Various – Cuba: Music And Revolution – Culture Clash In Havana – Experiments In Latin Music 1975-85 Vol. 1
Soul Jazz Records – Out Now
Like Manna from the heavens, this superb collection heralds in the New Year and has to be one of the most significant compilations for many a decade. Released as both a heavyweight 3 x vinyl LP and deluxe 2xCD set, this Soul Jazz Records album is the culmination of some 20 odd years of research and crate-digging by compilers Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker.
Featuring a number of legendary Cuban artists who flourished in the 70s and 80s, for example Los Van Van, Grupo Irakere and Pablo Milanés,alongside other lesser-known performers, such as Grupo De Experimentación Sonora Del ICAIC, Grupo Monumental and Orquesta Ritmo Oriental, who remain unknown outside their native country, virtually none of the tracks appearing on the collection have ever been heard outside of Cuba.
Their relative obscurity can be explained by the effects of, on the one side, the 60-year-old United States’ trade embargo, and on the other by the cultural exigencies of the post-revolution Cuban socialist, and then communist, regime. Thus it is the case, still to this day, that most Cuban music since 1959 has only been heard on the island itself, a fundamental change as, prior to this, the world had embraced a seemingly endless flow of music and Latin styles from Cuba, Cha Cha Cha, Rumba, Son, Mambo and Pachanga, for example.
The hedonistic, decadent, pre-revolutionary Havana of dictator Batista, saw Cuban musicians thriving domestically, whilst those migrating to the US both absorbed and influenced Afro-American jazz. All this changed in the 1960s. The Cuban music industry was nationalised, the previously independent record labels subsumed under the new, state-owned, Egrem label. By the end of the decade, the word ‘jazz’ had been declared unpatriotic, and the only outlet for home-produced music was Cuba itself, along with former Soviet-bloc states. The musicians themselves became employees of the state and the cream were corralled into the state-created Orquesta Cubana De Música Moderna (OCMM), more than ironic in the sense that musica moderna was jazz by another name!
Somewhat remarkably, given this background, the decade covered by the music on the release represents not the imposition of a creative strait-jacket, but rather the exploration of distinctly joyous new styles, as experimentation with jazz, Latin, salsa, funk, even psychedelia and rock, led to the creation of adventurous new sounds involving, for example, keyboards, synthesisers, wah-wah pedals and innovatory ways to employ percussion, brass and woodwind.
From the ashes of the break-up of OCMM in 1974 came the formation of Grupo Irakere. Officially sanctioned by the government, and led by Chucho Valdés, they gained international popularity, becoming, and remaining, a seminal influence. Even for such a high-profile group, however, certain restrictions were still in force; cymbals were not allowed, thus cowbells and congas were introduced, somewhat inadvertently introducing a new, creative sound. Indeed the opening track on the release, this group’s Chéquere Son, is a unique combination of be-bop horns, claves and funk. Another group to emerge from OCMM, and represented here, is Juan Pablo Torres Y Algo Nuevo with their explosive, trombone-led Rompe Cocorioco.
During the 1970s the Cuban Film Institute, (ICAIC), enjoyed a relative creative autonomy denied others. Falling under their umbrella was the Grupo De Experimentación Sonora Del ICAIC, a collective comprising both musicians and composers whose interests and output was truly diverse. Their three tracks here are fascinatingly cosmic, highly redolent of the progressive output of many western artists falling under a ‘jazz-rock’ categorisation, indeed with Grito even a fusion of Canterbury Scene, Gong and Peter Barden’s Camel. The collective also spawned artists who were to become inventors of the Nueva Trova movement, including Pablo Milanés, who contributes Te Quiero Porque Te Quiero.
For several decades, charanga groups had been at the forefront of Cuban music, but their popularity was waning by the late 60s, and during the 1970s the state’s negative attitude to Cuban dance music left it at an all-time low.
Orquesta Ritmo Oriental provide an example of ‘pure’ charanga, whilst in 1969 its sound was modernised when Juan Formell formed Los Van Van, a group who defined the sound of late 20th century Cuban dance music, fusing charanga with elements of son, funk, jazz and, in particular, rock. The tracks contributed here exemplify just how ground-breaking the group were, with their unique percussion sounds, including synthesisers and drum machines, and, later, the use of trombones.
Their influence had wider benefits too, as older, previously out-of-favour artists, once again found themselves able to record. Thus here we have tracks from Conjunto Rumbavana and the quite splendid vocal harmony talents of the female vocal trio Las D’Aida, featuring Elena Burke and Haydee & Omara Portuondo.
Other artists appearing include Los 5-U-4, from the Isla de la Juventud, with their esoteric psychedelia and complex musical structures, Grupo Monumental, from Havana, delivering up a heady mix of South American roots, North American soul, funk & jazz together with elements of Cuban music, all played behind a powerful trio of vocalists and, finally, Los Reyes 73, whose cultivated blend of Cuban, rock and funk makes for an enthralling sound.
This is a remarkable and captivating release, documenting, sonically, why Cuban music is seen as the source of much Latin music in the 20th Century. The opportunity, in some small way, to share with musicians ‘who were all searching for a new Cuban identity and new musical forms that reflected both the Afro-Cuban cultural heritage of a nation that gave birth to Latin music – and its new position as a socialist state’ is one to be relished. The fact that this album is advertised as Vol.1 merely adds to the delight.
The album is released in tandem with Cuba: Music and Revolution: Original Cover Art of Cuban Music: Record Sleeve Designs of Revolutionary Cuba 1959-90. This 250-page large format hardback book, the first ever about Cuban record sleeve design, made in full co-operation with the Cuban government, features 100s of stunning and unique photos of covers of LPs made since the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
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