A Fresh Sound Breezes In For Summerdance.
By Howard Reich. Tribune Arts Critic. Chicago Tribune. July 11, 2000
The last time Cuba staged the Havana International Jazz Festival, in 1998, American visitors were buzzing about one musician above all others: Maraca.
Everyone wanted to know how he could accomplish such feats on flute, where he was appearing next and why on earth a virtuoso flutist would be named, of all things, "Maraca" (after a popular, hand-held percussion instrument).
The mysteries surrounding the inimitable Maraca should begin to clear up on Thursday, when Cuba's Paganini of the flute makes his Chicago debut, with Otra Vision, at the SummerDance series in Grant Park. Finally, listeners who encountered the man fleetingly in Havana -- as well as anyone else
who values world-class instrumental virtuosity -- will be able to savor and study his work up close.
Should Maraca summon half the energy and instrumental finesse he demonstrated in Havana a year and a half ago, local music aficionados will be trying to find out everything they can about him.
Here is a player who merges the exalted technique of classical flutists such as Jean-Pierre Rampal and James Galway with the freewheeling spirit of the best jazz improvisers. Though flutists to this day tend to work in one musical camp or the other, Maraca flourishes in both.
"The practical knowledge of playing the instrument, the techniques necessary to be a professional musician I learned at the conservatory," says Orlando "Maraca" Valle, who picked up the nickname as a child, when his skinny frame and huge hairdo evoked the shape of a
larger-than-life maraca.
"But after the conservatory, I acquired the knowledge of the street," adds Maraca. "I assimilated other musical styles you don't learn in school. I learned how to face an audience, how to deal with the public, how to have stage presence."
Indeed, Maraca's power draws equally from both sources: the rigorous classical training he received for 13 years (starting at age 10) to the live club experience he acquired playing in jazz bands such as Irakere and Cubanismo.
In this regard, Maraca is hardly unique, since Cuban jazz giants from Chucho Valdes to Gonzalo Rubalcaba to Ernan Lopez-Nussa similarly have brought conservatory-level training to the populist traditions of Afro-Cuban jazz.
But Maraca parts company with these stars because he champions the flute, an instrument associated with Cuba's charanga tradition but otherwise often marginalized in Cuban music.
American audiences may have long since embraced the work of jazz flutists such as Herbie Mann, James Moody and James Newton, but in Cuba the flute generally plays second fiddle to trumpet and saxophone.
And though Maraca is the first to acknowledge his debt to ground-breaking Cuban flutists such as Richard Egues and Jose Fajardo, he has made it his personal quest to give the flute its due in all facets of Cuban music.
To Maraca, there's no reason that the flute can't grow beyond its role in charanga and flourish in everything from cutting-edge jazz to modern-day rumba to Caribbean-tinged funk.
"My experience over the years has given me the opportunity to work with brilliant percussionists and pianists and trumpeters, and these experiences changed my approach to flute," says Maraca, speaking through an interpreter. "I began to conceive that the flute can play the role of
the bata drum, if you want it to. It can be a percussion instrument, it can be aggressive, it can be many things that listeners do not expect."
That much is clear from Maraca's new CD "Descarga Total" (on the Ahi Nama Music label), which bristles with the spirit of experimentation even as it builds on Cuban musical tradition.
If its forms are familiar -- from romantic bolero to loosely improvised descarga (or "jam sessions") -- its sound is fresh. Through relentless syncopation, unconventional instrumentation and aggressive flute solos, Maraca and his Otra Vision band prove that Afro-Cuban musical tradition
can evolve without forsaking the past.
This mixture of techniques and styles already has won Maraca broad praise across the United States. The Los Angeles Times has cited his "dazzling flute solos" and "uncanny talent for arranging and producing records," while the New York Times has marveled at Maraca's ability
to "wander easily between street rumbas to hard bop and fusion."
"Maraca obviously plays flute incredibly well, but the sounds he draws from his band are also worthy of being heard," says Michael Orlove, a programmer at the city's Cultural Affairs department who arranged for Maraca's local debut.
"At the very least, I thought a group with this much energy might be perfect for SummerDance," an outdoor music series that's considerably more relaxed than either club or concert hall settings.
Yet it's worth remembering that no matter how adventurous Maraca and friends may sound, they never lose touch with the dance and percussion rhythms that have driven Cuban music for centuries.
"One of the most important missions we have is to make music that is in the Cuban tradition, but that is also new and experimental," says Maraca.
"We do music that is new and old at once. I truly believe that if you do not understand the music of the past, you really can't create anything new and original. All you will do is make music that you think is original but that actually has been done many times before."
The Chicago SummerDance series, presented by the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, opens Thursday in Grant Park at the Spirit of Music Garden, 601 S. Wabash Ave., between Harrison Street and Balbo Avenue. On Thursdays through Saturdays, dance lessons run from 6 to 7
p.m., with dancing from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. On Sundays, dance lessons run from 2 to 3 p.m., with dancing from 3 to 5 p.m. Admission is free; 312-742-4007. |