Remember the Buena Vista Social Club? It was in 1996. Ry Cooder had the idea of bringing together old Cuban musicians (old in the sense of proven, known, experienced musicians), soneros recognized. The Buena Vista Social Club orchestra produced a first record of the same name, which sold thousands of copies. They, who had only known local successes, were invited all over the world, including the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York. Consecration!
The German filmmaker Wim Wenders, a friend of Cooder, made a documentary where we see these musicians enter with great emotion this legendary temple of showbiz. Three emblematic figures of this group, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer and Ruben Gonzalez, all three deceased today, stood out. But we discovered, at the same time, the only woman in this group: Omara Portuondo, still alive and active today, at 94 years old.
Very recently, in Budapest, at the end of a final tour in different European countries, this great and noble Cuban singer announced her retirement from the world of music. A well-deserved retirement, because her career did not begin with the Buena Vista Social Club, since she has been singing since the 1940s, frequenting different musical styles such as jazz and bolero. But an artist of this stature never completely retires, and there is no doubt that we will see her here and there in some studio or on a stage accompanying the next Cuban generation. See you soon, Omara Portuondo!
Return of the Jazz Plaza Festival to Havana
I miss the time when our two kind organizers, Alain Simard and André Ménard, concocted, according to a recipe that only they knew, the menu – the programming – of the Francofolies and the Jazz Festival. There was a feeling of closeness between them and us, the public, as if we had known them since CEGEP and the first student radio stations. Today, these festivals have become soulless machines.
Photo Jacques Lanctôt
But the Havana Plaza International Jazz Festival has lost none of its flamboyance, celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year. This is what emerged during the first press conference to announce the event which will be held from January 26 to February 2, 2025. Gathered around the talented jazz pianist Roberto Fonseca, the president of the festival, the organizers do not are no longer expressing their satisfaction with what promises to be a great event, which will take place during the Havana Biennial and a few weeks after the Havana Festival of New Latin American Cinema. We will know more at the next press conference, somewhere in December, where the program and the invited artists, from Cuba and outside, will be announced. But already, jazz lovers, remember these dates: January 26 to February 2. Havana will be jazz.
Excerpt from my personal journal
I would like to rewatch the film by Argentinian filmmaker Eliseo Subiela titled in French The side darkness of the heart. I liked this film so much when it was released in the 1990s. A poet in his thirties dreams of impossible loves. Obsessed by the image of death, he sets off in search of his soul mate.
He has only one requirement: that she know how to fly. No doubt he means by this ambiguous formula that this woman makes him fly to seventh heaven… And he repeats this memorable sentence which I translate here: “It doesn’t bother me at all that a woman has breasts as big as a magnolia flower or small as a fig; whether her skin is as soft as a peach or as rough as sandpaper. I don’t care whether she has aphrodisiac breath or insecticide breath in the early morning. I’m perfectly capable of putting up with a woman with a nose that would have won first prize at a carrot show. But on the other hand – and I am uncompromising on this – I do not forgive her under any pretext that she does not know how to fly. If she can’t fly, she’s wasting her time with me.”
He will meet several of them, including a blind woman, in a very sensual love scene. But none of these women managed to pass the test. Until the day he meets one who will change his life forever.
We are all looking – at least, that is my case – for the person who will transform us, mark us forever, imbue us with their scent, their history and their know-how. Each of the women I have loved has left an impact on me with their personal story, in one way or another. I keep unforgettable memories, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes both, but which have shaped me.
