From Buena Vista to Elis Regina and the jazz ladies

The 39th edition of the Jazz Plaza Festival has demonstrated a concept that has presided over its projection from the beginning, when it was launched in the premises of the Casa de Cultura of the Plaza municipality: hybridization, fusions, borrowings from other genres and rhythms. This vision, without a doubt, has united and widened during his career throughout these decades. 

It is not that there has been a lack of "pure expression", that jazz closer to the classical, both from the patio and from the foreign guests, but the dominant note has been the confluence, the intercommunication: that process of osmosis that enriches all the musics participating in the event. (With regard to the representativeness and abundance of the program, which makes it impossible to cover it in its entirety given the variety of venues and theaters, it is worth noting that it should have been implemented in a more rational way with respect to schedules, to give the public the option of attending more than one presentation on the same day). 

Three concerts illustrate the above, by approaching and incorporating from jazz, complexes such as Cuban and traditional dance music, Brazilian music, and various styles and poetics specifically cultivated by women. Let us not forget that since the beginnings of the genre, in the United States, the participation of women in both vocalization and instrumental performance has been recurrent.

At the same time, before entering into individual evaluations of these concerts, it should be noted that they have been three of the most singular and solid concerts of a comprehensive and varied program.

The performance led by the tres player and composer Pancho Amat in front of what he called "Estrellas del Buena Vista" was undoubtedly one of those in which jazz made its presence visible in other musical terrains, within a night full of Cuban music, both in its classics -pieces inscribed with golden letters in the musical heritage beyond the patio-, as well as the "Estrellas del Buena Vista". continuum that signify the new generations of composers and performers who honor those composers and performers with their work.

The accompanying band was composed in this way and following this criterion, and included an informed, though younger, pianist such as Alejandro Falcón, as well as a veteran like the clarinetist and saxophonist Javier Zalba. So was the vocal line-up, where Calunga, Arasay and Kiko Ruiz alternated with Alain Pérez, Mayito Rivera and María Victoria.

Son, danzón, rumba, bolero, country music, guaracha, -such was part of the concert title (And more...)- sounded in the Covarrubias hall of the National Theater, with the complicity of a receptive and enthusiastic audience that chanted and danced to the sound.

The sound of the hall, not always optimal, this time duly supported the cohesive instrumental support and the powerful vocals that from Veinte años or Two gardenias a The Tula Room, Chan Chan and The charcoal burner, including more recent songs by Amat himself or Adalberto Álvarez, honored the tradition. At the same time, the coherent rupture represented by many arrangements sprinkled with opportune jazz references and notable solos, enriched the songs with the improvisations and variations typical of the genre.

This sense of inclusiveness and cosmopolitanism was evident in another high point of the festival: Zule Guerra performs the music of Elis Regina, where jazz, the incomparable sound of Brazil and more than one Cuban cell delighted the audience for almost two hours.

Zule, an expressive performer who leads with graceful stage presence, beautiful, sharp timbre and remarkable intonation whatever genre she chooses, made us evoke the greatest and unrepeatable of her Brazilian colleagues, Ellis Regina, in a representative journey through her repertoire, accompanied by great musicians of ours and a couple of guests from the southern giant.

The Cubans seemed to have always been cultured with respect to that music: the superlative and playful piano of maestro Emilio Morales, the incisive winds, the exquisite strings of the violins, the viola or the cello, without forgetting the bass or the leading presence of the drums and in general the percussion, admirably recreated the rich music composed for the honored artist by greats such as Tom Jobin, Baden Powell, Ivan Lins, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, Gilberto Gil, Rita Lee, Milton Nascimento and Pixinguinha, among many others.

Adding here and there a danzoned or sonero air (Vou deitar rolar, Chovendo na roseira...), a rumba intro (Upa neguinho) between bossa or samba and its variants, as if to reaffirm the communicating vessels between our sound complexes, it was admirable the way the orchestra apprehended the complex Brazilian rhythmic, its rich harmonies, many of them no strangers, by the way, to the jazz grammars that the band did not cease to explore. And how Zule walked with ductility and passion without overflowing through the work of the infinite Ellis.

The same was true of the guests from Brazil: Pablo Fagundez, on a precise and creative harmonica or the percussionist Pedrinho Augusto, bearers of the contagious joy and talent of a people so similar to ours.

Perhaps trying to reproduce the eclectic musical atmosphere or the kaleidoscope that is Brazil -that other ajiaco-, the scenography was a bit overloaded: flags, audiovisual screen, a mock bar, a table, a telephone..., but this did not manage to overshadow the brightness of a singular and attractive show, in which the lighting and sound design did the rest.

Zule is part of a movement of women jazz artists in Cuba that, even without all the visibility it deserves, is broad, diverse and powerful. It was therefore very appropriate that the festival devoted an evening to showcase it at the America Theater. 

The rigorous string ensemble of Ensemble Vocal Luna -which at times recalled the imprint of Sergio Mendes or Manhattan Transfer-, the vehemence of Hera de Cuba, the instrumental warmth of Wena Vibra (an exceptional guitarist and singer among its members), the agile and virtuosic flute of Belinda Guerra -worthy heir of the Cortés and Maraca- or an earthquake called Emy Abreu Sabor (superlative violin, nuanced and powerful voice, energy in his passage through the scene), nuanced and powerful voice, energy in abundance in her passage through the scene) who, backed by a remarkable band, emblematizes the most authentic of Afrojazz among us, were some of the jewels that showed how indeed, a considerable portion of the best jazz made today in Cuba is made by women.

In short, three excellent concerts that, besides showing the virtuosity of their protagonists, reaffirmed that jazz from here and there continues to be a common homeland, a land of confluences and belongings between this ancestral, but renewable and always young music, and other expressions of the Cuban and universal pentagram.