{"id":5059,"date":"2015-05-19T14:17:49","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T14:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5059"},"modified":"2015-05-19T14:17:49","modified_gmt":"2015-05-19T14:17:49","slug":"u-s-cuba-freedom-in-two-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2015\/05\/19\/u-s-cuba-freedom-in-two-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S-Cuba: Freedom, In Two Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20150519_Farrill-1\"<\/a>
Pianist Arturo O’Farrill performs with trumpeter Yasek Manzano during “Cuba: The Conversation Continued” at Symphony Space in early May\/ photo: David Garten<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nI\u2019ve been following the coverage of the Minnesota Orchestra<\/strong>\u2019s trip to Cuba, and thinking that the cultural exchanges among classical musicians resulting from a changed political landscape will likely be as powerful as the ones in the jazz world.
\nMichael Cooper\u2019s most recent New York Times piece<\/a> about that trip ended this:
\nAfter the break, Guido L\u00f3pez-Gavil\u00e1n, the conductor of the Youth Orchestra, took to the podium to lead the two orchestras in one of his own compositions, \u201cGuaguanc\u00f3,\u201d a symphonic rumba. This time it was the students who taught the Minnesotans a thing or two.<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>At first the rhythmic foundation of the piece \u2014 the five-beat repeated pattern called the clave, the basic building block of Cuban music \u2014 confounded some of the American players. They had all played clave rhythms before, explained Sam Bergman, a viola player in the orchestra, but the Cubans played it a little differently \u2014 delaying the third beat a bit.<\/em>
\nMr. Bergman said that at first the Minnesotans were off. \u201cThe kids were looking at us like, what\u2019s the problem here?\u201d he recalled. But the Minnesotans were able to follow the youth players and soon got it.<\/em>
\nWendy Williams, a flute player in the orchestra, said that she loved the piece so much that she hoped the orchestra would play it at some point when it returns to Minneapolis. \u201cI just want to share it with our audiences back home,\u201d she said.<\/em>
\nI know that pianist and bandleader Arturo O\u2019Farrill<\/strong> is in Havana right now, working on plans for a U.S.-Cuba educational exchange. Below is my recent Wall Street Journal piece<\/a> about his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra<\/strong>\u2019s collaboration with Cuban musicians in Havana and New York City.THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
\nMay 14, 2015
\nFreedom, In Two Languages<\/strong>
\nFrom Havana to New York, Arturo O\u2019Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra play tunes with cross-cultural fluency.
\nBy LARRY BLUMENFELD
\nNew York<\/em>
\nTo end his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra\u2019s season at Manhattan\u2019s Symphony Space earlier this month, pianist and bandleader Arturo O\u2019Farrill staged a long concert of sweeping ambition featuring nine guest artists.
\nThe most stirring moments that night arrived, however, with the stage largely empty, as Mr. O\u2019Farrill and trumpeter Yasek Manzano played in duet. Here were two musicians of successive generations whose lives have crisscrossed the U.S. and Cuba. Mr. O\u2019Farrill, 54 years old, is the son of the late, celebrated Cuban composer and bandleader Chico O\u2019Farrill. He initially forsook his father\u2019s musical legacy for jazz\u2019s more experimental reaches while growing up in Manhattan, but later circled back and found ways to combine both paths through a large ensemble of his own design. Beside his piano stood Mr. Manzano, 35, who left his native Havana for a scholarship at the Juilliard School of Music, where he met Mr. O\u2019Farrill, and then returned to Cuba a decade ago, where he is among the most creative voices within an active jazz scene.
\nAt Symphony Space, Messrs. O\u2019Farrill and Manzano began Ernesto Lecuona\u2019s \u201cSiboney,\u201d a classic of Cuban repertoire, in straightforward manner. The song quickly dissolved into an exchange of improvised ideas grounded in musical dialects from both Cuba and the U.S. and yet beholden to neither. Mr. Manzano displayed unusual articulation on the fluegelhorn, the trumpet\u2019s mellower-sounding cousin, as Mr. O\u2019Farrill delighted in his instrument\u2019s lowest rumbles and uppermost range. The back-and-forth of their performance seemed drawn less from the architecture of Lecuona\u2019s composition than from the inscrutable bonds upon which friendships are built.
\nSuch was the prevalent sentiment\u2014the mission, even\u2014of \u201cCuba: The Conversation Continued,\u201d a concert preceded by a panel discussion involving Mr. O\u2019Farrill and his Cuban guests: Mr. Manzano; trumpeter Kal\u00ed Rodr\u00edguez-Pe\u00f1a; pianist and composer Alexis Bosch; and Juan de la Cruz Antomarchi, a master of the guitarlike Cuban tres who is better known as simply \u201cCot\u00f3.\u201d Mr. Bosch compared walking around New York to strolling through Havana\u2014both cities share a common spirit, he said. Mr. Manzano spoke of rhythmic and emotional truths embedded equally in Cuban and American music. Mr. O\u2019Farrill shared his inspiration for the December Havana residency that gave rise to the concert\u2019s new repertoire, during which his orchestra\u2019s next CD, planned for August release, was recorded.
\n\u201cAll this began in 2002, when an idea took root in my heart,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to create an ongoing conversation between musicians, to continue the one started decades ago by Dizzy Gillespie and [Cuban percussionist] Chano Pozo. People think revolution and ideological differences put an end to this conversation, but we\u2019re pursuing this thing that Dizzy called a \u2018global music,\u2019 which has a multiplicity of opinions.\u201d
\nAs supported by his nonprofit Afro Latin Jazz Alliance since 2007, Mr. O\u2019Farrill\u2019s orchestra has pursued an expansive aesthetic. His most recent CD incorporated traditions from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Spain. Here the focus was squarely on U.S.-Cuba collaboration. The concert\u2019s lack of a unified theme and consistent flow could also be considered its strength: It represented an enduring connection through varied points of view, sometimes within a single piece.
\nMr. Manzano\u2019s \u201cCojin used horns and reeds like rhythmic chants, which cohered into melody largely by way of his brilliant trumpet solos. Mr. Bosch\u2019s \u201cGuajira Simple\u201d reflected a restraint sometimes obscured by caricatured presentations of Cuban music, and showcased his own elegant yet forceful pianism. Cot\u00f3\u2019s \u201cEl Bomb\u00f3n\u201d acknowledged the tradition of the great Cuban tres player and bandleader Arsenio Rodr\u00edguez before delving joyously into realms of jazz and blues guitar. \u201cAlabanza,\u201d composed by New York-based pianist Michele Rosewoman, whose New Yor-Uba ensemble blends unfettered improvisation and undiluted Cuban folklore, set a rhythm for the Yoruba deity Chang\u00f3 within swirls of modern-jazz context.
\nIf Mr. O\u2019Farrill positioned U.S. and Cuban musicians as close relations, he also revealed the cross-cultural understanding that flows through his actual family. The central melodic figure of \u201cAfro Latin Jazz Suite,\u201d one of two original compositions by Mr. O\u2019Farrill, provided the kernel for alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa\u2019s forward-leaning improvisations; but its stretches of pastoral melody and punches of dissonance made overt reference to his father\u2019s signature piece, \u201cAfro Cuban Jazz Suite.\u201d His eldest son, drummer Zack O\u2019Farrill, presented an original composition, \u201cThere\u2019s a Statue of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed in Central Park,\u201d that captured in separate passages the sounds of both New York\u2019s avant-garde and carnival celebrations of Santiago de Cuba. Elsewhere, Zack\u2019s younger brother, trumpeter Adam O\u2019Farrill, played with startling imagination and technique, sometimes alongside his Cuban counterpart, Mr. Rodr\u00edguez-Pe\u00f1a, a Manhattan School of Music student whose bristling tone and bilingual fluency has commanded attention in New York.
\nOne obvious subtext to Mr. O\u2019Farrill\u2019s current project is the newfound path toward normalized relations between the U.S. and Cuba. His orchestra was in the midst of recording at Havana\u2019s Abdala Studios when Presidents Barack Obama and Ra\u00fal Castro announced this policy shift in December.
\nMr. O\u2019Farrill revels in the practical opportunities suggested by an open door. He leaves for Havana this week to discuss creating a U.S.-Cuba educational exchange. Yet he sees this moment most clearly in terms of aesthetic liberation\u2014toward a relationship in which Afro-Cuban music is not exoticized here, he said in his preconcert discussion, and in which musicians from both countries are \u201ctrue partners with one shared legacy.\u201d
\nHe made no reference Friday night to the historic Obama-Castro meeting during April\u2019s Summit of the Americas in Panama. Instead, he described his son Adam\u2019s earliest encounter with Mr. Rodr\u00edguez-Pe\u00f1a in Havana, when both were in their early teens.
\n\u201cThey didn\u2019t talk about politics or even this style or that,\u201d he said. \u201cThey just picked up their trumpets and played.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been following the coverage of the Minnesota Orchestra\u2019s trip to Cuba, and thinking that the cultural exchanges among classical musicians resulting from a changed political landscape will likely be as powerful as the ones in the jazz world. Michael Cooper\u2019s most recent New York Times piece about that trip ended this: After the break, … <\/p>\n

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