The Sounds of Politics

Two weeks ago, June was shaping up as a virtual celebration of Cuban music month in Los Angeles. Most of the activity centered around the Conga Room, which had scheduled the exciting young band Bamboleo for an appearance tonight, and the big jazz ensemble Cubanismo!, the a cappella sextet Vocal Sampling and the legendary Afro-Cuban jazz composer and pianist Chucho Valdes over the next 2 1/2 weeks.

Pretty impressive, and made even more so by the presence of expatriate Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the superb band Los Van Van at the Playboy Jazz Festival on Saturday and Sunday.

But last week the entire schedule appeared to be coming apart, a victim of the political differences between the United States and Cuba. Valdes’ debut appearance at New York City’s Village Vanguard, scheduled for June 2, was suddenly postponed, according to the club’s publicist, “due to unforeseen complications arising from the process of securing a work visa.”

By week’s end, it appeared that all the Conga Room performances were in jeopardy.

“I just don’t know what happened,” says Bill Martinez, a San Francisco attorney who has handled the complicated permission process on this tour, as well as on many previous tours by Cuban artists. “We didn’t do anything differently, our paperwork went through all the same processes, and then it seemed as though we were just hitting a stone wall.”

Because the Cuban embargo makes it impossible for performers to earn money in the U.S., the only payments they can receive are for per diem, lodgings and travel expenses. And, Martinez says, since the presence of Cuban artists here can only take place in a cultural or educational context, performances in nightclubs have been viewed with some skepticism by the U.S. State Department.

Even so, Martinez was startled when he was advised by the State Department last Friday that all the Conga Room shows--with the possible exception of Valdes’--might have to be canceled, despite the fact that all of the groups have previously performed in the U.S.

The Conga Room’s Martin Fleischmann was even more distressed, facing the possibility that a month of high-profile bookings could be lost. “I don’t get why politics have to get into the picture,” he says. “These bands are not coming here to be spies.”

As late as Monday, the picture continued to look dark, although Valdes’ visa was finally approved by midday. Reached in Cuba that evening, the musician was befuddled about the entire process.

“I don’t understand why the difficulty this time,” he said. “I was at Lincoln Center in January, and in Los Angeles last year and the year before.”

Like most Cuban artists, Valdes has little patience with the political maneuvering associated with Cuban-U.S. relations. “I don’t think that culture has a place in these discussions,” he said. “To me, musicians and artists are part of a universal family that has nothing to do with politics.”

On Tuesday, the light suddenly broke through as the State Department agreed to allow visas for Bamboleo, Cubanismo! and Vocal Sampling. Some clubs, however--S.O.B. in New York, the Jazz Alley in Seattle are two--have been eliminated from some of the individual acts’ tours, presumably because of the commercial settings.

“It’s difficult to understand,” Martinez notes, “why one club is acceptable and another one isn’t. But it’s clear that any of the clubs that are interested in bringing in Cuban acts are going to have to incorporate nonprofit educational collaborations--seminars, whatever--into the process.” (The Conga Room is arranging workshops at Plaza de la Raza in East L.A.)

It’s also worth noting that the sudden rush of Cuban acts, all appearing in the U.S. within a relatively short period of time, has undoubtedly placed a burden on what is, at best, a complicated bureaucratic procedure. The procurement of visas for each artist requires coordinated paperwork exchanges involving the State Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Cuban government and the American Interests Center in Havana that can stretch out for months before the scheduled engagements.

The presence of so many Cuban artists in the U.S. is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the early ‘90s, according to Martinez, most of the visiting acts were principally folkloric. But the successful appearances by Valdes and his band, Irakere, two years ago, followed by the tremendous reception that greeted Los Van Van last year, opened the floodgates to other, more pop- and jazz-oriented performers. Still, it has been at best an intricate diplomatic operation.

“No matter how you look at it,” Martinez adds, “this has been a very painful process. Sometimes I get the feeling that they just want to constantly push things to the limit. Maybe they feel that we’ll just give up on it at some point.”

State Department officer Jim Theis, however, points out that aside from the unusual number of cases, the process of bringing Cuban acts into the U.S. is intricate, and that “there are a number of steps involved, at any one stage of which things can get delayed.”

Now that the legalities have been settled, the focus can return to the quality of the Cuban music available here this month.

Bamboleo is one of the hottest new young groups on the Cuban scene, riding the cutting edge of funk and jazz-based music, following in the footsteps of NG LaBanda. Cubanismo! is a stirring, brass-heavy, big, jazz-oriented band led by trumpeter Jesus Alemany, exhibiting a style that will also be echoed in Sandoval’s band.

Vocal Sampling offers up an astonishing array of sounds--a Latin-based version of Bobby McFerrin’s Voicestra ensemble. Los Van Van spices traditional Cuban dance rhythms with powerful, out-of-the-blue riffing. And Valdes, who appears on a bill with Puerto Rican saxophonist David Sanchez, is one of the great masters of jazz in the ‘90s.

“It’s a shame that all of this had to get so complicated,” Fleischmann says. “The truth is . . . when I hear a band like Bamboleo or Los Van Van--the feeling of having the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because the music is so exciting--has absolutely nothing to do with politics.”

* Bamboleo, tonight at 10, $25 and $50; Cubanismo!, June 17 and 18 at 8 p.m., $25 and $50; Vocal Sampling (tentative), June 21 at 7 p.m., $27.50 and $50; Chucho Valdes & David Sanchez at 7 p.m., $27.50, $35 and $60; the Conga Room, 5364 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 549-9765. Arturo Sandoval and the Hot House Tour Big Band, Saturday, and Los Van Van, Sunday, at the Playboy Jazz Festival, the Hollywood Bowl. Saturday sold out. Some tickets available for Sunday. Festival hotline: (310) 449-4070.