Because you are in the world... Marta Valdés

Marta Valdés was born to compose songs. She has lived at the exact time and place to coin a highly original musical work, both in its lyrical and musical language. In spite of those who once did not believe in her work, of those who tried to ignore or disregard her for years, few Cuban composers -if any- can afford the luxury of gathering the pleiad of interpreters (in terms of quality, above all) who have covered and continue to cover her songs. If his texts are recognizable for their rotundity and poetry dressed in simplicity, some of his melodies and harmonies have reached -and we bet they will do it more and more each time- the category of standards. Magazine AMPM asked several of her interpreters to testify on the peculiar relationship between the artist and the person who created the work she has chosen to interpret. Even though we miss here such relevant voices with such close ties to Marta's work as Miriam Ramos, Haydée Milanés and Sílvia Pérez Cruz, the set of testimonies collected is luxurious, as are the versions we share with you. 

Happy 90th, Marta Valdés! Because you are in the world, we congratulate ourselves.

Marta Valdés is one of those composers who comes into your life, penetrates, pierces your soul, your heart... and you can never get her out of you again. That's what happened to me that afternoon when I heard for the first time CrySince then I was trapped by that infinite musical universe that is his work, from which I have never been able to separate myself again. I have always been tied to his music, which is part of the soundtrack of my life. I have had the good fortune to accompany many of the great performers of this country, and to work with the work of Marta Valdés, and every time we face her it is a master class; there are always many emotions, many things to discover. 

In her music, which is very complete, there is also poetry, and what strikes me most is that when you analyze and get into her universe, you see that everything comes from simplicity. She is a master when it comes to creation and when it comes to transmitting those themes that lead you and at the moment reach a climax, and they release you... and you fall. She is unique. 

It is very difficult to talk about just one song, because I think her work is perfect. Now, with the album I have made as a tribute to this great composer, this happened to me with all her songs. In I play to forget you I was impressed by the paths, the changes, the harmonic turns... You never have the absolute clarity to say "we are going to be here". It is very curious to be in the rehearsals with the musicians, to realize that wonder and to see the expression of the instrumentalists when facing their music. On the album and in the concert, Emir Santacruz was the guest soloist for this track and I remember Emir saying to me: "I'm going to be here.BrotherHow difficult this is. If you let yourself get carried away, you go crazy; in the end you have to be very aware of where everything is going; it's a wonderful madness. The problem is that you have to know the work, you have to go deep into it. It's not like with other composers that you can risk playing perhaps without knowing the work, because there are turns, let's say logical; the melody leads you. But in Marta's case, the melody leads you, yes, but the harmony also takes you to other points and always breaks the logic, but with beauty and, I repeat, simplicity. With Marta I have learned this, that you have to let yourself go, you have to create, you have to feel and express. And not to be pigeonholed in theory, in concepts, but to let what you feel flow. And express it. Marta is a great teacher in all this. I am very happy to have had the opportunity to meet her, to have her in my life, to have her music. To have been able to pay this tribute to her, to her work, is one of the great gifts that life has given me. And if I am given the opportunity to have another life, the only thing I ask is to meet again with the work of Marta Valdés. (Dayron Ortiz).

If you come back is for me one of those songs that unravel human feelings from the greatness and simplicity of life and that, in two marvelous stanzas almost as a a leitmotivThey propose, invite, summon with masterful simplicity to the reconquest of a love that can still be reborn, that can flourish if the paths that have been walked are cleaned and healed. 

Musically, it amazes me and leaves me in sonorous ecstasy, as if it were the first time, when I make it mine as a performer. The inverse and surprisingly daring movement of the harmony with respect to the melody that flows free, confident, fearless, without losing an ounce of coherence, makes it a work to analyze, to study, to deepen in it, because what I am very sure of is that, decidedly, the songs of Marta Valdés are from another world. (Argelia Fragoso).

What I love about Marta Valdés' songs is how she takes you into her story through common words: an almanac, a calendar..., words that do not have a poetic content in themselves, but Marta provides them with images and very deep experiences. Even the titles of her songs are poetry: En la imaginación, Without going further, Tú no sospechas, To where, new year song. And to these words and images is added the richness and harmonic treatment of Marta's guitar, with its melodies, which are a delight to sing and recreate vocally. (Claudia Gómez).

I listen Easy song for the first time probably at the end of 2020 by Haydée Milanés and I keep this melody echoing in my head. I start playing with the piano, with a very simple, minimalist accompaniment, with no intention of recording or performing it at that moment. It is a song that touched me very deeply, that spoke very directly to me. Time went by and, by chance, a friend came to Berlin, an incredible musician, a cuatrist from Venezuela, Miguel Ciso, and he told me that he would like us to record something. We shared some music and at that moment I had the idea of telling him about what I was "weaving" with the Easy songand we went to my practice studio to play a little with the music. Suddenly, we changed the meter of the song, we put it in ¾ and I started to play the bombo legüero, which is an Argentine percussion instrument, while he accompanied me on the cuatro. While we were there testing the song, another musician friend of mine, the Chilean percussionist Dante Parragués, came in and said to us: "that sounds very nice; don't you want us to record it? And he took out microphones and set himself the task of playing the bass drum so that I could interpret the song freely, and we recorded it. 

After having ready the Easy song Another time passed, and another coincidence of life made me have to go to Barcelona; there I visited a friend who is a producer and I really wanted to produce something visual and I asked her. And she told me: "You know what? In the days that you are going to be here a great friend of mine who is a cinematographer is going to come..." (John Márquez, with whom I had taken some pictures a few years ago). He lives in France and we happened to coincide in Barcelona. I talked to him and before I left for the trip we decided to make the videoclip of Easy song. I didn't have a clear script about the images I wanted, but the place, the Ebro Delta, started to inspire me a lot. The only thing I was wearing was my red overall and a red thread that I had used for a performance in which, through the thread, stations are woven that connect with emotions and with moments of life; through songs as well. I had taken the thread with me because I felt it had to be part of the images. We found a solitary tree in the middle of those dunes and there I wanted to tie it up and begin to navigate, mysteriously, what would later become the video.. 

This song touched me very deeply because I realized that there are many mysteries in life that are never solved. And we have to inhabit them and trust that life is full of unsolvable mysteries; that we don't have to understand them. This version and this video reached Pável Urquiza, also a friend of mine, because I wanted to know how to reach Marta about her copyrights. Pável sent the song to Marta and she wrote directly to me, thanking me for the version. From that moment on we have had a very deep, intimate, very complicit relationship; we have maintained a constant correspondence. In the year 2022 I wanted to go to Cuba to travel the route, the road that Marta took for this song, written before I was born. Although we did not have the opportunity to see each other personally, we did have communication every day, and she would give me instructions on where I should go. I also met a great singer-songwriter, Rey Pantoja, who accompanied me on the whole trip. We did two wonderful concerts and I was able to interpret Easy song in Cuba. For me it was an incredible moment in life and I want to thank him deeply. 

With this I not only want to pay tribute to Marta for her 90th birthday, but for her entire life. And to tell her that I feel very honored to have known her, to have come so close to her and to have had such a wonderful communication. It has been a great gift and all of her music is of indescribable value to me. I want to thank you very much, Marta, and wish you lots and lots of love in your 90th year of life. (Carolina Riaño).

First of all, I would like to congratulate my dearest Marta Valdés on her birthday: friend, teacher, composer, singer and an endearing and wonderful human being.

The first time I saw Marta Valdés -and I think the only time she has come to Barcelona- I was captivated by her simple way of presenting herself, without any paraphernalia, sober and only willing to share her music in a very humble, very serious way. In this sense, To wherewhich is one of his songs that is in my repertoire, for me has the beauty of being extremely beautiful and extremely simple; simple, in the best sense of the expression.

In that one there is not, let's say, the musical elaboration that there is in other songs of his. It's like simplicity taken to the extreme, minimalism, and I find that captivating. To where. Nothing more. Thanks to Marta Valdés, her legacy, her work in music and thank you very much to you for also paying her this tribute on her day. (Mayte Martín).

¿Reach far? ¿Check my luck? That was a lot for me when in 1995 Andrés Pedroso gave me the most valuable cassette I ever had, with the work of Marta Valdés, sung and played by her... I knew nothing about her music. Listening to her I cried, laughed and was ecstatic in an extraordinary way with each image, word and harmony, as if I was receiving pieces of her heart. Sometimes I heard that Marta's songs didn't stick, how crazy! I was listening to the same songs every day for five years without being able to stop myself from crying at José Jacinto..., unable to avoid the desire to receive the flower and say my name and walk for hours singing aloud even though people did not understand what was happening to me; I already knew that there had been a Macayáas impressed with her art as I was ... and that Marta Valdés was alive!

In terms of the very Cuban game of dominoes, Marta Valdés is precisely the one who "sticks", the one who "closes the game" and leaves the others with their hands full of dominoes. God gave her the gift of wisdom and the finest music, marked in her DNA so that, although the world is upside down, she will always be very, very, very much loved, authentic and dignified like no other. Laborious as a bee in her hard work of total perfection. This is how God made her. Virtuous, kind and respectable. Thank you, God. Thank you, Marta... I love you. Without going further has accompanied me, clothed me and united me to you, eternally. (Ivette Cepeda).

We owe Marta everything! The ability to create based on the story of someone else's skeleton, because -as she herself confesses- not all experiences can be lived in the same life. storyteller she is, dominates (for good) the history of others in her songs. She dresses up the testimony of others and takes it, with great class, to her corner of finesse and subtlety. Marta does not negotiate the way of exalting the story, she always takes the love, the disdain, the disaffection of others to a sublime and decorous level. In short, she leaves no one in shame.

I just recorded him one more time, this time You do not suspect, a great song that I think is made to be interpreted by a gentleman and therefore also to be interpreted by a woman who respects herself and knows what we are capable of awakening in a heart. (Aymée Nuviola).

Since I was a child I loved listening to jazz and American music. I loved the voices of Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Billy Holiday, Nat King Cole... My teacher Leopoldina Nuñez always told me that I should focus on the genres of Cuban music, that I had to highlight the national values. I asked her if there was anything in Cuban music that resembled that, I would gladly do it and she told me that then I should know the filin and the music of Marta Valdés. One day he began to teach me two songs. I learned Easy song and Without going further. I was fascinated with both songs. I sang them all the time, I even sang them to my friends at art school. One afternoon, Leo called Marta Valdés to see me play and sing her songs. I, of course, did not know her, nor did I know that the songs were hers. There she arrived, majestic, with her oval hair, very serious. She looked at me and sat down next to Leo, facing me. I felt super nervous, like in an exam. She listened to me looking down as if she was absorbed in thought. When I finished singing, Marta thanked Leo for putting those pieces together so well. She looked at me and said: "You are good, I can tell you like music. If you want I can show you a bolerón that I recently composed dedicated to the runner Alberto Juantorena.". She sat down with me at that very moment, she with one guitar and I with another and in a couple of hours I was singing and playing the bolero. I will sing victory.

I was not aware of it, but that afternoon changed the world for me. Just as she arrived, serious, thoughtful and well groomed, Marta Valdés stayed in my life forever with her passion for music, her songs and that strong character that I have always wanted to emulate (or imitate?). I confess. I have always wanted to be like Marta Valdés: strong to face anything difficult, proud, resilient, imaginative, sometimes playful and always eager for knowledge. 

Some time after I met her, Marta called me to introduce me at one of her concerts as her youngest performer. After that, she became more and more present, paying attention to my studies, letting me be close to her and teaching me more songs and stories. She introduced me to huge artists that I admired from afar, with whom I even got to share stage and friendship: Elena Burke, José Antonio Méndez, Ñico Rojas and Frank Emilio.

As we got closer, Marta called me to be part of a peña she was organizing in the courtyard of the large house of Teatro Estudio, in El Vedado. We would be several actors, two young flutists, Pável and myself. I digress to say that Pável and I had known each other since we were teenagers and whenever we met we always talked about doing something together, but the truth is that up to that moment it had only remained intentions.

When we started at La Peña de Marta Valdés, we saw each other face to face and very timidly began to share songs. Thanks to Marta Valdés, the duo Gema y Pável was born.

Since I was very young I wanted to dedicate an entire album to Marta. Inside me dwells the desire to be like her and the desire to thank her for everything she has taught me even without knowing it, without intending to, and almost from the beginning of my life until this moment in which I am writing these paragraphs.

In 2013 I had the joy of inviting Marta to sing with me in a concert in Miami. Some mutual friends organized a party to celebrate her. Meme Solís, Malena Burke, Lázaro Horta and other artists arrived there. It was a tremendous descarga. I sang one of her songs and when I sat down, my friend Eddy Levy told me: "Xiomara [his wife] and I want you to record an album only with Marta's songs and we are going to finance it". The first thing I said to myself was: "God is great". That's how it came about Feeling Marta. Without respite, we got down to work. I traveled to Havana and Marta practically locked herself up with me for a week and a half to sing to me, tell me stories, transcribe the songs: melody, chords and lyrics! I treasure her generosity, her time, her words, her confidence in me; in those days of meetings I felt like the little girl who sang two of her songs when she met her and she immediately sat down with me to give me more. And now I remember it and I still get excited.

Time has passed. This morning I was talking about Marta with a mutual friend who lives in the Dominican Republic. His conclusion was that I have to make a Feeling Marta II. I am going, with God, to mature the idea. I want to continue to be grateful for the mark that Marta Valdés has left in my life, I want to continue singing her work, to continue giving to the world my devotion for this woman who seems to come directly from the Renaissance: artist, musician, composer, writer. What better thing can I do to continue praising and thanking her infinite greatness? (Gema Corredera).