To Rhythm of Protest, Cuban Beat Goes On

Two of Cuba’s most renowned bands performed at a Latin music trade show here Wednesday in an historic and controversial concert that took two days to complete after delays caused by a bomb threat and bureaucratic wrangling over visas.

Unlike on Tuesday, delegates to the MIDEM Latin American & Caribbean Music Market show were not forced to run a gantlet of angry demonstrators, most of them Cuban American exiles, on their way into the concert hall.

On Wednesday evening, all the emotion was generated on stage, where pianist Chucho Valdes and his group, Irakere and La Charanga Rubalcaba, offered up electrifying sets of Cuban-fusion and rhythmic dance band music.

Ironically, the house was less than full and there were few Miami Cubans in the audience. The concert was closed to all but the 4,000 delegates from 70 nations registered at the convention.

And in the most poignant moment of the night, La Charanga Rubalcaba leader Guillermo Gonzales Camejo--known as Rubalcaba--told the audience, in Spanish, “Thank God that Cubans understand music is in the heart. And we are all brothers, whether we are here or over there [in Cuba].”

Two years ago, protesters spat on and cursed at people filing in to attend a concert by Rubalcaba’s son, pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba.

With that history and Tuesday’s protest, it remains clear that politics and music do mix in Miami, despite wishful proclamations to the contrary.

“Have you rested?” the legendary 90-year-old Cuban guitarist and singer Compay Segundo asked audience members who returned to the concert hall after police interrupted his performance and brought in dogs to search for explosives. None were found.

Controversy over Cuban artists serves to reinforce South Florida’s reputation for intolerance. But at least one veteran Miami promoter said the latest flap could have been prevented.

“Whenever you mix politics with art, art loses,” said Cuban-born film impresario and author Natalio Chediak. “But you have to realize that you’re dealing with an exile community that is highly frustrated after 40 years. You cannot run roughshod over them.”

Convention organizers said the sentiments of the hard-line exile community were considered. Last year, a county ordinance banning vendors who do business with Cuba was invoked to exclude from the trade show any live taste of the Cuban music that has soared in international popularity in recent years. Segundo, for example, is featured on last year’s Grammy-winning “Buena Vista Social Club,” a recording of traditional Cuban music that has sold 100,000 copies in the United States.

In exchange for assurances that the Cuban acts would be welcome this year, the Paris-based Reed MIDEM Organisation agreed to present a “Cuban Legends Jam Session” and stage it for convention delegates only. But that did not silence those who oppose any commercial ventures that earn dollars for the Castro government.

“We will never stop protesting against Castro and what he has done to the people of Cuba,” insisted Jose Manuel Damas, 59, who came to Miami in 1961. Behind barricades and a line of watchful police Tuesday night, Damas and some 300 other exiles shouted “Asesino” (Murderer) and held up anti-Castro signs.

Other performers include salseros Ruben Blades and Willie Colon, Brazilian pop stars So Pra Contrariar, the Haitian band Boukman Eksperyans, Tejano favorite La Mafia, reggae veterans Third World and Miami’s own badboy rappers, 2 Live Crew.