Snowball, that pianoman, "intellectual and chic".

Without wishing to generalize, I believe that almost all music lovers have had a more or less common beginning: listening to the music our parents listened to. Whether we like them or not, whether we identify with them or not, is another five pesos. In my case (in my house) there was an endowment of LP and singlesThe music was not very big but varied, divided between those brought by them from the United States upon their return to Cuba in 1959, and those that they bought during my childhood years. There was everything: classical (Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Dvorak), boleros and songs (Meme Solís, Gina León, Elena Burke, Mario Suárez, the one from Juan Almeida and his songs), dance (Benny Moré), traditional (Los Hermanos Ajo), American songwriting of those years (Paul Anka, The Platters, Frank Sinatra), jazz (Stan Kenton, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw), soundtracks (A Farewell To Arms) and orchestras such as lounge such as Stanley Black, Percy Faith and Enoch Light. 

Among all these was Recitala Bola de Nieve record. I won't say that it immediately captivated my ear as a child, but, undoubtedly, its constant repetition made many of those songs lodge in my memories. I don't know if I ever saw it on TV. My memory stops only at that vinyl. Much later I began to rediscover the music of Ignacio Villa (1911-1971), especially in my days on the radio, through two ineffable friends who are no longer here, in love with the rescue of the past (Bladimir Zamora and Sigfredo Ariel) and whose programs were captivating for their realization and historical rigor. Later on, I also had the chance to broadcast it in a morning program of diverse music that I conducted. I am sure that the background of that old record was an incentive. 

I was as surprised by the versions he made of other people's compositions as I was by his own signature versions. Among the former, this LP I mention was prodigal. He would appropriate a song, to the point that I would then listen to it by someone else (who could even be its author) and I would keep the Bola's song. I think of life in rose of the French Edith Piaf, as much as in Cinnamon flower of the Peruvian Chabuca Granda. She sang in several languages, and her Spanish could be totally academic or marginal, depending on the needs of the piece. I loved her recreation between jazzy and bolerística of Be Careful, It's My Heart by the American Irving Berlin, as well as the tango air of the Vete de mí by Argentine brothers Virgilio and Homero Expósito (will be the best in your life, from the mist of yesterday, when you get to forget me, as is best the verse that we cannot remember). The same applied to its Babalu by Margarita Lecuona, the anonymous Perfect Mom, Messiah Julian (Armando Oréfiche made it with him in mind) and the trilogy credited individually to the Grenet brothers: Oh, Mama Inés (Eliseo), the tender Drume bold (Ernesto) and Vito Manué, you don't know English. (Emilio). 

From the rumba to the bolero, from the lullaby to the pregón, he stamped his seal with a pianistic touch like the best Lecuona (Epabílate) and his husky voice, as of drinks and early mornings, a hybrid of Luis Carbonell and Louis Armstrong, expressing both humor and grief, receiving criticism and praise in equal parts. He could chatter, cry, scold, mumble and laugh in one song, with a histrionics I have never found again in Cuba. Also, Recital had two special moments for me. Ay, amor which he composed in 1944 in Buenos Aires, and since then is the one I associate most with his figure. High-flying piano and a text with no other poetic pretension than to express loss and renunciation (if only pain and life remain in me, oh, love, do not let me live). By the way, more than four decades later, Carlos Varela used the recording of his introductory chords to close a song with which he paid tribute to Bola. 

The other moment was I can not be happy by Adolfo Guzmán. A definitive interpretation, delicate in the keys, while his voice transmitted the tearing of separation to the point that it seemed to break and end in a kind of sobbing. As the text says, at least in matters of love, "I am in love".you cannot have a conscience and a heart". It's not an LP that made a complete impact on me, but like so many of the artists I mentioned above, Ignacio Villa is part of my childhood. He is as tied to it as Reyes Magos toys and Conrado Benitez elementary school; Walt Disney and Chaplin, Hopalong Cassidy comics and Reader's Digest Selections; Cases and Home Stuff and "Fantomas", the University Spa and Coney Island, cameras with 35 and 127 millimeter rolls, and my uncle's blue Ford Fairlane; Charles Aznavour and Petula Clark; the Banco Núñez in Miramar and Los Zafiros, Jules Verne and the first hippies I saw in my life; The Black Corsair and naranjita candies; Peppermint and The ropeThe lead soldiers and Louis de Funes, El Caballero de París and the snacks at the Ten-Cent de Galiano. Or the lame General Motors on Route 9, with its ticket collector, that took us to my maternal grandparents' house in Luyanó. Almost a black and white mirage, like the image of the pianist in his tails. 

I didn't get to see him perform, but I knew older people who were dazzled by the comments of that guy who was a lording in the most famous cabarets of the city. The essayist Ramón Fajardo dedicated an excellent book to him, and his records (such as this one Recital) are the greed of collectors. There are days when I catch myself singing some of the pieces he popularized. It must be my way of showing respect to that pianoman, "intellectual and chic", who was Monseigneur Bola de Nieve.