La Musica de Cuba.
The music is everywhere in Cuba. This is one of the things that really stood out on the two trips to Cuba. And what music! Every cafe and restaurant seemed to have a group and the quality was top notch. The street musicians were also quite good.
The photos in this set will be about Cuban music and specifically the current iteration of the Buena Vista Social Club ensemble which I had the pleasure of hearing at a club in Havana.
First, let’s get a little background information on the “Buena Vista Social Club”. I expect that many reading this have heard it mentioned. What is it? It used to mean an actual club (the “Buenavista Social Club”) in what is now the Playa neighborhood of Havana. It was closed after the Cuban Revolution along with other nightclubs. Now, it’s the name of an album, and an ensemble of legendary Cuban musicians who were assembled to record the album, made at Havana’s EGREM studios in March 1996 and released in September 1997. The studios were formerly owned by RCA, and the recording was done on the vintage 1950s American equipment still in use.
The album is about the music of pre-revolutionary Cuba – traditional-style son cubano. It was a project headed by American guitarist Ry Cooder and British world music producer Nick Gold working with the Cuban musician and bandleader Juan de Marcos González, the founder of the Afro Cuban All Stars and Sierra Maestra.
Omara Portuondo
Three albums were made from the sessions, but it is the “Buena Vista Social Club” album that was and remains the sensation – a remarkable critical and commercial success which has sold millions and introduced traditional Cuban son music to so many people for the first time. A documentary film by the German director Wim Wenders—also called “Buena Vista Social Club” —was released in June 1999 with concert footage and live interviews with the legendary musicians in the ensemble. I just checked, and in the US (where I am writing this) I don’t see it on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but it is streaming on HBO – check it out!
A grouping of veteran Cuban musicians was assembled for the 1996 recording sessions, and many of them had been retired for years and were fading into obscurity. Singers Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Manuel “Puntillita” Licea and Omara Portuondo (said to be the “Edith Piaf of Cuba”) are part of the group put together for the album, along with pianist Rubén González, bassist Orlando “Cachaito” López, guitarist and singer Eliades Ochoa, Manuel ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal on trumpet, Barbarito Torres, the virtuoso laoud player, the percussionists from the band Sierra Maestra and others. A very distinguished ensemble indeed. Some on the very impressive list of musicians had been virtually forgotten following Castro’s takeover of Cuba; several were already very old. Compay Segundo was 89 at the time of the recording in 1996. Rubén González didn’t even own a piano when he was contacted for the sessions. I read somewhere that Ibrahim Ferrer was shining shoes and selling lottery tickets. It’s an amazing story of musical redemption.
Compay Segundo
Now something about the photos (all from December 2014). The first two pictures were taken in the historic Colon Cemetery in Havana (El Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, also called La Necrópolis de Cristóbal Colón) where I paid my respects to the great Ibrahim Ferrer, one of the legendary singers on the Buena Vista Social Club album (his gravesite is the second photo). Our workshop did a photo shoot there, and I happened to see Ferrer’s grave. It’s quite a place and is said to be one of the most remarkable cemeteries in the world.
The other pictures were taken at a concert by the current iteration of the Buena Vista Social Club at the Cafe Taberna in Havana. Make no mistake, many of the great ones are gone: Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Rubén González, Manuel “Puntillita” Licea and other members of the original group are no longer with us, and in reality this was more of a tribute group — sort of like the touring big bands these days styling themselves as the Count Basie Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the like – although I understand that several well known Cuban performers appeared in this 2014 ensemble. Having said that, they were fantastic! What a performance! The sheer joy of it!
Ibrahim Ferrer
The light was just terrible – I shot these at ISO 12,800 (!) with a full frame Nikon Df and a fast prime lens, and the low light shows. This being Cuba, the venue didn’t have the sophisticated modern stage lighting one sees in more developed countries. When I converted these to black and white I added a lot of contrast and some grain in Adobe Lightroom for that “pushed” Kodak Tri-X effect one sees in the older concert photography.
See you again in a couple of weeks for yet more Havana with a focus on 20th century architecture, including some amazing surviving art deco and mid-century modern buildings.
Click on (or tap) an image to expand it (and use the arrow to the right on an expanded image to go through the set, if preferred over scrolling down in the post)
Enjoy!
