CRAPMAN, OOPS I MEAN CAPEMAN
George M. Rivera
From Paul Simon's SONGS FROM THE CAPEMAN:
"Fucking Puerto Rican dope-dealing punk
Get your shit-brown ass out of here.
If you got cojones, come on, mete mano..."
This is the bullshit the honky mudderfuckin' midget from Queens wants
you to believe is "your" story. This lily-white ass midget faggot (as
in punk-ass motherfuckin' cabron) truly has got some real big cojones to
flaunt his crap. And to think that there are many cats that I really
respect involved in this fiasco is beyond my comprehension. All my
respect goes to Andy Gonzalez, who turned down the offer to be the
musical director way before this bullshit ever got underway. Also Ruben
Rodriguez and now Marc Quinones who have turned down lucrative offers
for their services. Now, most of you may probably never know how this
project came to be. Well, let me school you on how the CRAPMAN, oops I
meant CAPEMAN, came to be. The elf of a man, Mr. Simon, went around
town recording every band and individual he could coax. These
individuals thought for the most part that they were eventually going to
be signed to some new label being started up by Shorty Calvo, which is
the literal translation of Paul Simon. This mamalon then went through
all these recordings and basically stole their ideas and made them his
own. Now you'll read the liner notes and notice that Shorty Calvo wrote
all the lyrics and music for CRAPMAN, oops I meant CAPEMAN. Why Shorty,
what big cojones you have!
Let me tell you the Paul Simon release SONGS FROM THE CAPEMAN is not
worth a penny or any of your time. I'd rather listen to Tupac rap the
national anthem while stuffing his face with a Burger King Whopper with
cheese and no onions. It's total mierda. Shit my sixteen year old son
heard it and was cracking up. He went on to tell me that he would not
be going to see "that crap" with my wife and I (little does he know that
we're not going either). He even made the observation that the song
would still suck if Marc and Ruben sang them, and that Marc will
probably lose fans if they heard "this crap". My, what a bright young
man my son is! After all he was brought up listening to the good things
in life such as Miles, Coltrane, Bird, Diz, TR, Machito, TP, The Fania
Era, Bartok, Dubussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Tupac.
Save your money and forget this wonderful work of crap...
--
Musically,
George Rivera
go...@earthlink.net
"Me llamo Son...no me llamen salsa"
Edward-Yemíl Rosario
"George M. Rivera" <go...@earthlink.net> wrote:
<snip>
>This is the bullshit the honky mudderfuckin' midget from Queens wants
>you to believe is "your" story. This lily-white ass midget faggot (as
>in punk-ass motherfuckin' cabron) truly has got some real big cojones to
>flaunt his crap. And to think that there are many cats that I really
>respect involved in this fiasco is beyond my comprehension.
Gee George, I guess you really don't like this stuff, huh? <g>
Felicidades!
Edward-Yemil Rosario (Eddie)
New York University
"Believe those who say they are looking for the truth, distrust those who say they have found it."
*****Remove exxxtra "x" from email address to reply*****
WillieGuad
>This is the bullshit the honky mudderfuckin' midget from Queens wants
>you to believe is "your" story. This lily-white ass midget faggot (as
>in punk-ass motherfuckin' cabron) truly has got some real big cojones to
>flaunt his crap.
George, please stop beating around the bush & tell us how you really feel!!
Straight up...
Tu tienes mucha razon. This thing is shaping up to be una gran barbaridad.
Will
Matthew Dubuque
George-
Thanks for the scathing review. Based on your review, I'll spend my
money elsewhere!
BTW, it's a scary thought, but maybe Paul Simon has Cuba in his sights
next....
I.E., first south africa (graceland), brazil (the name escapes me of
that vaguely average album), puerto rico (carpman)......{Can Cuba be far
behind?}
Musically,
Matthew
George M. Rivera
Matthew Dubuque wrote:
>
> BTW, it's a scary thought, but maybe Paul Simon has Cuba in his sights
> next....
>
He's currently working on HE'S GOT DANDRUFF IN HIS BEARD which he
describes as the history of Cuba as told by El Enano and his Siete
Peque~o Rumberos utilizing rumba and son, only the drum will be
interpreted through his guitar.
Matthew Dubuque
The worst thing about Paul Simon's 'Rhythm of the Saints" (a tribute to
Brazilian music/rhythms) CD is that there wasn't any rhythm on it.
And J.J. Cale's incredible guitar solo was mixed way down so as not to
outshine Simon's indifferent performance.....
Matthew
Matthew Dubuque
Anglos such as myself are indeed fortunate that the experiences of
people color can be told through the eyes of rich white people.
This way we can say that we know what it is like to be a Puerto Rican
without ever having to meet one and to know the history of Cuba without
ever having to travel to the Caribbean.
Thanks Paul Simon. You've made life more convenient (and impoverished!)
for people everywhere.
Matthew
George M. Rivera
Now I'm not condemning all Anglos, just Shorty Calvo. There are many
non-hispanics that know their "shit". My apologies if I've offended
anyone that didn't have it coming...
Matthew Dubuque
No offense taken here!
matthew
Willie Colon
Thank you George!
I've been having a tough time with this. There are so many brothers
who have desperately hitched their dreams to this thing. I have remained
silent because I'd have to shoot through them to hit this interloping,
cultural prospecting pimp. This time he's got hostages.
!Pero tu te la comiste, campeon!
Willie
--
=========================================================================
William Anthony Colon wa...@earthlink.net
www.earthlink.net/~wacco fax 914-633-8243
WILLIE COLON MUSIC CO.
914-633-0822
=========================================================================
Salsa is not a rythym, it's a concept....
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
BIEN PREDICA EL QUE BIEN VIVE
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0o0o0o0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Kimberly Walker
I TOLD YOU SO!!!!
Didn't I say it?
And the damn thing had been featured on morning tv news shows for a full
two weeks.
BTW, thanks to the best sweetheart in the world who "sort of" knows my
musical tastes (but clearly not my socio-political ones), I received this
CD as a SURPRISE gift the day it came out. Anyone interested in it, drop
me an email :)
Kimberly
Willie Colon
Dear Paul:
Afraid? No.
If I were afraid I'd be a wous and hide behind a phony id like you.
Envious? Maybe.
Bitter that we must accept these left handed tributes gratefully?
Perhaps.
Thanks for the compliment, by the way, I wish I could compete on that
level.
"My soul be satisfied with flowers, with fruit, with weed even; but
gather them in the one garden you may call your own....
And if my nature wants the germ that grows towering to heaven like the
mountain pine, or like the oak, sheltering multitudes- I stand, not
high it may be - but alone."
Edmond Rostand
WAC
SalsaYes wrote:
>
> All this vitriol, hate, racism and foul, graffitti-like language just
> because Paul Simon had the audacity to dabble in their turf.
>
> C'mon guys! Your comments make you all look like Ayatollahs condemning
> the Satanic Verses!
>
> Could this be an acute case of professional jealousy? No requests for
> paid reviews of the show, George?
>
> Afraid of competition, Willie?
George M. Rivera
SalsaYes wrote:
>
> All this vitriol, hate, racism and foul, graffitti-like language just
> because Paul Simon had the audacity to dabble in their turf.
>
> C'mon guys! Your comments make you all look like Ayatollahs condemning
> the Satanic Verses!
>
> Could this be an acute case of professional jealousy? No requests for
> paid reviews of the show, George?
>
> Afraid of competition, Willie?
Why don't you buy the cd and find out for yourself...or better yet, go
see it for yourself...btw why do you hide behind some tag, could it be
that your on "El Calvo Enano's" payroll???
Matthew Dubuque
SalsaYes-
Speaking just for myself, compare crapman to Buena vista social club.
Both cases involved white guys making big bucks off of latin culture.
but ry cooder has a lot more respect for cubans than it seems like small
simon has for Riquenos.
and that's a big deal to me...
Matthew
Steve Roitstein
In article <6626f4$30v$1...@newsd-112.bryant.webtv.net>, mdub...@webtv.net
(Matthew Dubuque) wrote:
Ry made a couple of cd's featuring Cuban artists. I doubt that will lead
to "big bucks".
A successful broadway show will generate serious dollars. A failure will
lose plenty too.
--
Steve Roitstein
Riot Music, Miami
http://www.riotmusic.com/
My real email address is: riot (at) netrox (dot) net
Wallice 13
In article <65vp30$8...@chile.earthlink.net>, Willie Colon
<wa...@mail.earthlink.*nospam*net*nospam*> writes:
>And if my nature wants the germ that grows towering to heaven like
>the
mountain pine, or like the oak, sheltering multitudes- I stand, not
high
>it may be - but alone."
Edmond Rostand
That would be Linda's great uncle.... errr..... wrong spelling? Oooops, never
mind.
saludos,
wall...@aol.com
-- You know, that guy who
DOESN'T know anybody famous
Bruce Ishikawa
Matthew Dubuque wrote:
> SalsaYes-
> Speaking just for myself, compare crapman to Buena vista social club.
> Both cases involved white guys making big bucks off of latin culture.
> but ry cooder has a lot more respect for cubans than it seems like small
> simon has for Riquenos.
>
> and that's a big deal to me...
>
> Matthew
Ry Cooder used his (somewhat limited) fame to try to bring Cuban music to a
wider audience. His hand was very light on the music. The three albums are
NOT Ry Cooder vehicles as much as they are using the Ry Cooder name
recognition to further the cause. This reflects the respect you mention.
Paul Simon, on the other hand, is featured in this and the other projects
discussed in this thread. I have not heard the soundtrack (Kim, what is it
like? Want to get it online so we can really know what we're talking
about?), but if it is like Simon's past "world music" efforts, I expect to
hear salsa music badly distorted and diluted with a set of trite lyrics on
top. This reflects the disrespect you allude to.
- Bruce
--
Visit my website:
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/8463
Latin Music Resources
Some sounds, some links, some useful info...
Kimberly Walker
On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, Bruce Ishikawa wrote:
> Paul Simon, on the other hand, is featured in this and the other projects
> discussed in this thread. I have not heard the soundtrack (Kim, what is it
> like? Want to get it online so we can really know what we're talking
> about?), but if it is like Simon's past "world music" efforts, I expect to
> hear salsa music badly distorted and diluted with a set of trite lyrics on
> top. This reflects the disrespect you allude to.
And this is EXACTLY what it is. The laugh value of Paul Simon's lack of
credibility trying to sound like a 15 year old barrio gang member is almost
worth the price of the thing. But "If you've got "cojones", C'mon "mette
mano"...." which are the lyrics AS PRINTED... annoys the hell out of me.
Simon took the same flack for going into South Africa for "Graceland" and he
doesn't care! He admitted he started doing this kind of thing when his
own music stopped selling.
I saw Simon, Ednita Nazario and Marc Anthony on the Oprah show two nights
ago (yeah, I had insomnia and it was on!) and it made me want to vomit.
Not only did Oprah not bother to speak to Marc or Ednita, but she and the
audience went into religious fervor over Simon, his songs, his singing
and what good he's doing for Latin music with this project. Ughh!
Perhaps, with Simon out of it, the play might be decent, but I seriously
doubt that even these three superlative artists can pull the fat out of
the fire for this one.
Kim
Bruce Ishikawa
Someone was nice enough to send me the URL to the Warner Bros (Arturo, wasn't
Tom and Jerry originally a Hanna Barbera cartoon?) CAPEMAN website which has
four RA samples of the music:
http://www.wbr.com/paulsimon/capeman/cmp/songs.html
I heard a few latin phrases (musical, certainly not verbal) in the beginning of
the first number, then standard Paul Simon schlock with some conga/bongo
percussion behind it. Nothing resembling Latin Music.
So now, is Paul Simon really ripping off la musica? I'd have to say no, because
this in no way resembles latin music. Is he ripping off Nuyorican culture? The
lyrics are so dumb that I'd have to say no again, although the whole Broadway
Production may very well be. I can see a real danger in that the general public
might see this as latin music and either 1. not like it and thus dismiss all
latin music or 2. like it and be disappointed when they hear the real thing
because it doesn't sound like Paul Simon.
Not to be too cynical or anything, but I'll offer this observation:
If "The Capeman" is a hit it's because of Paul Simon.
If it is a flop, it's because it's about latinos.
Now, I'm sure that someone out there will read this as "Bruce likes Paul Simon
and doesn't like latinos." So let me point out that I am referring to the
"general public's" views as perceived by me, someone who is completely mystified
that anyone would care about OJ Simpson or Princess Di or whether Letterman is
better than Leno.
Rolf Mager
Bruce Ishikawa wrote:
[...]
> Paul Simon, on the other hand, is featured in this and the other projects
> discussed in this thread. I have not heard the soundtrack (Kim, what is it
> like? Want to get it online so we can really know what we're talking
> about?)
Some samples (in WAV format or RealAudio) from the album are available
under http://www.wbr.com/paulsimon/capeman/cmp/songs.html
The site contains also the lyrics as well as other information about
the album.
Rolf
Carlos Calderon
In <Pine.SGI.3.91.97120...@umbi.umd.edu>, Kimberly Walker <wal...@umbi.umd.edu> writes:
>On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, Bruce Ishikawa wrote:
>
>> discussed in this thread. I have not heard the soundtrack (Kim, what is it
>> like? Want to get it online so we can really know what we're talking
>> hear salsa music badly distorted and diluted with a set of trite lyrics on
>> top. This reflects the disrespect you allude to.
>
>And this is EXACTLY what it is. The laugh value of Paul Simon's lack of
>credibility trying to sound like a 15 year old barrio gang member is almost
>worth the price of the thing. But "If you've got "cojones", C'mon "mette
>mano"...." which are the lyrics AS PRINTED... annoys the hell out of me.
>Simon took the same flack for going into South Africa for "Graceland" and he
>doesn't care! He admitted he started doing this kind of thing when his
>own music stopped selling.
>I saw Simon, Ednita Nazario and Marc Anthony on the Oprah show two nights
>ago (yeah, I had insomnia and it was on!) and it made me want to vomit.
>Not only did Oprah not bother to speak to Marc or Ednita, but she and the
>audience went into religious fervor over Simon, his songs, his singing
>and what good he's doing for Latin music with this project. Ughh!
>Perhaps, with Simon out of it, the play might be decent, but I seriously
>doubt that even these three superlative artists can pull the fat out of
>the fire for this one.
>
>Kim
See folks. That is the real reason (I hope) why Ruben refused to go promote
this show with these people. I truly believe he foresaw the diminished role that
the latin stars would play in such interviews and decided to stay out of it. Not
as was pointed out before that he was "jealous" of the highlight on Marc Anthony.
Common folks! this is a very smart individual who has been known to manage
a very hostile media for years, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. What I still
do not understand is why the heck is he involved in such project. I guess the
dinero is pretty damn good. After all, even the best salsa stars have a hard time
meeting ends in this business as Ruben himself has pointed out when talking about
his acting career. Any insights???
Curiously....
calderon.
Carlos Calderon
In <3486DEFE...@hotmail.com>, Bruce Ishikawa <bish...@hotmail.com> writes:
>Someone was nice enough to send me the URL to the Warner Bros (Arturo, wasn't
>Tom and Jerry originally a Hanna Barbera cartoon?) CAPEMAN website which has
>four RA samples of the music:
>
>http://www.wbr.com/paulsimon/capeman/cmp/songs.html
>
>I heard a few latin phrases (musical, certainly not verbal) in the beginning of
>the first number, then standard Paul Simon schlock with some conga/bongo
>percussion behind it. Nothing resembling Latin Music.
>
>So now, is Paul Simon really ripping off la musica? I'd have to say no, because
>this in no way resembles latin music. Is he ripping off Nuyorican culture? The
>lyrics are so dumb that I'd have to say no again, although the whole Broadway
>Production may very well be. I can see a real danger in that the general public
>might see this as latin music and either 1. not like it and thus dismiss all
>latin music or 2. like it and be disappointed when they hear the real thing
>because it doesn't sound like Paul Simon.
Unfortunately my brother, number 1 is most likely to happen, remember that we
live in a society driven by the stars and not necessarily the esence of what they
do. As my mother used to say here "te haces la fama y te hechas a dormir". What
many would end up saying is : Well, if PAUL SIMON cannot make this crap sound
OK nobody can. What a scary thought.
>Not to be too cynical or anything, but I'll offer this observation:
>If "The Capeman" is a hit it's because of Paul Simon.
>If it is a flop, it's because it's about latinos.
You are absolutely right my brother, we will continue being "el chivo
expiatorio" if things go wrong and the supporting cast if things go well.
Matthew Dubuque
bongo playing? wait, this could change everything....{;^)
Johnny One-Note
George M. Rivera
Bruce Ishikawa wrote:
>
> Not to be too cynical or anything, but I'll offer this observation:
> If "The Capeman" is a hit it's because of Paul Simon.
> If it is a flop, it's because it's about latinos.
Why you good for nothing punk! If you were here right now I'd...
> Now, I'm sure that someone out there will read this as "Bruce likes Paul Simon
> and doesn't like latinos."
Well, with an apellido like Ishikawalawa I can understand why you don't
like Latinos. It's not our fault that our names are more easily
pronounced than yours you punk, boy if you were here I'd...
> So let me point out that I am referring to the
> "general public's" views...
Oops!!! I guess I jumped the gun. Perdona, yo no sabia que the banana
belonged to Mr. Chango...
George M. Rivera
WillieGuad wrote:
>
> >Common folks! (Ruben Blades) is a very smart individual who has been known to
> manage
> >a very hostile media for years, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. What
> >I still
> >do not understand is why the heck is he involved in such project. I guess the
> >
> >dinero is pretty damn good. After all, even the best salsa stars have a hard
> >time
> >meeting ends in this business as Ruben himself has pointed out when talking
> >about
> >his acting career. Any insights???
>
> Nunca vendas tu destino
> por el oro ni la comodidad....
>
> .... No te dejes confundir
> busca el fondo y su razon
> Recuerda se ven las caras
> pero nunca el corazon.
Boy, Ruben should have followed his own advice...
WillieGuad
Wallice 13
In article <19971205021...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, willi...@aol.com
(WillieGuad) writes:
>Oye Latino, Oye hermano, Oye amigo
Nunca vendas tu destino
por el oro ni la
>comodidad....
.... No te dejes confundir
busca el fondo y su razon
Recuerda
>se ven las caras
pero nunca el corazon.
Brother, te la comiste! "Bien predica el que bien vive".... now, who was it
that said in this NG?
Steve Roitstein
> Perdona, yo no sabia que the banana
> belonged to Mr. Chango...
Quit stealing my lines, dammit!
Curtis Lanoue
In article <666qu9$150u$1...@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, ccal...@us.ibm.com
(Carlos Calderon) wrote:
>do not understand is why the heck is he involved in such project. I guess
the
>dinero is pretty damn good. After all, even the best salsa stars have a
hard time
>meeting ends in this business as Ruben himself has pointed out when talkin=
g
about
>his acting career. Any insights???
Yeah, it's called pension. If a Broadway show runs 6 months (or something
like that), the cast gets pension from the union. A great guy from St.
Louis who plays in John Pizzarelli's trio was in a show and explained how
the show flopped but they were trying to make it at least that minimum
amount of time.
And the money is smoking. For Ruben probably around 10g a week. Not bad,
eh?
Curtis <Vanvanero> Lanoue
cla...@apci.net
http://www.apci.net/~clanoue
"P=F3rtate bien, mamita, pa' que los reyes
te traigan juguetes este a=F1o."
vgdesign
Hey, I didn't write it! But it seemed apropos.
(If it looks funny set your newsreader line length to 125 characters)
lisa
The Debate Over Cross-cultural Music: Happy
Collaboration or Strip Mining?
Buffalo News
Sun, Dec 07 1997
It might be a global village out there, but cultural borders not only exist, they
are still closely watched. Crossing attempts are not for the faint of heart.
With the release of "Songs From 'The Capeman,' " his first album in six years,
singer-songwriter Paul Simon will walk, again, right into the prickly issues
surrounding cultural borrowing and, again, is likely to hear charges of
carpetbagging and exploitation.
The album is culled from "The Capeman," a Broadway musical co-written by
Simon and poet Derek Walcott that starts previews this month. Its music
draws, in part, from traditional Puerto Rican music, utilizing styles such as
"bomba y plena" and "aguinaldo."
Simon knows the arguments and the passions they evoke. "Graceland," his
quirky take on South African music, sold 11 million copies and revived his
moribund career -- but also made him a target.
But for the briefest moment in an interview in his offices at the Brill Building in
Manhattan, he seems both weary and hopeful.
" 'Graceland' was 11 years ago," he says. "I think those discussions will
happen again (with 'Songs'), but not nearly to the same degree because, well,
we had those arguments, and multicultural, cross-cultural artistic work is very
common now. It goes on all the time and can't be stopped. We live right next
to each other. We have to begin speaking each other's language."
True, but the infatuation of white, wealthy pop stars with other people's music
still raises suspicions -- especially when the people in question are mostly
poor and of color.
It's an argument that became particularly heated in the 1980s when major pop
stars like Simon, David Byrne and Peter Gabriel wandered into South Africa,
Brazil, Latin New York and the Middle East and made border crossing not
only fashionable, but profitable.
"How can you justify going there and taking all their music?" an
African-American student at predominantly black Howard University
challenged Simon after a talk by the artist in January 1987. "For too long,
artists have gone and stolen black music -- you're taking it and bringing it
back here and throwing it in my face!"
Puerto Rican singer Willie Colon, who collaborated with Byrne on the pop
rocker's Latin-inflected "Rei Momo" (1989), was later quoted decrying his
and other Latin musicians' participation as "willingly giving up their juice to
some pale, spastic, soulless hack."
Such anger and anguish underscore the fact that, for all the
we-are-all-brothers rhetoric, these cultural collaborations are not meetings
among equals. The encounters can be among cultures a world apart or living
side by side, but they are inescapably framed by issues of economic and
political power.
In fact, when these cross-cultural encounters work, both the artist and the
music can come away invigorated. And when commercially successful, the
results might open doors to deserving traditional performers who have kept
the genre alive before it was blessed and made hip for the masses.
New York composer and bandleader Kip Hanrahan's avant-pop mixes of
Latin, Haitian and African-American-rooted music in albums such as "Coup
de Tete" (1981) and "Desire Develops an Edge" (1983) predated Simon's,
Byrne's and producer Bill Laswell's excursions. Those recordings remain
models of creative crosscultural work, retaining precious distinctions in each
music, each style, while recombining them into a startling new whole.
In a different approach, guitarist and producer Ry Cooder traveled to Cuba
last year, assembled a group of wily veterans, picked a repertoire of old
songs and submerged himself in the music. The result, "Buena Vista Social
Club," is a gem. It is not a Ry Cooder album, however. It's an album of
Cuban music -- with a twist.
In "Graceland," Simon's writing did sound revitalized and South African pop
-- "mbaqanga," "mbube" singing, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who knew? --
did find a new audience.
But such encounters can also turn into a sort of cultural strip mining.
One community's culture can be appropriated as cheap raw material,
sanitized, bleached, put into the pop blender and made into exotica. An
example is "Deep Forest" (1992), created by two French producers by
cutting and pasting authentic Pygmy music, recorded in the field, onto
electronic dance tracks. The album was an international hit.
Setting guidelines for cross-cultural collaborations, however, can be tricky.
Respecting both the integrity of the music and the rights of the artist, or
balancing the demands of the individual creative process and the needs of a
community are complex and elusive issues.
"It's not what you take but where you take it to," said Hanrahan in a
conversation in 1985. "Just taking the exotica of a music without changing it is
one way of appropriation. In 'Desire' Cuban, Haitian, Brazilian, Anglo rock .
. . all interact and work against each other, transforming each other -- but you
have to give them something to play that would draw them from their (usual)
habits."
Byrne's interest in African and Latin music and attitude about exploration can
be traced from his days with Talking Heads to his latest album, "Feelings." He
says simply, "You can't make rules or laws for music.
"Aesthetically I think there is a good way of doing things," he says. "When you
hear something you love and you want to bring it into your work, there are
ways to do that that are pleasant and correct and meaningful. But if you say
you can do it this way but you can't do it this other way then I think you . . .
end up in a form of censorship.
"You have to allow for all the (screw-ups) and mistakes and all the horrible
appropriations that happen in order to get the good ones," he says. "Because
you can't say none of it is good and it should not happen. Some of it is great."
Panamanian salsa singer and movie actor Ruben Blades, one of the leads in
Simon's "The Capeman," has made a career of crossing borders -- between
cultures, artistic disciplines, music styles.
He says Simon has been "interested in certain purity (in the Latin music in the
show) . . . but it's his take," he emphasizes.
"Basically, the Puerto Rican numbers are Puerto Rican, but as the author, he
has the right to change things," Blades says. "It's the same right I have in my
next album to use accordion, violin and acoustic guitars and put together a
percussion section that will feature Caribbean and South American
percussion. As an artist no one can tell me I cannot play a certain kind of
music because it does not belong to me. Culturally, it belongs to everybody."
Simon, who sees "The Capeman" as "an American story that says the Puerto
Rican experience is also an 'American' experience," has been working on his
musical off and on for seven years. Still, "One of the criticisms I hear is: 'But
you are not Puerto Rican! What are you doing telling that story?'
"But in a way, if I were hired to tell someone's story the way someone hires a
lawyer to represent them, the effort of learning how to express someone else's
feelings correctly is a good effort. Will I understand everything perfectly? No,
I won't, but so what? I'm just trying to tell the whole story to the best of my
ability and I am representing the culture as accurately and as musically as I
possibly can."
He says he never pretended to play South African music like an South
African or, now, Puerto Rican music like a Puerto Rican -- "nor I think they
would want me to if I could. They don't need me for that.
"They want me to be Paul Simon, make music like Paul Simon with their
music. That's what is interesting to them -- if they like Paul Simon."
He makes working in other cultures a matter of "respect and affection."
"You are a guest, so there are rules of how to be the kind of guest that people
would like to invite back," he says. "That applied growing up in New York
City. If you grew up in New York City you would go and have dinner at your
friend's house and if they were Italian it was a certain set of rules; if it was
Irish it was a different set of rules; the Jews had their own way. And you
understood you could move around freely but you had to be respectful of
other people's way. To a large extent, that applies here. But for me, as a
musician, how could you not be respectful? The cultures are so rich, so
bountiful, it's a privilege."
Copyright 1997, Buffalo News.
vgdesign
Anyone going to Santiago soon?
Something I'd like to send...............
A Man Who Loves His Son
By Judy Cantor
La Casa de la Trova in Santiago de Cuba occupies a small
colonial building with high-beam ceilings and long street-level
windows that at noon on a September Sunday are filled with
the faces of people looking in. The austere room feels more
like a chapel than Santiago's most storied music club, and the
acoustics are appropriately miraculous. No one uses a
microphone, ever. Gnarled old men in guayaberas share the
rows of wooden chairs with young couples bouncing toddlers
on their laps. One budding musician hoping to jam carries a
pair of maracas in a plastic shopping bag. A woman in a
churchgoing dress in the front row hits two claves -- wooden
sticks -- together, keeping time for the five players on-stage.
Eliades Ochoa presides this afternoon, sitting on the small
platform with his group Cuarteto Patria. "I don't trust women
any more, I don't trust women," Ochoa wails in a hollow tenor
while strumming his guitar, and the old men in the audience
absently sing along, nodding.
A formidable figure with a raspy drawl, Ochoa wears his
customary pointy patent-leather shoes and cowboy hat. A
squarish tuft of gray bristles sprouts from under his lip. He
looks like he could be found spitting tobacco juice in the stands
at a Texas rodeo rather than playing ballads on a Cuban guitar.
But Ochoa is one of the most celebrated performers in
Santiago, where the distinctive sound of son -- that heady mix
of African and Spanish rhythms forming the base of most
Cuban music (and salsa) -- was born a century ago. The
eastern port city is still a breeding ground for the country's
musicians. Over the past three decades, the 50-year-old
Ochoa has spent more time at the Casa de la Trova than at
home. When he's not on-stage, he often sits at one of the tables
in the back of the club with a glass of rum.
So when Ry Cooder was searching last year for "some of the
greatest musicians in Cuba" to join him on a recording of
classic Cuban music, Ochoa was not hard to find. Cooder had
him flown to Havana, where several generations of outstanding
Cuban players convened in the studio of Egrem, the state-run
recording company. They included legendary singers Compay
Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer -- also from Santiago --
septuagenarian pianist Rubén González, and bass player
Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, son of Orestes Lopez and nephew
of renowned bassist Israel Lopez, "Cachao."
The resulting album, Buena Vista Social Club, is one of three
recorded in Cuba released in this country by Nonesuch (see
sidebar for review). Ochoa plays his homemade hybrid of a
standard six-string guitar and Cuban tres on five of the fourteen
tracks. He sings lead vocals on "El Carretero," a twangy
Cuban country lament; "El Cuarto de Tula," a rousing,
improvisational son; and Segundo's "Chan Chan," a love song
with a crying trumpet solo and slow dance rhythm. These songs
are business as usual for Ochoa, who has spent a lifetime
playing son in its purest form.
"The son is very simple," Ochoa explains. "It's a tres, some
bongos, a pair of claves, some maracas. The music shouldn't
be written down, and the musicians playing it don't have to
know each other. We just get together and I grab a tres,
another guy grabs the bongos, another the maracas, and there's
the son. That's all you need."
Cooder, who has a musicologist's interest in world rhythms and
has previously worked with artists from India and Africa,
wisely stuck with that time-honored method. Ochoa says that
although the American guitarist plays on most of the tracks, he
let the Cubans take the lead, play what they wanted, and
improvise. To Cooder's credit, the CDs are beautifully
produced, with a lushness rarely found on recordings from
Cuba.
Ochoa has heard through the grapevine that Buena Vista is
selling well, allowing him more exposure than two records by
his regular band Cuarteto Patria that were issued in the past
few years in the United States by the independent label
Corasón. He says it doesn't bother him if he and the other
Cuban musicians get noticed only by association with a big
American name.
"If the record sells well because of Ry Cooder, that's okay,"
Ochoa says. "There's a saying that goes, 'One hand washes the
other and both hands wash the face.'" Meaning that the record
will keep people listening to the Cuban classics, Ochoa's main
goal.
"I like a lot of different music, but what I give to the public is
traditional Cuban music," says Ochoa. "While I can still move
my fingers on the fretboard of my guitar I won't play anything
else."
Many of the songs Ochoa now performs he first heard on his
father's transistor radio, numbers recorded in the 1950s by
Beny Moré or El Trío Matamoros. Ochoa's family were poor
country people who lived in a mountain village outside
Santiago. Both his father and his mother played tres, although
not professionally, and Ochoa learned young. "The guitar and I
were the same size then," he says.
He was about ten years old when they moved down to the city.
Ochoa saw electric lights for the first time, and he also started
to work. He made a shoeshine box and set up shop in a busy
plaza, where he sold lottery tickets as well. "But at night I was
a musician," he says.
Ochoa started playing on the street, in front of stores and
restaurants. "In those days there was no Cultural Ministry in
Cuba, no state organization to help you out. Everyone made
their own groups and went out to fight for their living." As an
adolescent he started to venture into bars, wandering into the
"tolerance zone," as the red-light district was called.
"The women who made their living that way helped me a lot,"
he recalls fondly. "When I'd come in, they'd turn off the record
player and I started playing the guitar. Then it was the women
who swept the change off the table into my hat. It was 25 cents
here and 10 cents there, but when I'd finished for the night I
had two or three pesos. A whole family could live on that
then."
But the times were changing, and after the revolution in 1959
the busy bordellos were forced to shut down. Then the newly
installed government began to regulate culture, with an
emphasis on promoting national and regional arts. In 1963
Ochoa, by then a well-known figure in Santiago, was hired to
play country music on a weekly half-hour radio program.
"I started to feel like an artist," recalls Ochoa, smiling. "They
paid me a salary. Then they asked me to be on another show
and paid me more. I was finished with playing in the street. I
felt good."
In 1970 Ochoa began performing regularly at the state-run
Casa de la Trova. In 1978 he joined Cuarteto Patria, already
an established band. Older members retired or passed away,
and Ochoa replaced them with younger musicians. His brother
plays guitar and his son recently joined on maracas.
The band has about a dozen albums. Since 1979 it's left the
island five times to tour the Caribbean, Latin America, and
Europe. In 1988 Cuarteto Patria journeyed to Washington,
D.C., to take part in a festival of Cuban culture organized by
the Smithsonian on the National Mall. A live recording of that
groundbreaking event, Cuba in Washington, was just released
by Smithsonian's Folkways label. The album is a no-frills affair
that sounds flat next to Buena Vista, but it does serve to
document the enthusiasm of the American audience on crowd
pleasers like "Guantanamera."
"I'm proud to see how Cuban music is accepted abroad,"
Ochoa says. "I don't even understand why that is. But what's
certain is that anywhere you go people like Cuban son.
Wherever we sing a bolero they like it. People who don't even
speak Spanish make requests: 'Guantanamera,' 'Lágrimas
Negras.' So many songs, it's unbelievable. But if it didn't make
the public happy, there'd be no reason for the music to exist."
Ochoa hopes to record a new album this year; he says he's
currently considering an offer from a Spanish label to sign an
exclusive contract. Meanwhile he's hanging at La Casa de la
Trova. There's one thing that's bothering him, though. No one
from Cooder's camp or the Smithsonian has bothered to get
him a copy of either of the new CDs.
"We'll see what happens," Ochoa muses."I think that one of
these days I'm going to get ahold of those compact discs, just
for my use -- to listen to them at home." He takes a long draw
of his drink. "That's a dream I have right now. If I could get
those CDs, that would be a great thing. I could feel like a
famous musician."
==========c. Miami NewTimes 10/97
Matthew Dubuque
VGDesign-
I thoroughly enjoyed this remarkable article on the great Ochoa.
Trevor Salloum left 12/24 for Santiago! He could have brought the CDs
to Eliades...
Musically,
Matthew
vgdesign
mdub...@webtv.net (Matthew Dubuque) wrote:
I wish I'd run across the article just a few days earlier........
lisa
Robert E Beatty Jr.
Matthew Dubuque wrote in message <6865pj$8pf$1...@newsd-153.iap.bryant.webtv.net>...
VGDesign-
I thoroughly enjoyed this remarkable article on the great Ochoa.
Trevor Salloum left 12/24 for Santiago! He could have brought the CDs
to Eliades...
Musically,
Matthew
Got to see Eliades Ochoa y Quarteto Patria in Toronto last summer, it was definitely the musical highlight of my trip. The group that was supposed to go on next didn't show up so Señor Ochoa and company gladly played an extra set.
I picked up a (home brewed) cassette that didn't have any info on it, so does anybody know who the percussionist could have been? He played bongos and congas at the same time, and blended the two styles of playing very effectively.
*******************************************
Bright Moments,
Robert E Beatty Jr.
Robert...@worldnet.att.net
*******************************************
Dan Callis
The Cuerteto Patria percussionist is Roberto Torres. The youngest member
of the group. I met him in Santiago de Cuba a few years ago and took
some lessons from him. The guy doesn't even own a set of congas, his
bongos leave a lot to be desired and his bell is old and rusty. If any
one on this NG ever goes there, don't take CD's as gifts, take clothing
and maybe some new bongo/conga skins, drumsticks, anything,( bongo
players in Santiago all use plastic on the macho head. And spend a few
dollars on lessons, $20 straight into someones pocket goes a long way in
Cuba.
Cubans are some of the warmest people you will ever meet. After a lesson
one day at Robertos brothers home, four of us were treated to a
wonderful meal while the Torres family stood around watching and
grinning. We had come from an all inclusive hotel with buffet meals and
felt honored but kind of guilty eating there. The poorest people are
often the most giving.
Roberto can be reached at Casa de la Trova, downtown Santiago, or I
would be happy to give an interested student a mailing address to
prearrange a visit.
P.S. Next door to Casa de la Trova on weekends you can experience the
wildest rumba you will ever see.
Cheers,
Dan Callis
in Halifax, Canada
Curtis Lanoue
In article <34A742...@ns.sympatico.ca>, Dan Callis
<dan.c...@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>The Cuerteto Patria percussionist is Roberto Torres.
>> I picked up a (home brewed) cassette that didn't have any info on it, so
does anybody know who the percussionist could have been? He played bongos
and congas at the same time, and blended the two styles of playing very
effectively.
The CD I have lists a Sotolongo as percussionist. I think this Torres fella
replaced him, so you might have either one. The bongo tradition is
definitely not dead in Santiago.
Curtis <Vanvanero> Lanoue
cla...@apci.net
http://www.apci.net/~clanoue
"Tienes que volver a enamorarla.
Esa niña es una cara
esa niña es un bombón."
Matthew Dubuque
Robert-
It might have been Joaquin Solorzano on bongoes/congas. He plays on the
CD "A Una Coqueta" by Cuarteto Patria.
Roberto Torres' great playing with Cuarteto Patria is only available on
"The Lion is Loose" on Corason and he doesn't play congas at the same
time (while Joaquin on the CD above does....)
There's also a cassette floating around with Torres and Ochoa that is
probably going to be their next album.
It's all great music, isn't it?
Matthew
Marcel Lecours
vgdesign wrote:
>
> mdub...@webtv.net (Matthew Dubuque) wrote:
>
> > VGDesign-
> >
> > I thoroughly enjoyed this remarkable article on the great Ochoa.
> >
> > Trevor Salloum left 12/24 for Santiago! He could have brought the CDs
> > to Eliades...
> >
> > Musically,
> >
> > Matthew
>
> lisa
Are you from Miami? That writer is on the Miami NewTimes staff. She
writes about la musica often and is very articulate and well spoken...I
enjoy her work very much.
Aché,
Marcelo
Robert E Beatty Jr.
>>Matthew Dubuque wrote in message <688svc$bqu$1...@newsd-153.iap.bryant.webtv.net>...
Robert-
Matthew>>
The cassette that I have has the following on the J-card:
La Vieja Trova
Santiaguera
Eliades Ochoa Y El Quarteto Patria
Santiago De Cuba
Handwritten on the inside in ink:
Eliades Ochoa BG, P
Wuliau Calderon HB
Humberto Ochoa BG, A
Egis Ochoa H, Maracas
Roberto Torres Creach P
So, I would say that Roberto Torres is the percussionist. The recording sounded like the live show that I saw. There is conga and bongo on it and it did sound as if Señor Torres was playing both at the same time. Of course I was playing it on my blaster while hanging drywall, and my electron auroscope is too sensitive to dust, so I had to leave it at home;- It was definitely recorded from a CD, because at one point it skips like only a CD skips. When I bought it after the show they had run out of CD's so apparently someone threw this cassette together.
I was really impressed by Roberto Torres' innovative way of combining the martillo and tumbao, and yes it's great stuff.