Touches come from the River

"I saw her in front of us dancing and enjoying what we were doing," says Diama Correia, aka El Bamba, as she remembers the concerts she did at the Pabellón Cuba with the band. 

This sixty-something-year-old woman who enjoyed her music so much had lost her partner the day before the concert. Returning from his funeral, after a walk, he encountered for the first time the explosion of sounds of Toques del Río. 

—He cleared away the sadness by listening to us. Precisely the songs that we did that afternoon were “of the decade” [prodigious], of her time, music that she consumed with her husband. It served him well, he told us. It was like reliving moments with that person who is no longer physically there. Music accomplishes those powerful things. I know that wherever he is, he lovingly follows in our footsteps.   

That certainty is, for the singer of the band, the greatest satisfaction of all. I talk with El Bamba via WhatsApp, I want you to tell me the story of that group that makes even the saddest dance. I chat with him and with other members or close friends. What follows is my attempt to reconstruct the path traced here. 

A path that began in 2002, in Pinar del Río, when the then director Raúl González Gómez decided to found a flamenco music project, made up of two acoustic guitars, a bass, a flamenco box drum and a singer. Over time the format evolved, including drums, minor percussion and piano.

Raúl —also a singer, guitarist and composer of most of the songs— said that in the old days flamencos and their singers would gather on the banks of rivers to form their songs and create new sounds. Hence the name of the band was born, also made up of Zeney Alonso (bass and musical direction), Javier Suárez (guitar), Yuliexy Álvarez Menor (drums), Lisbany Díaz Padrón (minor percussion). Later, in 2011, Gilberto Enrique Rodríguez Meriño (Kike) would enter the piano.

Toques del Río in its beginnings. Photo: Courtesy of the band.

The beginnings are difficult for any project that wants to grow within music. Zeney Alonso, current director of Toques, says that in 2009, after much struggle, they managed to enter the state-owned artists' contracting company "Miguelito Cuní", in Pinar del Río. Before, they played as guests in many places, until the La Sitiera Cultural Center welcomed them in a rock every Wednesday. There they created a diverse audience. 

—That's how time went by and the rock filled up every day. People knew the themes of Toques del Río by heart, from top to bottom— recalls Kike, today the band's musical director.  

From this stage was born give me wings, a demo recorded independently and containing 16 tracks including arrangements and versions of flamenco anthology songs, others by Raúl González and some Cuban music classics, such as what will it be of Polo Montañes and Veinte años by Maria Theresa Vera.

In the early years, the ensemble made Spanish music in the style of Camarón de La Isla and flamenco rumba. Later, the new experiences expanded the sound imaginaries of its members and, as the requests from the public arrived, they began to merge that sound with other genres such as rock and roll, jazz, trova and traditional Cuban music.

Havana received them in 2012 to participate in the "La Huella de España" Festival, dedicated in that edition to Andalusia. At the end of the year, Raúl decided to emigrate to the United States, so the singer and until then leader of Toques del Río abandoned the project. 

Then came months of recomposition of the band in which it began to collaborate with the duo of rappers from Pinar del Río Los Muchachitos. 

—They collaborated with us on a topic that today is Peanut, between flamenco, rumba and all that madness. Soon we began to invite them to the peñas [on Wednesdays] and we put together three or four songs with them that could unfold doing rap, melodies and other things— Kike says. 

Thus, in 2013, Zeney, now as general director, decided to continue with the project, but from another perspective: based on traditional genres such as the danzón, the mambo or the chachachá and others more linked to the rock and roll of the 70s, the jazz and Afro-Cuban music from the 80s and 90s; I would also mix hip hop, timba and son. They would no longer be a Spanish music group, but a group that fused local and foreign genres, sounds from here and there.

Toques del Río in its beginnings. Photo: Courtesy of the band. Toques del Río in its beginnings. Photo: Courtesy of the band.

In that turn of the rudder, it was natural then to add Los Muchachitos. So Aston Junior Ducran (Junio) and Jesús Puentes Montano (PiQ) joined the band as singers, and brought with them some songs that were incorporated into the Toques repertoire. Then came songs like I present, Linden, false, a little piece of your time, new arrangements for Peanut, and miscellaneous (güiro, tambourine) and metals were incorporated. 

"For what we were doing, we needed melodic instruments," says Kike. Until now it was the singers who did riff of metal with the mouth. 

For a time they experimented with a trumpet, a trombone and a tenor saxophone. Then they defined that there would be two trumpets (Yoel Méndez boy and Manuel A. del Busto), alto sax (Yennier Stocker) and tenor sax (Ismel Ríos). Little by little, musicians entered and left the squad ―almost all of them young―, until reaching the thirteen that make up the current lineup and of those who still need to name Alejandro Martínez de la Torre (drums), Yoan Maikel Marquez Pérez (El Jhonny) on miscellaneous and Yoan Jesús Perera Guerra (El Sangre) on electric guitar. 

Then came the presentations at the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Center, at the Café Cantante, at the Hermanos Saíz Association festivals throughout the country. Television came, the Cuerda Viva programs, and Toques del Río began to sweep the entire Island, thanks to the first phonogram with this lineup: So that you calm down (Egrem, 2017). 

—This album includes many genres—says Zeney—, among them are, danzón, mambo, conga, rumba, funk, pop-rock, polka, Caribbean rhythms, and others. 

An album that included the musical production of Luis Alberto Barbería, singer-songwriter and member of Habana Abierta. 

"My first contact with Toques del Río was at the Trova Sí Festival," recalls Barbería. I am also from Pinar del Río and they approached me to talk, because they followed my work inside and outside of Habana Abierta. I remember they told me how difficult it was to be from the province and promote their work from there. I offered to help them and presented their project to Egrem. Once the project was approved, the record company offered me to be the music producer. I confess that I was scared at first, because it was a group with a lot of identity and a defined sound, it was more complicated than taking on an artist from scratch, but I gave yes for an answer. It so happened that the band had also thought of me as a producer. 

From that role, Barbería helped in the selection of songs and arrangements for the album. According to the musicians, it was an important pillar in the final result. 

—Barbería was integrated as one more of Toques del Río —says Kike—. He disregarded any stardom and spoke with us face to face. He came up with a lot of things at the expense of us saying no, and almost every idea he put forward was on point. contributed a lot in the flip flop, in the Peanut, in Do not say goodbye.

About the recording of the phonogram, Zeney tells us:

—We lived in Pinar and the budget for this album was very small. We ate what we could, we slept at the bus station. It was very exhausting, but psychologically we were all the time focused on finishing it and having the dream product. That was the energy that made us continue, in addition to meeting and sharing with many artists that we admire. It was quite a school. 

A dream in which many guest musicians participated, including Nam San Fong on electric guitar, Lorenzo Medina on trumpet and Yaroldy Abreu on congas, drums and miscellaneous. The 10 songs are authored by Zeney Alonso, Gilberto Enrique (Kike) and Jesús Puente (PiQ); the arrangements were in charge of all the members of the group, together with Barbería.

The release of the CD took place in 2017, with a presentation concert at the Café Cantante. A year before, the singer Junior Ducran left the country, and in his place El Bamba entered, who from the beginning made a good impression with PiQ Montano. The new member was inserted into the dynamics of the band and began to compose immediately. 

"In Toques we are all composers and arrangers of our creations," he says. The gestation of a theme is carried out as a workshop; we put ideas on the table, they are analyzed and reconceptualized until a consensus is reached where the result obtained is democratically approved, if it fits into the musical aesthetics of the group. 

When the musicians of this band talk about their work, they handle the concept of “total music”, which is not often heard in testimonials from other artists. Total because in the music and the live show —sometimes with too much waste of energy— they combine soft themes, to listen, dance, jump and “get naked”, with others to reflect or transmit messages. With this, they seek that the sound result be Cuban. 

—Almost all of our songs sound strong; we are a “piquete” that overflows with a lot of energy live—Kike points out—. It's something we already have that we don't want to give up. The band sounds strong too because the arrangements have their dose of rock and roll. Between the way of playing of each one and their own musical tastes, that mixture of Toques del Río is achieved. 

The band has a strong work from the audiovisual. the video clips false and hug of solitude, under the direction of Day García, meet the standards of what can be done in terms of having a good time and sweating with each camera pass. Mambo No. 0, directed by Joseph Ros, had eight nominations for the Lucas Awards 2020 and is one of the songs most recognized by the public of this group from Pinar del Río. The crisis, by Matteo Fachenda, represents all the good vibes of their live concerts; with "Hey, eat on, don't make me a crisis” an extreme joy is armed on stage.

A scenario from which they were away for just over a year, and which now seems to return. But, despite that physical distance, Toques del Río remained active. In 2020, for example, the band had the opportunity to represent Cuba, from a Havana terrace, at the Cosquín Rock Festival in Argentina, sharing the poster with He killed a motorized policeman, León Gieco, Ciro and Los Persas, among other artists. . This event brought greater visibility to the band, by broadcasting the concert on streaming to all of Latin America. 

In June of this year they released their most recent video clip, you will dance, which included luxury extras such as the Quadrigales Quartet, Jota Barrioz, Alcibíades Durruty and the guys from The Concept, the film director Fernando Pérez, the teacher Joaquín Betancourt, the plastic artist Choco and the dance teacher Rosario Cárdenas.

This premiere also served to introduce two new singers: LeoNell Mederos (the Leo) and Lázaro Ortega (Tito), who joined the band in mid-2020, when PiQ Montano, lead singer, decided to start his solo career. 

They, along with El Bamba, are today the face of the group that these days will record its second record production, still untitled, which aims to make us move to the rhythm of changüí, reggae, mambo, guajira, songo, and, of course, funk. The musical production, on this occasion, will be in charge of Alain Pérez. 

Meanwhile, the peñas at the Brecht are already announcing that, once again, the sounds come from the river.