Did you know?
Did you know that Argentina’s tango music has roots
in Cuba? Among the many rhythmic patterns brought by Africans
to Cuba, one made up of two short beats followed by two
longer ones (a beat dubbed “café con pan,” or
bread with coffee by musicians) became the basis for the
habanera genre. In the 19th Century this genre crossed
the Atlantic to Spain and the rest of Europe (there is
an habanera piece in the opera Carmen by George Bizet.)
From there it hopped back across the Atlantic, but this
time to the southern hemisphere and it became the basis
for milonga and tango music. In tango, it evolved its rhythmic
base, but that base remains intact in milonga. Like tango,
there are other rhythms with influence from the Habanera
genre. The second half of the Italian song O Sole Mio,
is in habanera rhythm and also the song “Rain in
Spain,” from “My Fair Lady.” |
MIAMI, Fla. (Oct. 21, 2003) – A country
without music is a country without soul. And a country with
a soul, even if
torn apart, can dream to be once more.
That is why Cristóbal Díaz-Ayala believes that “without
music there is no country.” So for the better part of the
past 50 years, Díaz-Ayala has been holding on to the soul
of Cuba by painstakingly putting together an extensive collection
of Cuban music dating from 1904 through 1960.
On Wednesday, Oct. 29, Díaz-Ayala and Florida International
University’s Cuban Research Institute will present “Sin
Música no Hay País,” (Without Music There
is no Country), a multimedia journey through the history of Cuban
music. The event starts at 4 p.m. in the Graham Center’s
Center Ballroom at FIU’s University Park, 11200 SW 8th
Street.
“If you were to perform an analysis of a Cuban’s
DNA you would find that a high percentage of it is music,” said
Diaz Ayala. “We have these genes from our African heritage
and from Spain. This combination makes us very musical. Cubans
are music.”
The event, which inaugurates the Fifth CRI
Conference on Cuba and Cuban Americans, will also introduce
to the public the discography
of the extensive collection Díaz-Ayala donated to FIU
in 2001. The online catalogue of modern Cuban music will also
help researchers and Cuban music lovers navigate through more
than 100,000 items contained in the collection, which is thought
to be the largest in the world. Some of the artists represented
in the discography will attend the event.
“On the surface the topic of music might seem like something
that is relevant only to the realm of entertainment,” said
Damian Fernandez, CRI’s director. “But music’s
importance goes far beyond that, because it reflects the psyche
of the people who create it. Through it they express their dreams
and their fears, joy and despair. In essence, Cristóbal
has captured a reflection of Cuban people through much of their
history.”
The CRI Conference, which follows the discography presentation,
will span three days with 37 panels and over 160 lectures ranging
from literature, fine arts, music, films, race and gender, to
environmental issues, international relations and religion, among
others. The event is considered the foremost conference on Cuba
and Cuban-American issues in the United States. The conference
runs from Oct. 29 through Nov. 1.
For more information call the Cuban Research Institute at 305-348-1991.
Did you know?
Through the better part of a century,
it has been an exercise in cross-pollination. Jazz has
greatly influenced Cuban music, culminating in the Afro-Cuban
Jazz genre. But at the end of the 19th Century there were
Cuban musicians in New Orleans, a Jazz Mecca, distilling
their influences on the city’s music. Jelly Roll
Morton, an early exponent of what would later be dubbed
Jazz, recognized the influence of the habanera rhythm on
his style. Also, the playing style for the danzonera rhythm
in that age –a style in which sometimes the trumpet,
the clarinet and the trombone exchanged improvisations—can
also be found in use by the Dixieland bands of the time.
These bands were cropping up in the 1920s, long after the
danzonera rhythm had been established in Cuba. |
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