WHEN I WAS BORN, 40 YEARS HAD GONE BY SINCE Carlos Alfonso spent the first night of his life on a bench in Santo Su\u00e1rez Park, in the arms of his mother, on August 10, 1949. By the 1970s, Carlos Alfonso had met Ele Vald\u00e9s. At that time, his attempts to make music had led him to a Ministry of Culture work camp during the sugar harvest in Matanzas, and subsequently to Trinidad, where his encounter with Afro-Cuban music would define the premise for the sound of his band, S\u00edntesis.<\/p>\n
How was the sount of S\u00edntesis born? I was participating in a Yoruba religious ceremony during a film shoot, and we realized that if we combined that music with other types of sounds, we would have something that had never been done before.<\/p>\n
(Carlos Alfonso was right. The musical esthetics of this group, influ- enced by the creativity of Mike Porcel, Luc\u00eda Huergo, and\u2014over the last 20 years\u2014by Esteban Puebla, made S\u00edntesis stand out in Cuban music. It is the same group that since 1976 has embodied a sort of school or rehearsal room for many Cuban artists.)<\/p>\n
Even though the hegemony of commercial music is growing, S\u00edntesis survives with the same sound that it\u2019s had for 30 years. I think that we have persisted essentially because we have not made artistic concessions of any kind, and because we\u2019ve been fortunate in having exceptional musicians. S\u00edntesis has main- tained its experimentation with sound and concept. That is what has enabled us to stay away from any type of fad music, no matter how lucrative.<\/p>\n
The 1990s, when the island was going through a deep economic crisis, were productive for S\u00edntesis\u2026 Incredibly, the scarcity of resources and the poverty that we experi- enced during those years made us grow. Some of our best albums came out of that period: El hombre extra\u00f1o, Ancestros II and En los l\u00edmites del barrio.<\/p>\n
(In 2002, the album Habana a flor de piel was nominated for the Latin Grammys. This album, which strayed a bit from the group\u00b4s African influence, featured an excellent group of Cuban musicians, including Chucho Vald\u00e9s on piano, the voice of Pablo Milan\u00e9s, Tata G\u00fcines on bat\u00e1 drums, and Julito Padr\u00f3n on trumpet.)<\/p>\n
S\u00edntesis will return to the United States in September, specifically to Miami\u2026.in professional and human terms, what is generated by this exchange in a city where different feelings exist toward all things Cuban?
\nBeing able to have more direct contact with the Cuban-American community through our music, and demonstrating the outcome of more than 30 years of work to people who are not familiar with our island\u2019s most contemporary musical currents.<\/p>\n
(The Copperbridge Foundation, created by Geo Darder, extended an invitation to S\u00edntesis as part of a cultural project that they have developed for the last two years. It\u2019s a sure thing that S\u00edntesis will play some of their epic numbers. And it is likely that \u201cSi yo fuera Al\u00e1, si yo fuera Yemay\u00e1, si yo fuera Cristo, si yo fuera Buda, si yo fuera de Verdad\u201d will be heard. And it is even probable that those who will never pardon the past will hum along.)<\/p>\n
Photo: Alejandro Azcuy<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WHEN I WAS BORN, 40 YEARS HAD GONE BY SINCE Carlos Alfonso spent the first night of his life on a bench in Santo Su\u00e1rez Park, in the arms of his mother, on August 10, 1949. By the 1970s, Carlos Alfonso had met Ele Vald\u00e9s. At that time, his attempts to make music had led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3064,"featured_media":30677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13923],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[33720,7161],"class_list":["post-30753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n