It was a smoky, sensual, pulsating night out at a Cuban bar for the audience of Bar At Buena Vista. Keeping the crowd on their toes were 18 legendary musicians from four of Cuba’s most famous acts. FARIDUL ANWAR FARINORDIN writes.
CARLOS Delgado Bustamente was right when he said that a hotel ballroom was “perfect for the show”.The narrator and company manager of Bar At Buena Vista — the much-respected ensemble featuring some of Cuba’s legendary vocalists, musicians and dancers — was drawing comparisons with theatre halls the troupe had performed in during the Asia-Pacific leg of its international tour.
“Normally the show is held in seated auditoriums where people can’t get up and dance because of the regulations (like the fire escape routes shouldn’t be blocked),” he said, shortly after the show’s Press conference recently.But where Cuban music and genres like the rumba, mambo, cha-cha, guaracha are concerned, the absence of dancing is akin to having an opera without lyrics.
Sexy, seductive and sensual, Cuban music is rich with poetic beauty and understated elegance. Even the most rhythmically-challenged individual would be tempted to move to the beat.
ELECTRIFYING: 'Barman' Lucus (in white) and singer Vera (kneeling,centre)
That’s why, despite strict theatre regulations in various venues around the world, “the audience always breaks the rules at the end of the show; they get up and dance,” Bustamente added. Such is the alluring beauty of Cuban music.But no rules were broken at the spacious Hilton Kuala Lumpur ballroom where the performance was held as the RM95 admission price was for standing room only. There were no regulations against drinking and smoking inside the venue.
The glamorous-looking crowd milled about, checking out who was wearing what and wondering if he or she had what it took to set the dance floor on fire. But dance they did. Bustamente probably didn’t expect so much enthusiasm from the audience but during the intermission, the venue turned into a dancing marathon with couples showing off their dancing skills and stamina (or the lack of it).
Oh, it was so inspiring. Salsa dance instructors would have been proud to see their students, with TV crews around to capture the moves on film. Never mind if hair-yanking and pouty lips were NOT part of the dance.
“Cuban dance is about passion and poetry. Sometimes, it’s also about sex. It’s an erotic dance but still elegant and sophisticated because it is about the courting process between a man and a woman,” Bustamente said.
But here, a courting process it wasn’t. Somehow, there was only a fine line between elegant artistry and inflated egos. The crowd was too juiced up after seeing the 50-something Eric Turro Martinez and partner Doreyle “Mora” Betharte locked in a passionate embrace on stage.
Martinez and Betharte are among the four surviving dancers specialising in “son” (an age-old Cuban dance believed to be the root of the more popular salsa. The pair were simply awe-inspiring, with tricky movements that called for a perfect sense of balance.
But the main star of the show was 87-year-old vocalist Reynaldo Creagh. One of the founding members of the renowned Cuban musical ensemble Vieja Trova Santiagera, his heartfelt and earnest performances sent chills down my spine.
Creagh, who specialises in “trova” (a form of Cuban traditional singing), belted out Dos Gardenias, a song about love and flowers, written by a female composer called Isolina Carillo.
In an interview with him earlier, he explained: “It would be unfair to tell you what the song was all about. I don’t know where (the songwriter) Carillo got her inspiration from. The song is about two flowers and love, and she made her artistic connection.
“I am not sure if Carillo received the flowers or she sent them to the man (whom she fancied). But that’s what the song’s about,” he said cheekily, with a Cuban cigar between his fingers.
Indeed, the oldest member of the group charmed his audience with his endearing personality and wit.In between his performances, he sat on his rocking chair on the stage, enjoying his cigars.
“It has always been my dream to come here. I feel so privileged,” he told the cheering crowd during the show, walking stick in hand, before belting out his second song El Paralytico which he dedicates “to all the lovely women in the audience”.
El Paralytico is written by Cuban songwriter Miguel Matamoros specially for Creagh. Towards the end of the slow-tempo tune, the lyrics go: “suelta la muleta y el baston, y podras bailar el son” (“put down that stick and get up and dance”).
Which was exactly what he did. He threw his walking stick and started to dance — none of those fancy movements, just slow grooves that got the crowd really, really wild. Creagh was a joy to watch. Creagh’s secret to good health and vitality? “Cigars, rum and women,” he answered. And not necessarily in that order.
Creagh’s charm was perhaps matched by Siomara Avilla Valdes Lescay (“I’m old but sexy — with me, you can eat in or take away”), the only female vocalist in the show.
Dubbed the “Cuban diva”, she was the star in the Academy Award-nominated documentary Buena Vista Social Club and is one sizzling mama.
She performed a string of power-packed tunes, including Perdon (written by Pedro Flores), Del Son Al Son (Potilo de la Cruz) and Por Soy Cubano (Jose Ramon Sanchez). Lescay’s performance was all unbridled passion. Another vocalist in the show was Leo Vera, dubbed “Cuba’s nightingale” who, at 38, is the youngest singer in this ensemble.
Other musicians include Julio Padron, Carlos Gonzales, Barbara Lucila Ferre Sanchez, Jorge Boulet Valdes and Ricardo Munoz Martinez.
Bar At Buena Vista is essentially about Creagh and the other legendary “Cuban grandfathers of music”, namely, 81-year-old multi-instrumentalist Maracaibo and pianist Maetsro Rubalcaba, 78, dubbed “the Hands of Gold”. They all grew up with legendary Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrer.
The show, said Bustamente, is dedicated to the memory of the Grammy Award-winning Ferrer ((“Ferrer used to earn a living shining shoes”), who passed away in August at age 78.
“They were very close friends for almost 60 years,” Bustamente said, “so you can imagine how sad it was when Ferrer was gone.”
Narrated by Bustamente, the show at the ballroom included anecdotes from the renowned Cuban barman Arturo Lucas, who used to serve drinks to Hollywood legends such as Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando. He now runs a late-night drinking haven for Havana’s musicians.
Comprising 18 members, Bar At Buena Vista is a combination of four of the largest critically acclaimed shows to come out of Cuba in the last 50 years: The Buena Vista Social Club, Vieja Trova Santiagera, Cubanism and Afro-Cuban Allstars.
The songs performed in this two-hour-plus show included Homenaje A Ruben Gonzalez, Buena Vista, Changui Al Reve, Pibtatelos Labios Maria (which displayed Turro in a jaw-dropping dance sequence with three women), Jazz-Julito, Mi Son Maracaibo and Por Eso Soy Cubano.
Of the show, Bustamente said: “We invited the stars from all these other shows and built on the idea of telling the history behind the culture, traditions and lifestyles of the Havana bar society back in the ’40s and ’50s.” One of the that cultural elements at that time was the Cuban dance “son”.
me with the luvly Vivi and Aisha (my instructor!)
i went! i went!! yes uncles and aunties, i was privileged enough to have gone for the Bar at Buena Vista on Monday. unfortunate that the they came to Malaysia after the passing on of the great Ibrahim Ferrer and Compay Segundo. made my week nonetheless :)
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