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!