Ry Cooder plays his guitar during an interview, Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1973. (Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)
Cuba has a rich tradition of song and dance that is fabulously vibrant and celebratory. However, for almost forty years, this art form lay dormant in the island nation because of its political conditions.
The music scene in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s was full of life. Cuban musicians played exciting dance music with Latin rhythms of the Rumba, Mambo, and the Cha Cha Cha, which were not just popular in Cuba, but also in the U.S. and Europe. They were also heard in our cities, notably Mumbai (then Bombay), Kolkata (then Calcutta), and Delhi, playing covers in restaurants and clubs.
In fact, some of the popular Cuban songs were given Hindi lyrics and featured in Hindi films. Check out “Aa Ja Zara” from the 1957 film Ek Jhalak, and “Babuji Dheere Chalna” from the 1954 movie Aar Paar, which were both popular Bollywood hits. Then listen to “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” and “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,” the Cuban originals that inspired them, and perhaps you’ll be able to spot the similarity.
Cuban bands, like those of Perez Prado and Xavier Cugat, made records which were in high demand worldwide, while also performing live, most notably in Las Vegas and in California. One of Perez Prado’s hits from 1949, “Mambo Number 5,” was remixed and released in 1999 by Lou Bega, becoming a big hit.
There was also an entirely different culture of music in Cuba, popular outside the capital city of Havana. This style showcased traditional Cuban rhythms such as bolero, son, danzón, and guajira, and was played in dance halls, on the radio, and in cabarets and social clubs.
It was this traditional Cuban music that was played by the Buena Vista Social Club, a band put together by American musician Ry Cooder, who went to Cuba in 1997. This also marked a historic moment in music history.
When the Buena Vista All Stars – A Night in Havana performs in Mumbai in early October, it will be carrying forward that same legacy: bringing audiences a living link to traditions of Cuban music that had once been silenced
After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, with Fidel Castro becoming President, many cultural restrictions came into being. While the new government did not ban traditional music, they put heavy emphasis on new, revolutionary, and modern forms of culture. Traditional music was seen as “not aligned” with the new, revolutionary image of Cuba and was officially sidelined. This, sadly, resulted in many young and then famous musicians losing their livelihood — many of these wonderful musicians were out of work for forty years.
The U.S. had also issued an embargo on all things Cuban, which meant that no music or art from that island reached America for decades. When Ry Cooder went to Cuba in 1997, he sought out to gather the best musicians from the old days. With the help of local musicians, he assembled a group of old timers and formed the Buena Vista Social Club band. He took them to the US, where they famously performed at Carnegie Hall in New York. A documentary film, The Buena Vista Social Club, was made and screened all over the world. Cuban music had finally reemerged, and a music essentially silenced for decades got its much-needed revival.
Ry Cooder also has an important India connection: he collaborated with Indian classical musician Vishwa Mohan Bhatt on an album, A Meeting By The River, which won a Grammy award in 1994. Pandit V.M. Bhatt played a modified slide guitar that he calls the Mohan Veena.
But while such collaborations were flourishing elsewhere, within Cuba, the story was very different. The clampdown on the arts after the revolution was severe, and the atmosphere for musicians was often hostile.
In an interview with me for Rolling Stone India a few years ago, Arturo Sandoval, a famous jazz trumpet player, gave us a startling example. Sandoval, a Cuban, was living in Havana and serving in their army. One day, he was arrested and jailed for three months. His crime? Listening to jazz on his shortwave radio. Jazz was considered “imperialist music” and forbidden in Cuba. Arturo Sandoval was ultimately able to defect to the USA in the late 1980s. Today, he remains one of the most sought-after jazz musicians.
Back in India, we have an interesting example of Begum Akhtar, the legendary ghazal singer. She was an established vocalist when she got married. But her husband deemed that women from good families didn’t perform in public. For almost ten years of her marriage, Begum Akhtar did not sing on stage. Finally, unable to take more of the isolation, she announced to her husband that “you can silence me, but the ghazal inside me will not be quiet any more”, a bold stance for the 1950s. Finally, she had her way — performing in public, recording several albums, and achieving national and international fame.
These stories of Cuban maestros and Begum Akhtar show us something vital: that music and the arts will always find a way to survive and overcome the tyranny of repressive politics and negative social attitudes. While politics and prejudice may silence voices for a time, the spirit of music always outlasts them — and we are all much better off for it.
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