Hutchins Center For African and African American Research at Harvard University

Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University
Music in Cuba
Author(s): Alejo Carpentier and Alan West-Durán
Source: Transition, No. 81/82 (2000), pp. 172-228
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African and
African American Research at Harvard University
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@ Special Section
MUSIC IN CUBA
A true tradition is not the witnessing of a past closed and finished; it is a

livingforce that animates and informs the present.
-Igor Stravinsky
Alejo Carpentier
It was the New World cultures with the gentler lands, whose inhabitants readily
greatest wealth-and with the greatest accepted the authority of a king un-
strength to resist the forces of conquest, known only the day before, the new-
Translated by that ambivalent process-that provoked comers did not have to work so hard. As
Alan West-Duran
European invaders to the greatest effort a result, the artistic and musical produc-
Adapted from
in matters of architecture and musical tions of the sixteenth century were of
Music in Cuba by
indoctrination. When the peoples to be
very poor quality, especially in countries
Alejo Carpentier.
English translation subjugated possessed the strength, wis-whose mytho-poetic heritage did not
? 2000 The Regents of pose a threat to the Europeans.
dom, or industry to build a Tenochtitlan
the University of
Minnesota. First (as in Mexico), or to plan a fortress like Barely three years after the conquest,
published in Cuba as BrotherJuan de Haro and Brother Pedro
Ollanta (as in Peru), the mason and can-
La misica en Cuba,
? 1946 de Gante set about teaching plainsong to
tor sprang into action as soon as the men
Lilia Carpentier of war had fulfilled their mission. Once the Indians of Mexico, using a flute en-
the battle of bodies had ended, the strug- semble instead of the organ. But this
gle over signs began. The cross has to be kind of spiritual dissemination was not
raised above the Aztec teocali; over every of great concern to the first wave of col-
demolished temple, a church. Liturgies of onizers in Cuba. True, they performed
great pomp were devised to eclipse the mass baptisms and offered indoctrination
splendor of finely wrought idols. Against wherever they could, but there is no ev-
songs and traditions that could still foster idence that Christian chants were taught
a dangerous spirit of rebellion, the spir- to Cuba's Indians before their rapid and
itual force of golden legends and Chris- complete extermination, effected in the
Jaime Valls. Title tian antiphonal chant were marshaled. In rational, systematic fashion that Father
Unknown. 1920s.
brave and prosperous lands, the conquest Motolinia narrated in Mexico. "Newly
Collection of the Avelina
Alcalde Valls family,
built bell towers high against the horizon discovered in the Oceanic sea," the is-
courtesy of Robin Moore and set its choruses to singing. But in lands were rich in neither spiritual nor
172 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82
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Carmen Curbelo,
dance instructor
and rumbera,
early 1930s
Juventud Rebelde
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material resources. More copper than dusk. Later, they "began to compose
gold lay in the Cuban soil. However ter- songs and dances with refrains to Saint
rible their face, the coarse and stony Mary." Within a year, the cacique and
nakedness of the Taino idols could people of the nearby town of Cueiba
had
scarcely rival the resplendent robe of followed Macaca's example, singing
the
reverent songs to the ImmaculateVirgin
Virgin. The Indians, lacking any impulse
to centralize, lived in autonomous in
clans.
a shrine made of palm leaves.
The story of this castaway suggests
Their homes were made of palm leaves;
they brandished weapons no more that he had a true vision of intelligent
threatening than their myths. In colonization.
such Father Bartolome de Las
Casas
conditions, choirmasters were more in-would later recommend combin-
volved in panning for gold (a resource
ing an indigenous ceremonial dance, the
soon exhausted) than in their forgotten
world of rules and commandments. Although it is impossible to say with
Where architecture had not progressed
certainty when blacks first came to Cuba,
beyond the age of branch and fiber, the
we know that they were on the island
mason's trowel was a luxury; on an island
of huts, the first church was a hut.
by 1513.
In I 509, soon after Sebastian de
Ocampo first surveyed the coast ofareito,
the with Christian words, to aid in
still uncolonized island, a storm hurled
proselytizing. Unfortunately, by the time
several castaways onto the Cuban shore.
anyone was able to apply this insight, the
One of them became ill; unable to con-
indigenous people of Cuba had the
tinue on to Santo Domingo, in what is hunger too deeply ingrained in
word
now Haiti, he found refuge with Indi-
their minds to entertain any thought of
ans in the town of Macaca. He quickly
"songs and dances with refrains to Saint
learned a bit of their language, and, be-
Mary."
ing a man of exceeding piety, he con-
The city of Baracoa was founded in
1511. It was followed by Bayamo, Sancti
vinced the cacique [chief] to be baptized.
The cacique regarded this, apparently, as
Spiritus, and Trinidad.When Santiago de
a sort of honorary title bestowed byCuba
the was born, at the end of 1514,
Diego
foreigner; believing that the governor of Velazquez was already a "distrib-
Hispaniola was called Comendador,utor
he of Indian labor." With all the im-
chose that for his new name. Excitedmorality,
by abuse, favoritism, and envy of
the gentleness of the village, our cast-flexible institution of forced labor
the
away showed its people the card-sized
known as encomienda, the young colony
print of theVirgin he carried with him,
led a turbulent life. Its pervasive decep-
and thus a hut was erected in her honor.
tion sowed bitterness in many hearts.
While the pastures of Spanish Ex-
"He told the Indians that the image rep-
resented a beautiful woman, benevolent
tremadura were well suited for fattening
and rich, named Mary, Mother of God."
cattle, no one expected such largesse
Before long, the good savages were
from these spiceless Indies. Although
singing angelical salutations at dawnsome
and gold turned up in streams (clearly
MUSIC IN CUBA 175
deposited over centuries), it ran out un- probably lived in Bayamo (the relative of
der the fingernails of a few prospectors. another Moron who arrived from New
Those not favored with Indian laborers Spain with his "golden horse"). The per-
manifested their discontent quite openly;sonality of "Ortiz the musician," as
those who did have serfs were fighting Bernal Diaz del Castillo insisted on call-
against the clock. "After we came on theing him, is more clearly defined. A resi-
scene, the Indians never had a day of dent of Trinidad, Ortiz was considered
a distinguished player of the vihuela and
In such a sparsely populated land, the viola; it is said he taught dance. The
traditional rhythms of Spain were in-
the prevalence of epidemics, hurricanes,
grained in the wood of his guitar, and his
pirate raids, shortages, and poverty playing was the first to reverberate
through the island's thickets and jungles.
gave the black population greater
But Ortiz's ambition sought greater ad-
stature: in trying times, whites had to ventures; he was far from content to re-
main in the midst of such squalor, en-
make common cause with those who
livening the Sundays and holidays of his
served them. neighbors. When Hernan Cortes (who
affected a tuft of feathers, a medal, and
velvet clothes) sought followers in
respite," Gabrielde Oviedo confessed:
"Their entire occupation consisted of
Trinidad, Ortiz responded promptly to
work which killed them, and at the his
endcall: with vihuela and viola in tow, he
took up the great adventure. He shared
of the day they had no other care save
possession of "a good dark horse called
to lament and cry out their misfortune
El Arriero" with one Bartolome Garcia.
and calamity." The encomienda system
Cortes considered Ortiz one of his best
already contained, in embryo, the forces
horsemen: when the conquistador
that would eventually impoverish the
needed a bellicose horse to frighten the
colony. Men of great ambition consid-
Indians, he always turned to the neigh-
ered Cuba a way station, a "rest note."
Hernan Cortes, Pedro de Alvarado, ing and stamping of El Arriero. Ortiz
Diego de Ordaces, and Bernal Diaz del stayed with Cortes throughout the con-
Castillo had already dreamed the futurequest, and when it was over, he received
myths of America, though they had yet a parcel of land in Mexico City as a re-
to divine the names: El Dorado, Potosi, ward for his valor. He established a
the treasure of the Incas, the fountain ofschool of dance and music there, as he
eternal youth. They were preparing theirhad done in Trinidad before. Ortiz's
entry into a new mythology, one created unique facility in learning Nahuatl, the
by their own daring. language of the Aztecs, earned him the
There were a few musicians among nickname el nahuahuatlo.
the extraordinary adventurers who Alonso Mor6n, Ortiz's companion in
his Cuban escapades, took up residence
Jaime Valls, Maraquero. passed through Cuba. To our shores ar-
1927. Museo Nacional,
in Colima, in west-central Mexico: there
1927. Muse Nacinal, rived the likes of Porras, a cantor, and
Palacio de Bellas Artes,
Havana Alonso Moron, a vihuela player who he, too, founded a school for song and
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Carmita Ortiz and
Juillo Richards on
their first trip to

Paris in 1927
Photofrom Social,
January 1928.
Biblioteca Nacional
Jose Marti, Havana
Cuba,
dance. (Judging by the time of their ar- in the first days of its existence,
rival in the New World, moreover,hadit is
received the musical legacy of Spain.
certain that other musicians-the flautist
* * a
BenitoVejel, trumpeters Cristobal Rod-

riguez and Cristobal Barrera, the harpist By IS50, the Europe
Maestro Pedro, and Cristobal de Tapia, a vihuelas, sackbuts,
drummer-had been in Cuba before, al- struments played i
though they left no traces.) Through banquets offered t
Ortiz, Porras, and Moron-and through celebrate the peac
the military music of the conquest- CharlesV and Fra
have passed through Cuba and Santo paciencia [Mirror of patience, 1604], the
Domingo. From the first moments of poet Silvestre de Balboa dedicated sev-
colonization, public "merriments" were eral eight-line stanzas to the exploits of
held in Santiago to celebrate auspicious Salvador Golomon, a black man who
events. These merriments were observed liberated the captive bishop Juan de las
and heard by new beings who came, Cabezas Altamirano by killing the pirate
against their will, to swell the ranks of Gilberto Giron with a pruning machete:
the Cuban population, bringing an in-
nate musical genius with them: the Andaba entre los nuestros diligente
blacks. Un etiope digno de alabanza,
Although it is impossible to say with Llamado Salvador, negro valiente,
certainty when blacks first came to De los que tiene Yara en su labranza,
Cuba, we know that they were on the is- Hijo de Golom6n, viejo prudente:
land by 1513: Hernan Cortes took blacks El cual, armado de machete y lanza,
to Mexico. In 1526, Fernando Ortiz tells Cuando vido a Gilberto andar brioso,
us, two Genoans brought a shipment ofArremete contra el cual le6nfurioso.
145 slaves from Cape Verde. By 1534,
iOh, Salvador criollo, negro honrado!
there were some I,ooo Africans in the
i Vuele tufama, y nunca se consuma:
colony.
Que en alabanza de tan buen soldado
In this nascent society, blacks consti-
Es bien que no se cansen lengua y pluma!
tuted the most inferior and ill-treated
class, beneath even the Indians (manyAmong us, a man so diligent,

early colonizers had taken up with In-
An Ethiopian, praiseworthy, willing,
dian women and had mestizo children).Called Salvador, black and valiant,
They were often subject to abusive de-inYara's soil he goes tilling,
crees, like one that prohibited black andSon of Golomon, old and prudent,
mulatto women from adorning them-Who, armed with machete and lance,
And when he saw Gilberto, impetuous
selves with costly materials-prohibiting
like a lion attacks him, furious.
them from dressing like white women.
Nevertheless, in those years the condi-
Oh, Creole Salvador! noble black!
tion of blacks was not as grievous as it
Your fame soars, never to end:
would be after the slave trade was en-
Nor should praise of your attack
trenched as a profitable business....
Ever grow weary from tongue and pen!
In such a sparsely populated land, the
prevalence of emergencies (epidemics,
In I539 Havana had a black sheriff
hurricanes, pirate raids, shortages, and
"distinguished for his learning." This
poverty) where a common fate was
man, Estevancio-taken to Florida by
shared gave the black population greater
the conquistador Pan Filo de Narvaez-
stature: in trying times, whites had to
effected "miraculous cures" that were
make common cause with those who
much appreciated by his comrades in
served them. On occasion, the heroism
fortune. From an auto-da-fe held in
of a black man could even wrest cries of
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in 1628,
admiration from whites. In his Espejo de
MUSIC IN CUBA 179
we learn of one Anton Carabali, also vestments were crafted to seduce souls
from Havana; he prescribed herbal inclined to a pageant-filled world of rites

aphrodisiacs so that "men could desire and mysteries. This did not, of course,
and love women dishonestly." In one mean that the ancient gods of Africa
Havana record from the sixteenth cen- were renounced. Ogguin, Chango, Eleg-
tury, we find a witch doctor's pledge to gua, Obatala, and others lived in the
cure a sick person in the presence of ahearts of many-a presence vital
notary public. These events point to aenough to maintain a large following in
much more intimate coexistence of Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil. But the African,
blacks and whites in the early days transplanted
than to the New World, never
believed that the two worlds, African and
in the eighteenth century, for example,
when the boundary of discrimination
Catholic, could not coexist in harmony.
They were all "powers," in the end. Bet-
The African, transplanted to the New World,
ter still, by a process of syncretism, many
Christian saints came to enrich the
never believed that the two worlds, African
African pantheon (principally the
and Catholic, could not coexist in harmony.
Yoruba), assuming African names even as
they replaced the abstract, anthropomor-
Many Christian saints came to enrich the
phic, or zoomorphic representations of
African pantheon, assuming African names.
ancient idols or gods. In this fashion,
Saint Lazarus became Babalui-Aye; the
Lazarus became Babalui-Aye; the Virgin
Virgin of Regla became Yemaya; Saint
Mary became Yemaya. Barbara was associated with Chango;
Ochosi was matched with Saint Nor-
bert; Eleggua was joined to Saint An-

was more pronounced in daily life.While
this racial frontier never became an in-thony (linked to the souls in purgatory),
surmountable barrier, as in the southernand so forth.
United States, it still sustained a long- Another factor that drew blacks to
standing white monopoly in the mostChristian temples was music. In a period

prestigious and lucrative occupations. when churches were the only concert
Furthermore, at the end of the sixteenthhalls, what happened in them mattered
century, the law offered greater possibil-to blacks. Of course, between the culture
ities for manumission; the number ofrepresented by chants intoned "accord-
free blacks grew accordingly. Many of ing to the customs of the Sevillian
the earliest property deeds in the Santi- church"-as Bishop Juan de Wite had
ago city hall record blacks' applicationsdecreed-and the rhythms that blacks
for parcels of land. In 1768, there werecarried in their veins, there lay an abyss.
22,740 free blacks in Cuba. But blacks, we must note, have had no
aie La
Jaime Valls, ls,mulata.
La mulata.
From the outset, the Christian Churchdifficulty in assimilating the music of the
countries they were taken to, rapidly
Collection of the Avelina exercised a powerful attraction over
Alcalde valsfamily. blacks brought to the Americas. Altars,
Courtesy of Robin
making it their own. In the United States
Moore implements of worship, imagery, and they learned the Protestant hymn; in
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Centro Odilio Urfr,
Havana
Santo Domingo they appropriated French 20,000 inhabitants,

songs and dances. "The first reports we blacks, Indians, and m
have of music on the island are quite de- industry was beginnin
plorable," railed the chronicler Jose a corresponding incre
Maria de la Torre. "Suffice it to say that black slaves. La Prensa,
black women sang in the churches and on the island, had be
that the giiro was present." The truth is Cerro in 1576. After ac
that in Santiago the dearth of instru- spices, the European t
ments, and frequently of organists, later he would become enthralled with
justified the use of profane musicians for coffee and chocolate. The great oil
the solemnities of worship. The situation painters soon took on the task of record-
was reminiscent of the Middle Ages, ing the gestures and expressions of
when the doors of minor parishes were smokers. In all this, Cuba was laying the
of necessity opened to minstrels. foundations of her economy.
* * *
The sumptuous liturgy on display in
Mexican sanctuaries was remote from
At the beginning of
Santiago and the
Havana. seventeent
The meager spiri-
century, the island of resistance
tual and physical Cuba had
of the in- rough
digenous population directed the energy sion." Five years later, it was decreed that
of the island's colonizers. They focused "there be a good and joyful composition
on schemes that yielded immediate to make the holy day a solemn one"; the
profits, and there was greater need for producer was to be a certain Juan deVar-
slaves than for choirboys. A certain laxity gas. In 1590, twenty ducats were paid to
in religious matters was noted even then; actors in farces "performed on the day of
this tendency was only amplified in the Corpus Christi." Francisco Mogica was
subsequent historical and cultural devel- rewarded for being "the author of said
opment of Cuban nationhood. Cuba
might have had fine preachers, but it From the earliest times, the feast of Corpus
never produced great mystics; religious
writing has had only a few mediocre Christi featured mock giants, Moors,
practitioners on the island. This absence midgets, and dragons-and, doubtless, the
derives less from lack of faith than from
a typical Creole reluctance to embrace heel-tapping dancers alluded to by Cervante

causes or make gestures of contrition. In
the middle of the seventeenth century, work." Such reports grew more fre-
the bishop Vara Calderon found it nec- quent: in 1598 Juan Batista Siliceo wrote
essary to prohibit public dances in or staged two comedies; in I608, the
churches, as well as the hiring of black town council spent 4,258 reales to make
and mulatto women to wail at funerals. giants "for use in other feasts." In 1621,
On the other hand, the public festivi- "the motion was passed to build or make
ties that were celebrated by all appear to the giants, the Father, the Mother, a bull,
have been most lustrous. In I1557, Havana six small horses, and a dragon, for 150
had only one musician-the Flemish ducats a year." And the following year:
Juan de Emberas, who would beat a "Alonso Mendez asks that he be given
drum whenever a ship heaved into view. one hundred reales for performing the
But by 1573, the town council saw fit to dance of the monkey on Corpus Christi.
commission one Pedro de Castilla to He says that he has returned all but one
of of
"come up with a dance" for the feast the costumes; therefore, it is resolved
Corpus Christi, a festival traditionally
that he be paid, discounting the costume
observed in Cuban towns and cities. he did not return."
From the earliest times, these festivals
Initially these "dances" were accom-
featured mock giants, Moors, midgets,
panied, no doubt, by the fife and drum
and dragons-and, doubtless, the heel-
of the garrison. According to Irene
tapping dancers alluded to by Cervantes.
Wright, the odd guitarist or flautist could
also be found in Havana; we should re-
In a process analogous to the emergence
of medieval drama from religious cere-
member, too, that there were four min-
mony, theater in Cuba was born in strels
the living in the city in I597. The
dances became more ostentatious as the
feast of Corpus Christi. A few dates will
place its first manifestations: in 1573, it
years passed. When news of a prince's
was resolved that Pedro de Castilla birth arrived in August of I605, the
should "create a theme for the proces-
event was celebrated with great pomp:
MUSIC IN CUBA 183
"After mass was held in the afternoon, drums and tambourines" would come
there was a splendid masquerade in out into the street during the feasts of
which no man was left on horseback, Corpus Christi. Once again, black peo-
nor did any young man, student, or ple had the opportunity to assimilate
schoolboy fail to display his invention. Iberian melodies, enriching them with
Later there were games with cane sticks, rhythm and percussion. Two musical cul-
a triumphal float with music and actors; tures-one descended from Western
on two separate days there was a parade Christian tradition and from the Moors;
the other, elemental, constructed from
Cuba had admirable composers and rhythms and percussion-were meeting
in the maritime crossroads that was
performers of serious religious music long
Cuba.
before anyone on the island produced a novel
or published a newspaper.
In Cuba, music always preceded litera-
of twenty-four bulls, with bright lights ture and the visual arts, reaching matu-
and gun salutes." rity when all other forms-except po-
In Cuba, the tradition of Corpus etry-were only nascent. Cuba had
Christi, unlike that of other movable admirable composers and performers of
feasts, remained continuous until the be- serious religious music long before any-
ginning of the nineteenth century. The one on the island produced a novel or
trappings changed but slightly, if we trust published a newspaper.
Emilio Bacardi Moreau's narrative of the In his admirable essay La "clave"
celebration of I800: xilofonica de la musica cubana, Fernando
Ortiz paints a vivid picture of popular
In the procession, several masks and figuresHavana life in the eighteenth century:
were presented, representing angels, devils,
Havana, maritime capital of the Americas,
gypsy men and women, lions, tigers, and
and Seville, its Iberian counterpart, changed
above all a gigantic snake-like figure called the
year after yearfor three centuries: their ships,
dragon. All these comparsas [carnivalgroups]
had their own dances, both in the main pro-peoples, riches, customs-and with them, their
cession and throughout the eight-dayfestival;rogues and mischief, the pleasures of souls
they carried busts of saints, and were often ac-given to the enjoyment of whatever earthly
companied by drumming, songs, and Africanand human beauty they werefortunate to

tambourines. find .... But another race poured passion,
pleasure, and artfrom the heat of the equato-
This description is consistent with rial jungle into the cauldrons of Seville and
what we have already learned from theHavana. For centuries, rushing torrents of
archivist of Havana's ordinances. In a citymuscular strength and spiritual abandon
where black and mulatto women were flowed out of the marrow of Africa to white
hired as mourners, and where brown-
shores on either side of theAtlantic, imparting
skinned people could establish inns forardor to the soul and agitation to the flesh.
travelers, it is inevitable that "African any bustling port, Havana was famous
Like
for its diversions and licentious behavior. Sea- dives, sheltered in huts and houses with mud Man with cheke
farers and newcomers on shore leave from walls.... Songs, dances, and music came and From Origenes de la
naval fleets surrendered to temptation (as did wentfrom Andalusia ria, A and Africa:Tony
musi Cu(Madrid:
Evora by
raucous slaves and loose women) in taverns Havana was the crucible where they came to- Alianza Editorial)
where black women sold pig innards, in gam- gether with the greatest heat, with the most
bling dens and gaming houses set up by ad- polychromatic iridescence.
mirals andgenerals, and in even less hallowed
MUSIC IN CUBA 185
Victor Patricio
palm leaves-for a heraldry from the In-
Landaluze,
dies. Gone were the days when Havana
Dia de Reyes en La In 1774, the island of Cuba counted
Habana. 1881.
was a mere rest stop for navigators, a so-
Museo Nacional, Palacio
96,430 whites and 75,I80 blacks-of
lace for foreigners, its populace content
de Bellas Artes, Havana whom 44,633 were slaves. Eight years
with the table scraps of others, resigned
before, a man by the name of Gelabert
to its status as poor relation to Mexico or
had established the first coffee plantation,
the Viceroyalty of Peru. The fertile soil
not far from Havana. Sugar, coffee, to-
earned the respect of the natives; there
bacco, cattle, timber, apiares, and copper
mines formed the basis of the Cuban was increasing attachment to the land.
The Creole gained greater consciousness
economy, as they would long thereafter.
of his rights. Over time the umbilical
These sources of revenue, always secure
cord that bound the island to the ware-
and ever increasing, had produced a Cre-
houses of the Iberian peninsula grew
ole bourgeoisie ready to trade in their
tenuous; ultimately, the colony enjoyed a
simple coats of arms-leather, grain, and
higher standard of living than many
Castillian estates. If their heraldry was music, and dance. The excellent disciples
short on pedigree, there was no scarcity they turned out in the courtly arts could
of sugar mills. strut, to exquisite effect, while they
bowed. A musician, Monsieur Dubois,
formed the first black musical group in
On the night of August 14, 1791, an Santiago. And there was more. Turning
event of momentous import transpired the humdrum ways of the locals upside
in the French colony of Saint down, the French constructed a provi-
Domingue.While voodoo drums droned
sional theater out of guano; drama, com-
on in Bois Caiman, two hundred dele- edy, and comic opera could be seen
gates from the slave plantations of the
there. Racine's verses were recited; one
Northern Plain gathered under a tor-
Madame Clarais sang Kreutzer's "Joan of
Arc." Fine music could be heard in a
rential downpour, summoned by an en-
lightened leader named Boukman, to
On
drink the tepid blood of a black pig and August 14, 1791, two hundred delegates
swear an oath of rebellion. Eight days
from the slave plantations of the Northern
later the hoarse cry of great conch shells
Plain gathered under a torrential downpour,
resounded through the mountains. The
slaves disappeared into the forest after
summoned by an enlightened leader named
poisoning the wells. In February of 1793,
the French National Convention abol- Boukman, to drink the tepid blood of a black
ished slavery in the colonies. Although
pig and swear an oath of rebellion.
the British landed at Mole San Nicolas
small cafe and concert hall known as the

and at other focal points of the insurrec-
tion, whites were unable to retain the
Tivoli-except when the ballerina Popot
obedience of their slaves. At the first sign
was dancing to rapturous applause. The
of blood, the hectic flight began; those
daughters of the settlers sang bergerettes;
settlers who could find passage went toconcerts ended with a minuet whose
New Orleans. But for those with only final
a trio featured Monsieur Dubois on
schooner at hand, the Cuban coast pro-
his clarinet.Years later, the musical activ-
vided closer, more certain refuge. ities of the French would achieve greater
Having arrived in Santiago in the ut-
scope. Karl Rischer and Madame Clarais
most misery, many fugitives were forced
bought a clavichord and founded an or-
to depend on public charity for a time.
chestra that included piccolo, flute, oboe,
But as the great terror faded (and as they
clarinet, trumpet, three horns, three vi-
tired of the soup that the women of the
olins, viola, two cellos, and various per-
cussion instruments. A curious fact: in
town made for them), the refugees began
to refashion themselves. Jose Maria those first years of immigration, one
Callejas has noted that the educated could witness the Tivoli's audience
French ladies "established schools of singing the "Marseillaise" and the Hymn
drawing, sewing, and French"; their
to Saint Louis with equal enthusiasm. Far
houses thrived. Others taught geography,
from the guillotine, which seemed in-
MUSIC IN CUBA 187
consequential compared to the machete- who fled the Haitian insurrection; some
wielding followers of Toussaint-Louver- out of loyalty to their masters, others as
ture, the exiles sang the praises of both domestic slaves. These were the ancestors
monarchy and republic. of the blacks in Santiago (still called

Before the arrival of the French, the "French") who preserve many of the
minuet was danced in Cuba only in the songs and dances of old Santo Domingo
tiniest aristocratic circles. The fugitives to this day. Every Saturday, they still
popularized it and brought, in addition, gather in the city's two surviving clubs,
the gavotte, the passepied, and, above all, surrendering to dances generically
the contredanse. This simple dance is known as the tumba francesa, faithful
crucial to the history of Cuban music. reflections of eighteenth-century Creole
The French contredanse was adopted traditions. They use squat, barrel-shaped
with surprising swiftness, enduring on drums adorned with drawings. These
the island in the form of the Cuban con- drums are played with sticks-like Hait-
tradanza, which was favored by all the ian voodoo drums-though they use
Creole composers of the nineteenth the tension of the rim to tighten the
century. It would be the first of many drum skin (and not the "button-down"
musical genres from the island to prove method, with its wedges, more charac-
From Origenes de la itself abroad; its present-day offspring teristic of Hispaniola). In these dances,
misica Cubana, by
Tony Evora (Madrid:
comprise a veritable family tree. the couple stands apart in a stately man-
Alianza Editorial) Many blacks accompanied the whites ner copied from the old dances of Cap
Haitien and Port-au-Prince, though the maintain that it is part of the popular The original
Munequitos de
percussion (three drums with drumheads Hispanic tradition, though this thesis is
Matar..as, 1952
and an ideophonic drum made of wood often supported with suspect citations.
called a cata) creates a rhythm of monot- Curt Sachs, who usually gets to the bot- From Origenes de la
musica Cubana, by
onous intensity alongside the sung tom of such issues, evades the questionTony Evora (Madrid:
melodies. of origins by affirming, expeditiously,Alianza Editorial)
that "the tango is not a purely black

dance." (In the middle of the nineteenth
Much has been written concerning thecentury, Bachiller y Morales used the
origins of the tango and the habanera-term tango to designate all street dancing
dances with identical rhythms, althoughby slaves.) In fact, we find the rhythm of
they are known by different names. Ac-the tango and the habanera accompany-
cording to Friedenthal, this rhythm wasing the first contradanzas, published in
brought to Spain by the Moors. OthersHavana in 1803, and in guarachas long be-
MUSIC IN CUBA 189
Police chief fore that. Its wide diffusion in Cuba at long before I800, we already hear, per-
Estanislao Mansip,
the end of the eighteenth century-as fectly defined, the characteristics of the
surrounded by much in the danza of the salons as in "Andalusian" tango. Moreover, Ar-
items taken from
popular dances-implies the presence of
gentina, for example, had first to see the
an Abakua shrine
an old custom, shared by blue bloods andtango arrive (or return) from Spain by
in a police raid,
freewheeling mulattos alike. way of light comic opera (the zarzuela)-
May 20, 1914
Biblioteca Nacional
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine thatas well as the habaneras that were played
Jose Marti, Havana the famous tanguillo could have imposedthroughout Europe-to create what is
its rhythm on such an immense portiontoday its national dance. Cuba, on the
of the New Continent in only a few
other hand, never showed much interest
years, turning up with equal force in the
in the tango rhythm. It was a routine el-
Mexican bamba, the Haitian merengue,ement of Cuban dance, not a novelty:
the music of Brazil, the Argentine tango,when habaneras first appeared on the is-
and so on. Its rhythmic presence in theland, their popularity stemmed from
Americas long predates its earliest men-their enchanting melodies, drawn from
tion in Spain.Why were the melodies of
ballads, and from their charming lyrics.
the French contredanse performed toIn no way were they perceived as some-
the rhythm of the tango in Santothing new or particularly interesting,
Domingo in the closing decades of themusically speaking. (It goes without say-
eighteenth century? And after receiving
ing that the rhythm, so voluptuous and
the contredanse, why did Cuba adhere solanguid nowadays, was played at an in-
closely to this arbitrary form? If thecredibly swift tempo at the beginning of
Spanish influence was strong in Cuba, itthe nineteenth century; it served as the
was faint, indeed, on its neighbor, Santobass line to the Cuban contradanza.)
Domingo, where the French had ruled There are many reasons to believe that
the tango was known in the Americas
for two centuries. But the rhythm was
old on both sides of the divide. In the before its appearance on the Iberian
song "La guabina," performed in Havana
peninsula and that blacks were responsi-
ble for its diffusion. We should remem- color" to Veracruz. The newcomers
ber that the dances born in the New brought from Cuba a dance known as El
World in the early days of colonization
chuchumbe; once seen, it spread with in-
were not so different from each other,
credible speed. The rabble of that mar-
itime city began dancing the pleasing
despite their diverse names. The dances
Antillean novelty with abandon. The
belonged to two large groupings-
tango and habaneras-endowed with
verses, brimming with licentious intent,
identical characteristics, wherever already
the had the tone, twist, and guile
racial contributions merged. And they
characteristic of Cuban guarachas in the
were produced in the same countries
nineteenth century:
whose folk musics today bear witness to
the presence of the tango rhythm. Que te puede dar unfraile
In 1776, a European fleet that had
por mucho amor que te tenga?
Un polvito de tabaco
made a long stopover in Havana trans-
ported some immigrants "of irregular
y un responso cuando mueras.
Santeria altar
From From Afrocuban
Music to Salsa, by
.._--4 Olavo Alen Rodriguez
ILrleLCIIC -LC (Berlin: [Pi'ra:nha])
MUSIC IN CUBA 191
The duo Celina
^LLa
and Reutilio
From Origenes de la
musica Cubana, by
Tony Evora (Madrid:
Alianza Editorial)
Por aqui pas6 la muerte My husband died,

poniendome mala cara, God in heaven has him,
y yo le dije cantando: may he keep him so well
iNo te apures, alcaparra! that he never returns.
Mi marido se muri6,
Dios en el cielo lo tiene El chuchumbe was danced with "sway-
y que lo tenga tan tenido ing motions ... alien to propriety; it is a
que aca jamas nunca vuelva. terrible example to those who witness it,
as dancers thus entwined paw one an-
What can a friar give you
other from step to step." Such was the
no matter how much he loves you?
A bit of tobacco
popularity of the dance-so outrageous
its purpose and gestures, as danced "in
and a prayer when you die.
public houses inhabited by mulattos and
Death came 'round my door people of irregular color; never by seri-
Making a long face, ous men, nor among the circumspect"-
And I told him, singing: that a denunciation demanding its pro-
There's more to the show, so take it slow!hibition was referred to the Holy
Inquisition in Mexico. The answer was men on one side, women on the other. They
soon forthcoming. After ordering a "de- jump, turn, and spin; they draw within two or
tailed and focused" investigation, the threefeet of each other; they retreat with the
Holy Office issued an irrevocable con- ebb of the rhythm until the drums bring them
demnation of El chuchumbe, deeming it together again .... It looks as if they were

the cause of the gravest of damage to striking each other in the stomach, though in
Veracruz, "particularly among the maid- fact it is only their thighs that touch. Then
ens," and citing it as an offense to they draw back, turning in circles, with las-
"proper education and good manners." civious gestures. From time to time they em-
El chuchumbe was not invented on the brace.
boat from Havana to Veracruz, as is

Procession with
sometimes imagined. It was not sponta- When Carlos Vega states that most
naniga power
neously generated. It formed part of a travelers who described similar dances
vast and motley family of paracumbes, were imitating Father Labat, he may have
From Origenes de la
misica Cubana, by
cachumbas, gayumbas, and zarambeques, in mind the priest's report to the Mexi-Tony Evora (Madrid:
kissing cousins of the sarabande and cha- can Holy Inquisition. These accounts all
Alianza Editorial)
conne mentioned by the poets of Spain's

Golden Age. These dances were always
accompanied by the "kicking of the
apron," the gesture of "the lifted skirt,"
the choreographed pursuit of the female
by the male. This eternal theme forms
the basis of the fandango, as danced in
Spain in the seventeenth century, of
which Casanova said: "The man and the
woman of each couple adopt a thousand

poses and make a thousand gestures of
incomparable license." ... Describing El
chuchumbe, an informant to the Holy In-
quisition in Mexico writes the follow-
ing: "The verses are sung while others
dance, a man with a woman or four
women with four men; the dance is per-
formed with gestures, shaking, and sway-
ing contrary to all honest intentions ...
because in it they embrace one another
and dance belly to belly."
Father Labat observed a similar dance
in Santo Domingo in I698:
The one with the most talented voice sings a

song . . . whose refrain is taken up by specta-
tors. The dancers are placed in two long lines:
MUSIC IN CUBA 193
Eduardo Abela. El
triunfo de la rumba.
Havana
refer to the same gestures and positions, skirt. A dancer approaches her; he pouncesfor-
as well as embraces and "bellies joining ward, but joins the rhythm just as he is about
bellies," although they usually attenuate to touch her. He goes back, then forward
the French cleric's account. Similarly, again, inviting her to participate in the strug-
Roquete, in his Dictionary of the Por- gle of seduction. The dance grows animated
tuguese Language, defines the embigada, a and soon paints a picture whosefeatures go
step in the batuque dance, as "the im- from voluptuous to salacious.
petuous collision of belly button with
belly button." This description, more detailed and
In I789, Moreau de Saint-Mery de- better written than the previous ones,
scribed a dance derived from earlier contains all the choreographic elements
forms: of El chuchumbe. It also holds the key to
the rumba: a certain way of moving the Dancer as Oya,
The skill,for thefemale dancer, has to do with hips while keeping the rest of the body Yoruba goddees
moving her hips and the lowerpart of her kid- immobile-except the hands, which of judgment and
neys [sic] while the rest of her body remains hold the corners of a handkerchief or vengeance
still, in no way hindering the soft movements the dancer's skirt (here, we are border-
From Origenes de la
musica Cubana, by
of her arms and hands, which must hold ei- ing on the Brazilian batuque). The rumba
Tony Evora (Madrid:
ther end of a handkerchief, or the edge of her was not danced any other way twenty
Alianza Editorial)
years ago, in the Alhambra Theater. And the author of a popular (though rather
it probably was not danced differently by derivative) fantasia entitled "Voyage to
the Havana caricaturists in theVillanueva Giiines," came up with a new arrange-
Theater on that fateful night in January ment of the Cocoye for band. Desvernine
1869, when Spanish "volunteers" opened would later adapt it for piano. Eventually,
fire on the audience. Amadeo Roldan employed its melodies
in the Overture on Cuban Themes (I925)
and in "Oriental" from his Three Short
The honor of being the first to recog- Poemsfor Orchestra (1926).
nize the rhythmic and melodic power of In 1809, colonial chauvinism took aim
black music in the Antilles fell to a man at the French dances that had received
not born in Cuba, one whose vision was such a warm reception in aristocratic sa-
unclouded by local prejudices. One lons and dance halls alike. An editorial in
night in 1836, at La Venus Cafe, the ex- the Aviso de La Habana attempted to pro-
ceptional Catalonian musician Casamit- voke a response with the following
jana (by then the author of Cuban songs words:
well loved in Santiago) witnessed the
procession of a noisy comparsa led by two We have always been a people distinguished
mulatto women, Maria de la Luz and by honest simplicity, lacking in affectation, un-
Maria de la 0., who were singing the til French libertinism conquered, my brothers,
Cocoye. Astounded by the revelation, he our ancient customs, inflicting grave damage.
immediately transcribed the verses and Now we detest with all our heart the princi-
rhythms, composing a score for the Cat- ples of that debased nation-and we will al-
alonia regimental band. A few days later, ways remember, as if sculpted in marble, the
the work premiered at an open-air con- felony committed against the august person of
cert, scandalizing the "distinguished our adored King, Sehor don Ferdinand the
members of the audience." But the ap- Seventh, may God look after him. Now, how
are we not tofeel at odds with the waltz and
There are many reasons to believe that the
the contredanse, those utterly shameful inven-
tango was known in the Americas before its tions that diabolical France hasfoisted on us?
The dances are diametrically opposed to
appearance on the Iberian peninsula and that
Christianity; their gestures, lascivious wig-
blacks were responsible for its diffusion. gling, and the impudent ruffianism of their
practitioners all combine to provoke concupis-
plause of the people filled the plaza, dis-
cence in the body through exhaustion and
arming the scowls worn by the dandies. heat.
The Cocoye was to have a long life.
Adopted by black Cubans, this "French
black" invention-its cinquillos and In the 1827 census of Havana, one finds
melodies deftly supported by percussive the following curious fact: among 16,520
basslines-would provide material for white males dedicated to various occu-
an 1849 arrangement by Manuel Ubeda, pations there were 44 musicians, while

a composer of religious music. Reino, among 6,754 free men of color in simi-
lar conditions there were 49 musicians-
a proportion three times as great. In an
oft-cited paragraph from his Memoria so-
bre la vagancia en la Isla de Cuba [Mem-
oirs of a vagrancy in Cuba, 1832],Jose
Antonio Saco wrote:
The arts are in the hands of people of color.

Among thegreatest evils this unfortunate race
has visited on our soil is the estrangement of
the white populationfrom the arts. Fit merely
for the most mechanical of occupations, blacks
were entrusted only with laborproper to their
condition. The master was therefore accus-
tomed early on to treat the slave with disdain,
and soon came to view the work he performed
in likefashion, since the honor or shame of
all vocations is necessarily linked to the nature
of those who pursue them.
But it was not just "the habit of de-

spising work done by blacks" that made
whites indifferent to the musician's con-
dition. Several factors prevented music

Santiago
from becoming a proper profession, but neral." After an ecclesiastical ruling pro-
carnival-goers
most important were the prejudices of a hibited the cantors and instrumentalists
colonial society that had only recently of Havana from working in orchestras From Origenes de la
misica Cubana, by
achieved prominence. Its sons were con- and opera or tonadilla choruses, they Tony Evora (Madrid:
signed to law, medicine, the church, the were forever petitioning the cathedral Alianza Editorial)
military, or, for lack of anything better, dean and the town council for back pay
public administration-the most "hon- from the treasurer, or requesting that the
orable stations." If the aroma of cane record keeper refrain from charging ab-
molasses still clung too closely to the
sences against their wages.
body, a toga, sword, or tonsure compen-Still, these musicians guarded their po-
sated more than adequately for one's sitions
ig- jealously. The church offered sal-
noble birth. vation: concerts were too risky an ad-
On the other hand, the instability and
venture to provide subsistence. And as for
poverty associated with the musician's
the theater, visits from musical compa-
position made it an unenviable one.
nies were too irregular to create contin-
uous demand for musicians. So it is not
Father Juan Paris, who succeeded Este-
ban Salas as choirmaster in Santiago, had
surprising that whites, privileged in their
to lend one of his musicians money choice
to of career, turned their backs on
such a dangerously insecure profession.
"purchase a suit good enough for a fu-
MUSIC IN CUBA 197
White rumberas
For blacks, however, the problem was were excluded from the chorus. What
From Origenes de la different. Barred from law, medicine, the avenue was left to the black musician
musica Cubana, by
Tony Evora (Madrid:
clergy, and the better administrative po- when a traveling theater company did
Alianza Editorial) sitions, blacks considered music a rep- not require his services? Dance. Creoles
utable profession; it was their best chance had encouraged it since the beginning of
to move up the social ladder. Moreover, the nineteenth century; it was their fa-
they usually combined their work as vorite diversion. In dance, the Spanish,
soloists with some kind of manual labor: the French, and the mestizo were thrown
in those days, many black musicians were together, creating new trends and
also tailors or cabinetmakers. Regardless rhythms that would eventually give the
of their ability, some paths of employ- island's music its unique character.
ment remained closed to blacks: no one The historian Buenaventura Ferrer es-
timates that in I798 some fifty public

could secure a position at the cathedral
in Havana without a document certify-dances were held in Havana each day.
ing his "clean bloodline." "Ethiopians"The enthusiasm reached "the point of
I
Blanca Becerra,
comic actress, as
Mercury
Biblioteca Nacional
Jose Marti, Havana
MUSIC IN CUBA 199
Blanca Becerra,
comic actress,
as a black woman
Biblioteca Nacional
Jose Marti, Havana
frenzy." Dances were open to all, and eled the passion of those in attendance.
"young lads of idle occupation often The party got under way with a minuet,
spent the night there." They were held in while the caller, cane in hand, eyed the
private residences with several rooms set dancers. (One don Liborio was noted for
aside for gambling and refreshments. this.) After the formal dances, the con-
Zambumbia, Loja water, and sangria fu- tradanzas took pride of place.... By the
third contradanza, one newspaper re- and was bitten by a guabina.
ported, "the dancers had left aside any Doiia Severina says
notion of reason and good judgment." that she likes marzipan,
To insure that the body stayed limber, but even tastier is the Catalonian
they danced zapateados, congas, boleros, who sings the guabina.

and guarachas during intermissions. Par- Enter, guabina, enter,
ties with more lowlifes featured slum right through the kitchen door.
songs, cousins of the chuchumbe, rich in
puns and libidinous allusion: songs like The grace and charm of mulatto
"El cachirulo" [what Father Pando sangwomen made them the queens of these
to a pious woman]; "La matraca" [The dances. They vied with black women,
rattle]; "La cucaracha" [The cockroach];wearing bright and showy dresses, ban-
and "~Cuando?"-that impatient and
gles and bracelets, earrings with big
yearning lyric, which, accompanied by
hoops; the men sweated in short jackets
of linen, denim, or Arabian cotton,
various rhythms, has been sung through-
out Latin America: never removing their cloth hats. Cirilo
Villaverde notes that
CCuando, mi vida?
Cuando? there were not afew young Creoles from de-
cent, well-to-dofamilies who mixed with peo-
When, my heart? When?
ple of color and took part in their diversions
without embarrassment:... somejoinedfrom
To this risque repertoire was added
admiration, while others were motivated by
"Que toquen la zarabandina" [Let them
less pure intentions. It seems that some of the
play the zarabandina] in which "Friar
men . . . were not overly mindful of the
Juan Fat-Apple" presides as the officer in
women of their own class, if we are to judge
charge of licenses. And we must not
by the ease with which they spoke to their
omit "La guabina," similar in style to the
friends and acquaintances in the dancing sa-
couplets of Havana's wags.
lons-in full view of women who could, as
mute spectators, see themfrom the windows of
La mulata Celestina
their own houses.
le ha cogido miedo al mar,
porque una vezfue a nadar
When he despaired of finding a lover
y le mordio una guabina.
Dice Dona Severina
in the narrow circles of bourgeois soci-
ety, the son of a good family would look
que le gusta el mazapan,
to satisfy his desires among the daughters
pero mas el catalan
and granddaughters of the slaves who
cuando canta la guabina.
had made him wealthy, forgetting their
Entra, guabina, entra,
"inferiority" for a few hours. What
por la puerta de la cocina.
would not do for the choir served well
Celestina the mulatta enough for intimate recreation. This de-
is afraid of the sea, tail is significant; it reveals how the ele-
because once she went swimming ment of race-mixing in salon dances
MUSIC IN CUBA 201
arose from the bottom up: with customs ing for the holiday, this colloquy of
that made their way from the dance hall Greek gods (with different faces, of
to the lordly mansions. In 1856, for ex- course) establishes an eloquent contrast
ample, under the pretext of a formal between the emancipated and enslaved
dance in honor of General Concha, the black worlds. Costumes that depicted
aristocracy of Santiago society furiously Eros, Apollo, Mars, and Minerva were
surrendered to the rhythms of a con- themselves an unconscious manifestation
tradanza entitled "Tu madre es conga." of desires long smothered. The black
serfs who had aided in the defense of the
* * *
plaza during the British siege of Havana

To celebrate the felicitous birth of the in 1762 had earned their freedom by
Prince of Asturias in 1792, the black bat-
performing stunning feats of valor, rush-
talion of Bayamo organized a masquer-ing bare-chested into the barrels of en-
ade "accompanied by flageolets" with emy cannon. Emancipation was their
the support of free blacks. The center-ticket to the world of knowledge, man-
ners, pleasure, and fashion in which
piece, a float drawn by two pairs of oxen,
depicted a fortified castle with sentrywhites moved freely. Unfortunately, the
boxes.When the float arrived before the son of the freed slave did not stray far
civil authorities, the castle opened into a from the threshold of his house outside
stage, allowing for the enactment of a the city, from his father's workshop or
short allegorical poem. Three black business. Because of his skin, he could
officials "dressed as Love, Apollo, and not obtain an academic degree, a priestly
Mars" immersed themselves in learned robe, or a position as a cantor.
One result of this impasse was the
Father Labat observed a dance in Santo black figure known ironically as the
"professor," who would deliver the juicy
Domingo in 1698: "The dancers are placed in
lines that were written by the authors of
two long lines: men on one side, women sainetes
on [one-act Creole farces] through-
out the nineteenth century. The "profes-
the other. They jump, turn, and spin. It looks
sor" is a refined black man who resorts
as if they were striking each other in the to the most affected language and the
most unusual locution in order to say the
stomach, though in fact it is only their thighs
simplest things. Deprived of formal edu-
that touch." cation, he has gleaned from the conver-
sation of educated whites words that
debate over whether letters or arms are seem to him profound and distinguished
the greater science. After a black Minervafor their obscurity, only to spawn falter-
closed the debate with a pleasing loa [a ing pomposities. But the "professor" did
short dramatic panegyric in verse], thenot always stick to sainetes.When his ex-
Wifredo Lam, Figure
function came to a close with "grand perience or sensibility delivered him
sur fond vert. c. 2000
music" by the militia band. from such absurdities-the sort of pre-
Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/
Held only a few steps from the slave ciosity found in the fledgling composi-
ADAGP barracks where tribal drums were beat- tions of black poets who would later
?OZ vano NI oisnw
I
\ Ii
LI
.*
sb? .
'
\'' r,
r1
1 N
I
00
'
I I
I' -!<
i. r
.0 7, t9 .
7
V
z I.
Pr
A
gl
Y /
Roberto Diago. El
Oraculo. 1949.
de Bellas Artes, Havana
spread their wings and take flight-he uet. After he had altered the material he
might become a "political man." In received from Spain and France through
speaking of Claudio Brindis de Salas, his technique, the black musician waited
Bachiller y Morales tells us: "This black for whites to approach his secret world
Creole, a musician by profession, a gen- before he would turn over the melodic
tleman of agreeable and ceremonious material he carried within himself. In a
ways who adhered to the norms of so- new social climate, the Cuban black was
cial behavior, was the cream of the'po- at an early stage of self-definition-the
liticals' of that species, and his aristocratic same one that led North American
tendencies allowed him to strike up blacks to stress the off beat, in ragtime,
friendships with gentlemen and profes- creating the "oompah" rhythm, then to
sors of the other race." multiply syncopation in the blues (re-
maining true to the rhythm) and to in-
vent the nonstop motion of boogie-
In the first half of the nineteenth cen- woogie. After creating the conga by
tury, blacks still played white music, al- linking two notes in the bass line of the
though they enriched it with their innatecontradanza, the Cuban would totally
sense of rhythm-lending their personalmodify one rhythmic aspect of the tango
touch to the more danceable numbers.
(if we accept that term) by displacing
But when a black man wrote a tune, he
some of its stresses, using the same
did not seem to remember the rich trea-method to subvert the central rhythm
sure of his African heritage. The bata that Stravinsky would exploit to such
beat, theYoruba hymn, the totemic sur- good effect in the second part of The
vivals of the carnaval parades held on Rite of Spring....
Three Kings Day, and the invocations Even as he yearned to draw closer to
transmitted in African languages orally whites, to emulate their good manners,
among black slaves would all take a long and to lift himself up to their level, the
time to escape the confines that colonial black "political man" lived under suspi-
society imposed. On January sixth, when cion. After the liberation of the Haitian
the comparsas were loosed onto the streets
Barred from law, medicine, the clergy, and
with their diablitos [little devils], kings,
and culonas [big-bottomed women], the the better administrative positions, free
"political men" drew back to let them
blacks in Cuba considered music a reputable
pass, just as whites did; the authorities
tolerated carnaval in deference to custom. profession; it was their best chance
If the drums made the most secret fibers
to move up the social ladder.
of his heart resonate in sympathy, the
"political man" did not confess it. He slaves and the abolition of slavery in the
may have attended the beating of ritual British colonies, prominent bourgeois
drums in the Carraguao neighborhood feared that the aspirations of blacks
on occasion. But at the dances where he would grow excessive, endangering their
performed his professional duties, the
wealth. When colonial authorities bru-
"political man" played the courtly min-tally repressed the Escalera Conspiracy in
MUSIC IN CUBA 205
had dedicated his best compositions to
Spaniards of the highest rank and writ-
ten sonnets to the ladies of the aris-
tocracy, was arrested and tortured by

O'Donell. Brindis de Salas received
amnesty, but when he went to reassem-

ble his orchestra, he discovered that al-
most all of his musicians had been exe-
cuted.
A black could dress up as Apollo or

Minerva. But when he was deemed too
I , demanding, his back would be lashed

with the same whip that whistled in the
slave barracks.
E.^5 '. Around the year I920, Havana was in-
ct *'*e vaded by the son. Its lyrics spoke of Man-

zanillo and Palma Soriano, paying
' .... homage to small enclaves within the
motherland:
Son de Oriente
mi son caliente
mi son de Oriente.
Son from the East
my son, hot as a beast
I,' my son from the East.
The son was an extraordinary devel-

opment for Havana residents; but it was
not a recent invention, as some have
Diablito or ireme1844, the whites involved were absolved, imagined. In the province of Santiago it
of the Abakua had been familiar as a type of dance mu-
with one or two exceptions. Blacks,
society sic from the times of the Ma Teodora.
however, paid for all their alleged crimes.
V P. Landaluze But in the sixteenth and seventeenth
The poet Placido and the musician
From Origenes de la
Pimienta were both executed. The com- centuries, the term alluded to several
musica Cubana, by
loosely defined types of popular dance
Tony Evora (Madrid: poser Buelta y Flores was tortured, then
Alianza Editorial)
deported. Though he enjoyed favor in
music. The same happened with the
intellectual circles, the poet Juan Fran-
rumba, which has yet to be properly
cisco Manzano was thrown into jail. And defined by those who play it. Everything
Claudio Brindis de Salas (the elder), who fits the category rumba: every rhythm in
Cuban music, as well as any black rhythm partying, licentious dancing, and cavort-
that could accompany the melody: the ing with loose women.
genre accepts anything in two-four time. Thanks to the son, the Afro-Cuban
It is more of an atmosphere than a genre. percussion that had been confined to the
It goes without saying that in Cuba there slave barracks and the dilapidated room-
is not one rumba, but many rumbas. For ing houses of the slums revealed its mar-
the drum players and the initiated, a velously expressive resources, achieving
yambu is not the same as a guanganco, or worldwide renown. Let us not forget
a columbia, or a papalote. The stage rumba that before I920, dance orchestras knew
danced in theaters and cabarets is a only of the timbales (not the Cuban tim-
hodgepodge.
As we noted earlier, couples danced
In dance, the Spanish, the French, and the
apart, voluptuously and lasciviously, in
mestizo were thrown together, creating new
black dances that were known by differ-
trends and rhythms that would eventually
ent names and accompanied in various
manners across the continent even
give the island's music a unique character.
though no essential difference separated
them. They were all danced to strong
bal, which is altogether different), the
rhythms produced by a manifold percus-
guiro or calabazo, and the claves from Ha-
sion. It could be the resbalosa in Ar- vana. The maracas were used much less
gentina, the Dominican calenda, or the
frequently. A veritable arsenal of percus-
chuchumbe that Cubans took toVeracruz.
sion remained in the shadows.
The present generation still remem-

All were rumbas. That is, before anything
bers the wonder we felt when we first
else, a fiery dance whose rhythms en-
tailed a choreography that invoked encountered
an- the instruments of the east-
cient sexual rites. Indeed, the rumba does
ern provinces (instruments heard today,
not have the contradanza's exchangehowever
of poorly played, in cabarets
partners, or the fixed roles and characters
throughout the world). Instruments like
of the danzon. But even today, the rumba
the marimbula, seen in Santo Domingo
is an undefined-if vital-genre. Anyby Moreau de Saint-Mery; the quijada, or
jawbone, that Lafcadio Hearn heard in
Cuban recognizes a rumba in the blink
of an eye. But Eduardo Sanchez New
de Orleans; the bongo, on whose skin
Fuentes and Emilio Grenet pass over this
players beat the most sonorous glissandi
problem of definition in their studieswith
of the palms of their hands; the local
Cuban rhythms. That is because timbales,
the held between the knees, so vig-
rumba, as we said before, is an atmos-
orous and restless when struck with one
phere. If a mulatto woman starts mov-
or more fingers; the econes or cencerros,
ing her hips within the sway of another
little bells of dull-sounding metal, played
dancer, everyone present will produce
with an iron stick; the botijuela, a potbel-
the necessary rhythms: with their hands,
lied clay jar with a narrow neck, from
whose lips pours forth a sound like the
on a box, a door, the wall. It is telling that
the word rumba has passed into the lan-
pizzicato of a bass; the pipe-shaped diente
guage of Cubans as a synonym for noisy
de arado, which resonates with the deep,
MUSIC IN CUBA 207
Jaime Valls, 1934.
- * -- .
Courtesy of
Robin Moore
1114
haunting notes of
or dull, soft the
or cruel. cencerro.
Wood, metal, baked clay,
fronted with
dried the
hides: theyfull array
offer an inexhaustible range of
Cuban percussion,
of delightful timbres Emile
from which the Vuill
players
wrote:
extract afull orchestra of sound. Cubans have
discovered a wood that produces the clear,
With any kind of object, the long dry fingers
metallic sound of an anvil (the claves); with
Jaime Vails, c. 1928.
Courtesy of [of Cuban blacks] find the means it
to they
produce
obtain notes that have the luminous
Robin Moore
unexpected sounds, discrete or violent,
puritysharp
and melancholy of thefrog's nocturnal
1.
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song. Add to this the mysterious whisperings cadence. The bongo played a freerRene
role:
Portocarrero,
Santa Barbara.
produced byfriction, as well as humming, per- it could be played simply, for a beat, From
or it
Pintura Cubana,
cussive sounds, hand clapping (and fingers could provide a glissando. It was above all
by Adelaida dejuan
(Mexico City:
striking small timbals), the rubbing of a little when they were used to accompany
Universidad Nacional
stick over hollowed-out gourds, and the silky singing-all of the musicians sang-
Autonoma de Mexico)
palpitation of pellets (of seed or stone) inside that these instruments would manifest
driedfruit. These instruments provide a life- the full range of their tonal possibilities,
like accompaniment, music that sounds like a according to the imagination of the per-
universal acquiescence to the rhythm of the formers who played them. In its purest
dance. Tell me, what worth do our timbals form, as it was played in 1920, the Cuban
have-our tambourines and triangles, cym- son reminds one of Les noces by Stravin-
bals and drums-whenfaced with Cuban sky, albeit in a rudimentary state. One
percussion, sofull of nuance, so poetic with its could not hope to find two examples of
bewitching humming, its caresses as of torn music that adhere to more similar norms,
silk, its little silver anvil ... ? whatever the enormous difference be-
tween them. This can be heard in the
Yet even when the son's percussion ar- melodies entrusted to the human voice,
rived, blacks did not come forward with in the sonic atmosphere, in the rhythms
the drums they used in their rituals: se- of the percussion.
cret society initiations, spells, syncretic The great achievement of the son was
religious celebrations that mixed invoca- to offer freedom for spontaneous rhyth-
tions to the Virgin with profane dances mic invention. Sound was divided and
performed for the simple pleasure of diversified within the beat: at a certain
moving one's body in a sea of rhythm. moment true creation emerged. Many
But the son's percussion did make us son orchestras were famous for "playing
aware that polyrhythms could exist differently." They offered more warmth
within an overarching cadence. Until and novelty within the familiar meter,
then, one spoke of singular rhythms- sudden flights of fancy in percussion that
the rhythm of the contradanza, the elicited enthusiastic cries from dancers.
rhythm of the guaracha, the rhythms of In the son, one strain of Cuban music
the danzon (admitting to a plurality emancipated itself almost completely
within its succession of movements). from the rhythmic traditions that had
The son, on the other hand, established characterized nineteenth-century music,
new categories. Each percussive element even if the son's history was more or less
took on an autonomous existence parallel to that of the contradanza. All the
within a general tempo. If the botijuela
dances introduced in the 1920s to Europe,
and the diente de arado served to establish
Asia, and the rest of the Americas under
a bass line, the timbals would provide
the harmonious heading of the rumba
rhythmic variation. If the marfmbula
were really sones that Cuba had known
long before. The son is to Cuban music
worked on three or four notes, marking
what "Christopher Columbus" by
out insistent harmonies like a figured
Benny Goodman and "Black and Tan
bass, the tres-the six-stringed Cuban
guitar-could resolve that energy Fantasy"
in a by Duke Ellington are to the
MUSIC IN CUBA 211
ragtime of 1915. In the son there is rich- drawn, as larks mesmerized by a mirror,
ness, a vital sap unknown to previous to the City of Light. In Cuba one could
genres, however charming or graceful hear the French echoes of Heredia,
they were. Rodenbach,Verlaine, and even Jean Lor-
rain. The names Leon Dierx, Auguste
Dorchain, Paul Fort, and Stephane Mal-
The birth of the republic in Cuba was larme arrived in a jumble, provoking the
accompanied by a phenomenon that lyrical outbursts of a Jose Manuel de
could be observed in other New World Poveda.
countries as well: when sovereignty is

gained, national culture falls momentar-
ily into disrepute. The newly born coun-Sanchez de Fuentes's repugnance in ad-
mitting to the presence of black rhythms
try aspired to join the great cultural cur-
rents of the day, to be contemporary.in Cuban music reflects a mentality that
Through a logical evolutionary process,
was prevalent at the beginning of the re-
independence comes hand in hand with
public.Years had passed since blacks were
a desire to apply new methods, to be "upslaves. But in a newborn country that as-
to date," to sweep aside anything thatpired to bring itself up to date with the
might be seen as a holdover from thecultural currents of the day, authentic
colonial or provincial past. After a periodblack culture-that is, the pure and
deeply rooted African element-was
of conflict when the events of history
filled everyone's consciousness, and theviewed with disgust, as a barbaric
subsequent heroic age when Marti's ge-holdover; it was tolerated only as a nec-
nius expired in a hail of bullets, Cubansessary evil. In 1913, the traditional com-
parsas were prohibited. The religious fes-
When he despaired of finding a lover in tivities of blacks were forbidden, as well.
True, some ritual crimes warranted the
the narrow circles of bourgeois society,
police's harassment of the babalaos [San-
the son of a good family would look to teria priests]. Street fighting between ri-
val inaiga groups also necessitated certain
satisfy his desires among the daughters
repressive measures. But it should not be
and granddaughters of the slaves who had
believed that these deeds were everyday
occurrences, common crimes. A long
made him wealthy, forgetting their
time had passed since knife-wielders like
"inferiority" for a few hours. Manuel Cafiamazo or the black Sucum-
bento terrorized ghetto neighborhoods

aspired to match countries that hadoutside the city limits. Furthermore, if
many blacks were vagrants with drums
reached a higher level of civilization. In
the aftermath of the I900 exposition,on their bellies, much of the blame
Paris seemed to symbolize the apex ofrested with whites, who had always rel-
culture. The men of the Americas-po-egated blacks to a marginal existence, of-
fering them the worst jobs, except when
ets, painters, thinkers, musicians-were
they wanted votes, and even then ap-
pealing only to their lowest qualities.
The politics of the first years of the re-
public did nothing to improve the social
or cultural condition of blacks. All these
factors ensured that those who wore
frock coats would mistrust everything

black on principle, never realizing that
high on the scaffolds, in the heat of the
foundries, under the sun in the rock
quarries, and in the coachman's seat of
the hackneys, there teemed an entire sea
of humanity. Here was a people that had
preserved poetic and musical traditions
worthy of study.
Of course, these traditions were pre-
served in differing degrees of purity. As
Ramos aptly stated:
Victor Manuel Garcia,

In the New World, the subordinationmaking
of of Cuban music. Nothing save
Gitana Tropical.
the color of her skin distinguished
blacks to whites resulted in segregation, with "the
black Malibran woman" married to a
all its implied conflicts of race and culture, Palacio de Bellas Artes,
Havana
Spanish army officer from any other
which in many cases were acute. This segre-
Cuban woman of her time. This explains
gation was theforce behind the almost total
why so many blacks made "white mu-
disappearance ofprimitive institutions. When
an individual is separatedfrom his culture sic"
and during the nineteenth century, re-
placed in contact with another, he tends, by fusing
the to play the role of the black "pro-
second or third generation, to abandon fessor,"
the while whites-Bartolome Jose
Crespo, Guerrero-were the ones who
primitive culture and to assimilate the new
culture he has come in contact with. dressed up as blacks.
While the process of transculturation
This process of transculturation has
had continued for several generations, it
happened several times in previous cen-
must not be forgotten that slave ships
turies. The sixteenth-century "Son de la bringing, with horrendous regular-
kept
Ma Teodora" is one example of this. For
ity, their cargo of "ebony flesh." Thou-
sands and thousands of slaves swelled the
people like Ulpiano Estrada or Brindis
de Salas, black Creoles of several gener-
workforces of Cuba's plantations, begin-
ning anew the cycle of adaptation whose
ations, little was left of their grandfathers'
successive phases had already become
primitive culture by the nineteenth cen-
part of the Cuban vernacular: bozales,
tury. It was only the instincts of black
musicians and composers-rhythmic when
in- they arrived from Africa speaking
stincts, in this case, leaving form and
only their dialects; ladinos, when they be-
melody unchanged-that went into the gan to speak Spanish; criollos, the off-
MUSIC IN CUBA 213
* .,
Yi);
Alberto Pena,
was based on distant observation-say, a
spring of the ladinos; and reyoyos, the chil-
Sin trabajo. 1937.
dren of the criollos. party in his master's house. Indeed, the
de Bellas Artes, Havana slave was told to dance his native dances,
Among free blacks, the pace of tran-
because they were thought to improve
sculturation was rapid, since contact with
the outside world was immediate. But in his health (slave traders realized this be-
the slave barracks it was infinitely slower:fore landowners did). There were limita-
the slave's knowledge of white culturetions, of course: in I839, a broadside
from General Ezpeleta decreed that he knew only the dances he had seen in
"The slaves in the countryside should be the slave barracks as a child. Those
allowed to dance their'drum dances,' as dances are lost now: ignored by the black
they do in their native land on holidays, university student; ignored, even, by the
under the vigilance of their overseers, mulatto musician of the Havana swing
provided blacks from other farms are not
present." If the slaves from one farm In 1856, under the pretext of a great formal
were mostly from one tribe or nation,
dance in honor of General Concha, the
they would never have occasion for con-
tact with a neighboring workforce of most aristocratic elements of Santiago
different origin. The preservation or di-
lution of African traditions derives from
society furiously surrendered to the rhythm
this; even today, this variation remains of a dance entitled "Tu madre es conga."
among Cuban blacks.
Some old men, born in captivity, re- bands. When the umbilical cord of the
member legends and songs from Africa slave trade was severed, Cuban blacks lost
with extraordinary precision. On a farm contact with Africa, and all that re-
deep in the countryside, I met a black mained was an ever hazier memory of
man namedYamba, more than a hundred their traditions.When the comparsas were
years old. He spoke just like the blacks in allowed to take place again, about ten
the work of Bartolome Jose Crespo, and years ago, they no longer held their old
Antonio Gattorno,
Mujeres junto al rio.
Havana
power; they had gained in the level of the proliferation of such groups. The ca-
spectacle-in the opulence of their pro- bildos were essentially mutual aid soci-
duction, in the acquisition of new in- eties that kept the ex-slave from being
struments-but they had lost authentic- buried in a potter's field, however poor
ity. Not many performers today are he was. There were many of them:
Arara, Apapa, Apapa Chiquito,
The "professor" is a refined black man who Mandinga, Oro, Lucumi, Carabali Ungri,
Nacion Mina de Popo de la Costa de
resorts to the most affected language
Oro, Arara tres ojos, and so on. Blacks
and the most unusual locution in order to say from Calabar created secret nhaniga soci-
eties; their first activities date to about
the simplest things. Deprived of formal
1835, with the appearance of the Aca-
education, he has gleaned from the baton society in Regla.While the cabil-
dos that consisted of "sons of the na-
conversation of educated whites words that
tions"-the ones that were regionally
seem to him profound and distinguished oriented-have endured to our times,
naniguismo, with its broader member-
for their obscurity, only to spawn faltering
ship, spread more widely. Nadnigos ad-
pomposities. mitted people of all races and walks of
life into its ranks, so long as they ob-
capable of making the bata drums speak,
served the precepts of naniguismo. (There
were Chinese, Creole, and even Spanish
even if their range of musical awareness
affiliates.) The initiation ceremonies, as
is incomparably greater than that of their
grandfathers. well as the genuine fraternity of its
members, made naniguismo a kind of
This loss may explain why it has taken
so long for the arcane aspects of black
populist Freemasonry. In Havana, Regla,
Guanabacoa, and Matanzas there were
music to interest "serious" composers,
who tend to listen to whatever is within fifty-seven groups of nhdnigos. Although
earshot-as was the case with the ianiguismo today has lost much of its
strength
rhythms and singing of the comparsas that through transculturation, some
groups remain, strict guardians of lan-
made their way into the contradanza.
But there was more. Much more. Pass- guage and ritual.
ing over older groups like Nuestra If the black cabildos were mutual aid
Sefiora de los Remedios [Our lady ofsocieties, their charters also specified that
healing], founded by free blacks in Ha- they were created for "recreational and
vana in 1598, and disregarding the de- leisurely pursuits." This authorized them
mands for land to establish cabildos in to host dances and form comparsas on
Three Kings Day, or, after the abolition
eighteenth-century Santiago records, we
note that in 1796 there was already a Ca-
of slavery, to celebrate carnaval. Through
bildo de Congos Reales, named for St.different eras, the following comparsas pa-
Melchior, one of the three kings. An in-
raded in the streets of Havana: El gavilan
crease in the black population, as well as[The hawk], Los congos libres [The free
the manumission of more slaves, led to
congos], El alacran chiquito [The little
scorpion], La culebra [The snake], El pa- voodoo altar). In this vein,Viv6 believes
jaro lindo [The pretty bird], Mandinga that the bloody clashes between nhaniga
Moro Rizo [Mandinka curly Moor], gangs in the nineteenth century reflected
Mandinga Moro Azul [Mandinka blue intertribal rivalries back in Africa. The
Moor], Los moros [The Moors], Los pe- nhniga rites of initiation, which we have
ludos [The hairy ones]. The comparsas witnessed many times, are truly a collec-
were more like an itinerant ballet than tive ceremony: episodes from one single
marches. They had themes. A spider orlegend are mimed, danced, and sung
a snake represented by a huge figure,with only the slightest variation. (Some-
held aloft by an expert dancer, served asthing of the old funeral rites is embed-
the focal point for action and singing.ded in them. A I792 decree concerning
Participants would "kill the spider" orpublic order forbade blacks "to conduct
"kill the snake." cadavers to the cabildos in order to sing or
cry according to the custom of their na-
Mamita, mamita, tive land."Years later, Bishop Trespalacios
yen, yen, yen: was moved to reiterate the point.) As for
que me mata la culebra, festivities involving magic-a com-
yen, yen, yen. pletely different issue-the cabildos still
Mirale los ojo make use of possession, as Jacques
que paracen candela; Roumain's Le sacrifice du TambourAssohtor
mirale lo diente, attests. Possession by a saint or divinity in
que parece file (alfileres) the black pantheon is almost always rep-
Mentira, mi negra, resented syncretically, by a Catholic im-
yen, yen, yen; age. In Cuba, such possession is how bajar
sonjuego e mi tierra, al santo [the saint descends] or subirse el
yen, yen, yen. santo [the saint rises]. But let us not over-
reach here on matters amply treated by
The snake's gonna kill me.
specialists in the field.
Look at its eyes,
they seem like fire; A black could dress up as Apollo or Minerva.
look at its teeth,
they seem like needles.
But when he was deemed too demanding,
It is a lie, my black woman- his back would be lashed with the same whip
they are the game of my land.
that whistled in the slave barracks.
As Ramos observed of similar Brazil-

The music of the rites is complex.
ian dances, the figures that lent-and
Saying "African music" is like saying
continue to lend-their names to many
"medieval knights." As Ortiz has pointed
of the comparsas are undoubtedly totemic
out, "In studying Afro-Cuban music, one
survivals. Fernando Ortiz claims that the
must distinguish between music from
snake dance derives from a Dahomey
Dahomey, the Yoruba, the Carabali, and
snake cult that persists to this day in Haiti
the Congo." Unfortunately, the scientific
(where a steel serpent appears on every
work that could serve as a basis for
MUSIC IN CUBA 217
Cover for sheet
music of
"Ran y Meringue,"
rumba-foxtrot by
Moises Simons,
early 1930s
Museo Nacional
de la Musica, Havana
classification-notation, compilation,have often discovered, the genuine hnani-

comparison, the study of rhythm andgos-that is, the most interesting ones-
mode-has not yet been undertaken:regard the transcription or taping of
their musical rituals as sacrilegious.
the task, one has to admit, is beyond the
Third, a researcher's interest soon excites
scope of any one individual. In the first
place, if one does not have intelligentgreed in people who do not know bet-
and trustworthy informants, it is impos-
ter; they propose some sort of charade in
sible to find out when and where a reli- exchange for a few coins. Fernando Or-
gious ceremony or a drumming session
tiz, who must have the patience of a
will be held. In the second place, as wesaint, is the person who has researched
these matters most deeply. But he is not Here, in the core of our people, there is still a
a musician, nor does he claim to be, and great deal of music of Bantu or Congolese ori-
for various reasons he has been unable to gin. We have ganga music, from which the
retain the services of the best musical primitive rumba is derived; some bits ofArara
researchers. or Dahomey music, which is called voodoo in
Let us rely, then, on the definite con-
Haiti; here, it tends to mix with lucumi mu-
clusions he has drawn: sic. Lastly, the best-preserved and most varied
African music in Cuba is that of the religious
The riverpeoples of the Niger, particularly the liturgy of the Yoruba.
Yorubas and the Nagos, known as lucumis
in Cuba, brought drums, songs, and dances
along with their complex religious beliefs; their In general, in lucuml as in iiiiga music,
ancient rites still resonate, beseechingfavors of the melody is ample, noble, and slow-
African divinities under the skies oftheAmer- in contrast to the dynamic percussion. It
icas. Along with its almost identical neighbor, is sung by the faithful, in harmony or in
theArarc, Dahomeyan music has maintained octaves. In all of the hymns one observes
itself under the cover of lucumi rites. We an antiphonal form: a soloist and chorus,
know that the Yoruba pantheon spread among or two semichoruses, with the second re-
the bordering towns, especially toward the peating the phrases of the first. "In
north, penetrating Dahomey and its maritime Yoruba religious chants," Ortiz notes,
region, the ancient Ardra or Arara, which "the antiphonal soloist initiates or raises
powerful kingdoms had annexed for more the chant to a comfortable level, and the
than a century. Accordingly, one notices an ad- chorus, called the ankori, responds in the
vanced theological and liturgical syncretism same tone as the soloist." The liturgy
among blacksfrom this region. Their chants, comprises songs to Eleggua, overseer of
drum beats, and instruments have mixed; they all roads; to Oggun, blacksmith and in-
exalt the same deities, but use diferent names. ventor of the anvil, represented by the
If we know the religious terminology, we can
establish whether a chant is Dahomeyan or
It is telling that the word rumba has passed
Yoruba on the basis of the language in which
it is intoned, or the name of the god propiti- into the language of Cubans as a synonym
ated. It is easy to deduce that a chant to
for noisy partying, licentious dancing, and
Shango (the deity of lightning) is from the
lucumis, or that onefor Ebioso (also a fiery cavorting with loose women.
god) isfrom Dahomey. The striking person-
ality of niaiiguismo has been sustained in image of Saint Peter; to Ochosi, god of
Cuba by the simplicity of the music of the hunting and warriors (Saint Norbert); to
carabalis. Babalu-Aye, god of the ill or the diseased
(Saint Lazarus); toYemaya, goddess of the
In another work, Ortiz adds: sea and mother of the world; to Obatala,
Ochun, Chang6, Oya. It is rare that the
theme of these chants begins on the
MUSIC IN CUBA 219
dominant note. And the elimination of There are also two types of marugas: the
the seventh note is so frequent that pop-one that consists of two tin cones welded
ular composers instinctively suppress orat the base, filled with little stones
alter it whenever they want to give an(known on other Antillean isles as the
"African air" to a melody. Quite fre- cha-cha); and the one that consists of a
quently the hymns are based on penta-cone made of laced fibers, filled with
tonic scales that lack semitones. But the
seeds or mate, which is shaken from the
composition of these scales tends to be top down and held by a ring fixed at its
whimsical and to flout convention. We vertex (this is just one of the many kinds
of basket rattles known to peoples in-
will not, however, speak of the modes or
digenous to the Americas).
particular characteristics of this music,
since the scarcity of scientifically estab- Notice that Afro-Cuban music dis-
lished documents makes such analysispenses with any instrument capable of
futile. melody. There is only the naked voice
As for the percussion, it is simply over the percussion. On the other hand,
prodigious. The Afro-Cuban drums in the ceremonial rituals-the nhaniga
make up a whole arsenal: the ianiga initiation, for example, or that of San-
drums, their single head tensed with teria-the African singing style is not
strings and wedges and played with two watered down in the least. Blacks who
hands, are generically designated encomos. pride themselves on knowing ancestral

As Israel Castellanos points out, the fam- hymns and traditions are unaware of hy-
ily includes the bencomo, the cosillerema, brid genres likefulha, in which the decima
the Ilaibillembi, the bonco enchemilla, and derived from balladry-in Cuba, part of
the bata drums (as Ortiz describes them: the cultural patrimony of white peas-
ants-alternates with sung and instru-
The son is to Cuban music what "Christopher mental sections of purely African tech-
Columbus" by Benny Goodman and "Black nique. In traditional African music there
are moments when the bata drums, aided
and Tan Fantasy" by Duke Ellington are to by their rich tuning and performers'skill,
take over for entire passages. At a Santeria
the ragtime of 1915.
party in Regla we heard a "march" and
"bi-membraned, played on both sides, a "wail," both real pieces of considerable
with a wooden hourglass shape, closed, duration: complete, balanced, developed
and with a permanently taut, rope-like within the tempo, built up from funda-
skin"). There are three types of bata: mental rhythmic blocks. In many cases,
okonkolo [the smallest], itotele [medium- this basic beat attains the fullness of a dis-
sized], and iya [the largest]-known as tinct rhythmic mode. How are we to
"the mother of the drums." In addition, speak of rhythm when we find ourselves
one must mention the tumba and the with an actual phrase, composed of indi-
tahona, used for functions both profanevidual notes and notes in groups, a figure
and sacred. To these the caj6n, the marim-which, when played, bursts metric limits
bula, the guiro, the econes, and the claves arebefore it acquires a rhythmic function by
usually added, though not as a rule.sheer repetition? When this happens-as
it does, frequently-we are in the pres- lishing mysterious relationships among
ence of a rhythmic mode, with its own themselves, while still conserving a cer-
stresses, a rhythm that has nothing to do tain independence, and you'll have a
with notions of strong or weak beats. remote idea of the bewitching effect the
The player accentuates this or that note, bata drums sometimes produce.
not for metric reasons, but because the On the other hand, we must not for-
traditional expression of the rhythm de- get that the chants are used differently in
mands it. It is not mere happenstance different ceremonies. The practice of
that blacks say that "they make the "making the saint descend" is accompa-
drums speak!" Consider the disconcert- nied by a monotonous chant whose pur-
ing effect of tempo, the internal palpita- pose is to engender obsession (the fixed
tion given off in the simultaneous drive idea being conducive to an ecstatic state);
of several rhythms, which end up estab- in the nanhiga initiations, there are differ-
. 4 ?? ', . I .
I At
1~f f.
Stage rumba
dancers Renm
(Rlvero) and
Estela (Ramona
AJ6n), 1933
Collection of
Lazaro Herrera.
Courtesy of
Robin Moore
mally-educated composer who ap-
proaches the primitive soul should un-
dertake ethnography, we can see how, in
the work of Roldan, as well as that of
Garcia Caturla, a vast range of Afro-
Cuban sounds is blended together. Thus,
side by side, we hear the lucumi hymn,
the tune of a bembe, and the nainiga in-
vocation, as well as the most diverse per-
cussion: from the regular and symmetri-
cal beat that accompanies the dance of
the diablito or irime to the complex per-
cussion of theYoruba drums.
The movement in favor of Afro-Cuban
music among composers provoked a vi-

olent reaction from those opposed to
anything black. They championed guajiro
songs as representative of white music:
nobler, neater, more melodic. However,
those who tried to employ guajiro music
Conservatory- in longer works were surprised to dis-

ent chants for each stage in the exceed-
trained pianist cover that there was nothing to be done
ingly complicated ceremony. The juego,
Ignacio Villa beyond a first score. They had not un-
a true mystery play, includes antiphonal
("Bola de Nieve"), derstood that although the guajiro sings
hymns, dances by diablitos, prayers for the
1936
his decimas with the accompaniment of
dead, marches, processional songs, and an
Museo Nacional
invocation to the sun, as well as the the tiple [treble guitar], he never creates
de la Musica, Havana
anything new. When he sings, the guajiro
recitation of formulas "in native tongue,"
measured out on the skin of a drum. fits his poetic invention into a traditional
melodic pattern rooted in the Spanish
ballads of the island's first colonizers. He
In I925, Amadeo Roldan began to ex- sticks to the inherited melody with ut-
most fidelity. Throughout nineteenth-
ploit this rich vein of rhythm and
melody. In this connection, one problem century Cuba, the popular presses
endemic to the Afro-Cuban symphonic flooded towns and villages with volumes
and volumes of decimas "to be sung to
repertoire bears mention. In the absence
of any scientific study of the modal and the accompaniment of the tiple," but
rhythmic laws that govern black music,

none of them included a single bar of
music. Why? Simple: it is true that the
the composer works with materials
picked up by chance at ceremonies he guajiro was inclined to tinker with the
has personally witnessed, without really lyrics to his songs, borrowing from oth-
knowing this aural treasure in all its di- ers or relying on his own inspiration; but
mensions.Without insisting that the for- he never pretended to make the slight-
est melodic variation. He had to match much-heralded "Cubanness" of the gua-
his decimas to a pattern everyone knew. Ajira's melody, we should not be so hope-
ful. The melody of the Cuban guajira is
superior poet, the guajiro is not a musi-
cian; he does not create melodies. identical to that of the Venezuelan
galeron. (The difference between the two

Throughout the island he sings his deci-
mas in ten or twelve set patterns, all sim-genres consists only in the type and
ilar to each other; they can be found in
number of verses used.) The only thing
any collection of Spanish ballads. (The
Venezuelan poet and folklorist Juan Lis-
In the aftermath of the 1900 exposition,
cano made this observation when study-
Paris seemed to symbolize the apex
ing the popular songs of his country:
they were rich in poetic content, but the
of culture. The men of the Americas-poets
music was always the same.) The zap-painters, thinkers, musicians-were
ateado offers a similar example. There are
no zapateados, only the zapateado, always
drawn, as larks mesmerized by a mirror, to
the same. Eighty years after its time, it re-
the City of Light.
turned, like an allusion to the classics, in
the works of popular Cuban composers
that occasionally enlivens this static tra-
such as Anckermann, Marin,Varona, and
dition is the virtuosity of the musician,
so on. Sometimes, as recently happened or the imagination of the singer. But fe-
licitous moments do not a tradition
with "La guantanamera," a guajiro singer
Los Melodiosos,
make. Furthermore, it should not be for-
appears to invent a new melody. Let's not a son group from
be taken in. It is simply the reappearance
gotten, the song of the Cuban guajiro the 1920s
seems to have lost much of the grace that t Odili Uf,
of a ballad that has been preserved in the
interior of the country. And as for the the Countess of Merin praised a hun- Havan f,
the Countess of Merlin praised a hun- Havana
The nine-neiber
Sexteto Gloria
Cubana, the first

son band to
i.icorporat. the
plano, 1934
Centro Odilio UrfC,

Havana
their dangerously futile adventure, met

dred years ago. The material is obviously
impoverished. frequently in order to maintain the cama-
This explains why scores based ongua-raderie of those turbulent days. This is
jira themes-like Suite Cubana by Mariohow the Minorista Group was formed,
Valdes Costa or the Capricho for pianowithout manifestos or sacred inner circles.
and orchestra by Hubert de Blanck-
Though they were not trying to create
immediately exhausted the tradition'sa movement, minorismo quickly became
a state of mind. They organized exhibi-
possibilities. On the other hand, if atten-
tion to lyrics seems lacking in black andtions, concerts, and a lecture circuit; they
mulatto music, the sonic material is in-
published magazines; they established
credibly rich. This is why attempts topersonal contacts with intellectuals in
Europe and the Americas who repre-
create a work of national expression al-
ways return, sooner or later, to one of
sented new ways of thinking and seeing.
these genres or rhythms. This was the age that saw the innovations
of Picasso,Joyce, Stravinsky, Les Six, and
L'Esprit Nouveau. Books printed without
After the heat of the abortive revolution capital letters circulated from hand to
of "Veterans and Patriots" (I923)-a hand. It was the time of vanguards, of

typical Latin American declaration, lack-
far-flung metaphors, of magazines with
ing in cohesion, direction, or concretesuch obligatory titles as Espiral [Spiral],
ideology-young writers and artists
Proa [Bow], Vertice [Vertex], Helice [Pro-
who had found themselves involved in
peller], and so forth. All the continent's
the movement, and drawn lessons from
youth seemed to suffer the same fever.
In Cuba, this energy soon died down. it was a necessary step toward a better
The presence of rhythms, dances, rituals, understanding of the poetic, musical,
and visual art, held back for too long by ethnic, and social factors that have cre-
absurd prejudices, showed the way to an ated the mixed Cuban identity.
engagement with something more vital
than an atonal score or a cubist painting.
Those who already knew The Rite of Amadeo Roldan appeared in that mo-
Spring-the great revolutionary banner ment of Afro-Cuban "discovery." Born
of the day-started to notice, with rea- to Cuban parents in Paris in 900o, he had
son, that in Regla, on the other side of entered the Madrid Conservatory at the
the Havana bay, there were rhythms as age of five, obtaining a first prize in vi-
complex and interesting as those Stravin- olin-as well as the renowned Sarasate
sky had created to evoke the mysteries Prize-at age fifteen. After studying har-
of pagan Russia. Milhaud had already mony and composition with Conrado
been seduced by the Brazilian samba to del Campo, he came to Cuba in I919,
write El buey en el techo [The ox on the where he led an obscure existence for a
roof], L'homme et son desir [Man and his time, making his living as a musician in
desire], and the famous Saudades do Brazil restaurants, movie theaters, and night-
[Memories of Brazil], which all enjoyed clubs. In 1923, he wrote Fiestas galantes,
regular performance. This quickly re- for voice and piano, based on poems by
turned the sheep to their fold. Their eyes Verlaine. His other piano pieces from this
and ears opened to the life all around period, as well as a quartet that feels like
them. Moreover, the birth of Mexican the inevitable school exercise, belie the
mural painting in the work of Diego influence of impressionism on his early
Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco had career.When he began to write an opera
impressed many Cuban intellectuals.
Artists were taken with the possibility of Notice that Afro-Cuban music dispenses
imbuing local material with a new sense
with any instrument capable of melody. There
of worth. Though he was of an earlier
generation, Fernando Ortiz mingled is only the naked voice over the percussion.
with these young voices. His books were
read. Suddenly blacks were at the center that year, he was far from knowing what
of everything. To irritate old-guard in- he wanted to achieve. It was to be a
tellectuals, one would go with great de- "Gaelic opera" with a libretto by Luis
votion to inaiiga initiations and praise the Baralt, titled Deirdre-a tropical update
dance of the diablito. Thus was born the on Cesar Franck's Hulda, Chabrier's
Afro-Cuban tendency that nourished Gwendoline, or Chausson's King Arthur,
poems, novels, and folkloric or sociolog- filtered through Debussy and Dukas.
ical studies for more than a decade. This Roldan finished the first act and began
Afro-Cuban tendency often remained work on the second. In a hunting scene,
superficial and peripheral, with its ro- he used augmented fifths with scan-
manticized evocations of the "black man dalous extravagance: he was already lean-
under palm trees, drunk on the sun," buting toward a brutal accentuation, a prim-
MUSIC IN CUBA 225
"Sexteto Uborio," itive violence that would break with im- tween musicians. In sum, this situation
1926
pressionist blandness. It was a slow was beneficial to Cuban culture. The
Centro Odilio Ufe,
change-painful and full of renuncia- musicians of each group tried to outdo
Havana
tions-that brought Roldan to the pre- the other: if a work appeared in the pro-
miere of Obertura sobre temas cubanas gram of the Symphony Orchestra, the
[Overture on Cuban themes]. Philharmonic would perform it in its
While Roldan spent years laboring atnext concert, just to prove they could
his creation, the capital progressed mu-play it better.Whatever its liabilities, the
sically. The Havana Symphony Orches-competition turned out to be an excel-
tra, founded in 1922 by maestro Gonzalolent school, since it obliged the musicians
Roig, had received the backing of Pabloto immerse themselves thoroughly in
Casals. The Pro Arte Musical Society al-
what they were playing. Moreover, the
ready existed; it regularly organized con-rivalry shook up the indolence of the
certs with famous soloists. In I923, a audience, pressing them to pick favorites.
Spanish musician, Pedro Sanjuan, arrivedOne was either a "Symphonist" or a
in Havana and established a second or- "Philharmonicist."
chestra, the Philharmonic.... The co- From the first, Roldan decided in fa-
existence of rival orchestras gave way to vor of the Philharmonic Orchestra, and
a battle that culminated in violence be- he joined as a violinist. The reasons for
his preference were mainly aesthetic. tradition that linked him directly to
Newly arrived from Europe, Sanjuan Casamitjana's Cocoye-the first Cuban
was devoted to premiering scores-by effort to incorporate black themes into
Debussy, Ravel, Falla, and the Russian a serious score.Whatever its polemical or
Five-previously unknown to the Cuban revelatory significance, Roldan's Obertura
public (the recording of symphonic is simply the piece that establishes his
music had just started in those years). In career. We must commend one passage,
addition Sanjuan, a skilled orchestrator, however, as a sensational innovation in
was composing with great skill, writing I925: the section that precedes the coda
scores inspired by Castilian folklore be- consists simply in Afro-Cuban percus-
fore he was seduced by Afro-Cuban mu- sion. Those bars are a statement of intent.
sic to infuse his Liturgia negra [Black * * *
liturgy] with folk elements. Although

Liturgia negra did not prove anything Adversaries of the
other than its composer's technical abil- nent today in Braz
ity, it did result in the repetition, almost greater or lesser st
a hundred years after the fact, of the nations of the New
work done by Casamitjana with the com- themselves of a cer
parsa themes he had heard that night in inspiration from th
the streets of Santiago. A man always on digenes, or primitiv
the lookout for expressions at odds with no progress at all.
salon formulas, all the rage then, Sanjuan European artistic tr
completed the technical training of disciplines of We
Roldan, who placed his Obertura sobre voodoo, the inaiga i
temas cubanas on the rehearsal stage in of the candomble, i
1925.
Though it was not a fully realized Cubans who alre

work, one can say that the premiere of
Spring-the grea
the Obertura was the single most impor-
tant event in Cuban musical history of of the day-star
the twentieth century. The black tradi-
Regla, on the ot
tion, despite its use by the guaracheros of
the comic theater, had not yet been partthere were rhyt
of a symphonic work. What was re-
interesting as t
markable was that when Roldan out-
to
lined the Obertura, he had instinctively evoke the m
gone back to a folk idiom that had been
captured at several points in the nine-noble roots of our i
teenth century: the Eastern Cocoye- harpsichord with t
already stylized by Casamitjana, Desver- Those who reason
nine, Reino, and even Gottschalk.When however, often fo
the composer found himself at the be-American compo
ginning of his real work, he harvested aEurope for the sol
MUSIC IN CUBA 227
problems-has heard about nothing What does he do in creating a national-
but folklore, popular songs, primitive ist work except respond, in full harmony
rhythms, and national schools for the last with himself, to the same concerns that
forty years. After Grieg, Dvorak, and the have preoccupied European culture
Russian Five, who surrounded him in these past few years?
adolescence, he encounters Stravinsky by Of course, nationalism has never been
way of Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, Les a definitive solution. A country's most
noces, and The Fox. Spain arrives in the elaborate music cannot develop exclu-
voice of Albeniz and the Falla of El amor sively from folk idioms. Nationalism is
brujo [Love, the sorcerer] and El sombrero only a transition. But it is an inevitable
de tres picos [The three-cornered hat], journey, a necessary step for the Euro-
Hungary in the form of Bela Bartok, and pean musical tradition. Thanks to popu-
Italy in La giara by Casella. He sees how lar song, as Boris de Schloezer once
Milhaud takes on Brazilian music and pointed out, each of the schools of the
Old Continent acquired its own accent.
Cuban danzones, adding guiros and mara-
(Examples would merely belabor the
cas to his orchestra (El buey en el techo).
The North Americans Copland and
point.) Surrounded by popular traditions
MacBride ransacked Mexican folk mu- that maintain the power of creation-
not by a dying folk tradition, as in
sic. Schoenberg praises Gershwin, shun-
ning the North American atonalists. In
France, where the peasant sings the latest
hits by Maurice Chevalier-the Latin
Russia, regional music is exalted. Of
course, we also have the Concerto byAmerican composer starts working with
Falla, Poulenc's Concert champetre, Hin-what he has at hand, looking for the
characteristics that, in fact, belong to
demith's Schwanendreher, and the Concer-
him. In this way, he evades the dangerous
tante Overture by Rodolfo Halffter. But
desire to imitate what has already been
look closely at these works: are they not
fully achieved on the other side of the
in some way paradigms of musical na-
Atlantic. Finding a national voice with
tionalism? Do they not respond to pro-
found conceptions of racial character?
the aid of living sources, the musician of
the New World comes to free himself
Do they not express racial genius and na-
tional idiosyncrasies? ... from folk music, finding the logic of his
The young Latin American composer
idiosyncracies in his own sensibility. The
adventure we are now living is that of all
turns his eyes to his own world. There,
countries, rich in folklore, whose musi-
still fresh and virginal, are themes that
cal consciousness has experienced a late
Milhaud has passed over, primitive urges
that did not appear in The Rite of Spring,awakening.
an unpolished polyrhythm that surpasses
anything by the "advanced" composers
of Europe. Furthermore, what the
French composer has used as an exotic,
disconcerting, and unexpected element
is authentic for the Brazilian, Cuban, or
Mexican who carries it within himself.

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A true tradition is not the witnessing of a past closed and finished; it is a

172 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

??/ :? ;'' '

All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

174 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

MUSIC IN CUBA 175

176 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

their first trip to

BenitoVejel, trumpeters Cristobal Rod-

178 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

class, beneath even the Indians (manyAmong us, a man so diligent,

MUSIC IN CUBA 179

from Havana; he prescribed herbal inclined to a pageant-filled world of rites

bert; Eleggua was joined to Saint An-

standing white monopoly in the mostChristian temples was music. In a period

180 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

F '. *' '^ ' .

., te?*3 , ' - ' . '*

Santo Domingo they appropriated French 20,000 inhabitants,

182 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

a typical Creole reluctance to embrace heel-tapping dancers alluded to by Cervante

MUSIC IN CUBA 183

companied by drumming, songs, and Africanand human beauty they werefortunate to

184 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

MUSIC IN CUBA 185

186 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

small cafe and concert hall known as the

MUSIC IN CUBA 187

monarchy and republic. of the blacks in Santiago (still called

188 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

that "the tango is not a purely black

MUSIC IN CUBA 189

190 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

From From Afrocuban

MUSIC IN CUBA 191

Por aqui pas6 la muerte My husband died,

192 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

demnation of El chuchumbe, deeming it together again .... It looks as if they were

boat from Havana to Veracruz, as is

conne mentioned by the poets of Spain's

woman of each couple adopt a thousand

The one with the most talented voice sings a

MUSIC IN CUBA 193

194 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

an 1849 arrangement by Manuel Ubeda, pations there were 44 musicians, while

196 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

The arts are in the hands of people of color.

But it was not just "the habit of de-

dition. Several factors prevented music

MUSIC IN CUBA 197

timates that in I798 some fifty public

198 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

Jose Marti, Havana

MUSIC IN CUBA 199

Jose Marti, Havana

200 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

they danced zapateados, congas, boleros, who sings the guabina.

MUSIC IN CUBA 201

plaza during the British siege of Havana

202 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

204 TRANSITION ISSUE 81/82

tleman of agreeable and ceremonious material he carried within himself. In a

., te?3 , ' - ' . '

ct 'e vaded by the son. Its lyrics spoke of Man-