how music became "ethnic"
I didn't plan to write about that.
A phone call from a friend who lives in Europe and who is an accomplished studio musician -he plays more than one instrument every time he sits in a session- prompted me to write the following lines.
Music is one of the things that diferentiate humans from animals. Not only can we sing -some naturalist would say that animals also can convey different moods with their characteristic calls, but we have the inimitable capacity of inventing scales, rhythyms, melodies, themes, beats, and everything in between. Humans can imagine, and invent, every possible -or to the moment thought impossible- instrument, instrumentation, overlays of instruments, combination of instruments and so much more.
That happens in every human culture, more primitive or more advanced.
Then we live in Babel, every one speaks a different language, but we are united by music and visual arts. No animal produces art consciously, so don't give me the example of the monkey, the elephant, and the cat or the dog who paints.
Music has a particular language, and it's understood by everybody, and its notation is the same no matter if you speak English or Yiddish, Persian or Swahili, or Russian or Spanish, or Chinese or Arabic. The musicians understand each other, and by reading the music score they can perform together even if their cultures are dissimilar.
Just think of the pudgy English boys playing the blues on the same soundstage than wiry Black guys from the Delta of the Mississippi River. Just think of American band leaders playing with Mongo Santamaria, Cachao, and Chano Pozo. Or think of Paquito D'Rivera, Bebo Valdes, El Cigala, and others playing with the luminaries of the American Jazz.
There have been people like Xavier Cugat, Desi Arnaz, Celia Cruz, Pedro Knight and so many others....
Even Jerry Garcia's dad was a Spaniard, a bandleader in California, and that didn't stop his song from being the leader of a quintaessential American band, the Grateful Dead. Ask Tico Torres what's like for a Cuban dude to play with Bon Jovi, when in doubt.
I could sit here and write one example after the next, but I won't.
I am only writing this for y'all to know how much I dislike those labels of Latin Music, and the "categories" of the Latin Grammys. It's only MUSIC, dumbasses at the helm of the entertainment industry. Well, -they'd say- but the "categories" make a nifty ammount of money for us. It's all about political correctness and division. Divide and conquer, at the artistic level.
That has a lot to do with the classification of "latino" which I enormously despise. I was born in Cuba, from an ancestry that coincided in the island, and they never sign any paper to make me into a "brown" or an "indian" or anything of the sort. I am as Cuban as an American of European ancestry is American. Or European. And now I am an American, since this is the country where one can come by choice and become one with the people who were here before you landed. I am an American who was born in Cuba, who comes from a rich cultural background, and who loves music and the arts.
Well, I see no difference between the music produced by this one or that one. I hear music. But..... no! The Latin Moguls have to make a difference. They have to assign names, they have to kill the soul of a nation CUBA in order to reap benefits and fatten their bank accounts.
They deny Cuba, Cubans, and everything that was produced by Cubans just to please a lot of people who hate Cubans, as y'all know, all those che lovers. They deny Cuba, at all levels, just to cater to crowds of people whose many shortcomings and mental complexes prevent them from becoming and integral part of the United States, which is the richest cultural reservoir of the world. Unfortunately, there are many people among those "industry moguls" that we call "professional Cubans". They don't really give a fuck about Cuba and Cubans, but they have no qualms in erecting themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Cuba when necessary, if money flows in their general direction.
How's that the Major Leagues send talent hunters to Cuba (for the money, but also for the quality of the game) but this music moguls don't want to know shit of what's being done in Cuba?
Why is that Cuban musicians languish in Cuba, while rocking down the place?
It's not only fidel castro's fault. It's also the fault of the people in the industry that are not interested in promoting those musicians. Because, who on the freaking world would buy a recording by three old Mexicans? But they bought EVERY record by Buenavista Social Club (and I don't have many good words about the way it was done)
On the other hand, they knew that Cachao was starving. They "discovered" him when it was convenient.
It's not convenient to discover Porno Para Ricardo, Hipnosis, or Escape, for example. Why? They live in Cuba.
And they would subvert the whole damn word of "latin rock". I simply don't foresee anybody buying any record by the laboratory bands put together by the "industry moguls" after the public get to know one of these acts.
But don't think that they would ever get discovered if they jumped in a raft and were lucky enough not to have the American Fleet of the Cuban Coast Guard shipping them back to Cuba. No, they don't do any "tropical" kind of music. They are not under a coconut tree playing the maracas and the guitar. They are rockers, and if it is a sin to be arocker in Cuba, it's a bigger sin to be rocker in exile, as far as the Moguls are concerned. Don't even talk about rappers, they would cringe, but they would hobnob with P.Diddy, while ignoring the Cuban talent who is booming in the island. They would get chummy with the Cuban rockers of my generation nemesis and tormentor, Arturo "Carnet del Partido" Sandoval. And they can sleep at night!
It's all about cash and cashflow, and art be damned.
I am listening now to one band that I had to miss here in New York due to my professional commitments: Guajiro.
It's no secret that I like them a lot.
And let me tell you one thing: they are great because they recognize the talent of many people who are constantly invited to perform with them, from painters to other musicians. They have open their arms to musicians recently arrived from Cuba and have helped them to understand how music works here, the mechanics, dynamics, and ethic of studio work. They have offered Gil, a guy who used to be a rocker in Cuba a spot in their band as a guest musician and singer.
Guajiro is really erasing the Florida Straits from geography. That's an example of the music of the new Cuba, right there.... they do punk music, in the Anglo-American tradition, with a unique element that makes them unmistakenly Cuban-American-Cuban. And that's the lesson from today, boys and gals.
Listen to Guajiro here: www.guajiromusic.com
Copy the link in your browsers (Blogger's at it again, they should be called Bogger) and follow the link their MySpace page. Enjoy!
A phone call from a friend who lives in Europe and who is an accomplished studio musician -he plays more than one instrument every time he sits in a session- prompted me to write the following lines.
Music is one of the things that diferentiate humans from animals. Not only can we sing -some naturalist would say that animals also can convey different moods with their characteristic calls, but we have the inimitable capacity of inventing scales, rhythyms, melodies, themes, beats, and everything in between. Humans can imagine, and invent, every possible -or to the moment thought impossible- instrument, instrumentation, overlays of instruments, combination of instruments and so much more.
That happens in every human culture, more primitive or more advanced.
Then we live in Babel, every one speaks a different language, but we are united by music and visual arts. No animal produces art consciously, so don't give me the example of the monkey, the elephant, and the cat or the dog who paints.
Music has a particular language, and it's understood by everybody, and its notation is the same no matter if you speak English or Yiddish, Persian or Swahili, or Russian or Spanish, or Chinese or Arabic. The musicians understand each other, and by reading the music score they can perform together even if their cultures are dissimilar.
Just think of the pudgy English boys playing the blues on the same soundstage than wiry Black guys from the Delta of the Mississippi River. Just think of American band leaders playing with Mongo Santamaria, Cachao, and Chano Pozo. Or think of Paquito D'Rivera, Bebo Valdes, El Cigala, and others playing with the luminaries of the American Jazz.
There have been people like Xavier Cugat, Desi Arnaz, Celia Cruz, Pedro Knight and so many others....
Even Jerry Garcia's dad was a Spaniard, a bandleader in California, and that didn't stop his song from being the leader of a quintaessential American band, the Grateful Dead. Ask Tico Torres what's like for a Cuban dude to play with Bon Jovi, when in doubt.
I could sit here and write one example after the next, but I won't.
I am only writing this for y'all to know how much I dislike those labels of Latin Music, and the "categories" of the Latin Grammys. It's only MUSIC, dumbasses at the helm of the entertainment industry. Well, -they'd say- but the "categories" make a nifty ammount of money for us. It's all about political correctness and division. Divide and conquer, at the artistic level.
That has a lot to do with the classification of "latino" which I enormously despise. I was born in Cuba, from an ancestry that coincided in the island, and they never sign any paper to make me into a "brown" or an "indian" or anything of the sort. I am as Cuban as an American of European ancestry is American. Or European. And now I am an American, since this is the country where one can come by choice and become one with the people who were here before you landed. I am an American who was born in Cuba, who comes from a rich cultural background, and who loves music and the arts.
Well, I see no difference between the music produced by this one or that one. I hear music. But..... no! The Latin Moguls have to make a difference. They have to assign names, they have to kill the soul of a nation CUBA in order to reap benefits and fatten their bank accounts.
They deny Cuba, Cubans, and everything that was produced by Cubans just to please a lot of people who hate Cubans, as y'all know, all those che lovers. They deny Cuba, at all levels, just to cater to crowds of people whose many shortcomings and mental complexes prevent them from becoming and integral part of the United States, which is the richest cultural reservoir of the world. Unfortunately, there are many people among those "industry moguls" that we call "professional Cubans". They don't really give a fuck about Cuba and Cubans, but they have no qualms in erecting themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Cuba when necessary, if money flows in their general direction.
How's that the Major Leagues send talent hunters to Cuba (for the money, but also for the quality of the game) but this music moguls don't want to know shit of what's being done in Cuba?
Why is that Cuban musicians languish in Cuba, while rocking down the place?
It's not only fidel castro's fault. It's also the fault of the people in the industry that are not interested in promoting those musicians. Because, who on the freaking world would buy a recording by three old Mexicans? But they bought EVERY record by Buenavista Social Club (and I don't have many good words about the way it was done)
On the other hand, they knew that Cachao was starving. They "discovered" him when it was convenient.
It's not convenient to discover Porno Para Ricardo, Hipnosis, or Escape, for example. Why? They live in Cuba.
And they would subvert the whole damn word of "latin rock". I simply don't foresee anybody buying any record by the laboratory bands put together by the "industry moguls" after the public get to know one of these acts.
But don't think that they would ever get discovered if they jumped in a raft and were lucky enough not to have the American Fleet of the Cuban Coast Guard shipping them back to Cuba. No, they don't do any "tropical" kind of music. They are not under a coconut tree playing the maracas and the guitar. They are rockers, and if it is a sin to be arocker in Cuba, it's a bigger sin to be rocker in exile, as far as the Moguls are concerned. Don't even talk about rappers, they would cringe, but they would hobnob with P.Diddy, while ignoring the Cuban talent who is booming in the island. They would get chummy with the Cuban rockers of my generation nemesis and tormentor, Arturo "Carnet del Partido" Sandoval. And they can sleep at night!
It's all about cash and cashflow, and art be damned.
I am listening now to one band that I had to miss here in New York due to my professional commitments: Guajiro.
It's no secret that I like them a lot.
And let me tell you one thing: they are great because they recognize the talent of many people who are constantly invited to perform with them, from painters to other musicians. They have open their arms to musicians recently arrived from Cuba and have helped them to understand how music works here, the mechanics, dynamics, and ethic of studio work. They have offered Gil, a guy who used to be a rocker in Cuba a spot in their band as a guest musician and singer.
Guajiro is really erasing the Florida Straits from geography. That's an example of the music of the new Cuba, right there.... they do punk music, in the Anglo-American tradition, with a unique element that makes them unmistakenly Cuban-American-Cuban. And that's the lesson from today, boys and gals.
Listen to Guajiro here: www.guajiromusic.com
Copy the link in your browsers (Blogger's at it again, they should be called Bogger) and follow the link their MySpace page. Enjoy!
2 Comments:
To this day I contend that were it NOT for The Beatles (or the whole British invasion thing) the soviet block would’ve NEVER have collapsed.
At THAT point in history there was commonalty of ANYTHING between the east and the west , specially MUSIC !.
They listen to whatever it was they listened to and the west listened to Elvis, Sinatra, etc etc.
There was certainly NOTHING that tied the “cultures”. Then alloffasuden BAM !
The kids in Moscow are listening to the same, the VERY same music the kids in NYC were listening to !
I CLEARLY remember what *I* was listening to in Kuba when I heard the Beatles, I was listening to Los Zafiros. I remember THAT moment as I remember where I was when Kennedy was shot or where I was on 9/11/01 .. it will be BURNED in my memory forever and a LOT of things changed that moment as I am sure they changed for people under ANY communist regime.
It was at a little party and someone had just gotten their hands on “The Beatles second album” (the CAPITOL version) and the first song by the Beatles I ever heard was “Roll over Beethoven” Side 1 song 1.
The intro was a communal gasp! “WHATTA FUCK IS THAT?” then I ran to see what THAT was and saw the pictures on the cover, the hair the clothes, the smiles …. By the time “SHE LOVES YOU” came on … THAT was IT! Life would NEVER be the same.
Suddenly we wanted to now what the lyrics meant, so we picked up English/Spanish dictionaries , we started to keep tabs on ANY foreign magazine we could get our hands on , we started to listen to foreign Radio Stations , For the first time in my life I paid any interest to short wave radio, we developed a new culture , a way of dressing (even within our limited means ) a way of speaking an most important an ATTITUDE !
An attitude than soon became a political stance against the government of Kuba, I can only imagine the same happened to ALL the youth in the soviet block. And THAT change in attitude was the defining moment that would end with the collapse of the Soviet block.
I read that when the Beatles released “Back in the USSR” it became such an anthem for Russian kids that the official radio stations HAD to play it! Suddenly, people they had been taught to hate all their lives are saying that “Georgia girls really knock me out”!
Fuck it man, NO politician could’ve delivered a more powerful message. The FUTURE of Russia was listening to the message from the west and it said “Hey man , we like the same things !”
Chinese kids are hearing that “carrying pictures of chairman Mao , ain’t gonna make it anyhow” and they QUESTIONED the validity of their convictions, because they were not being delivered by some 60+ politician from the West it was being delivered by 4 guys from Liverpool in a TOTALLY non threatening and non judgmental way.
MUSIC did the soviet block in.. and I stand by that . Because any economist may say it was the economy, but the economy issues began being questioned by the youths that grew up listening to non-political messages , seeing the OPENNESS of western culture and asking ; “So WHY Can we NOT have THAT?!”
And so , yes music IS the glue that bind us but it is BIG business and as such it can also be a divisive force.
Can WE Cubans accept that a music genre like “Norteño” can have its own category with seminal performers like “Tigres del Norte” give US a fucking break!
But it is about the bucks and I guess a LOTTA Mexicans get into that stuff hence they get their special little spotlight. We as Cubans and as a demographic mean nothing. Our culture has become PUBLIC DOMAIN. A generic mojito of rhythms called “Salsa” . I guess it was just easier to say
“Hey you wanna go to that Salsa club?” than to say; “hey you want to go to that club where they play Cuban music?” and *I* understand but give us SOMETHING.. Throw me a bone here man, give a wink in OUR direction .
And it doesn’t stop THERE , I was at a “Caribbean” restaurant last night and while waiting for my drink a rather stunning blonde asked for a “Mojito” .. sounded a lot like a “Moyito” , I voluenteered that this place “Cabana” makes the best mojitos in New York even better than in Cuba and she looked at me and asked; Cuba ? I thought Mojitos were Mexican…!
WHATTA FUCK are you gonna say after THAT!?
We have been stripped from our heritage by the mere fact that we have been amalgamated into this LATIN “thing” . We have NOTHING left to call OUR OWN because EVERYTHING has been either stolen from us or become so ubiquitous that no one gives a shit where it came from.
Unless we had the foresight to STAMP the prefix “CUBAN” (as in “Cuban Sandwich”)WE have NOTHING!
Interestingly enough, today a good friend of mine is in Vancouver and a common friend was telling him that my old house in Cuba always rocked. He heard Great Funk Dead for the first time at my place, and believe me, we played a lot of good music there.... Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Winter.... Rock music transformed our lives in ways that made the skin of the commies develop a permanent case of goose bumps.
My experience with the Beatles was very interesting too. I was a little boy, and my godmother -she was a pepilla, she passed away a couple of years ago, untimely- had received a gift from "afuera" (outside, literally, meaning abroad, imagine the isolationism of the island. It was that first Beatles album, the one with "love me do" and "please please me". I was a little kid and I was looking at the cover of the album mesmerized while every teen in the room was frantically dancing to the music. Next minute, well, a loud bang almost take down the door, and we all scrambled to the back of the house, with the album, the cover, and whatever other albums were at hand. I ended up under a bed with a gorgeous gal (what a good way of remembering childhood!!!!) and my aunt opened the door. It was EL COMITE! some fat bitch with bad teeth and one motherfucking miliciano had come to "investigate" the noise coming from the house. Some asshole has denounced that there was a party with "foreign music". My aunt calmly said: do you see anybody here? No? well, get out of my house!!!
I thought, if the goverment doesn't like this music, then I just hate this fucking government!
And the rest is history!
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