One of the most significant tributes paid by modern literature to Cuban music and musicians, From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz can be seen as an attempt to pay back at least a small portion of the great inheritance these amazing musicians have left to Western music, and mankind in general, in the last two centuries. If any scholar ever takes the challenge to come up with a better description of Cuba’s mainstream musical creativity, he should hold Raul Fernandez’s book in one hand and lift the other hand to heaven, praying for a third of the inspiration shown by Fernandez. This short, extremely pleasant, and easy-to-read book will enrich your bookshelf in much the same way as Cuban music does the world. From the very first pages, the author manages to present an astonishingly comprehensive and deep depiction of Cuba’s music scene, capturing each detail of its historic framework. First, Fernandez invites the reader to sit comfortably in the front row of a large music hall, so as to grasp the complexity and richness of the rhythm sections of conjuntos and sonoras. Then, with the same versatility shown by some of the best drummers in the country, whose life stories seem so detailed in every page, he invites the reader to stand and try some steps of that unique incorporation of music only Cubans are able to create, to the envy of the rest of the world.
As the author goes on describing the geography of Cuban and Caribbean music, you can almost hear some of the solos. I highly recommend hurrying to your computer and ordering some tracks to bring you a little closer to that world and to provide a feast for your ears while your eyes feast on the text. By the time you reach the end of the book, you will be profoundly affected by the feeling of having plunged deeply into the reality of Cuban music. Don’t be surprised if you suddenly decide to invite your friends to start your own sonora band: if you are a believer, rest assured it was a call from the heavens, coming straight from a group of happy, swaying souls, half a dozen shining talents that once inhabited some part of that tiny dancing piece of land to the south of Miami. Never in their lives were they limited by the boundaries of their bodily existence, or by the hardships of their country’s economic strains. They flew over the world to build what is known as “the salsa rage,” which overtook mostly everyone living between the two poles around the mid-twentieth century. Now that most of them are truly free from material struggles, I reckon they must have established some sort of connection with Fernandez, just to make sure the next generation of music students, players, and lovers knows that it is actually possible to vet your deepest feelings in a life through music.
In the first chapters, the author does his best at describing how cultures mingled after African slaves were brought to that region by Europeans, who took over the land once owned by the indigenous populations. Fernandez highlights important political and economic events that occurred in the first four centuries of Caribbean colonization, describing the intense flow of people—along with their typical instruments, culture, and abilities—who were in the core of the complexity existing in the major rhythmic patterns born from these mixing heritages. In chapter 2, Fernandez perfectly demonstrates the patterns present in the main musical styles described, with a little help from musical notation and rich, elaborate stories about their connections with the original son style and their sonero way of life. Readers will greatly enjoy the happiness permeating food rituals, where Fernandez—as well as other scholars—sees the main driver of motivation for their musical core.
The following chapters contain one of the richest ethnographies of Cuban musicians produced after Buena Vista Social Club, where Ry Cooder dove into this magic world filled with technically poor people, squandering tons of the most precious assets mankind has ever been able to produce: happiness. The author offers his readers a piece of fluent and easy literature, deeply grounded in facts obtained mostly from extensive interviews he conducted with history buffs during his thorough research carried out in partnership with the Smithsonian Institute in the 1990s. His strong concern with giving proper credit to such a high number of musical recordings, tours, festivals, and media appearances and linking careers to the history they were born for, resulted in this impressive compilation of the most important names in the Cuban and Latin music mainstream. He also clearly shows how they spotted the opportunity to advance their careers when the American dream knocked on their doors.
By the time I finished reading this delightful book, I had decided not only to listen to nearly every artist mentioned there, but also to take on the challenge of producing a Portuguese translation of it. This would give me a chance to unfold this reading to the other half of Latin America, but I still need authorization to follow this temptation. In Brazil, as in dozens of countries receiving strong influence from the Hollywood highlights, millions of music lovers have experienced the phenomenon of salsa, mostly as a result of a historic split that gave our country the other Iberian language, and the specific heritage that drove our people in a different direction. As a Brazilian musician, my deepest feeling after reading Fernandez’s book was to have overcome the unfairness of not knowing so many musical geniuses of such caliber. As he poured some of the most refined Latin musical culture over my naïve ignorance, he cleared the way through the cloudy standards set by that slice of Western music education in which I had been immersed throughout my entire life. I have now taken on a strong commitment to spreading around some of this distinct musical culture and opening the eyes of those hiding behind walls that should not exist. After Buena Vista, where Armando Peraza, Cachao López, and many others stood up and said hello to the world, Fernandez managed to imprint these names in the history of this different type of Western music: one that lies beyond the Atlantic boundaries, in the heart of a Caribbean “melted blend” of rhythmic and musical geniality.
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[Review length: 1063 words • Review posted on June 23, 2009]