Kirsty MacColl's Cuba

Part Four

Broadcast on BBC Radio 2, 21st February 2001

Cars, bars and cigars made Havana famous around the world, and Kirsty sets out to discover the secrets of the finest Cuban cigars and the smoothest Havana rum. Stopping at the city's car museum, Kirsty hears how those classic American cars from the Fifties are now considered a national resource, as Cubans kept them rolling through the shortages and the US embargo. Kirsty learns to make the perfect daiquiri at the Floridita bar, made famous by Hemingway, and visits the Partagas cigar factory. There's music from Celina Gonzalez, Sierra Maestra and Cuba's finest doo-wop group Los Zafiros.

Celina Gonzalez: Santa Barbara

Celina Gonzalez is one of the great vocalists of Afro-Cuban music - she has been a major star since the 1940s when she shared a duo with her late husband, Reutillio Dominguez. In the decade before the Cuban Revolution, Gonzalez and Dominguez developed a large following for their vocals harmonies and lightly-arranged, guitar and percussion, approach to musica campesina, a rural style of salsa.

Fiesta Guajira / World Circuit WCD 034. Composed by Celina Gonzalez.

Chappottin y sus Estrellas: Nereyda

Felix Chappottín is credited with "setting the sound of Cuban brass for a generation". One of the all time great trumpet players, Chappottín is regarded as a national treasure. In 1950, African Cuban tres-guitarist, composer and bandleader, Arsenio Rodriguez had moved to New York to recover his vision, and decided that his All Stars band, which he left in Cuba 2 years earlier, should be transferred into the professional care of his first trumpetist, Chappottín. From that moment, the All Stars band was transformed into Conjunto Chappottín y sus Estrellas, with Luis Martinez Grinan as the arranger and Miguelito Cuni the lead singer. Under the leadership of Felix Chappottín, only to be compared with Louis Armstrong, the band rose to international fame, moving and amusing dancers in different parts of the world. The key to this renown success for Chappottín and his Stars has been their fidelity and pride in exhibiting the African cultural element within son as Cuban artistic and musical expression. This consistent preservation has for years entertained lovers and dancers of Caribbean music throughout the world. Nowadays the band is in the hands of Felix's son and grandson, since Felix passed away in 1983.

Que Se Funan / International Music/Musica Del

Los Zafiros: Mirame Fijo

Formed in 1962, Los Zafiros were a vocal quartet augmented by the guitarist and arranger Manuel Galban. Originally inspired by American vocal groups such as the Platters and the Coasters, they soon added their own Cuban flavour to create a unique and heady mix of doo-wop, ballads and boleros, soul and samba, tumbaos and twists. They were unique among vocal groups in that they had three lead singers amongst Ignacio Elejalde and his sweet, high tenor, Eduardo Elio Hernández, Miguel Cancio and Leoncio 'Kike' Morua. But in many ways it was Galban who was the architect of the Los Zafiros sound, as instrumentalist, composer and, with Kike, arranger of the vocal parts. "I don't know why they chose me," he says. "To play the guitar with a vocal quartet was a novelty and therefore rather difficult. But pianos were starting to disappear from a lot of venues so a guitar was a good alternative. They also needed a musical director. They were a success from the moment they appeared and my job was to support them and perfect and develope the sound."

Los Zafiros / World Circuit WCD 056. Composed by Nestor Mili.

Compay Segundo: Te Apartas De Mi

Born in 1907 in the province of Santiago, Compay Segundo learned to play the tres and the clarinet in the early 1920s, and participated in the development of the son tradition. He went on to work with many notable musicians, including Sindo Garay, Nico Saquito, Miguel Matamaros, and Benny Moré. Segundo is linked to many important groups, including El Conjunto Matamaros and Los Compadres - a duo with Lorenzo Hierrezuelo. It was during this period that Segundo acquired his nickname -- Compay was slang for compadre and Segundo referred to his trademark bass harmony second voice. Segundo has composed hundreds of songs that form part of the large son repertoire. He is also the inventor of an instrument called the armónico, a hybrid between the Spanish guitar and the Cuban tres. In 1956 he formed his own group called Compay Segundo y sus Muchachos, which started out as a trio and then became a quartet. Although the group has had numerous personnel changes, Segundo has kept it going to this day. This band is considered one of the greatest Cuban bands active in the classic son tradition.

The Stars Of The Buena Vista / Tumi TUM1099. Composed by Francisco Repilado Muñoz.

Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Pinheiro: Sol De Verdad

At the end of the 19th Century in the sugar cane and coffee plantations of the Cuban 'Oriente' region, two different music styles began to combine: the rhythms of African slaves and the songs of Spanish heritage. The result was a new music: the Son Oriental whose popularity, in the beginning, was limited to the rural areas of its origin. Later, Habaneros fell in love with the new rhythm and immediately put their peculiar stamp on it, speeding up the tempo, and playing it with six musicians. A young musician named Ignacio Pineiro still was not satisfied by the existing sound of the Son groups. In 1927 he created his own group using for the first time in the history of Son a trumpet as lead instrument. Son quickly became the most celebrated music in Cuba. Young gifted talents continue the tradition founded by Ignacio Pineiro and his Septeto Nacional.

Clasicos Del Son / EGREM EGREM007 1

Sierra Maestra: Changó Tu'Vení

Sierra Maestra have been stars of Cuban music ever since the late '70s. They were the first group, and remain the best, of the modern era to play in the old-style son line-up: tres, guitar, trumpet, bongo, güiro and vocals - as during the great days of the 1920s and '30s. They have been the pioneers in reviving this style for new generations and reintroducing it into the Cuban mainstream. They named themselves after the mountain range in the eastern part of Cuba as a tribute to the birthplace of son.

The group have played a significant part in the recent global explosion in popularity of Cuban music. Ex-leader Juan De Marcos González created the Afro-Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club while still with the band, and Jesus Alemañy, previously trumpet with Sierra Maestra for 15 years, left to create his group Cubanismo. Yet the new tres, percussion and trumpet players have joined the six original members to make the current group line-up perhaps the strongest ever Sierra Maestra.

¡Dundunbanza! / World Circuit WCD 041. Composed by Justi Barreto.

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