Indigo Girls - Letters From Havana

3-24-99

We had a new lottery today. It was sad to leave our dynamic duo-Luis and Yosvany Terry-behind, but we all felt that it would be in the spirit of things to throw our names back into the pool. Emily was paired with Ray Guerra and one of the Lowenstein twins. Ray is a true virtuoso on the guitar and has played with such Latin American greats as Silvio Rodriguez. I ended up with four collaborators-Fernando Bequer, Harold Payne (nice guy, speaks great Spanish), Gary Burr, and Alfonso (I didn't catch his last name). Gary and Harold are from a very different school of song-writing then I am. They also seem more familiar with the process of collaboration. Fernando struck me the most with his eccentric punkesque/avant-garde Cuban music. He was also likely to go into a vintage 50's Cuban/American nightclub vocal style-imitating the Las Vegas greats that, in turn, imitated his forebears. Fernando was not as animated during our session but at the end we abandoned our song to listen to him play.

I find writing with others to be hard. Lyrics often end up being clichéd. The subject matter of this team's particular song was a love affair between a Cuban and an American, and the ocean that separates the two (everyone wrote about the damn ocean...jeez ...even me...). The song was a little too "straight " for me which was partly my fault since I had to be late for the session. In the midst of the session, some sexist remarks were made ("I like to try the word bitch after every line to see if its a good line," said Gary) and our group would of been better off without them. But my introduction to Fernando Becquer made this session a worthwhile experience.

Luis and Amy.

Before our rehearsal session, documentary film-maker Haskell Wexler and musicologist/documentor Greg Landau took me and Emily to a house of Santeria in Old Havana. They were hoping to show some of the culture outside of the walls of the Hotel Nacional. I can't say enough good things about these two radical documentarians. Greg was influenced by his father-Saul Landau, another film maker-and has spent most of his life helping to illuminate the obscure folk traditions and music from places of political upheaval and disenfranchisement. He speaks fluent Spanish and has spent a lot of time in Cuba. He also spoke a little about his experiences in Nicaragua working with a Sandinista band. His work is very important, he rescues songs and rhythms from obscurity, much the way that Alan Lomax did, but he also fights the good fight. Haskell is an older gentleman who came up through the activism of labor politics, opposing McCarthyism, civil rights, etc. He is reminiscent of Pete Seeger-handsome and distinguished, with a lot of charisma and style.

Haskell Wexler
and Greg Landau.

The house we went to is in the old slave quarters of Havana. Greg's wife had lived with the families we visited, so they were actually all friends with Greg. The homes are like a maze of connected tunnels and rooms-like a little secret neighborhood. You feel as if you are underground and in another world. There is a open air common area where people are doing everything from hair styling to laundry. I am assuming that most of the people in the maze of rooms are participants in the Santeria tradition. The "mother" of the house, Felicia, invited us in to visit. Felicia said that her mother had been a slave and had died with a brand on her leg. The tradition of Santeria came directly from Africa. The religion focuses on the worship of Yoruba deities these deities represent forces of nature. The Catholic saints became attached to specific deities of Santeria over time-a by-product of having to disguise their religion. Santeria people will tell you that Catholicism really has nothing to do with this faith-the saints/deities are not persons but rather forces. It seems over time as the religion has become "legal" to practice they have hung onto and become comfortable with some of the hybridization of Catholicism and Santeria. Felicia told a story: during the time of slavery, when the practice of Santeria was illegal, the people would gather five stones and each stone would be possessed by a deity. They would place the stones around a specific type of tree and dance. The master believed the dance was for him, but it was really for the deities. This is one way they would disguise their rituals-the self centered masters would never guess that the music, rhythms, and dancing were all tied in with their slave's faith .

This house is special for many reasons, one of them being the dance and percussion that is taught here. Two masters of drumming-Pancho Quinto and Octavio-live in this community. While they are not well known in the mainstream world, drummers come from miles around to learn the traditions from them. Felicia has five sons and a daughter. All her sons play the drum, I gathered her daughter was musical as well because you can't really practice this tradition with out the music. We were shown a special African (Yoruba) drum called a Bata . Only men are allowed to play it because of the spirit that is inside it. I asked Felicia if women also had some special privileges or responsibilities, but she wouldn't answer and kept evading my question. However her daughter, Santica, the resident feminist did wish to talk about it. She said that women were really the ones in charge...hmmm...I've heard that one before...buts its really the same old story-the delicate balance between oppression and cultural tradition.

In the old slave
quarters/house
of Santeria.