really explored the Cuban identity and the Cuban personality.”
Cristina:
Had there had not been a revolution do you think that period would
still have been Cuba’s golden era? Progress was forcibly
oppressed at that time.
Juan De Marcos:
“I think they stopped because of the embargo, not the revolution.
You know, there is a law that everything is linked. Everything
that happens in a certain time of history is because of something
that happened before.
There are a lot of things but I think the American embargo was
very bad for the Cuban people because we didn’t have the
possibility to be really in touch with the rest of the world and
you know communists make a very strict and tight kind of society
(he indicates by pressing his hands together) so that’s
why we were a little bit outside. Now Cuba is opening up much
more to the world. After the 90’s we’ve been opening
up much more the doors to the investments of foreigners in the
country, and I don’t agree with that. I agree with that
but in a certain sense I disagree…and I think that Cuba’s
going to be back to normal times in about 50 years. It’s
a lot … it takes a long time to get back to the real time.”
Cristina:
So what did the revolution do for the music?
Juan De Marcos:
“I think that because of the revolution we have very good
schools and that’s why we have kept alive the spirit of
the Cuban identity and the Cuban music. You know normally in the
capitalist countries, the world of the music is very commercial.
Here in Cuba, its not that commercial, so that’s why we
kept alive the spirit of the real things and the real identity
of the Cuban music…besides we have very good schools and
I think that the best musicians on this side of the world, including
America, are Cubans. The best musicians. You can find great piano
players of only 19 years old…genius…that’s incredible!
So I think that’s because of the revolution…otherwise
the music would be commercial and we didn’t have the possibility
until the government, in a poor country like Cuba, invested so
much money into the educational system.”
Cristina:
But Cuban music is very commercial everywhere else in the world.
It’s just incredibly popular everywhere so how do you reconcile
this – you aren’t very much in agreement with commercialisation
of the music, but Cuban music sales are phenomenal around the
world.
Juan De Marcos:
“I think that we’re selling good, that’s cool,
but we’re selling good the real thing. We’re selling
good the traditional Cuban music, which is good. But it’s
really difficult for example to have success with traditional
American music for example and I have known really great singers…Cougar
died poor in his country – he was one of the best guys.
Do you know what happened with the Cuban traditional music is
that with the success of the Buena Vista Social Club which really
pushed the Cuban music in the world, happened because of many
different factors. For example, in the 90’s, after the crash
of all the communist countries in the world, everybody was expecting
the crash of the Cuban system and all eyes were turned to Cuba
to see what would happen in Cuba. Everybody was expecting a crash
in a year maximum… and besides, the BVSC had the charm of
the old guys, it means that the protagonist of the film and the
album were very old people who were supposed to be in their houses
doin’ nothin’!
And this is very important because normally it doesn’t happen
in the rest of the world. Mainly in Europe or Australia or these
undeveloped countries – this was the first time there was
a link between Cuban and American musicians doing a project and
all this was done by me representing the Cuban people and all
these stars of the old generation, and Ry Cooder who is an American
musician.
Besides after the 90’s crash of the communist countries,
Fidel Castro had no choice but to open the doors to foreign investment
and start with the tourists to bring money to the country so people
started coming to Cuba and rediscovering the essence of the Cuban
music. It was very successful kind of music in the first half
of the 20th Century and because of all these things the BVSC was
a big success after the BVSC, everything coming from Cuba became
successful.”
But not everyone in Cuba rode on the success of the Buena
Vista Social Club. For some artists, like Carlos Alfonso, the
Buena Vista concept enforced an outdated stereotype of Cuban music
that he with his band Sintesis had been trying to overcome for
years. According to Carlos, the perceptions the Buena Vista Social
Club left on the world were not indicative to what is really going
on in Cuban music today, and for his group, proved more damaging
than beneficial.
Cristina: So how did the revolution affect conditions for
the Cuban musician?
Carlos Alfonso:
“I like the question of how the revolution changed the conditions
for Cuba’s musicians. Cuba was very famous in the 1950’s
through cinema, Cuban music such as the cha-cha-cha, danzon and
son travelled the world in the movies. The revolution came, the
blockade, and this created a vacuum where the music stopped travelling
out of Cuba. Many years pass and by the 70’s a new movement,
the Nueva Trova came in – singer/songwriters with guitars,
a movement that swept through all of Latin America and parts of
Europe.
Then the big boom. Along came an American guy with a slide guitar,
a guy called Ry Cooder. They started the great movement of the
Buena Vista Social Club and the world got what it wanted. They
say he (Ry Cooder) discovered us, but it created a misrepresentation
of Cuban music today, omitting years of music in between. Groups
like Van Van, Irakere, Sintesis were flattened by the fame of
a music we considered to be for tourists. The maracas and bongos…it
was a cliché. If that’s how they want to see Cubans
with the maracas and the bongos and the tres…?
The development of music was not able to breakthrough the frontier
made by that movement. That there is great jazz and rock and new
styles of music that haven’t received the same type of promotion.
Here we do everything – popular music, there is rap, r'n'b,
but the only thing the world knows is the Buena Vista Social Club!
We haven’t benefited at all from that movement. I travelled
with Eliades Ochoa (part of the Buena Vista Social Club) and supported
him. It was a social phenomenon of a music that was popular before
I was born. It left us in a no-man’s land.”
While commercialisation through BVSC may have been damaging,
Alfonso agrees with the benefits enjoyed by artists in post-revolutionary
Cuba.
Carlos Alfonso:
“I was able to study as a child. Musicians in Cuba have
to work hard like everyone else, but we can live as musicians
here. In other countries, only the famous few groups can survive
as musicians. In Cuba we have the conditions to be able to dedicate
ourselves to our music. Young people today have opportunities
and privileges we didn’t have as kids.”
Cristina: So in a closed system, how do outside influences reach
the ears of musicians in the island?
Carlos Alfonso:
“We receive all forms of influences form the US radio as
well as very good diffusion of international music within Cuba.
I think that the influence has been here since Elvis Presley and
rock n’ roll. The Cuban musician knows, has an ability,
is able to integrate all this into “our” music and
even cult music can be converted to danzon – has been mixed
with traditional Cuban music and the fusion of jazz and rock with
Cuban music – almost everybody does that here. Cuba, like
Brasil and the USA is one of the three fountains of popular music.
In the US they mix all forms of music. Brasil is often closed
to international music, but Cuba has its doors open to new sounds.”
Cristina: From this background of influence, how did Sintesis
hone their style?
Carlos Alfonso:
“In the late 70’s(we had) what they call progressive
rock, (like) Pink Floyd etc, above all, English (influences).
We started that era – all the guys wanted to play rock,
then as the group matured we wanted to find our own style and
sound so we began investigating and searching in everyday life.
We go to a “toque de santo” (an afro-religious celebration)
in Trinidad and got prickles on our skin for seeing the drums
and that stayed with us. It seemed natural to fuse these styles
as at the base of everything are those traditions - African rhythms.
In Cuba it is very strong and is kept alive. We mixed the sounds
– rock, jazz, African rhythms and created this fusion. It
had great success and we toured Latin America, the States and
Europe. We were awarded with prizes.”
Cristina: So after this how do you see the development of music
here into the future?
Carlos Alfonso:
“Music in the present and future? I don’t know what
will happen. I feel like music these days is in a bad state. The
problem is a commercial one. Producers are pushing artists to
churn out hits – a thing that sometimes artists don’t
want to do but have to to survive. In this I feel there is a lot
of music of the 70s and 80s that were commercial in those days
and are today cult music.”
Cristina: The social importance and prevalence of music cannot
be denied within Cuban society. Despite it being the toughest
period ever for Cuba, is music here today, in your opinion still
a living, thriving phenomenon?
Carlos Alfonso:
“La musica para nosotros… the music for us is the
biggest thing there is, not just for the musicians but for the
whole community. You may come to Cuba and encounter poverty and
bad living conditions and low wages but you’ll see massive
sound systems because people here really need the music. The public
is very Latin, very dancing and they need the music – every
week fiesta. It is the most important ingredient in life. I can’t
live without music.”
Cristina: And during these tough times how do you think the
musician is faring?
Carlos Alfonso:
“All we can do is maintain the spirit of the music and do
the best we can but I don’t see a good future for music
generally. I see it at its worst moment. I talk to my musicians
and they feel that there is nothing interesting going on –
nothing that draws our attention. Cuban music is also in a bad
moment. Because people are desperate and there are many groups
following a model, many people just want to make a hit and become
millionaires and not concerned with making the music. I see what
the TV is promoting and what groups are coming out and it is rare
to see a group that is making music for its sake. There is a lot
of the same stuff. In Cuba, the public is great, “exigente”
(demanding), and knows their music. The dance band is of excellent
quality. I am not referring to dance music, but to the rest –
pop, rap etc that doesn’t have a base.
To learn more about Sintesis click on www.gruposintesis.com
