Pedrito Martínez: Twenty-First Century Rumbero

Pedrito Martínez is the new face of an old Cuban tradition. His guarapachangueo – an open, heavily improvisational, polyrhythmic rumba that evolved from guaguancó, one of three twentieth-century rumba styles – is steeped in the multicultural cross-currents of New York, where he’s lived for twenty-two years. But Martínez’s roots lie deep in the Cayo Hueso secction of Centro Habana, the cradle of modern rumba. Martínez made his Madison debut at Overture’s Capitol Theater in February, 2015. Next week, on March 27, he returns – this time to the Wisconsin Union Theater’s Play Circle.  It’s a small venue for such a major musician, but that gives us an intimate, almost club-like opportunity to hear Martínez’s quartet, and that’s gotta be good. 

Martinez is a wondrous percussionist who’s taken the States by storm. Two years after coming to the States he won top honors in the Thelonious Monk Institute Afro-Latin hand percussion competition, and he’s reaped many more medals since. He’s both classic rumba vocalist and surprising innovator. His instruments of choice are tumbadoras (congas) and the hourglass-shaped, double-headed batá – for performace, a secular version of the sacred drum used to call up the Efik spirits of Afro-Cuban Abakuá. 

When he first came to Madison he had one album out – Grammy-nominated The Pedrito Martínez Group (Mótema Music, 2013).  Now he has two more: Habana Dreams (Mótema Music, 2016) and Duologue, a soulful improvisation on themes both island and Yuma with classically trained Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodríguez (Mack Avenue Music, 2019).  Both albums are touring right now, but it’s the Habana Dreams group (minus the star-studded list of guest artists featured on the album) that’s coming to the Play Circle. 

I caught up with Martínez by phone on a bitter early February day.

CulturalOyster: When I interviewed you in 2015 you told me your music is Afro-Cuban “con mucho de Nueva York,” but that at heart you’re a folkloric musician, a rumbero from the marginal streets of Cayo Hueso.  When you played here that year you’d been in New York eighteen years, your group had a single, eponymous album out, and you were playing guarapachangueo bastante neoyorkizao, if there is such a word.  I’ve only heard a little of Duologue so far, but the other new record – Habana Dreams – is definitely more Cuba than New York, maybe because it was recorded at Egrem.  Do you see it that way? 

Martínez: Definitely. The fact that we recorded it in Cuba makes it completely different in flavor.  The folklore is more present and direct, very clear.  It was a big inspiration to be in the studio with my brothers and friends I haven’t seen for a long time.  It was a very emotional recording.  And it was a dream come true to have [master Cuban percussionist] Román Díaz, who was my inspiration growing up, and Isaac Delgado, and Wynton Marsalis, Angelique Kidjo, and Telmary Díaz guesting in the studio with us. Ruben Blades was there for one track, too.  He was amazing. And Edgar Pantoja [Martínez’s former pianist] did two tremendous arrangements for that album. It was great. That record is definitely better than the first one.

CulturalOyster: Almost all the best Cuban musicians are expats now, but Cuba is so beautiful – Havana is so beautiful – after that trip didn’t you want to go back and live there?

Martínez: You know, I know the US more than Cuba, I’ve been here so many years.  It’s kinda weird, every time I go to Cuba I feel very emotional and sad that I don’t live there but my family is here now and my daughter was born here and all the recognition I’ve had as a musician has come from the US.  In Cuba nobody knew who Pedrito was until Pedrito got out of Cuba.  All the awards I’ve been getting here – I owe a lot to the US.  Every time I go to Cuba I absorb the energy – it’s a blood transfusion, and I continue with that force of nature, trying to do new music and use new ideas I bring from Cuba. But I belong to both, fifty-fifty.

I’ve learned a lot from the US.  I’ve been on so many records and collaborated with so many great musicians.  The Thelonious Monk award opened so many doors for me. In 2014 and 2018 I got best jazz percussion player of the year awards.  And in 2014 I got the Sphinx Medal of Excellence [Sphinx is an organization dedicated to supporting the power of diversity in the arts].  I was never going to have that in Cuba, and I was never going to play with Paul Simon, with Bruce Springsteen – none of that ever would have happened. I thank Cuba for the many things it gave me, the knowledge I have of folkloric music from the island – and thanks to that I’ve had all these opportunities outside of Cuba.  Maybe in the future I can go back there to live, but not at this point.

But I just came back from there a week ago – I played at the Jazz Plaza Festival with Harold López-Nussa and others, it was a tribute to Tata Güines, who I played with in Cuba for three years – he was one of my icons, one of the greatest congueros who ever lived – so that was amazing.  I’m going more often to play music there now, but I’d like to go soon and play for the public with my own group.

CulturalOyster: Juan de Marcos once told me that you come straight from the source, and that you will conserve rumba for the future. And in one of the videos on your website – the one called “Havana Cultura” [it’s at the top of this post] you say that in your youth you were seen on the island as a rumbero, not as a musician – but that now rumba is in style.  What was the personal journey you had to take to love the rumbero that you are?

Martínez: It was a long way to go.  Rumba was a way to live in Cuba when I was young.  I discovered that I love Cuban folkloric music more than anything.  Unfortunately, because of the economic and political and social situation then, being a folkloric musician wasn’t great – there weren’t as many opportunities as there are now. But I learned from the real ones, and that’s essential to the knowledge I have now as rumbero, as batalero.  A mission I have now is to pass along that spirituality and knowledge – to pass along the legacy of all the rumberos who’ve passed away – to keep alive the African diaspora.  In every record I try to incorporate Yoruba chants and play some of the rumba patterns I learned when I was little.

I’m still learning and it’s a long way to go, to inject this culture into the new generation – but I want to make sure they know this is a beautiful culture that can give them so many alternatives.  People used to think that because I didn’t go to music school I wasn’t going to be an amazing musician or a great composer or singer, but the opposite is true – in Cuba if you go to music school they teach you classical. If you want to learn modern styles like timba, or the folkloric styles, you need to go to the street, and my school was the street.  I’m very happy about that.

CulturalOyster: That same video reveals the Abakuá in you, the babalao, the echoes left by the Muñequitos de Matanzas and all the other great rumberos of a now-gone era.  But rumba has always been open to new influences, that’s how guarapachangueo came about. You aren’t a young musician any more – you’re a lauded master of Afro-Cuban percussion.  So tell me, what’s the future – where is rumba going now, entering the third decade of the twenty-first century?  This is a musical question but also a social one – some of the songs you wrote for Habana Dreams have very socially conscious lyrics.

Martínez: I’m extremely happy that rumba is at such an amazing level right now.  People recognize it all over the world.  Everybody wants to be a rumbero, which is something that’s never happened before. When I lived in Cuba being a rumbero was something marginal.  No one wanted to be a rumbero.  But now in any kind of music people want to incorporate some rumba.  We need to continue innovating, but we cannot lose the identity of old-school rumba – we can’t lose what all the great rumberos did for us.  We’re students, we’re just contiuing the history book they put on the table for us to use, to keep building on, to keep it alive.  I’m not doing anything new.  I’m just continuing to build on all the ideas they had for us.

CulturalOyster: What’s been the highlight of your musical career, to date?

Martínez: When I was young and in Cuba I used to listen to Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John – and some years ago after I moved to the States I was part of a fundraiser Elton John does for the AIDS Foundation. I played that event three times. They always invite big stars – Lady Gaga was there once when I was invited, and Springsteen was there and asked me to do two albums with him, and then I played with Paul Simon twice at Lincoln Center.  That’s a big deal for a rumbero from the middle of Havana. It’s insane.  It’s a big step.

CulturalOyster: Last question – who’s coming with you this time?  It looks like the singer and percussionist Jhair Sala, who was with you last time, is on the bill – he’s Peruvian, right?

Martínez: Yes.  He’s been with us for over fifteen years. The bass player who’s coming this time is new for me, though – Sebastian Natal, from Uruguay.  He’s a virtuoso – a great singer and a unique human being. I really love this band.  I’m not saying I didn’t love the previous one, but this one is very special, and everyone’s very humble and down to earth. 

            Our keyboardist is Isaac Delgado – junior, that is, not the timbero who started NG la banda. He was playing with his dad but he decided to come to New York and coincidently my former pianist was leaving, so he’s been with us a year – he sings just like his father. We were together in Harlem just last night and Isaac senior was there, singing with us.

CulturalOyster: Pedrito, gracias.  Aquí te esperamos. 

_________________ interview by SK. Text has been slightly edited for clarity. 

             

Asere's Story

Asere started out as a bit of a mystery.  Not the word, an unmistakable cubanísmo of West African origin with fluid meaning but generally glossed as bro, dude, amigo, right-hand man.  I mean Asere: The Havana All Stars, coming to Overture Hall on March 15 and billed as a traditional Cuban son orquesta updated for the twenty-first century. “Son” is an umbrella term for multiple, related rhythms, but if you’re not sure what it is think Buena Vista Social Club. I’ve been into son for 40 years; it’s an addiction I picked up from my asere, Ricardo González, proud Camagüeyano and proprietor of the Cardinal Bar until he sold it a couple of years ago to a corporation that turned it into a soccer dive with a different name. I’ve heard a lot of son over the years, danced to all of it, written about some of it, scoured the record store on Calle Obispo in Havana in search of it. And yet – I’d never heard of Asere, the band. I wasn’t the only one; recently, over dinner with friends, the concert came up. “I never heard of them before,” said Ricardo.

According to Overture’s website, Asere is “back by popular demand” – but while this is the band’s second US tour (the first, apparently wildly successful, was in 2016), the upcoming show is Asere’s first Madison appearance. Do not mistake Asere: The Havana All Stars for the Afro-Cuban All Stars, led by the great Juan de Marcos González, who spearheaded the Buena Vista groups. The ACAS has played Madison three times over the years, and Juan de Marcos was the UW-Madison Arts Institute’s artist in residence in 2015.

By digging deep I found a couple of Asere’s albums on Amazon – one released in 2009, the other from 2013 – with teensy audio clips and absoutely no information – plus the official Asere 2018 tour video on YouTube, which I pirated for this post. This small evidence leaves no doubt that Asere is as Cuban as rum, cigars, and ‘50s Chevrolets, but it didn’t clear up the mystery. Who are these musicians, and why aren’t we familiar with them? 

Online I found a few tiny interviews with bandleader and trompetista Michel Padrón, but nothing substantive – I was left with a whole lot of questions. Luckily, Asere’s manager, Peter Dake, who happens to have been born in Oshkosh and raised in Waupaca, set up an interview with Padrón for me. Here’s what I found out:

CulturalOyster: I don’t know much about this band, so let’s start with you. I read somewhere that growing up you studied at the Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán.  So many great Cuban musicians studied there – Juan de Marcos, Chucho Valdés, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, Gonzalo Rubalcaba... What else can you tell me about growing up in Havana? Were your parents musicians? 

Padrón: I’m the son of a TV and movie actor – my father – and my mother was a choral conductor.  My sister, who also went to Amadeo Roldan, conducts an opera orchestra.  Many members of Asere were at Amadeo Roldan with me, we were friends then – but I got into traditional Cuban music before that because “Cachaito” [Orlando López, Buena Vista bass player and nephew of mambo maven Israel “Cachao” Lopez] was my teacher when I was only fourteen. We had a combo – two trumpets, sax, drums, congas, piano and bass. Cachaito used to say “I don’t have the theory – what I have is the music.” He did the arrangements for our group.  I learned more from him in a few months about improvisation than I ever did in the conservatory.  That was a very important stage for me. I had other amazing teachers too, like [Irakere drummer] Enrique Plá.

CulturalOyster: That’s as Havana as it gets!  But what about outside influences? Every Cuban musician I’ve ever interviewed has told a story about sitting on a Havana rooftop listening to clandestine radio from Florida. But you’re a younger generation – did you do that too?  And if you did, what made you decide to play son despite influences from la Yuma?

Padrón: Cachaito is one answer.  The trompetista Jesús Alemañy [an early member of Juan de Marcos’s other band, Sierra Maestra, who went on to found another son outfit, ¡Cubanísimo!] was also a teacher of mine. And even as a little kid, I always loved son.  But I’m also a jazz trumpeter.  Latin jazz. The music of my generation in Cuba is timba, and I respect timba, but I’ve tried to avoid it as a musician. 

But yes, I was influenced by US radio. When we were kids we were a little more sophisticated than the ones who came before us when it came to listening to foreign radio.  We had friends who had careers in telecommunications.  They sold a kind of antenna that could grab FM stations from Florida. I had a friend who had a very potent antenna. There was an emcee who played Latin jazz – Machito, Maurio Bauzá, Tito Puente. We’d be out late at my friend’s house in Guanabacoa pirating music – we’d record our own cassettes right off the radio.  Those cassettes were like gold.  When I could get my hands on a factory-made cassette we’d spend hours looking at photos and memorizing names – someone would ask “Who played with Ray Barretto?” and we could all answer.  It was fantastic.  Today there’s so much music on the internet – kids now have it easier than we did, but they listen to worse music! 

CulturalOyster: That’s a great background story!  I also have a lot of questions about Asere. I’d never heard of it before this tour! There’s not much online – there’s a lot of advertising, but no real substance. I did see that the group started in 1996, which would be twenty years after Juan de Marcos founded Sierra Maestra, and the same year that Ry Cooder went to Havana and picked Marcos’s brain about traditional musicians and together they started making the Buena Vista recordings.  You’re a different generation, of course – much younger than Marcos and much, much younger than the Buena Vista musicians, many of whom are gone now. But how did that phenomenon affect you and what you do?

Padrón: Lots of people think we started at the same time, but really Asere existed before Buena Vista.  I wanted to bring my friends from the Amadeo Roldan together to play traditional Cuban music. We had a vision, but we had no opportunities to record outside of Cuba, and in Cuba there wasn’t much interest in traditional music.  We didn’t have the money for the releases that Buena Vista had, so our process was much slower. We never had the support of the Cuban cultural authorities and it cost us a lot of work but we had the luck to do what we do anyway.  In Cuba we’d play and people would say wow, wow, ¡que rico! and dance – the people on the island have good musical taste, but the problem is politics.  If you play the music the people will dance; son is irresistible.  So we played and it wasn’t important that we didn’t have support – sometimes you have to take the challenges to get what you want. 

But we were young and enthusiastic and in 1997 the British producer John Hollis was in Cuba searching for the great traditional singer Celina González.  We saw that as an opportunity – we went to meet him and invited him to come hear us play and he ended up giving us contracts – we went to France, to play at the Womax festival, and then we started playing at festivals all over Europe. And that’s the beginning.  We’ve played all over Europe ever since, but we’re just getting started in the US now. 

CulturalOyster: Tell me more about your life in music beyond Asere.  From what I could find online I know you’ve played with Cesaria Evora and Billy Cobham, among others.

Padrón: Cesaria was a total surprise.  I was home with my family in Havana having Sunday dinner when I got a call – the caller said they had an African lady at Abdala Studios recording and needed a trumpet player.  I went and met her – Rolando “Maraca” Valle was there – I was 22 and I thought I was dreaming.  I’m Padrón – I thought they were confused, I was sure they thought I was [Irakere and later Chucho Valdés trumpeter] Julio Padrón. I said are you sure you want me?  And they said sí, so I said let’s play. It [Café Altántico, RCA 1999] had a lot of Brazilian rhythms – I didn’t love it, but I learned a lot from that experience.  And then the great jazz drummer Billy Cobham wanted to rescue his Latin roots because he’s Panamanian but it was hard being black and Latin in Brooklyn, where he grew up. So he came to Havana to record and they called me at home – I couldn’t even believe it! – they said do you want to play and I said sí, sí, sí! I went to Spain on tour with him – it was unforgettable.

CulturalOyster: Like so many Cuban artists, you’re now an expat.  Where are you based?

Padrón: I moved to England.  I live in Bristol and I play Latin jazz with several different bands.  I lead a jam session where everyone goes, so Billy Cobham has played there.  I’ve played with Sting and others – I’ve played pop and reggae as well as jazz. But son cubano – when I’m too old to play jazz I’ll keep on playing son.  I can say I live doing what I love – I’m very privileged. 

At this point we’d been on the phone so long Peter Dake interrupted to tell Michel he had another appointment.  I hadn’t gotten to ask the requisite basic questions about the band, so I emailed them to Dake, who kindly answered. He has a long, star-studded history in performing arts management. These days he works with Columbia Arts Management, and he’s the one who ran Asere’s first US tour, in 2016. It went so well, he says, Columbia offered it to him again. 

Asere’s a 12-piece outfit: congas, bongos, cowbells, cajón, drum kit with timbales, plus a lot of small percussion. Three guitar players; one is the tresero, who also plays regular six-string guitars. Double bass and electric bass; two violins; trombone. Padrón, of course, is on trumpet; sometimes the trombonista also plays trumpet, to get that classic two-trumpet sound.

The band is accompanied on this tour by five dancers. Barbarito Montagne is one of the best choreographers to come out of Cuba; he runs his own studio and teaches, and at Asere’s request he’s come back to the stage after 17 years of teaching. With Montagne are two young couples – this is their first time out of Cuba and they’re loving the experience, Dake says. “Well, not the cold so much.”

            If you’re inspired to get up outta your seat, it’s OK with them, adds Dake. “The band loves it when people in the audience dance.”

___interviews by SK; edited for clarity and length; bracketed comments are my own.
PS -- Dake says Asere's new CD will be available after the show!