Search Results for: Cuba

In Barrio Marianao in Havana, Cuba was born Armando Peraza was a Latin jazz percussionist

Peraza (May 30, 1924-April 14, 2014) was a Cuban Latin jazz percussionist.

Thanks to his collaborations with guitarist Carlos Santana, jazz pianist George Shearing and vibraphonist Cal Tjader between 1950 and 1990, he is internationally recognized as one of the most important figures in the field of Latin percussion.

Known primarily as a conguero and bongocero, Peraza is also a skilled dancer and composer. He has appeared on recordings by Pérez Prado, Machito, George Shearing, Charlie Parker, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader and Carlos Santana. Performances with Santana, Shearing and Tjader brought him international fame.

He was inducted into the Smithsonian Institute and had three “Armando Peraza Days” from the city of San Francisco.

One of the most important and respected figures in the world of percussion.

He is a legendary master on both congas and bongoes, whose unorthodox style and story are an inspiration to countless young musicians.

He began his artistic career in the early 1940s, played with singer Alberto Ruiz’s Kuvabana ensemble where he played the bongo and moved to San Francisco in 1949.

At the New York World’s Fair he played congas in an African pavilion with a Nigerian.

This African arrives and says to me: “Man, what part of Africa are you from? I told him, I am from Cuba. He said: “Don’t tell me” He later worked with the orchestras of Paulina Álvarez and Dámaso Pérez Prado, and the Bolero group.

In 1947 he moved to Mexico, where he joined with Mongo Santamaría the ensemble Clave de Oro, and in 1948 they both traveled to New York as percussionists accompanying the dance couple Pablito y Lilón.

At the end of that year, Peraza joined Slim Gaillard’s jazz combo with which he traveled throughout the United States. After arriving in New York in 1949, Armando became a sought-after musician, especially in the contemporary Bebop and Latin Jazz scenes.

Armando built a reputation for impressively fast and complex hand technique, experimental techniques and great talent for entertaining. He flourished in progressive atmospheres that combined jazz with Afro-Cuban styles and was at the center of a new expression called “Cubop”.

He has played on more than 100 albums and is the composer of more than 40 songs. Some of these works include collaborations with Mongo Santamaria, George Shearing, Cal Tjader and Carlos Santana.

Settled in San Francisco, California, in the early 1950s, Peraza began working with pianist George Shearing’s quintet, where he demonstrated his mastery as a player of the tumbadora and bongo; also in this period he recorded several albums of Cuban folk music with Mongo Santamaria.

In the 60’s he joined the quintet of vibraphonist Cal Tjader, with whom he remained for several years and with whom he popularized Chano Pozo’s Guachi guaro. In the 1970s, he joined Mongo Santamaría’s orchestra, with which he participated in the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Later he worked with Carlos Santana’s rock band, in which he remained for 17 years, until his retirement from artistic life in the 90s.

He possessed a great capacity to obtain the most unusual sounds of the bongo and the tumbadora, and distinguished himself for his extraordinary solos on both instruments.

He died on April 14, 2014 in California, United States, as a result of pneumonia.

Fuente: https://kripkit.com/armando-peraza/

Cuba Will Be the Protagonist at the Music Meeting Festival

Nijmegen is the city that will host this musical meeting with “Cuba Al Revés” as the main theme

Music Meeting Festival was organized in Concertgebouw de Vereeniging and Stadsschouwburg Nijmegen until 2003

This year Latin America will invade the 37^th edition of the Music Meeting Festival with Cuban music from Saturday, June 4^th to Monday, June 6^th at the Park Brakkenstein facilities. This park can accommodate 12,500 visitors and is in the Nijmegen city in the province of Gelderland. Nijmegen has more than 170,000 inhabitants (2015 data provided by the UN) and is very close to the border with Germany.

This festival in the Netherlands will have as its main theme this time Cuba Upside Down. In this event, around 30 concerts will be presented with the participation of established artists and new promises from the Cuban music scene, Spanish, and Brazilian.

Regarding the main theme of this edition, the Dutch trumpeter and Artistic Director of the Music Meeting Festival, Maite Hontelé, pointed out: “I would like to have been born in Havana, to have grown up with Son, Mambo, and even the beginning of Cuban Salsa modern, Timba. But I grew up in Haaften…although almost every day, I listened to Cuban music on cassettes and played it on my trumpet.”

The artists from the Afro-Caribbean Island that will converge at the Music Meeting Festival 2022 are:

Alain Pérez with the Orchestra demonstrates the origin and future of Cuban music

The musical genius in the Salsera scene, Latin-Jazz and Flamenco, Alain Pérez will take the stage on Sunday, June 5th at 11PM for an improvisation party at the Jam. This show will last 50 minutes. Alain with the rhythm section of his orchestra will establish the basic rhythm to which countless musicians will join and improvise, bringing special guests for that day. Who are they? They are still a surprise.

After 24 hours, Alain Pérez returns to the stage, but this time with his young Orchestra for the closing day. They will perform for the first time on Monday, June 6^th from 8:40PM to 10:50PM. Alain with this band of young Cuban artists brings a sound in which traditional Cuban music is intertwined with modern Jazz and Funk.

The same way will also join this celebration of Afro-Caribbean music Osain Del Monte with a group of young percussionists, singers, and dancers. They will recreate during their musical act a traditional cult with initiation rituals to be members of a secret brotherhood. This one-hour act will take place on the first day of the festival, on Saturday, June 4th, starting at 5:30 PM.

Likewise, Music Meeting Festival will feature the percussionist and singer Brenda Navarrete as a special guest in several musical presentations. Brenda has trained in Batá drums and has belonged to Latin Jazz bands such as Joaquín Betancourt and Alain Pérez, as well as in the Interactivo group, where Funk and Ska melodies are mixed with Afro-Cuban rhythms.

Cellist Ana Carla will also be brought to this stage of the festival. She will be on Sunday, June 5^th from 8PM to 8:40PM. Her third studio album is Bahía and has influences from Cuban Son, Tango, Samba, Bossa Nova, Jazz, and even the classic French Chanson. She currently is touring for South America.

Ramón Valle, Marialy Pacheco, Rolando Luna, and Ivan “Melón” Lewis

Joining this constellation of established and emerging Cuban artists on Sunday, June 5^th, starting at 2PM, is the Ping Pong Piano project. This 50-minute musical project brings together the following virtuous of this instrument: Rolando Luna, Marialy Pacheco, Ramón Valle, and Ivan “Melón” Lewis, the latter winner of the Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album for his album Voyager in 2021.

The starting point of this “four-sided” meeting is spontaneous. It consists of placing two grand pianos on stage and letting four stellar pianists converse musically. There will be friendship, rivalry, confrontation, and harmony putting aside their impressive resumes.

“Marialy Pacheco is a concert pianist known for her duets with Omar Sosa and her contagious rhythmic interpretation. Grammy winner Ivan ‘Melón’ Lewis counters this with almost mathematical precision as the founder of modern Cuban Salsa, Timba. Ramón Valle swings across styles and feels best when given the freedom to let his Cuban heritage hang over the music. The quartet of star pianists is completed by the whirlwind Rolando Luna, one of the most important Cuban pianists of the last ten years, who became world-famous for his work with Omara Portuondo”. Fragment extracted from the Music meeting Festival 2022 website. www.musicmeeting.nl

Likewise, the band El Comité will be present (Saturday, June 4th, 10:30 PM – 11:30 PM), the Son Bent Braam orchestra (Saturday, June 4th, 4PM – 5PM), African electronics, percussion from Brazil with the duo made up of Oleg Fateev & Simone Sou, and the New York afrobeat represented by the musical group from Brooklyn, Antibalas.

This interesting congregation of artists will be completed by the Spanish trombonist Rita Payés, one of the emerging artists of the new era of the Catalan scene.

Tickets for the three days of the Music Meeting Festival in Nijmegen are €80 at the box office. It costs €34 daily, and for those under 16 who want to attend, the admission is free.

Enriching conversation with Afrocuban music group Okan

Here is the interview

We are here with the Cuban Group Okan whose members, Elizabeth Rodriguez and Magbelis Savigne, are based in Canada. How are you, girls?

All right, thank you very much!

It’s a real pleasure for me to have you here. How’s it going?

We’re doing great and trying to start over after this big break. We are ready to be on tour very soon and do more things.

Elizabeth Rodriguez and Magdelys Savigne, members of the group Okan

Where is the name Okan coming from?

We wanted a name that had something to do with our Afro-Cuban roots, so we were doing some research on the closest thing to what we wanted. So, Okan comes from the Afro-Cuban dialect meaning heart. Elizabeth’s saint’s name is Okantomi which means Heart of Oshún, so we thought that sounded perfect for the kind of music we make that comes from our heart. We wanted to pay homage with that and have a name that Canadians could easily use. There have always been problems with the band’s name because they didn’t know how to say it, so Okan seemed to us the most appropriate.

In your music, the essence of Cuba stands out over everything else, but I imagine that your songs are also a mix of what you have learned since you left your country.

Yes, definitely. We have understood and learned that Cuban music is very good, but there are also many other things in the world. Living in Toronto has helped us to see how diverse music is and how similar it is to Brazilian or Turkish music, so you can say that we are influenced by different cultures and try to make music from the heart, from what we learned and from what surrounds us. In that sense, Toronto has many things to take advantage of

Which foreign rhythms have you been including in your work?

In addition to Cuban rhythms, we have also included Brazilian rhythms. We love Brazilian music and have a great love for Brazil – we include classical music genres as well because the two studied classical music in Cuba, so we are also influenced by that. Our next album is going to have a bit of Afrobeat, so it will be a bit more commercial than what we’ve done at the moment.

Living in Toronto helped Elizabeth and Magdelys to see how diverse music is

What did Jane Bunnet mean to you and other artists of your kind?

For us, she represented the opportunity to be able to go to festivals and learn more about the business. Of course, we learned by ourselves, since she taught us nothing. However, those tours gave us a lot of experience. The most important thing about playing with Jane Bunnet was to have gained experience and participated in important events we would’t have attended on our own. I think the most important thing was being able to achieve so much on our own and to play Afro-Cuban music representing the Afro-Cuban race and culture

Future genres

Are there any rhythms or genres that you don’t like or haven’t tried?

One of the songs on our next album is influenced by the rock of the 60’s because we like it a lot. Right now, there is some kind of Cuban reggaeton that has become very popular, but we haven’t done anything with that urban genre. We don’t really listen to the latest kind of reggaeton, so we prefer Afrobeat. We don’t say we’ll never do it, but we have to find some exponent of the genre who knows more about it to inform us. We have done some collaborations with Lido Pimiento and Bomba Estéreo.

We want to recover old Cuban genres that many people don’t know, which is why we have sung mozambique, pilón, changüI, among others. Cuban music is very broad and we got a long way to go in that regard.

I have noticed that the coloring is very important for you and this can be seen in your album covers and outfits, which are very colorful. What do you want to reflect with that?

What happens here is that clothes are super boring (chuckles) because many people dress in black or gray. In contrast, in Cuba and Latin America in general, people have always worn much more colorful clothes and we took that. Also, we met a Nigerian designer, who is the one who makes our clothes and outfits; besides, our Afro-Cuban roots also come from Nigeria, so we wear those clothes in honor of our ancestors. At first, we were doing this because it looked nice, but then people started asking why we did it, so it’s part of us now.

The coloring is very important for Okan

What reaction does the Canadian public to your outfits and music?

For the most part, the reaction is very positive. Many people say they came back to life when they hear us sing. We met a Cuban woman who had many years without going to Cuba and was very excited to hear us and that made us very happy because that’s the reason why we make music. Even though Canadians don’t understand the language, they like it because they see the chemistry between us and the musicians. People can see that and connect to us, even if they don’t understand the lyrics.

What have been the biggest obstacles you have had to face as immigrant artists?

The first problem is that people in this part of the world don’t respect the music done by professional musicians as much as they should although everyone consumes this product. In fact, payments do not correspond to the work done because people think that having a concert is very simple, but that implies a lot of prior preparation, songs written, sound tests, rehearsals, among other things. After all that, they want to pay 100 pesos for a concert. Music is not appreciated as a career and we consider that to be one of the main challenges we have had to face.

The other issue is that we come from a system in which we are not taught how the music business works. Behind it, there is a huge industry and a huge business, so you have to suffer so much to learn it.

Language is another barrier that closes many doors. Our advice to those who hear us is to know that it is possible make a living from music, but you have to speak the language of the country where you are living. You also have to find a good manager who believes in you and in your music; if it is someone born in the country, so much the better.

These girls have to face some obstacles as immigrant artists, but it was all worth it

How do you see the role of the internet in music?

We believe that excess is bad. It’s not fair what Spotify and other digital platforms pay, but you also have to understand that your music gains access to a larger audience. We’ve heard of people listening to us from Russia, Poland, Brazil, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Australia and many more countries. You have to see the positive part and understand that you can reach audiences from anywhere in the world. We can’t view the internet as an enemy, but as a tool and an advantage; it has its negative aspects, but many positive things.

What will be the name of your new album?

The name of our new album will be Okantomi, Elizabeth’s saint’s name and each track will be very different from the other one in terms of rhythms. We will have many guest artists and a super special song dedicated to Cuba in relation to the current situation, but seen from the point of view of Cubans in exiles. It will be called No volví.

Occupations when you are away from the stage

We give music, violin, singing and piano lessons.

Cuban singer Daymé Arocena and her pride of being Afrocuban

This is our conversation

Here we are with Cuban artist Daymé Arocena who lives now in Canada. How are you, Daymé? Nice to meet you and great to have you here today.

Hello, nice to meet you. Thank you very much for the invitation. It is my pleasure to be here talking to you.

I understand that your musical career started at the age of eight. What made you start walking this path? What was the experience that made you make that decision?

I never made the decision to become a musician. I think it was part of the package. I never said that this is what I wanted to do because I’ve always done it. From the age of eight, my parents began taking me to music lessons and preparing me to came to the art and music school and the conservatory of music. I started singing with the choir in the community of 10 de octubre, where I came from. That’s how I started performing and getting up on stage as a soloist of a choir.

Daymé Arocena was born in Havana, Cuba

Considering that you come from a musical family and that music was always present at home, I imagine that also influenced your interest in making a career of it.

My family is profoundly musical, but they are not professional musicians. My dad is a music lover, but he is not a musician. My mother is a health care worker, qualified as a child cardiovascular surgeon. Actually, these are people who have a very nice sensibility for music, but they are not professionally dedicated to it.

I grew up in an intense environment. My house had many people; when I was born, there were already 22 people living at home, but some of them found more comfortable spaces to move and we became a family of 14. I was born in the 90’s, which was when the big crisis occurred and big power cuts were more frequent. There were electricitiy for very few moments during the day, so we couldn’t listen to the radio or TV. Then, my uncles and cousins kept singing, so I grew up watching the family sing and dance. In fact, several of my cousins today are folk musicians who went on to play in various traditional musical groups. It was a deeply spontaneous issue. I saw people enjoying and trying to alleviate the sufferings and shortages they were experiencing.

I imagine that musical and artistical growth in this context was very difficult. What challenges did you face in Cuba in becoming the artist you are today?

The mere fact of being born in Cuba is a challenge, but I had to face things beyond the fact that I was born on an island ruled by a dictatorial regime and all that that means. There was a lot of deep racism and a way to slyly to deal with social classes. For all these years, I have tried to purge my energy of resentment and pain caused by the situation and turn all these feelings into light and creativity. In my case, A lot of things happened like feeling uncomfortable in my own skin and not knowing how to deal with my skin color, my hair and my race. Today, I am deeply proud of my blackness and defend it to the death, but I went through a very hard and aggressive process before that.

The young and not so young prople have to know that you can make art and music through your own essence without having to please the eyes of a few.

So you would say that those things that were an obstacle are now part of your cover letter.

Totally. And proudly, too.

Daymé is deeply proud of her blackness

After leaving Cuba

When you left Cuba, what kind of support did you receive? What was the hardest moment?

Although I’ve spent years touring and working for years, I made the decision to leave Cuba a couple of years ago. I received a lot of international support that made my music visible, but it started playing long before I left my country. In Cuba, there is a control mechanism for artists consisting on a permit issued by the minister of culture to be able to practice that profession.

You can graduate from art school with full honors in the world, but that’s irrelevant because you graduate to be a music teacher, not a musician as such. In order to go on stage and get paid for your work, you need a permit issued by the Minister of Culture himself. To get it, you have to go through a lot of bureaucratic barriers such as commissions, auditions, among others. I didn’t have that permit to sing and profit from my singing when I met the record label that launched me as an artist. One day, I was singing in a deeply underground space without anyone’s permission. When I started to sneak into those spaces, my mom always told me to sing with energy because I never knew who was going to listen to me.

One day of those, a person named François Renié was watching me from the audience. This man was the creative director of the Havana Cultura platform. At that moment, they asked me to make a record with international DJs and singers. They invited me to do a casting, I showed up there, was selected and recorded the album despite not having permission to sing. When I was invited to the realease of the record in England, I showed them the music I Wrote and they offered me to sign with them officially.

You have been compared to Celia Cruz, Nina Simone and other artists of this stature because of your style, what do you have to say?

I had no idea who Celia Cruz was and it’s something I’m ashamed of. When I was compared with Celia Cruz, I wondered who she was. I think I really knew her following those comparisons.

Daymé thinks new generations have to know who Celia Cruz was

I think it has to do with that idea of homogenizing Cuban music into one thing. It was when I was compared with Celia that I started to find out about her and knew that she was the most universal of Cuban artists. She had a phenomenal way of petforming, transmitting, impacting and being as authentic. Musicians who do have access to Celia must do their utmost to let the new generations know who she was. If they can’t listen to her on the radio or TV, they can go online to listen to her and find out who La Guarachera de Cuba was.

How do you think Canadians perceive your music?

I have done very few concerts in Canada as a soloist. In fact, I’m not even there at the moment, but in Puerto Rico. I can’t provide an overview of how Canadians perceive me, but I do think that they are super friendly, docile and open to all kinds of music. They appreciate, dance and enjoy whatever you play. I must thank my ancestors for the expansion of my music beyond the Canadian framework, so I don’t rely on that market for a living.

Do you plan to stay in Puerto Rico permanently?

I came to Puerto Rico to record my next album. I’m super happy and honored to be able to do it on this island so similar to mine because it has so much culture and colorful art. Here, I found the industrialization and visibility that Cuba doesn’t have. I still don’t know if I’m going to stay here for the rest of my life, since Canada enters into my plans in some way, but this is the stage I must live now.

Daymé Arocena is now living in Puerto Rico and recording her new album

Cuban-Canadian musician Alex Cuba talks about his life and career

How language influences Alex Cuba’s music

We have a very special guest. This is Cuban artist Alex Cuba whose real name is Alexis Puentes and is based in Canada. How are you feeling?

I am very well. I would like to make a small correction before starting the conversation. I am Cuban-Canadian because I have been 23 years in this country. I am as Cuban as Canadian. It is very important for me to mention that I am Cuban-Canadian.

Perfect, thank you very much for the clarification. You sing in both English and Spanish. How much has this bilingual approach of languages helped your career?

Most of my work is in Spanish. There is very little that I have done in English. I think what has most helped my career has been my diversity and my ability to enter any musical genre.

This is Alexis Puentes — Alex Cuba, who is based in Canadá for many years

I have noticed that when you sing in English, you usually focus more on pop or genres that are more popular in the Anglo-Saxon language.

Not necessarily. I also make pop in Spanish. Language does not define pop music because you can find pop in any language in the world. I do things depending on how I feel them, how they come to me at that moment and how it makes sense to do them.

Do you achieve more receptivity on the part of Spanish-speaking or English-speaking audiences?

As you know, my native language is Spanish, so it makes total sense that I reach out more to the Spanish-speaking world than the English-speaking world.

You are the son of a guitarist and music teacher. How do you think this influenced the path you would later take?

Definitely, had I not been the son of a guitarist, I do not think I would be a musician now. I would probably be a doctor or a sportsman. I was lucky that he taught me to play guitar and my father definitely had a major influence on my path.

Besides being an artist, was there another profession you entered or became interested in?

When I was a teenager, I was interested in science and medicine. At some point, I wanted to be a surgeon, but my love for music came back permanently when I was about 14 years old. That’s the only thing I’ve done since then.

Alex and his wife — Alex Cuba and his wife and manager Sarah Goodacre

Has Cuban culture influenced his music?

What led you to enter Cuban jazz and folk?

I had the opportunity to have a very wide musical training that goes from jazz to rock, blues, folk, nueva trova, guaguancó, salsa, timba and many more genres. Music is all the same for me, I only divide it into good and bad music. Life led me to become a jazzman first because I was attracted to jazz and I think that has no explanation. It’s like love. You see something or someone and you like it. You see a person and you do not know why, which happened to me with jazz. So, jazz was a great start for me. When you begin a career in music like I did, I think you see music from the inside. Besides all the study and dedication needed to play jazz, you have to know an instrument pretty well and know in depth music.

I never sang in Cuba because I left when I was only 21 years old. It was when I arrived in Canada that I started singing, people liked my voice and that gave me the push I needed to be who I am. We are talking about a career in life.

Do you think those 21 years in Cuba influenced the music you play today?

I wouldn’t say that those 21 years influenced the music I play, but further trained me for the future. Cuba trained me and Canada fulfilled me. If I Could not make music without targeting a specific audience as we do in Cuba or Miami, I would not be who I am now. If I had not come to Canada, I would not be the person I am now.

After being away from your native country so much, what things do you retain from Cuba?

I still like Cuban cigars. I really like Cohiba cigars. I’m a big fan of Cohibas and I love to smoke them while drinking whiskey.

Do you think your music and way of life are a mix of both nations to a certain extent?

Yes, definitely. It is a seed that grows between mango and apple. A tree that is born and grown between two places.

Alex Cuba holding his Grammy — Alex Cuba after winning his Grammy

How has the course of your work and artistic activity during the pandemic?

Everything has gone successfully. I have dedicated myself to creating, recording, composing, releasing singles and many other things.

So things didn’t stop for you

Not at all and I don’t think it happened that way for many content creators. Creativity is in need of nothing because it simply happens. That has been my case and that of many creators with whom I have been in touch in the past year because I have several guests on my album “Mendó”, of which we have just released a single and a new video for the song “Amor A La Distancia”. That album was created during the pandemic and all the collaborators with whom I had contact were at the same rate as me. We were all trying to do something and not hold us up because of the situation. It was nice to get that vibe.

What projects do you have pending for 2022?

I have pending tours that have been delayed since 2020. I’m going to tour and keep releasing music. That’s the point. I still don’t want to go to the moon in a rocket (laugh).

So, you haven’t resumed your activities on the stage to date.

I haven’t wanted to yet. I’m having trouble returning to the stage because it feels weird. I don’t think I’m psychologically prepared for that, but there will be.

Would you have a message for those future artists who come to read this interview?

They must ensure that the desire to be an artist or express art comes from the heart and the soul. That’s very important. If that’s how you start in the art world, it will be like this forever. If you start on social media, you will get to the point where you will not like it anymore.

Your social networks and website for people to follow you

My website is alexcuba.com and you can find me on Instagram as @Iamalexcuba. On Twitter, you can find me as @alexcuba and on Facebook as Alex Cuba.

Alex with a guitar — Alex Cuba playing the guitar