{"id":4529,"date":"2019-12-16T05:00:51","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/?p=4529"},"modified":"2020-01-15T10:35:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T15:35:24","slug":"ges-por-real-project-al-principio-fue-experimentar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/ges-por-real-project-al-principio-fue-experimentar\/","title":{"rendered":"GES by Real Project: at the beginning it was to experiment\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

It's a Tuesday night in Havana. A difficult night, where nothing happens. Or almost nothing. A man, with long gray hair, tall and thin, crosses G Street and heads his destination to one of the trendy bars in the city. At the bar, three young instrumentalists prepare for what will be one of the many jazz downloads they will have for a while in that place.
\nBefore the show begins the <\/span>show<\/span><\/i>, this man will enter, embrace the three young instrumentalists, talk about the weather, the family, how complicated it is to do jazz on a Tuesday night, and, at some point, about an idea: to do a record, a tribute, dust off songs, bring them to the 21st century. An idea that will reveal the final course of this story.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\nThe story does not start at this bar, not tonight, nor with the three young instrumentalists. At least not with these three. The story, rigorously speaking, begins in 1969, in a booth of the Icaic studios in presentations at Chaplin and 23 and 12 cinemas; in a group of artists centered around a single purpose: to renew Cuban music. As? Taking advantage of how many genres and styles were within reach - the new trova, rock, jazz, rumba, Brazilian sounds, the Hindus - ruminating influences - from Beethoven to The Beatles - experimenting with electronic techniques and sounds of High aesthetic quality\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That handful of artists became known as the Icaic Sound Experimentation Group (GES); its members - with Leo Brouwer in the lead - came not only to compose for the cinema, but also to become the highest exponents of music in Cuba. Their names will surely sound like something, because Pablo Milan\u00e9s, Silvio Rodr\u00edguez, Noel Nicola, Eduardo Ramos, Sergio Vitier, Emiliano Salvador, and later Sara Gonz\u00e1lez and Pablo Men\u00e9ndez, among many others, were the musical protagonists of those golden years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the history of GES is already written (eye: written, but not necessarily known, as it should). The story of the man with long and gray hair, tall and thin, of the three young instrumentalists and what began to be forged on a Tuesday night in a trendy bar in Havana, is just beginning. That is why we are here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ruly<\/a>

Rully Herrera. Photo: Larisa L\u00f3pez \/ FAC<\/p><\/div>\n

At the beginning is the voice. A voice that seems familiar to us, because many of us have grown up with it, playing again and again on television, on the radio, in schools and plazas. And we know Sara Gonz\u00e1lez, <\/span>Corales<\/span><\/i> first song of the <\/span>Real Project-GES<\/span><\/i>, which since last December 6 is available on several digital platforms - much less.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But Sara's voice is here a kind of <\/span>sample<\/span><\/i>. The original recording, that wink, sneaks like another instrument, and then gives way to another voice. It is there where we discovered Daym\u00e9 Arocena, defending that theme composed by Sergio Vitier and that now comes with new arrangements, orchestrated by Jorge Luis Lagarza, pianist of Real Project, that band that broke into 2017 with a homonymous album and whose members we already knew since the album <\/span>Mal tiempo<\/span><\/i>, by its director and drummer Ruly Herrera, or because they play and tour with several projects or musicians of the Island such as Daym\u00e9, Interactivo, Carlos Varela, among others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Radiography of an appearance<\/span><\/i> is the second theme of this album-tribute that stops at Noel Nicola, a man who knows little but who composed songs as powerful as his two <\/span>partners in crime<\/span><\/i>: Pablo Milan\u00e9s and Silvio Rodr\u00edguez. This version, that of Real Project, that of Ruly's arrangements, that of Yaroldi Abreu in percussion, leaves us with another flavor. A taste halfway between samba and bossa nova, an addictive flavor, where Yusa's interpretation is always heartbreaking, tremendous, with that imperative need to be, herself, a beautiful song.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The third <\/span>track<\/span><\/i> is <\/span>Un hombre se levanta<\/span><\/i>one of the most popular of the GES and its author, Silvio Rodr\u00edguez, defended many times by Sara Gonz\u00e1lez and that this time comes to us through Polito Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez. It seems that the song was written for him. For Polito, I say. So that one day, after all this time, this troubadour that we love - and that in recent times has lost, perhaps, that touch that fell in love with me, <\/span>Me muero de ganas<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Las cosas simples<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Sombras amarillas<\/span><\/i> reborn, made it his own.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because where <\/span>Un hombre se levanta<\/span><\/i>a man rises, it sounds, a priori, to a song-slogan, flag up, anthem of the new man; where knowing \u201cworn out\u201d, \u201csaturated\u201d by the <\/span>mainstream<\/span><\/i> mainstream of the political song makes us, perhaps, reject it, is where the new version surprises us, for good, with a contemporary, fresher and more daring sound.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there are other issues. In each of them, in the ten, Real Project leaves its mark. And is that <\/span>Real Project-GES,<\/span><\/i>with the original idea of Enrique Carballea, arrangements and musical production of Ruly, Lagarza and Roberto Luis G\u00f3mez, and licensed under the Bis Music label, goes about that. It is a tribute; perhaps the best of all, because it does not stop to sweeten anything. Real Project doesn't want to imitate, doesn't want to copy, doesn't want to invade either. The songs on this phonogram - some better known, some purely instrumental - are not his, but they could be. What better way to pay tribute to those who experienced before, than experiencing now. What better way to get into the skin of the other than being oneself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Portada<\/a>

Album cover. Design: Gabriel Lara<\/p><\/div>\n

In all, if we listen carefully, there are details, and in the details, certain jewels. Let's hear the songs one by one, in a <\/span>loop<\/span><\/i>, we get to the core, to that magnetic field that is the experimentation behind each instrument. To virtuosity: either Jorge Luis Lagarza on the keyboards (or on the <\/span>vocoder<\/span><\/i>), Ruly on the <\/span>drums<\/span><\/i>, Roberto Luis on the guitars (or on the banjo), Rafael Aldama on bass, or on guest vocals. Let's stop. Let's be silent What do they hear?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most rocky <\/span>riffs<\/span><\/i> in <\/span>Salgo de casa<\/span><\/i> (author: Eduardo Ramos \/ performer: Erick Cimafunk); in <\/span>\u00c9ramos <\/span><\/i>(that text by Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, musicalized by Pablo Milan\u00e9s and defended on this occasion by Roberto Perdomo); in <\/span>Bachiana popular<\/span><\/i>, by Sergio Vitier; in minute two of <\/span>Los caminos<\/span><\/i> - please, let's stop in minute two - that great song by Pablo that has everything: rumba, rock, trumpets, tumblers, trombone, sax, Rub\u00e9n Bulnes in his voice and the Real Project in the choirs!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We also listen to the flute of Niurka Gonz\u00e1lez and Yasel Mu\u00f1oz in <\/span>Repentino<\/span><\/i> (by Pablo Men\u00e9ndez): a more classical one, a more contemporary one. Or the banjo in <\/span>Raga<\/span><\/i>, an unpublished song, a song by Silvio, a song that transports to another place perhaps because of that sound of the banjo, emblem of the country, the <\/span>bluegrass<\/span><\/i> and the music of the Far West, and that arrives with Roberto's arrangements Luis G\u00f3mez, who does what he wants with that instrument, for the good of our ears.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there is <\/span>Tonada para dos poemas<\/span><\/i>. The strawberry of the cake. On that subject we can say so much: that Rub\u00e9n Mart\u00ednez Villena once wrote two poems (<\/span>La pupila insomne<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>El anhelo in\u00fatil<\/span><\/i>), short poems, of four verses each, and that one of them is, in particular, shocking. We can also say that Silvio Rodr\u00edguez gave them music and voice, and that now, closing this album, Real Project takes them to a more instrumental, more intimate level. To that plane where only beautiful songs have a life of their own.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n