Friday part 2

There may be several postings today, as it will shorten the length of time I spend at the computer later on this evening.

After my initial post this morning, I got down to business with the song room piece, as we basically had the morning off. The chord changes started to sound alarmingly like Kenny Wheeler's Gentle Piece (damn, I wish I could write like that!) so I had to be very conscious of where this piece was going. I eventually got something that was original. I suddenly became aware that the building was very quiet, so I went to check out the cause. Much to my chagrin, an impromptu Q&A session with Chucho was going on and people were peppering him with questions, which he answered through his wife who translated for him. It was an extremely rare opportunity to hear this man's views on so many things - not the sort of thing you could expect if you happened to be travelling to Cuba.

At lunch, we had a barbecue out on the courtyard. It had rained briefly, just after I mentioned the great weather in my last post, but it was fine by the time we were ready to eat. I asked Chucho to autograph one of the cds that Patrick Dubois lent me and it turned out to be a very rare and special recording, so that was even better. I am reconsidering giving it back to Patrick now...

In the afternoon, we had a full rehearsal and Hugh masterfully addressed the concerns of some the band regarding the music selection for the show tomorrow night. I was one of those people and I was satisfied by what he said. One thing that probably nobody knew was that all of the Irakere charts are property of the Cuban government, regardless if Chucho wrote them. I guess that's communism in action, and a pretty damn solid reason we weren't playing that music.

After the rehearsal, Chucho had another lecture session, specifically about how the rhythm sections of a Cuban band basically work together. He explained about the difference between basic song form and montuno, and what usually would happen in the rhythm section when that change took place. He talked about different claves and tumbao and many other things.

I slightly derailed the strict rhythm section talk when I asked at what age to the kids start learning this stuff. This led into a long explanation on his part, but this is something that is very important to him. Apparently, kids are tested at the age of 7 for musical aptitude and if the authorities deem them to have some talent, then they a enrolled at a musical school. Musical education is conducted in addition to their regular school studies and they have to do well in both. If they fail a year either on the music or the academic side, they are out of the program. They have to learn percussion in addition to their main instruments. Percussion studies are initially done by example or orally, but eventually, they have to be able to write all of the figures that they play. This goes on to grade 12, at which time they can apply for university. There is another set of tests and only a small percentage of applicants get in. The rest have to continue learing "on the street". University is for 5 years and they must study classical in additional to jazz and traditional Cuban music. In years past, it was strictly classical and guys like Arturo Sandoval had to leave school in order to play jazz. We were all shaking our heads in disbelief at the rigorous study regimen.

I hope I got all of the above correct - we were all listening the translation very carefully.

Hugh asked Chucho to finish off by demonstrating his take on a classic jazz standard - Giant Steps. I don't know if anyone in the room could coherently describe what happened next. It was the most masterful solo performance I have seen in my life, and I may also be speaking for most of the people there. Chucho has a magnificent sense of time and fabulous keyboard technique, and he immediately took the piece from a very straight-ahead reading through possibly dozens of Cuban (and other) variations, switching midstream with accuracy, confidence and soul. It was from another dimension and we just happened to be lucky enough to be in the same room.

Dinnertime!