Famed Cubans Charm New York

Cuban bongo player Roberto Garcia wiggled his stocking feet on the gleaming white floor of the Warwick Hotel’s lobby in midtown Manhattan, casually stretching his feet before Wednesday’s hotly anticipated debut U.S. concert by the Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club.

“Oh yes, Carnegie Hall. . . . It’s the mecca of the world,” he said happily.

His companions in Buena Vista--the group of mostly elderly Cuban musicians whose World Circuit/Nonesuch album, “Buena Vista Social Club,” has sold nearly 1 million copies worldwide since its release last year--wandered through the lobby, greeting expatriate friends and record company executives while their managers and minders hovered.

The group’s sold-out performance at Carnegie, just hours away, could safely be certified the hottest ticket in town--and the musicians clearly were enjoying the attention.

It has been a long time coming for some of the musicians, who were brought together in this project by Los Angeles guitarist-record producer Ry Cooder.

Singer Ibrahim Ferrer, who once sang with the legendary Benny More Band, was shining shoes in Havana until he appeared on the Buena Vista album, and soon he will have his own record on Nonesuch. Singer-composer Compay Segundo has become a star at 90.

Pianist Ruben Gonzalez is amazed at his late-blooming career. His frail, tiny frame almost lost in a wide leather chair in the hotel lobby, he said, “I am 80, imagine.”

A seminal pianist in Cuba in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Gonzalez had been retired, with arthritis and without a piano, for 10 years when he was brought into the Buena Vista recording session, which also resulted in Gonzalez’s first solo album, “Introducing Ruben Gonzalez.”

He was not nervous about the evening’s upcoming performance.

“I am never nervous when I play,” he said, blue eyes shining. “When I play, the only thing I feel is the music. People say my music is sentimental; it has feeling. I don’t think about notes. I play what I feel, and the music just comes.”

Gonzalez was, however, very happy to be playing in the United States.

“Money doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “What matters to me is friendship, that all these people can hear my music. Music has nothing to do with politics.”

It’s a long way from Havana barrios to being a hit in the cultural capital of Cuba’s still wary giant neighbor, and politics contributed to a sense of both the history and hype of the evening.

At Carnegie Hall’s backstage entrance, crews from ABC-TV’s “Nightline” and CNN gathered, along with a film crew that is working with director Wim Wenders on a documentary film on Buena Vista.

“Some people are here because of a kind of romanticism about Cuba, and there’s some voyeurism to that,” said Katrina Karkazis, a doctoral student. “But there’s also some very positive appreciation, as opposed to the negative things [that people in this country] might get from the press.”

Inside the hall, Cuban-born Broadway producer Richard Jay Alexander, whose companion from Miami wore a T-shirt with “Cuba” in silver studs on her chest, said someone out front had offered $2,000 for his ticket. He didn’t sell.

“This is history,” Alexander said. “The theatrics will be wild.”

The word “historic” was being used a lot.

“There will never be a moment like this again, with this energy, this sense of history,” said Bill Martinez, a San Francisco attorney who handles the visas for most of the Cuban musicians coming to the United States.

The last two years have seen an increasing stream of bands coming to the U.S., with Cuban music going from cult to almost-trendy status. But the traditional music on “Buena Vista” has enjoyed a success that the harder-edged contemporary bands in Cuba have not. It has become a phenomenon.

The audience at Carnegie Hall included such art world luminaries as composer Philip Glass, performance artist Laurie Anderson and rocker Lou Reed.

When the musicians finally walked on stage, the crowd stood and cheered, then erupted at the opening strains of “Chan Chan,” much as a rock audience does on hearing a band’s biggest hit.

As the music continued, the audience sat, rapt, serious, cheering at each entrance and exit, at every solo.

The musicians adored it; Segundo, grinning wildly, cupped his hand to his ear as the audience began chanting, “Compay, Compay.”

Ferrer, in bright yellow shirt and red jacket, danced exuberantly, howling like a siren in the innuendo-laced “El Cuarto de Tula,” his voice later quavering with emotion on the bolero “Dos Gardenias.”

After one particularly long and fiery piano solo, Gonzalez had to be literally pulled offstage, waving enthusiastically at the crowd. Through it all, Cooder remained in the background, playing guitar but letting the Cubans hold the spotlight.

At first, the band’s casual manner seemed a little out of place in such a formal setting, and the musicians had to work to pull the audience into the music’s warm, intimate spirit. But gradually their enthusiasm and camaraderie overcame the stiffness.

“We’re all family here,” Juan de Marcos Gonzalez told the audience midway through the two hour-plus performance.

The music spiraled into the soaring gold and white hall, electric, alive, an intricate network of gently syncopated rhythms, shimmering horns, rich melodies, percussive singing guitar and those throaty, soulful voices.

Legendary bolero singer Omara Portuondo, in filmy black pantsuit and yellow turban, circled her arms broadly until the audience finally got the hint and joined in the chorus of “Quizas, Quizas.”

“This is [music] for the whole world,” she announced before the ballad “Veinte Anos.”

By the time the band got to the long, lively jam of “Candela,” people were dancing throughout the room.

After a closing rendition of “Chan Chan,” the stomping and cheering was thunderous.

The musicians crowded to the front of the stage, reaching out to grasp the hands of the people surging forward, holding a Cuban flag that a woman in the audience carried up to them.

“That was amazing,” said attorney Martinez, summarizing the feeling in the hall.

Said Juan de Marcos Gonzalez: “Perhaps in a few years, this music won’t be in style anymore. But this is the music of our country.”