by Susan Kepecs
Dr.
Juan de Marcos González wears a string of green and yellow beads on his
wrist. This bicolored bracelet is the
iddé of Orula, orisha mayor, oracle, brother of Changó, personification of
knowledge, keeper of all secrets of life and nature. Juan de Marcos isn’t particularly religious,
but the iddé is apt – the man personifies knowledge of Cuban music. He’s the keeper of its flame; he knows,
better than anyone else, its secrets, and the many facets of its brilliant
nature. He sees its future. For these reasons, Marcos is the UW-Madison
Arts Institute Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence this fall – and the purveyor
of the Cuban music experience not just on campus, but beyond the ivory
tower. He heads a series of performances
and lecture-demomstrations that are open to the public. This week he offers us
two events with his own master project, the Afro-Cuban All Stars. On Tuesday, Sept. 29, there’s a lec/dem at
Music Hall (7:30 PM) – and on Friday, Oct. 2, the ACAS play a gala performance
at Overture Hall at 8.
Juan de
Marcos is a world class, multilingual intellectual with advanced degrees in
hydraulic engineering and agronomy, musical training at Havana’s premier conservatories, and a deep, wide knowledge of son y rumba rooted in his personal
family experience. Family looms large for
Marcos, and the iddé is part and parcel of his heritage. “It’s something I’ve
had since I was little,” he says, “though not this particular one. My mother gave it to me when I was only
seven. I didn’t like it; I frequently
threw it away, and then she’d give me another one. About four years ago I made this one – not as
a religious object, but as a tribute to my family and my culture.
The Afro-Cuban All Stars, which has been around much longer than that particular
wrist band, is also a tribute to his family and culture. The idea for the project was sparked by the
success of Marcos’ first band, Sierra Maestra, which he put together while he
was a graduate student at the Universidad de la Habana. “A bunch of students got together to
play music in '76,” he told me some years ago when I interviewed him for
another upcoming ACAS concert. “Most of
our peers were drawn to British and US bands that had the allure of forbidden
fruit.”
Not that there was any authorized
rock n’ roll from “la yuma” on the big socialist island. But in Havana there were clandestine late-night rooftop
listening sessions revolving around radio pirated from Miami, and in 1973 the groundbreaking Cuban jazz/rock fusion
band Irakere, fronted by Chucho Valdés, started enlisting traditional Cuban rhythms
in the service of new, US-influenced forms.
Sierra Maestra took a different direction. “We were smitten with the
old-timers' music,” Marcos told me. “We were after a
punk look and we played traditional Cuban son. We were notorious, and very popular.”
From the
dustbins of prerevolutionary history, Sierra Maestra rescued the sounds Marcos grew
up with in Pueblo Nuevo, which, along with its neighboring Centro Habana
barrio, Cayo Hueso, was the Cuban capital’s twentieth century hotbed of
rumba and urban son. Marcos’ own father
– his puro, as Cubans say – sang with some of Havana’s greatest dance bands,
including the great Arsenio Rodríguez’ Septeto Boston, in the 1930s.
After his puro passed away, Marcos, looking
to take the Sierra Maestra concept one step further, found a deeper way to
celebrate traditional Cuban music. And
that’s how the Afro-Cuban All Stars came about.
The ACAS’ first album, A Toda Cuba
le Gusta, was recorded in 1996 at Havana’s EGREM studios, produced by World
Circuit’s Nick Gold, and distributed in the States through Nonesuch. For A
Toda Cuba, a big band affair, and its sister CD, Buena Vista Social Club, dedicated to the son septet style, Marcos and
his wife Gliceria Abreu rounded up as many of the old-timers as they could find
who were still able to play. Most of
them had abandoned music, or rather, the Cuban revolution had abandoned them.
A Toda Cuba le Gusta was a very traditional big band album of urban, '40s and '50s-style son, guaracha and guaguancó, starring a remarkable slate of musicians whose
names evoke reverence if you’re a fan of the Buena Vista albums: soneros Ibrahim
Ferrer, Pio Leyva, Raul Planas, Manuel “Puntillita” Licea; the great pianist Rubén
Gonzalez, bassist Orlando “Cachaito” Lopez (Cachao’s nephew), trumpeters "Guajiro" Mirabal and Luis Alemañy.
Almost all of
the grand old soneros featured on those two albums and the handful of followup
solo recordings from that series are gone now.
But musicians Marcos' age and younger were in the mix, including, on A Toda Cuba, sonero Félix Valoy, Marcos himself on trés and his now-deceased
brother Carlos González on bongos. All were integral to Marcos’ plan. “I was always aware that the old ones have to
die, so even in the beginning I was adding younger musicians to the lineup,” he
says.
The ACAS is a
hands-on, real-life study in the sustainable evolution of tradition, and we’ve
watched it happen here in Madison. Some of
the original artists were in the lineup that played at the old Civic
Center’s Oscar Mayer Theater, in April, 2000 – Puntillita Licea (who died later that year), Alemañy, Marcos, his wife and ACAS
manager Gliceria Abreu, his brother Carlos, and Valoy – plus Teresita Garcia Caturla, who wasn’t on A Toda Cuba, but whose career in Cuban
song is legendary. A few smokin’ young
players whose styles were edged with jazz and timba shared that stage. Among them were pianist David Alfaro and
trumpeter Yauré Muñiz. Garcia wore
white; the men wore zoot suits in Changó's colors, red and white.
They cooked, they danced, they played a mix of tunes from A Toda Cuba and the just-released second ACAS disc, Distinto,
Diferente (Nonesuch, 1999).
There’s son on that album, and a traditional canto Abakuá, but also a timba-son penned by
Marcos, who called the package a modern interpretation of traditional Cuban
music. “The only way to preserve the
traditional roots is to let in contemporary elements,” he
says.
The
Afro-Cuban All Stars were slated to return in November, 2002. But early that fall, in his post-Sept. 11
delirium, Bush 43 (Fidel, in his
interminable speeches to Cuba’s version of Congress, the Asamblea Nacional del
Poder Popular, used to call him “¡Boochún!”) beefed up his already hardline
stance against the island, declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism. As part
of this offensive the US started denying visa applications from recording
artists, essentially on the grounds that Cuban music was harmful to US
interests. Fidel countered with an
addition to the Cuban constitution instituting socialism as an
“incontrovertible” Cuban principle. As a
result, squelched demand for economic reform on the island drove a strapping
diaspora of Cuban artists to spots around the globe.
By the time the ACAS finally returned to Mad
City – to play at Overture Hall – it was March, 2009. The band had three new albums out, including Step Forward: The Next
Generation (yes, the album title’s in English) on Marcos’ own Havana-based record
label, DM Ahora! (2005). “It’s classic
Cuban, mixed with elements of contemporary music and a lot of improvisation,”
Marcos told me when it was released. It
paid homage to the elders while showcasing the next generation’s superstars, and mixed son y rumba with multicultural, hip-hop-tinged beats – guaguancó-timba (or guarapachangueo),
ballad-timba – and older fusions like Irakere’s funkified batumbatá.
On the 2009 tour all of the players, including
Marcos himself, who had moved his family to Mexico City, were expats, which insured
that the show would go on. The golden age threads were gone, replaced by sharp dark suits. The repertory
was part traditional, part Step Forward,
and the lineup – as always an all-star affair – was packed with ACAS, Buena
Vista, and Sierra Maestra alums of assorted ages, plus (among others) Calixto
Oviedo, who played drums and timbales with the original timba outfit, NG La
Banda, in its best days, and the brilliant pianist Nachito Herrera, who studied
with Rubén González as a child and who’s now a leading Latin jazz figure based
in Minneapolis.
For this week’s
concert the All Stars are all expats, too – a good thing, since even now, with the door cracked open a few inches, it’s
hard to get musicians out of Cuba. As in
2009, there’ll be some traditional tunes and some of Marcos’ contemporary
compositions. Since I'm an old-timer myself, I mention, during my
most recent interview with him, that I’m not, in general, a fan of today’s
youth music.
“It’s
important to have continuity, but Cuban music is not static,” Marcos responds. “Cuba is revolutionary and competitive in
music, and if you want to play all of its genres and review its history
you have to include the new styles. When
I compose, I often mix contemporary and traditional elements in the same song.”
“I don’t do reggaeton or hip-hop,” he adds. “But, you know, I do use timba. Of course, timba was very contemporary in the
‘90s, when it was new, but now it’s pretty traditional. I do it for that reason, not because I want
to influence the market. I’m lucky, I
don’t have to make concessions to have an intellectual and cultural effect on
Cuban music. Inside Cuba, though, young
groups are being heavily influenced by commercial sounds like Puerto Rican reggaetón, and they're mixing it into what they do.” [Note: there's a whole youth genre called "Cubatón" these days.]
"Music inside Cuba is getting more commercial in another way, too," Marcos adds. “There’s a singular new phenomenon going on. Cuba has no commercial
system – there’s no official market. But
today’s youth have created an internal market for pirate CDs and music videos
by influencing the public. They make
commercial videos like capitalist pop stars to get the word out about their
concerts and their bands.”
Things have changed since the days of Boochún. The seeds of this quasi-miracle were planted in 2008 -- six years before the move toward normalization that began late last year -- when Raul Castro succeeded his brother as president and
initiated a series of minor economic reforms; among them was permitting the
sale of electronic devices, including computers and cell phones (with service),
to ordinary Cubans. It took a few years for this technology to become widespread. “But young musicians are now using flash drives, text messages, and Twitter to advertise,” Marcos says. “Everyone in Cuba texts and tweets – it’s
not controlled by the government, like Internet access is. There's a whole subcommerce that exists within a
socialist system where the possibilities for individual promotion are very
limited.”
Cubans are notoriously inventive, and Cuban musicians in expatlandia, like their island counterparts, are constantly reinventing the way they approach their work. So it's no surprise that the Afro-Cuban All Stars have a new sound. For about four years, Marcos has been using the sonora (or conjunto) format first made famous by Arsenio Rodríguez.
On the heels
of the Septeto Boston, in which Marcos’ puro sang in the '30s, Rodríguez, a
king among trés players, urbanized the son sound, creating a new, larger
format – the conjunto – by adding piano, a second (and sometimes third)
trumpet, and tumbadoras – congas – officially prohibited by the island’s white
regime for being “too black” until the ragingly louche nights of Batista’s
corrupt, Mafia-allied reign overtook Havana in the '40s and '50s.
In his rhythms and lyrics, too, Rodriguez brought a blazing sense of
black pride to a style of Cuban music (son) that’s African side was tempered
with the sabor of Spain.
The only wind instruments in the classic sonora sound are trumpets, and the rhythm section has no timbales, but there are no hard and fast rules in this game. Marcos uses timbales in this incarnation of the ACAS, but also three trumpets, no trombones, no sax. “I wanted more frequency,” Marcos explains. "The trombones and barritone sax can be a
little aggressive. I chose to use
clarinets instead. I’ve also added an
instrument that hasn’t been used in Cuba since the ’60s – the vibraphone.”
Vibes are far from a traditional Cuban instrument, but in that decade a few Cuban jazz combos, whose players would have noticed how the instrument was being used in US jazz, picked it up. Nuyorican salsa players in that decade were using vibes, too. Most famously Joe Cuba, “el padre del boogaloo,” often used them instead of horns to fill out the sound of his sextet.
“I really like the vibraphone for its sweet sound,” Marcos says. “It's sophisticated, and it’s an excellent counterpoint to the horn section. I think I'm the first Cuban orchestrator to use it in a son format. But no matter what instrumentation I use, I respect the genres of Cuban music. I try to play all of them, bolero, cha-cha-cha, guapachá, son – with this sonora sound. I’m working on a new album in this format. It’s called ‘Step Backward.’ It’s only half finished, but it’s more traditional than anything I’ve done for a while.”
Friday night’s concert, with this orchestration (the full lineup is below), will
be, at least in part, a taste of “Step Backward.” And, like Orula’s iddé, it’s a family
affair. Gliceria Abreu, as always, will
be onstage playing hand percussion, singing chorus, and dancing with her
husband. Their two intensely talented,
conservatory trained daughters, Gliceria and Laura González, will be there,
too.
“My daughters have always worked with me on recordings,” Marcos says, “but I
didn’t want to incorporate them into the stage shows until they finished their
university studies.”
The year they started appearing live with the band was 2010. The younger Gliceria, 30, is an orchestral conductor (and a lyric soprano);
she’s teaching a Cuban string ensemble workshop in conjunction with Marcos’ UW
residency this fall. But Cuban classical music is just part of her art. Onstage with the
ACAS, she plays keyboards and vibes.
Laura’s the clarinetist.
“Of course, they’re not just great musicians, they’re Afro-Cubans,”
Marcos says, with tremendous pride.
“They play percussion, they sing and dance.”
His puro, and Orula, must be thrilled.
 |
| Laura (L) and Gliceria González with ACAS at Yerbabuena Gardens, San Francisco ©Tom Erlich |
__________________________
The Afro Cuban All Stars
for this concert are:
Gliceria Gonzalez -Ibrahim Ferrer, Amadito Valdes,
etc- (Keyboards & Vibes)
Jose Marcos Crego -Klimax, Cano Estremera, etc-
(Piano)
Jiovanni Cofiño -Orquesta Reve, Medico de la Salsa,
etc- (Bass)
Tany Allende -Yaguarimu, Cafe Quijano, etc- (Congas)
Asley Rosell -Pacho Alonso, etc- (Bongos)
Caleb Michell -Gran Combo, etc- (Timbale Set)
Yaure Muñiz -Buenavista Social Club, Klimax, etc-
(Trumpet & Flugel)
Yoanny Pino -Joan Sebastian, Azucar Negra, etc-
(Trumpet & Flugel)
Julio Diaz -Salsa Giants, Luis Enrique, etc- (Trumpet
& Flugel)
Laura Lydia Gonzalez -Ibrahim Ferrer, Amadito Valdes,
etc- (Clarinets)
Emilio Suarez - Cachao, Willie Colon, etc- (Lead
Singer)
Gliceria Abreu - Buenavista Social Club, Sierra
Maestra, etc- (Afro-Cuban Percussion & Management)
Alfonso Peña -Marcos Valle, Ernan Lopez-Nussa, etc-
(FOH Engineer)
Juan de Marcos (Tres & Bandleader)
