Alain Pérez: a new Starting Point

Regulate the keys to tune, test the sonorities of the timpani and look for the harmonics to be heard. He has a face of being nervous, the snatch of the Auu! I stare at him while he passes the congas and runs an air that chooses its harmony to accompany them. Tune the congas, quintea, play a march and tune again. Little by little the space you chose for the meeting is filled —which is ours too- Y around the tree there is an impressive energy. He is a magnet and the public presents the metal to which he adheres to feel at ease, once again, in the same place where he studied classical guitar and sang boleros written by his favorite poet, Gradelio Pérez, his father. 

To that place he returns with Point, a project under construction that, through concerts, talks, and master classes, seeks to travel to the seed of his professional musical education and give the new generations a little of all that sap that shaped him as an artist. 

A week and a half ago the announcement came: on Thursday, April 21, we would have a concert by Alain Pérez and the Orchestra on the campus that surrounds the Faculty of Music and the Faculty of Plastic Arts. The next day, moreover, master class. We music students couldn't believe it. Who has a Feu card, a University card, an invitation? So we walked, scrambled and expectant. 

I arrived Thursday afternoon at my usual Isa, of every day. This time, however, there was something different: I was sharing again with friends I hadn't seen for years, those who joked with me and tried to measure  —lost like me— on 7/8 in solfeggio classes. Beautiful and talented people, who when they grow up separate from your life and you only get to see them again in such relevant events. It was the afternoon of the reunion in the city of the arts, in those spaces in which so many of us have been and grown. Alain Pérez managed to bring together a good part of the new and not so new generations of Cuban music.

Alain Pérez together with students from Isa. Photo: Maria Montenegro Lamothe.

Today, after those two intense days, I revisit in my memory the marks that both encounters left me:

In Point, the concert, I danced a lot, but I also captured music codes that Alain and his musicians reproduce and recover: on the piano, Andy García, who —parallel to the orchestra— forms a contemporary jazz project that is heard in the bars of Havana nights; Yandy Garcia, his younger brother, at drums, also a singer and songwriter; Robelis Arévalo on the congas; Alex Miguel Suárez on the pailas and, on the güiro, Boris Castellanos. On electric guitar Robert Medina and, on bass, a new acquisition: Mauro Moisés Cabreja. In brass Miguel Sarduy (sax), Randy Montero and Carlos Egar Lorie Guillén (trumpets), and Dany Arce (trombone). In the choirs, Alejandro Fernández Delgado and Adrián Machado.

Three hours of pure joy, sweat through, with casino wheels, laughter and attentive listening. Alain enjoys studying it, appropriating the good music he makes and the elements that make it up. The presentation condensed two record productions —DNA (Egrem, 2017) and The tale of the good pipe (Egrem, 2020)—, in addition to the feast of love, his most recent single, and was enlivened by hot new choruses, mariachi-like motifs, many percussion heads-up, and fiery improvisations. 

For Alain the setting is a divine temple. A temple to which he invited other gods such as Issac Delgado, Alexander Abreu, Haila, Brayan Álvarez, Elito Revé, Maikel Dinza, Manolito Simonet and Maykel Blanco. Together they sang "here are those who bat 400", a choir that represents the union of current Cuban popular music, which drinks from the new and the old from the mountains, from that city sound that makes up the dancers' imaginary. Together, they also paid tribute to José Luis Cortés. 

That was hot when the night closed with conga and timba. “You who thought 'that I was alone, and you didn't know that I came with everyone'”, was the choir that said goodbye to the first day. 

The next day, at two in the afternoon, Alain came with the same desire as before. The production team managed to recreate a divine space for him, around the classrooms of the Faculty of Art, and with the usual accomplices: a piano, his bass, the guitar, a kettledrum, the congas, a flamenco box drum. And also his “flamenco glass”, full of polka dots, folklore, living and real history. 

That was his way of going back to his student days, to his downloads with “Pancho's people” (Francisco Rodríguez), his guitar teacher at the time and invited on this occasion to accompany him during class. 

—Talking about music implies a commitment to many people, to the history of music, to a country, to its tradition - said. 

Then, her voice thin and scratchy from singing the night before, she began to talk about classical music. "We are born from that infinite musical universe," he said. And I couldn't help but think about how we, the students, inevitably witness that "clash" that occurs between what we learned in the academy and what we see later on the street, in "the truth". A clash in which a very interesting mix is produced. 

Perhaps that is why Alain says that he always returns to the classics and remembers with interest those greats that he once played in his role as concert guitarist: Heitor Villalobos and Leo Brouwer, but also Lilí Martínez, Cuní, Arsenio Rodríguez and their son, which he perceives as very revolutionary. Perhaps that is why he gets excited and talks about Irakere, Team Cuba, Isaac, Chucho, Benny, Cortés and Juan Formell. He remembers and gets excited. It excites us.

Alain Pérez in his master class at Isa. Photo: Maria Montenegro Lamothe.

—The most important thing is that, through me, you can find the purest feeling—, he says and starts playing the bass. The wind, altered, accompanies him: 

mi re do mi sol

Mi re do fa sol

He improvises with his voice on top of the harmonic bass, aflamenca'o, with key, Cuban as well, I would say transcultural. sound riffs fast and scales close to modal. He explains the progression, has the key marked, and continues playing at his own pace. It is Alain Pérez in his purest state, and close to us. It moves and you move with it. It is impressive how the sound seduces us, his voice, his deliciousness.

It feeds with each breath of wind, with each improvised passage, with each word that it sings. Guaracha, son, timba, flamenco, jazz. Many styles and little things live in it. The tasty cadence of the son, the dance that follows it. He gives kisses to the microphone, they are crazy manias that already mark his stamp. It recreates a melodic path and joins it with another. He talks about his influences: Cuban music, jazz, flamenco, a bit of black music, classical. They are all essential, but the first, ours, advises taking good care of it, its "tuning, rhythm, melody, measure and cadence".

He approaches flamenco and it is inevitable for him to talk about maestro Paco de Lucía, El Piraña, Niño Josele, Los Morente, Jerez and Andalucía. A bit of bulería, free cantes, fandango, loneliness, the dark part of the soul, regret, nostalgia, a contained expression struggling to come out and breathe. Then, he asks us to mark a rhythm of flamenco claps in ¾ time. All counting: one two, one two three, four five six, seven eight nine ten, one two, one two three… and so on, until he comes out without thinking, with his accents on exact time. We play the rhythmic pattern with the claps while he improvises a bit in the style, with the bass and the cajon. 

—Flamenco changed my life, I fell in love with it—he tells and recreates the anecdotes of when Paco invited him to clap his hands and said “water” instead of “olé”. At first it was difficult for him to be in tune with their feelings, the flamenco singers, because his Cuban identity overflowed through his pores. But, little by little, he became infected with his energy and the contained claps arrived, the “olé” for feeling. 

Alain Pérez together with students from Isa. Photo: Maria Montenegro Lamothe.

—The stage is sacred, it is the temple of my music. A ring of spirituality, of connection, is a treaty, Auu! - he shouts, and invites everyone who wants to join. 

Many students of Isa and Ena go up to their temple and the discharge is formed. Saxophone, piano, trumpet and timpani, all improvising. Tumbadoras, two tres players and the choir of “I'm leaving for Morón”. As closing, a coordinated fanfare.

On my way home, I sang, created melodies and improvised on the beat, really wanting to play until dawn. Eager to find my own starting points in each song.