Music Review: A Cuban troubadour thrills the world stage
One of the more heart-warming musical sensations of the late 1990s was the emergence of Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club package. String wizard Ry Cooder brought the group of obscure musicians and singers to the attention of the free world through concert tours and recordings; a Wim Wenders documentary solidified the phenomenon. In so doing, it pulled the curtain aside on some of the fast-fading musical traditions of the island. None of them were stars in their day but through the Buena Vista appearances, they finally tasted applause from cheering throngs.
Last August, Angelenos heard the group’s Hollywood Bowl stop on the farewell tour. Gone were pianist Ruben Gonzalez, singer Ibrahim Ferrer, and guitarist Compay Segundo; singer Omara Portuondo was somewhat ghostly. Aside from the noticeably younger band, the most vital featured performer was the sturdy guitarist and singer Eliades Ochoa.
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Unlike the others, he was not a veteran of the lavish revues and stage spectaculars of Havana’s pre-Castro nightlife. The 69-year-old Ochoa is a troubadour of the mountainous region on the east side of the island. He didn’t charm the audience like the elegant Ferrer, the flamboyant Portuondo, the sly Segundo or the stately Gonzalez. Ochoa, in his customary black cowboy hat, just sang his folksy, plaintive laments, accompanied by his robust, pointillist fingerpicking. His instrumental phrases were short but packed with verve and heart. In contrast to Buena Vista’s veneer of faded Copacabana glitz, Ochoa was bracing for his lack of pretense and straight-forward emotional communication.
Ochoa headlines Friday at Glendale’s Alex Theatre. His 60-year-old string colleague Babarito Torres, who plays the lute-like laud, will join him. Torres, a native of Matanzas, Cuba, was one of the leading lights of the Afro-Cuban All Stars, as well as part of the band that backed the farewell tour of Buena Vista. They deliver the traditional son, the guaracha and the bolero songs. Speaking from his home in Santiago — with translations from publicist Mariluz Gonzalez — Ochoa first distinguishes the musical forms and then offers: “They’re all dance rhythms, you know.”
The success of Buena Vista has paid off for Ochoa in a way that it never quite did for Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez or Portuondo. He has enjoyed a recording run with high-profile non-Cubans, like multi-instrumentalist David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, former Mavericks singer Raul Malo, Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté, and blues harmonica ace Charlie Musselwhite. “Eliades says that he enjoyed working with Musselwhite very much,” Mariluz points out, after listening to an Ochoa statement.
That eclecticism is emblematic of Ochoa. In 1978 he was asked to join Cuba’s Cuarteto Patria, a band whose origins stretch back to the 1939. Ochoa accepted the offer, but only on the condition that he lead the outfit and bring other musical elements into the band — like the Argentine tango. Call him a rustic if you will but recognize that Ochoa is a rustic with a taste for musical adventure. His songs may be traditional but they’re interpreted with a contemporary flair.
As with his recordings, Ochoa has toured extensively, independent of Buena Vista. His visits to SoCal have included the Con Ritmo Y Sabor Latin Jazz Festival at the downtown California Plaza Watercourt in 1999.
A couple of recent events are worth asking Ochoa about. The great Cuban trumpeter Alfredo ‘Chocolate’ Armenteros just died at age 85. “No,” Gonzalez repeats, “Eliades never worked with him.” Still, the admiration for “El Chocolate” in Ochoa’s voice needs no translation. And now that the United States and Cuba are normalizing relations, what are his hopes for Cuban performers on the world stage? “He says that he thinks it will be a great opportunity,” Gonzalez reports, “for musicians and singers like himself to bring the music to more people who wouldn’t get to hear it normally. And he looks forward to playing for them.”
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What: Eliades Ochoa with Babarito Torres
Where: Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale
When: Friday, Jan. 29, 9 p.m.
Contact: (818) 243-2539, alextheatre.org
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KIRK SILSBEE writes about jazz and culture for Marquee.