by: Eva Silot Bravo, PhD. esilot@gmail.com. All Rights Reserved.
At first, ADN might seem like an album primarily for musicians. But it's more than that. It's an album for dancers, art lovers, anyone sensitive to discover details, elegance and color through music. Musicians like Ruben Blades, Omara Portuondo, El Micha and Osain del Monte band collaborate in this album, which has been nominated to the 2017 Latin Grammy Awards under the Best Salsa Album category. The album is finely crafted in many ways: the arrangements, the brass phrasings, the upbeat percussion constantly inviting to dance, the rumba rhythm always in the background, the "back and forth" between salsa and timba, the mysterious bridges, the subtle colors, the engulfing tunes of the bass, the open and melodic voice and the multiple references to music genres like mambo, guaracha, danzonete, Afrocuban jazz and bands like Irakere, Isaac Delgado and Earth Wind and Fire.
Listening to Alain Perez music feels like accessing a living archive of infinite rhythms and sounds. His compositions provide an intelligent summary of the historiography of Cuban popular music, further enriched by his experiences traveling around the world. His music is also the result of Alain's involvement with the flamenco scene in Spain and his regular visits to Cuba. His poetry delivers diverse, fun, and plausible stories. Perez sings about universal love, the love that needs no excuses to exist. His music celebrates life as an adventure, both underground and subtle, profound and entertaining, scholarly and sensual. ADN demands repeated listenings, and ultimately makes one smile.
En una primera escucha ADN
parece ser un disco sólo para músicos. Pero es mucho más que eso. Es también un
álbum para bailadores, amantes del buen arte, los detalles, la sutileza y
el color. Músicos como Ruben Blades, Omara Portuondo, El Micha y el grupo Osain del Monte hacen colaboraciones en este disco, el cual ha sido nominado para la ceremonia de los premios Grammy Latino del 2017, en la categoría de Mejor Disco de Salsa.
ADN es un álbum musicalmente disfrutable en varias dimensiones: en el
cuidadoso diseño de los arreglos, el fraseo de los metales; la presencia de la
rumba siempre de background, el contagioso ritmo de la sección de percusión que
siempre te invita a bailar; el recorrido de “ida y vuelta” entre la salsa y la
timba; el misterio de los puentes; los sutiles colores, el envolvente sonido
del bajo, la dulzura en la voz y los indistintos llamados al mambo, la guaracha,
el danzonete y la sonoridad de bandas como Irakere, Isaac Delgado y Earth, Wind
and Fire, etc.
Acercarse a la música de Alain Pérez
es como adentrarse en un archivo vivo e infinito de ritmos y armonías. Sus
composiciones atesoran un resumen de la evolución de la música popular cubana. Su música es también el resultado de sus experiencias de vida recorriendo el mundo, insertado en la escena del flamenco español y visitando a Cuba regularmente. Su poesía entrega
diversas y verosímiles historias, casi siempre sobre el amor universal
que no pide permiso para ser. ADN presenta una música irreverente,
callejera y sutil, profunda y gozadora, escolástica y sensual. Música para
enaltecer el alma, para escuchar varias veces y sonreír.
por: Dra. Eva Silot Bravo. esilot@gmail.com
for any reproduction of this text, please provide due credit. Este texto puede ser reproducido brindando debido crédito a su autora.
The divine Janus-Eleggua-The Joker is sleeping in the lobby of the theater before and after the Dance Program Final Presentation at the Errol Barrow Center for Creative Imagination, University of the West Indies in Barbados. His costume is red and black and full of symbols that represent communication, secret codes, and the duality of everything: to be awake or sleeping, Yin/Yang, day and night, good and bad, beginnings and endings, among other things. Thanks to the music of drums and chanting in Yoruba language he responds to the calls. The music awakens him. Moving up from the floor, he starts to dance. Giving candies to the audience, he starts to jump, moving rapidly like a child that is happy to be alive. He invites people to follow him. Drummers and the audience are moved to follow his steps in order to see the exhibition on display in the gallery space. Once in the gallery he is makes fun of things; he appropriates objects, cloths, pictures, etc. He models for the camera as a way to pull the attention of new generations towards the arts.
The performance was presented with the support of the Dance Program’s director Neri Torres.
Performance
Leandro Soto performing as Elegua at the Errol Barrow Centre - Barbados
Happy to share a Link to the new issue of Latin American Music Review journal (Spring-Summer 2017), where I publish a per-reviewed article, entitled: "Cubanidad in between: The Transnational Cuban Alternative Music Scene." For the PDF full text click here
The article is part of one chapter of my PhD. dissertation, where I provide my analysis about the network of music collaborations, aesthetic connections and discourses among Cuban singer-songwriters and academically trained musicians who migrated in the last 25 years like Gema CorrederaPavel UrkizaJulio FowlerHabana AbiertaYosvany TerryDafnis PrietoYusa MarDescemer BuenoEidel Morales (Mr. Haka), Cubiche, among many others, through cities like Madrid, New York and Miami. Thanks to Manny A. Diaz for the cover art.
Here's the article abstract in English and Spanish
This article examines the music production and discourse of the transnational Cuban alternative music scene (TCAMS), a prolific diasporic network of Cuban singers, songwriters, and academically trained musicians. Through ethnographic research I map this transnational music scene throughout local, nonmainstream, and online music circuits. The TCAMS employs fusion as its main musical language, showcasing a strong musical and educational background. These musicians' transnational identities and discourses are in constant negotiation and assume apparent depoliticized and dystopian discourses in relation to dominant narratives of Cubanness. TCAMS is an "in between" transnational space of music creation, a shifting aesthetic and generational scene in the alternative context of Cuban music. It deconstructs the territoriality of Cuban music production and projects a postnational Cuban soundscape at the turn of the century.
resumen:
Este artículo examina prácticas de producción musical y de discurso de la escena transnacional cubana de música alternativa (ETCMA), una prolífera red de colaboración entre cantantes, cantautores y músicos entrenados académicamente en Cuba. A través de un trabajo etnográfico, el texto mapea a esta escena en circuitos de música locales, no comerciales y redes sociales. La fusión es el principal lenguaje musical de ETCMA, exhibe un sólido background educacional y musical. Las identidades y discursos transnacionales de estos músicos están en constante negociación y asumen discursos aparentemente despolitizados y distópicos con relación a narrativas dominantes de cubanidad. ETCMA es un espacio "in between" de creación musical transnacional, una escena de cambios estéticos y generacionales en el contexto de la música cubana alternativa. Esta escena de música deconstruye la territorialidad de la producción musical cubana y proyecta un paisaje sonoro cubano posnacional de cambio de siglo.
