The Internet Travel Guide "Getting to Know Cuba"

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Buena Vista Social Club

Ibrahim Ferrer
Ibrahim Ferrer was born at a social club dance on February 20th 1927 in San Luis, a town near Santiago de Cuba. He has never looked back from that musical introduction to the world.

His mother died when he was twelve years old, and he was soon forced to earn his living singing on the streets of Santiago. One year later he formed a musical group with his cousin Pineo to liven up private parties in the area. They were called Joveneas del Son (Young Men of Son). Before long they attracted the attention of some of Santiago's musicians and Ibrahim was called on to sing with a succession of bands, namely Conjunto Wilson, Conjunto Sorpresa and Maravillla Beltran.

Later he sang with Santiago de Cuba's finest orchestra, "Orquestra Chepin-Choven", a very influential jazz style group that was lead by composer Electo Rosell. Rosell was the composer of one of Ibrahim's biggest hits, El platanal de Bartolo.

In 1953 he started to work with Pacho Alonso's group in Santiago. In 1959 the group moved permanently to Havana where they renamed themselves Los Buocos. With the Buocos, Ferrer's work consisted mainly of guarchas, sones and up-tempo numbers although he yearned to singboleros. He enjoyed some popularity with various songs as Mi Quimbin and El Platanal de Bartolo but he would have to wait until 1996 to record a bolero worthy of his considerable talents as a bolero singer, when he recorded Dos Gardenias by Isolina Carillo with the Buena Vista Social Club.

Ibrahim Ferrer

When a bolero singer of the old school was required for the album Buena Vista Social Club, Ibrahim Ferrer was literally plucked off the streets of Havana where he was taking his daily walk. Whereas the other stars from the Buena Vista sessions had some fame both outside of Cuba previously, Ibrahim Ferrer had never been recognized in his own right. He has since emerged as the one truediscovery of the sessions. Always known as a musician's musician with a naturally gentle and unassuming manner, Ibrahim Ferrer has now been given the chance to display his enormous talent in both the rural Santiago and urban Havana traditions.

1999 saw the launch of Ibrahim's debut album, produced by Ry Cooder.

Ry Cooder about Ibrahim Ferrer: "You stumble on somebody like this maybe once in your life. We wanted to try recording with him a solo record. Let him be heard."

Rubén González
Rubén González could have been a classical pianist or he could have been a doctor. Instead he became one of the legendary figures of Cuban music, whose piano sound has created trends and established styles for more than half a century.

Rubén graduated from the Cienfuego Conservatoire in 1934. He then went to medical school, thinking he would be a doctor by day and a musician by night. Yet the rhythms of Cuba and son in particular were in his blood. By 1941 he had abandoned his medical studies and moved to Havana to make a full-time career as a musician.

Within a year he had joined the conjunto of the great Arsenio Rodriguez and also played with Mongo Santamaria in the Orquestra de los Hermanos. "In the 1940s there was a real musical life in Cuba; "There was very little money in it but everyone played because they really wanted to," he recalls. Today, he is the only survivor of a trio of pianists from the period, with Luis 'Lili' Martinez and Peruchin, who helped shape the future sound of Cuban music, developing the mambo and embracing modern jazz harmonies. "Everything you hear now in Cuban music comes from that brilliant period," he says.

Rubén González

At the same time Rubén also developed his own very distinctive style. "Arsenio said to me don't worry about what anyone else is doing. Just play your own thing and don't imitate anyone so when people here your music, they say 'that's Rubén'."

After travelling in Panama and Argentina where he played with tango musicians, Rubén returned to Havana and played with cabaret bands at clubs such as the Tropicana and by the early 1960s he had teamed up with Enrique Jorrin, the creator of the cha-cha-cha. He stayed with Jorrin for 25 years and when the bandleader died in the mid 1980s, Rubén briefly took over. He did not enjoy the extra responsibility and retired soon afterwards until tempted back into the limelight by Ry Cooder.

Omara Portuondo
The only woman on the Buena Vista Social Club album, Omara is known as one of the glories of Cuban music and perhaps the best bolero singer on the island.

Omara Portuondo

She started singing with the Cuarto de Orlando de la Rosa and then joined the all-women band Anacona. In 1952 she joined the Aida Diestro Quartet with whom she stayed for fifteen years. During that time she developed her solo career and now directs her own orchestra. She has toured the world extensively and worked with Nat King Cole and Edith Piaf.




 

Compay Segundo
Born in 1909, Compay Segundo is the ultimate living legend. A vital link with Cuba's musical history and still making music full of passion, wit and energy. He was born Francisco Repilado in Siboney on the mountainous east side of the island and grew up in Santiago. By the 1920s he was already a fine guitar and tres player and would work in the tobacco fields and as a barber by day before heading for the local bars by night to play with the likes of Sindo Garay and Nico Saquito. At the age of 15 he wrote "Yo Vengo Acqui," the first of hundreds of compositions. Compay also studied clarinet and by the time he was 20 he was the clarinetist in the Municipal Band of Santiago, led by his teacher Enrique Bueno.

Compay Segundo

It was not only Compay's abundant talent that made him remarkable. He had invented his own instrument, which he calls an "armonico," although it is also known as a "trilina". The instrument has seven strings, combining the characteristics of the conventional guitar and the Cuban tres by doubling the third (D) string. Compay still uses the instrument today.

Compay first visited Havana in 1929 but moved there in 1934 after playing in the city with Nico Saquito Quinteto Cuban Stars. The group returned to Santiago but Compay stayed on and joined the Municipal Band of Havana. Before long he had joined Justa Garcia's Cuarteto Hatuey and traveled to Mexico with the group in 1938.

Back in Havana the following year he joined the Conjunto Matamaros as a clarinetist and stayed with them for 12 years. At the same time he embarked upon perhaps the most successful venture of his long career. One day in 1942, while cutting Lorenzo Hierrezuelo's hair, the two men decided to form a duo called "Los Campadres". Compay recalls, "That was the best epoch of all. We added the simple things that others didn't mention. People appreciated the poetry, the nature. We made noise."

In 1956 Compay formed "Compay Segundo y sus Muchachos" which is still going to this day. His son Salvador plays double bass in the group and Compay is now signed to East West records.