Music and Nation Race and Cubanness Forum: Cuba-Past, Present and Future Jorge Olivera Castillo Writer and Journalist Havana, Cuba

Race and Cubanness Forum: Cuba-Past, Present and Future and Future Present Cuba-Past, Race and Cubanness Forum: Music and Nation Jorge Olivera Castillo Writer and journalist Havana, Cuba The Rhumba ne thing that is undeniable is the im- elaborate forms due to a series of motivations pact of our African ancestors on the and circumstances, among which we must con- Oorigin and development of Cuban mu- sider a tremendous ability to improvise, and sic today. For example, contagious rhythms mitigating social realities that forced certain like timba and songo—two popular dance reformulations, to avoid greater rejection. styles that owe their originality and staying Many were the decrees that criminalized power to the rumba, guaguancó and yambú, drum playing or instruments with similar would not exist today. These are old musical characteristics. These limitations continued forms that still privilege the use of percus- well into the nineteenth century. Even at the sion, a soloist, and a chorus that repeats re- beginning of the twentieth, there were still frains. Black slaves created the foundations regulations that impeded the pubic practice for these styles, and these developed into more of certain musical and dance styles of Afri- ISLAS 47 can origin, unless there was prior permission. credentials in the art of beautifully combin- There was always a reluctance to accept the ing sounds in time and space. cultural manifestations of a race that became If not for the instinct of blacks to im- part of New World history as objects to be provise, and their special ability to construct used for slave labor. In time, they became the musical discourse from practically anything, it single greatest producer of a wealth that the would be impossible to speak of Cuban music. white bourgeoisie had, at the expense of thou- The key to understanding the superior instru- sands of African families that were torn from mental and vocal quality of today’s orchestras their natural homeland. and groups can be explained, in part, by those In that society, one that stigmatized their antecedents that originated in the canefields customs, and considered them barbarous and slave quarters in which African slaves at- and foreign to a social model constructed on tenuated their misery by singing ancestral strictly European references, making noise songs and other forms of culture that survived with a drum came to be a punishable crime. the worst of their torments. These practices Despite the grudge held by colonial authori- served as their defense mechanisms. The alter- ties, the clergy, and the criollo bourgeoisie, native was to escape to the countryside and who were against demonstrations of black live their indefinitely—a free but dangerous dances, religious beliefs, and forms of music- life—because they ran the risk of being pur- making, blacks were able to preserve their sued by the overseer and his henchmen, with cultural codes and even combine them with their slave-hunting dogs and weapons. those of their colonizers. If one analyzes the Yet, blacks overcame these odds for rea- disadvantageous position of blacks at that sons other than those aforementioned. Ap- time, that fact that evidence of their musi- preciating their ability to create a torrent of cal contribution has prevailed through time original, rhythmic sequences with percussion is incredible. Just an examination of their instruments, both those well known or others perseverance in what are the most notable created out of a need to express themselves, categories might explain the successful result and the censure they risked, are not enough that emerged from a challenge that cost them to objectively see the inner and transcendental far too much humiliation, punishment, and glory of black Cuban musicians, particularly death. during the second half of the nineteenth cen- Throughout the entire trajectory of their tury. cruel exploitation, and even during and after their mediated emancipation in 1886, blacks The contradanza and danzón never renounced this singular ability to blend rhythms and vocal coloratura with tremendous Hundreds of blacks and mulattoes, and skill. When the drum was criminalized, they French colonists with their families, emigrat- employed a rustic, wooden box that emitted ed to the eastern part of Cuba in search of contagious sounds and attenuated resonance, security and conditions propitious for them to which inspired even more hatred in their op- reestablish their terribly weakened economic pressors. Every beat immortalized rhythms situation—due to the Haitian revolution of that transcended the boundaries of Cuba, as 1791. This uprising by thousands of slaves part of a process that today has the highest of economically ruined a large part of the lo- 48 ISLAS cal (Haitian) bourgeoisie, as thousands of This last genre was created and popular- plantations were sacked, and the number of ized by a black Cuban: Miguel Faílde (1852- deaths—of both rebellious blacks, and whites 1921). After more than thirty years of the who refused to correct a situation that forced contradanza dictating things musical in Cuba, on blacks the humiliating conditions of slav- the danzón appeared and took into account ery—was frighteningly high. the differing tastes among the social classes. With faith and hope that they would be Thus, it is a form that reflects the fusion of able to become a part of Cuban society and three external influences that constitute the recover the fortunes they lost due to the rebel- origins of Cuban culture: Spanish, African, lion, they came, and brought with them their and the least of them, French. Despite the customs. Without entirely losing their essen- fact it was well known, it wasn’t till January 1, tial nature, these customs began to change in 1879 that it officially debuted in the dance hall new ways that incorporated local forms. This of the Club de Matanzas by Faíles’s orchestra. is certainly true of a music and dance style The title of his original piece was “Las alturas that came from Haiti and marked an entire pe- de Simpson.” riod: the contradanza. “Derived from the Eng- lish country dance, and taken to Holland and Brindis de Salas, White and Jiménez France at the end of the seventeenth century, the contradanza had become an element of In any discussion of the contributions, French citizenship.” According to Curt Sachs: virtuosity, and originality of blacks in the “The circle and line are basic to all forms of musical history of Cuba, one must mention choral dances, most of them going all the way three, first-rate instrumentalists: Claudio José back to the Stone Age…Even a style that has Domingo Brindis de Salas (1852-1911), José men and women lining up in two lines, facing White (1836-1912), and José Manuel (Lico) one another, and divided off into pairs, can be Jiménez (1855-1917). The story of Brindis de traced back to numerous African tribes, from Salas’s hits is impressive. It is no wonder that Rhodesia, the Bergdams, and the Bokolis in Alejo Carpentier defined him as the Cuban the Congo, to name a few.”1 Paganini. He earned his first accolades in the The arrival of the contradanza is of Paris Conservatory, and went on to acclaim in “capital importance for the history of Cuban Milan, Florence, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and music because the French contradanza was ad- London. The French Order of the Legion of opted with amazing speed, remained on the Honor knighted him; the Germans made him island, and was transformed into the Cuban a Baron. contradanza. All nineteenth-century, criollo “In this group, the musician who re- composers wrote them. In fact, it was the first mained the most tied to Cuban soil, despite his Cuban musical genre rooted enough to then cosmopolitan life, was mulatto violinist José be exported. Its derivations generated a family White. While one must always suspect superla- of styles, many of them still surviving. Out of tives that characterize Cuban references to the the 6/8 contradanza—a considerably Cuban- past, a comparson of reviews of his perfor- ized form—emerged genres today called clave, mances in Europe, Brazil, and Havana most criolla, and guajira. From the 2/4 variety, definitely assure one that he was a totally ex- came the danza, habanera, and danzón.”2 traordinary artist. There must have been a rea- ISLAS 49 son he was given the Allard Chair at the Paris potential; the rumba triumphs all over the Conservatory.”3 His excellent interpretations world. Various aspects of African-American of the classical repertoire were acclaimed in and Caribbean culture become fashionable in numerous salons and concert halls in Paris, Paris. That city was home to the emergence of Madrid, and New York. The imperial French an artistic movement that endorses this type family, and Queen Elizabeth, who bestowed of art and, despite its detractors, it managed upon him the Order of Charles the IIIrd, were to capture the attention of a public surprised among his admirers. by its richness, lack of inhibition, and an In 1875, White was expelled from Cuba aesthetic that broke with the traditions of a for dedicating a number of his concerts to continent still governed by remnants of clas- fundraising for the Ten Years War (1868- sicism. 1878), Cuba’s first, great independence war. Those who popularized the rumba inter- After the republic’s creation in 1902, he brief- nationally are white composers who captured ly returned to the island, but returned to Par- the essence of what scholars won’t call a genre, is, where he gave violin lessons and composed but an ambiance, instead. A sensuous dance, music of high artistic value. One of his clas- ribald lyrics, and the clamor of drums man- sical compositions is “La Bella Cubana,” clas- ages to grab its audience.

Load more