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D'Rivera mourns for native
Cuba
By David Schmeichel. winnipegsun.com,
June 22, 2006.
Holidayed in Havana recently? Don't tell
Paquito D'Rivera, the Cuban-born clarinetist
and sax-man who's as revered and respected
for his contributions to classical music
as he is to the realm of Latin jazz.
"You've been to what is left of that
beautiful country," D'Rivera says,
after learning this reporter recently spent
a week in Cuba. "That (Havana) was
the most beautiful city in this hemisphere.
But we have problems. You have problems,
too, in Winnipeg or Savannah, Ga. But now
it's a total disaster. They have destroyed
our country and they have destroyed our
freedom of speech."
D'Rivera defected from Cuba some quarter-century
ago, seeking political asylum in Spain while
on a tour stop there in 1981.
He had to leave his wife and five-year-old
son behind and while the family was reunited
years later, the split eventually cost him
his marriage.
He has little patience for those who support
communism under Fidel Castro (including
Nelson Mandela and Gabriel Garcia Marquez),
and he's understandably less-than-thrilled
about the surge in tourist dollars spent
in Cuba in recent decades.
"That is really embarrassing,"
he says, from a hotel room in Chicago. "That
is like promoting tourism in South Africa.
It's giving him (Castro) more weapons to
promote submission ... But people don't
want to see that."
While a child in Cuba, D'Rivera inherited
his musical chops from his father, a classical
saxophonist and conductor who began tutoring
him in musical theory at the age of five.
Within a year, young D'Rivera was a paid
performer himself and by the age of 10 was
performing with the National Theatre Orchestra
of Havana.
In 1973, he formed his first band, a jazz-rock-classical-fusion
combo that became the first post-Castro
Cuban group to sign with an American label.
After defecting, he shared stages with Dizzy
Gillespie and Mario Bauza, who famously
described him as "the only musician
I know on the scene playing the real Latin
jazz; all others are playing Afro-Cuban
jazz."
"I said, 'Mario, what are you talking
about?'" D'Rivera says of the soundbite.
"Others were playing it (authentic
Latin jazz). I was the one he knew."
Having grown up in "the divide"
between classical music and jazz, D'Rivera
says he'd rather play the latter, since
the freedom of improvised music allows him
to feel more creative.
And where Latin jazz -- and Latin music
as whole -- is concerned, he's happy to
see the genre becoming such a favorite of
global audiences.
"For a longest time, it was caricaturized,
what I call the Carmen Miranda syndrome,
with pineapples and s--- on your head,"
he laughs.
"Now we have an understanding of the
real thing, which is good."
Though he's a recent recipient of the National
Medal of Arts (awarded by Dubya himself
in 2005), D'Rivera insists his greatest
reward is being able to collaborate with
luminaries like Gillespie, McCoy Tyner and
Yo Yo Ma.
And though he's on the road for much of
the year, he swears he has yet to lose his
taste for travel.
"I love hotels and airports and escalators
and all that," he laughs. "I was
doing some remodelling in our house and
said to (my wife) Brenda, 'I would like
you to design the front area of our house
like the reception area of a hotel. And
when I come home, you could greet me at
the front desk!'"
Tickets for D'Rivera's show are still available
through Ticketmaster for $39.
PAQUITO D'RIVERA QUINTET
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