Lucía Huergo: music and truth

Marta Valdés
17.11.2021
5 minutes reading

(A Octavio Cotán, his earliest admirer among the greats of Cuba)

It was the second half of the 70s; Very often I ran into the immense Octavio Cotán on our way in and out of the bars of the Hotel Riviera, where we both performed —me with my wicker chair and my guitar, he with his guitar and his group—. Always attentive and deferential in his observations towards my way of structuring the framework of the songs, more than once the warm and spirited encounter fell on a theme: “let you meet Lucía…”.

Years passed and, on a summer night when I became fond of attending the jazz sessions of Nicolás Reinoso's group at the Río Club with a friend —especially because I was pleased to coincide with the young Gonzalito Rubalcaba doing jazz in his new facet as a pianist—we were amazed at the sound and improvisations of a young saxophonist whom at one point, when someone called her by name, I associated with that, more than judicious, well-founded prognosis of my dear Cotán.

Lucía Huergo opened her eyes to life on November 17, 1951, in a world where television had just entered. His first games were enveloped (and perhaps invaded) not only by the typical humming of home life but also by signals fired at high volume from neighborhood or home radios. His absolute pitch and his memory grew with the conviction that music, displaying splendor and dynamism, could be released continuously from any of the three devices known in the world of his childhood and adolescence: the essential radio receiver, turntable or television.

Something very obvious must have prompted her parents to lead her with all formality, from a young age, along the paths of musical learning. Life would have it that in 1959, at the age of eight, the horizons began to open up that made available to this daughter of a modest family all the means for her talent to bear fruit. He studied music at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, at a time when, in addition to training as a saxophonist and flutist, his piano studies could count on the privileged teaching of Professor Margot Rojas. Later, he completed his theoretical baggage with the teachings of Leo Brouwer and Federico Smith.

His curiosity towards the technological complement was taking the form of a true fascination. At the peak of her professional career, beyond having her mastery of the saxophone, the flute, the piano or any keyboard variant, we would see her already barricaded in her own recording studio, ready to unfold with her accompanying designs and improvisations , and amaze us with their creativity.

Friendly, witty, playful, Lucía did not let her ear and understanding go uncovered to the intricate idea or minute detail that, by dint of discipline, would guarantee her future walk. Her time as a saxophonist in a significant variety of musical groups that coexisted from the 70s, saw her emerge as an eternal seeker and project herself with her own voice in all directions, always ready to pour her natural sense of rhythm into each new attempt, his harmonic ear and his improvisational vocation.

Parallel to her lifelong activity as a jazz player, the technological update operated in the national record industry in the 1980s saw her stand out as an arranger and start as a producer. Her musical language in tune with the times brought her closer, in the field of songbooks, to Cuban voices of the stature of Sara González, Amaury Pérez or Miriam Ramos. His contribution to the record catalog was extended to other expressions. She grew as a composer in the instrumental genre, expanded and branched out her creative work and projected it internationally. An appreciable vein of his catalog records the co-authorship with well-known composers in the field of song, such as Amaury Pérez, Liuba María Hevia or Heidi Igualada.

The audiovisual world records it in soundtracks for feature films such as Anna's movie and soap operas like The orphans of the Obrapía or the dark side of the moon. The most demanding national radio spaces have appreciated and broadcast his high-flying works such as the Hemingway Symphony (inspired by the work of the North American writer that gives it its name) and the Lecuona Suite (an orchestral vision based on the pianism of the distinguished Cuban composer).

Possibly those words of Octavio Cotán that still resonate in my ears, already announced the author of Mereguo, Eyeleo or Barasuayo. These works, born from a deep approach to our African roots in his time with the Síntesis group, beyond their rhythmic richness, revealed a melodic and timbral vein, more attractive than any of the weak atmospheres, daughters of cut and paste , which —accommodated in the fusion term— pollute the sound environment.

Once, I heard her define herself with these few words thrown into the air, as if it were one of her constant gabble (I don't remember if it was at the level of a tablecloth or at the moment of putting her instrument to rest after the last note of one of her their alone collectibles, just recorded): "...without music, I would not have been able to live". 70 years after the birth date of Lucía Huergo, that moving confession commits us to any action that stimulates and strengthens the permanent resonance and validity of the immense legacy that she left us.