Havana is to feel it

Sliding in 37 degrees Celsius. This is how the experience begins, in a P15, with the man dragging a huge bag and wanting to get off at Ultra. In the headphones, Nina cries: "Power, power! Bring down, power"So Feel Me? I don't know what to expect, but I'm on my way.

I remember seeing the band in a publication of Nave Oficio de Isla; Professor Gabriela invited me, but I didn't know them. I arrived twenty minutes before the vocalist announced that the show was almost over. session and the teacher could not contain her laughter. However, I didn't break down and did what I do best: pester people, ask for a minute of their time.

When you talk to Wenddys Hernández López, her voice sounds entirely different; this magic will always be new to me. What was once an accusatory, grave chant, almost an Afro-Cuban incantation, is now a sweet, light sequence. Her hands play, weighing the remnants of the recent feat, just as they did a minute ago on the small proscenium of the establishment.

Promoted from the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory in saxophone, Wenddys wanted to take her voice to graduation. She did it with Just feel itthat whimsically seductive ballad, strange fruit, as Billie Holiday intoned. Composed with raw materials from abroad and from Cuba, the song evokes the feeling. Hernández is aware of these roots and their irrefutable power.

She says that her main jazz muses are the eternal Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. And although she can't be denied those hints of austerity in some songs, Nina Simone's incipient rebelliousness is undeniable. Her voice, the play of indescribable and convoluted onomatopoeias make you move your feet and turn your head, to see if everyone is listening to the same thing.

Photo: Eduardo Reyes. Taken from the Instagram profile of So feel me.

They bring freshness, they dust the ground, so much so that they invoke ghosts of the work. Whitethose pines that wandered around the Nave after every Sunday last May. The band, whose name is the translation of the title composed by Wenddys, is a well achieved unit. They debuted barely a year ago and already know their gestures, the furtive glances. The first presentation of So Feel Me was on July 27, 2023, at the Coco Blue bar and Zorra Pelúa, in El Vedado.

"It was incredible, we were super nervous, it was the first time we were performing in public. There were even recent changes in the group, in terms of the members: the bass player was very new. There were a lot of nerves, but everything went well, thank God. Besides, we had a lot of support from friends and family, who came to the presentation".

A few months earlier, in March, they were creating the repertoire necessary to play at the live. However, they had planned to do something totally different: "We wanted to play music that people knew, that they were used to hearing. As we progressed, we realized that it was more feasible to put together our own songs, because they were achieved more quickly and the audience picked them up almost instantly. Then I started to include more of my own songs in the repertoire".

Wenddys explains that the first format had another bass player. In addition, they used the cajon bass and the acoustic bass, they did not use the electric bass. Their inclusion meant a change in the sonority, because when the person changed, and also the instrument, it became unique.

This is also how teamwork could be categorized. That intrepid action of trusting each other, of believing to know everything. "It is very funny to work with this group, because we have serious people, very shy or extroverted people. So it's a mix, in the end we complement each other. One annoys the other, we are always exchanging. Yes, we are very close. In fact, that's how a lot of things come out, we are quite creative when it comes to putting together new songs".

The presentation at Cubadisco was an important moment for them. As is every introduction, that blissful minute in which the artist, timidly, lets the public taste a little of his musical potion. Although, So Feel Me passed a litmus test that first time: "We had a lot of technical problems before we started playing. At that time the power went out, we also had problems with the transportation of the percussionist, who had to arrive later. Then the whole schedule was cut, and besides -he laughs- our oboist was convalescing from a wisdom tooth operation, so he couldn't play the oboe; but he was there anyway, present with his pain".

Photo: Eduardo Reyes. Taken from the Instagram profile of So feel me.

"Despite everything, I think there was a good result. The booth La Casa Producciones was beautiful, it had very interesting things going on all week. And the fact that we were able to open Cubadisco was a pleasure. We are very grateful for the opportunity, and we really made many collaborations with them in the last time. You can say that we are part of La Casa".

So Feel Me won the contest Black Box and, as part of the award, they have a live recording with La Casa: "Para el live We would like to record a new song. Although, I'm a little bit in doubt, because we have created many things from this contest, which we want to show. But we also have songs that opened the doors for us from the first time, like Just feel itwhich is one of the most important in our repertoire. We think it also deserves some of that recognition, and making the video and recording with that song would be very nice for us".

"So we still don't know whether to bring a surprise, or whether to give the public that song, which is really already well received. A lot of fans have even asked me when they will be able to access the album, and when we are going to record. We are crazy about recording, even if it's an EP.; because we are approached by many people asking where they can download our music, and we haven't had the opportunity to upload it to any platform yet."

The group augurs years of good music and Wenddys seems completely confident in the sound and support of her bandmates. There is nothing left to do but lean in and try to catch - from the meticulous repertoire - all the subtext, "sonorous dialectics", as Carpentier would say.

"We experimented with a composite of jazz and traditional Cuban music, flirting with alternative. We also like to mix contrasting rhythms and catchy melodies". And of this we can realize in the unscrupulous interludes, moments in which he goes from a sustained tone, completely articulable, to a flurry of melodies in -who knows which- unknown language.

Photo: Eduardo Reyes. Taken from the Instagram profile of So feel me.

They intend to enchant the audience, and they succeed. Despite the heat and the twenty minutes. Despite the small audience -perhaps this way they exercise their dominance faster-, you come out feeling the good feelingfully energized. "So Feel Me started with a desire, an aspiration: to always bring freshness. We want people to enjoy us. And that's where the name comes from. We just want them to feel us.

They are new on the scene. Still, they dazzle in such a way that they move you to clap your hands, and sing in chorus lonely intonations that get lost in the soporific heat of the old warehouses. Outside, the sea is burning. Returning home is another tune, but you remember that good time and shake off the anguish. After all, Havana is to feel it.