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Noted Authority on Cuban Music Gives Collection, Recognized as World's Best, to FIU
MIAMI,
Fla. (June 28, 2001) -- Florida International University will soon
be home to the largest, most-comprehensive Cuban music collection
in the world. Cristóbal
Díaz Ayala-author of the definitive book on Cuban music and
producer of the recent CD boxed set "100 Cuban Songs of the
Millennium"-has given the FIU Libraries approximately 100,000
items that span the history of popular Cuban and other Latin music.
Valued at nearly $1 million, the collection features 25,000 LPs;
14,500 78 rpms; 4,500 cassettes containing radio interviews with
composers and musicians; 4,000 pieces of sheet music; 3,000 books;
and thousands of CDs, photographs, videocassettes and paper files.
Among the collection's rarest items are recordings made in pre-revolutionary
Cuba. "It's
an incredible collection," said Paquito D'Rivera, the renowned
Cuban-born jazz saxophonist and clarinet player, who has visited
Díaz Ayala and seen many of the items. "Not only Latin
music followers, but people in general and scholars want to know
the history of music in the New World." Others
agree on the collection's significance and breadth. "I
would be flabbergasted if there is a greater collection of Cuban
music in the world," said Theodore S. Beardsley, Jr., president
of the New York-based Hispanic Society of America, who has worked
with the collection. "Cristóbal is the greatest authority
on Cuban music at the present time." FIU
President Modesto A. Maidique recognized that the collection-approximately
half of which concentrates on Cuban music and the other half on
music from throughout the rest of Latin America-would support the
university's strong programs in Latin American studies. "This priceless collection will further advance our faculty's and students' scholarly interest in the history and culture of the region," Maidique said. "Researchers in our Latin American and Caribbean Center, our Cuban Research Institute and related academic departments will find the collection of invaluable use. It is with great respect and deep gratitude that we accept this gift from Mr. Díaz Ayala." Introduced
as a young boy to the colorful world of outdoor-café singers
and municipal and military bands performing in the Parque Maceo
in his native Havana, Díaz Ayala, now 71, started collecting
in 1944 when he purchased his first record. A few years later, he
and another teenager co-hosted a daily radio program that featured
jazz, swing and bebop. Upon earning a law degree from the University
of Havana in 1953, Díaz Ayala established a successful practice
and opened a small record shop, which his wife ran. The couple and
their two young children left everything behind when they fled communist
Cuba in 1960. After moving to Puerto Rico, where Díaz Ayala
built a thriving construction company and has made his home for
more than 40 years, he again took up music collecting in the 1970s. "I
started buying locally," Díaz Ayala said. "Then
I looked to Miami and New York, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia.
I started to make relationships in Cuba through friends and relatives." Through
those contacts, Díaz Ayala acquired such treasures as two
wax cylinders-early precursors to modern-day records-dating from
1909 that record performances by famed Cuban violinist Marta de
la Torres; a 1931 recording by the Orchestra Hermanos Castro that
Díaz Ayala believes represents the first recorded example
of Afro-Cuban music and jazz fusion; and a recording of the Arcaño
Orchestra from 1937, which features the first recorded bass solo
by the legendary Cachao. Several
institutions had expressed interest in obtaining the collection.
Díaz Ayala made the gift to FIU in hopes of reaching the
greatest number of scholars and others interested in Cuban and Latin
music. "I
want the collection to be more useable to more people. That's why
I chose FIU," Díaz Ayala said. "Miami is the door
to the rest of Latin America. It is the city with the biggest mix
of all the ethnicities of Latin America. All of these people need
[access to] this collection. FIU is the right place." The
collection's move to FIU from Puerto Rico will take approximately
three years. During that time, Díaz Ayala will travel to
Miami to oversee FIU's conversion of his hand-written indices into
a computerized database. Díaz Ayala's wife of 47 years, Marisa,
who has worked closely with him, will also offer assistance. Díaz Ayala is currently at work on a 10-volume encyclopedia of Cuban music. His first work, Del Areyto a la Nueva Trova: Historia de la Musica Cubana, originally published in 1981 and now in its third edition, covers the history of his homeland's music and has been credited with stirring a revival of interest in Cuban performers. He has written or edited several other books, including a 1994 discography of Cuban music and a 1998 history of Puerto Rican music, and written numerous magazine articles.
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