For days I am about to write this article, and like the most demanding job I have written it more than a thousand times in my head, trying to find the exact words, without fear of equivocation, just trying not to hurt unnecessarily, and more transcendental being objective from my point of view. And this is where the wave breaks, with healthy and necessary openness, objectivity in the exercise of criticism is a rather questionable, matter at least for me.
Much has been said and will continue to be, about Cuban music and its marriage?? with the media in our country. And I wonder do our media reflect, at least the most popular (radio and TV) the greatness of the music that unites us? My answer is no, without hesitation, but I have not been the discoverer of the phenomenon in question, beyond one, two or even three guilty ones, it would be worthwhile to rethink if what we are validating today, won’t become in the future the fatal boomerang, culturally speaking.
A few days ago, I ran through a friend and Argentine artist, into the justice and customs laws in Argentina, which governs the taking out of their most typical musical instrument: the bandoneon. That is, you can’t just take a bandoneon out of that country, without proper and justified reasons, because that would violate popular culture and, therefore, could mean long-term a cultural cancer given my comparison, have irreversible effects on the creators of the milonga and tango. Put it another way: tango and milonga stay there, where they belong in their own right, with Piazzolla and Gardel, who wants to see them will have to go there, inevitably.
In large and small tourist shows in most South American countries, with deep folk tradition, Merengue, Plena, Bomba, Vallenato, Cumbia, Calypso, Wagons, Reggae, Salsa, Joropo, Bolero, Danzon are consumed… If we compare the answer many of you will give will not oppose mine.
So what happens in Cuba? Why this total cultural and media disregard?
I think we should discuss, first, the fact of the Cuban social pyramid, which is inverted-unfortunately-from a few years ago, and beyond damaging the pocket of professional Cuban workers affects in a introspective and retrograde way in the formation of true artistic value. Who goes to Cuban nightclubs? Maybe doctors, journalists, poets, engineers, teachers, executives? We know that is not case.
Towards who are directed those bad jokes in most of these places? You do not need to spend five or six long years of studies to realize the phenomenon in question, nor an unfortunate rule of supply and demand: the one who pays, rules. And here lies one of the key points of the problem, since those bad jokes, decoration and even bad music offered in dissimilar places, they are designed to suit the low level of that client who wants to be reflected in each of these proposals and, where, unfortunately, make most of attendance. Paradoxically there is a minority attending but as a minority group it does not dictate their cultural and taste, is rising the same day the dream of country we want to keep. That is why marginality, “guapería” and other bad words fill the vast majority of nightclubs in Havana.
Another factor to consider is the absence in hotels (at least in Havana, where I live) of dance music orchestras. What cultural proposal as a country we do to those who visit us desperately seeking the Island of Music, if there is not in their hotels? Is it truly corrupt? Would not it have been smart to also abolish this absurd and anachronistic ban?
Cuban musicians recently nominated for a Latin Grammy as Eliades Ochoa and Van Van, unattainable examples of Cuban and authenticity, cannot have a show at one of these well-known and important hotels? Now if I say that on the contrary, these artists work in hotels but those visitors can find them in other places, I would be doing the best children’s story ever heard. Who flood the best nightclubs in the city spaces? Not the Van Van, and Aragon, the Camerata Romeu, nor Yoruba Andabo or Ernan Lopez-Nussa or Anacaona … unfortunately. It is painful and shameful reading recreate any outdoor advertising in any corner of Havana the unpronounceable names of those who act in our city, perhaps coming out of Jim Henson’s creative imagination, I think that have nothing to envy to the saga of the Muppets those night immortalized in our city.
For my work, I receive daily many demos of various projects anywhere in the country. Almost everyone has a mortal fatality: they have no Enterprise. Trova, Danzon, Jazz, Classical, and more, are crumbling under the vigorous natural selection of species, carried out by our institutions, unfortunately … As legislation to prevent professional intrusion, it was agreed that in the media could not be interviewed Cuban musicians who did not belong to any art company or music center.
Valid, to preserve our heritage, but another fairy tale? How is it possible that art school graduates take years trying to belong to a company in order to work and be interviewed for spreading his art, and cannot? But the phenomenon becomes more disturbing when all Cubans see every day with great fanfare on TV or hear on the radio, Rin Tin Tin Diezmero Whip’s talking about his new video clip, recording her new CD and a concert in the Red Room of Capri, and with a company also! That’s when it was set up to seek justice and equity; it becomes a burden, a brake, a den of vice and contradictions to the genuinely Cuban music.
Do you know how embarrassed you must tell a great troubadour of Ciego de Avila that I cannot take my TV space, because he doesn’t belong to a company? Do those who torture Cuban music know how much effort led him to become a musician Revolution, so he cannot form his own project with quality? It would be worth discussing if we are advocating for the easy, step by no art schools, or whether we are proposing to young people the easiest way will be rewarded…
Another point is the visual, the fact that goes unnoticed by many, or so it seems. A few months ago a discussion started about the composer Osmani Garcia, following a theme carried his thermometer as television came in his way, but was Osmani who organized this campaign? Is Osmani Garcia owner of the media in our country? So far I think not, if things have not changed. But the club fell on Osmani like the fierce sword of Damocles, it is atoned gotten all the blame or credit, as the saying goes. Mind you: stick to what you know, let the cobbler stick to his last, so do not blame the author in his subject matter that was disclosed to satiety in the media, why then we threw out the couch in this case? Who allowed and authorized the TV output of that item, Osmani himself? Who out of context clip whose aim was to be displayed in specific locations to a small audience and adult, and not on national TV? Careful not to confuse ethical responsibility and ignorance, nor do we clean up of dust and straw as if the clip had come alone and walking to the master to be transmitted, and had inserted himself without help from anyone in the playback machine. But at this point, another fairy tale would not be bad…
But this keeps happening and nothing changes. Many record companies complain of unfair audiovisual competition, in fact many are producing DVDs of concerts, documentaries, but not video clips, in response, perhaps, to the drought that have earned awards in Lucas for years. Is it fair to see and consume what we do not represent or is recorded by Cuban record? Is it reliable the audiovisual that offer our TV with what sounds really like Cuba? Of course not. Why ban the clip Ser de sol by Buena Fe, when Cuban telenovelas address homosexuality as if we lived in Holland?
Someone said recently that most Cuban clips reflect Cuban identity… and I disagree. Most of these scenarios refer to anything Cuban, nor realities: the use of violence exacerbated in the visual code as well rooted in alien cultures are part of the cliché that torments the clip in Cuba, as scenes of gangsters with bodyguards, or should it better to say that are identical copies of the work of musicians such as Don Omar and Wisin y Yandel? I do not think that the use of coats, trench coats, leather jackets, weapons, harsh climate, heating, fire escapes and other, define our island and our blazing summer and empower the Cuban clip as a true cultural reaffirmation. Of course, there are good robust proposals for the development of other visual language, justified, with a very strong art direction, and actors, but they are less displayed, the less views.
It is necessary to know that extensive career musicians such as Ruben Blades, say watching Cuban music with respect, and also Gilberto Santa Rosa says so, Ralph Mercado and Tito Puente said at the time, Julieta Venegas, Zucchero and Fito Páez confirm it now in Havana. Shaped it over a decade ago by Wim Wenders and Ry Cooder. Diego el Cigala regrets not being Cuban, and Herbie Hancock reverence to Chano Pozo and Chucho Valdes. Fernando Trueba doesnt deny his love for our music, and Claudio Abbado can not run without any Cubans in their orchestras … why then, knowing these and other stories, we look outside and not inside? Maybe Buena Fe is right when he says you have a telescope to look at the Moon and Pluto, but cannot see his little toe?
There are those who play with fire when it comes to music, but remember who first run out of the ship when it sinks …
By: Oni Acosta, originally published in Cubarte
Author
Redacción OnCuba
