Echoes from Santiago de Cuba
My journey to a forbidden country placed me in a lineage I didn't yet know was mine to inherit
Back in 2001, my dad went to Havana, Cuba with his friend and photographer Frank Stewart to lay the groundwork for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to perform in the country. This would materialize in the form of a five-day residency in Havana in 2010 resulting in their album “Live in Cuba”.
When my dad returned from the trip he came back bearing all kinds of fruits of the cultural experience he had. He brought back a chest full of percussion instruments such as claves, a guiro and maracas, conga drums, bongos, and a cajón.
He also brought back music. At the time Cuba is in the middle of a musical awakening. Just four years prior Buenas Vista Social Club had released their eponymous album thanks to the efforts of American guitarist Ry Cooder. Suddenly this album had made it around the globe several times over and had made its way into the regular rotation of music in our house.
Also among the stack of CDs he brought back were Introducing... Rubén González and Chanchullo, both by the legendary Cuban pianist Rubén González. A transformative figure in Cuban piano from the 1940s through the 1970s, González had recently re-emerged from a two-decade retirement. These two albums, released in 1997 and 2000 respectively, marked his return and contributed to a remarkable late-career resurgence. He also played piano on the iconic Buena Vista Social Club album.
I distinctly remember the songs on these albums that rang through our stereo. One song that made a particular impression was the song El Cumbanchero. I became familiar with this song because of this album, and because of Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, which were regular performers at Jazz at Lincoln Center at the time. I was intrigued by the song and wanted to learn to play it, but lacked the coordination and technical skill to execute it properly. I had to settle for playing a duet with one of the members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra who would generously lay down bass lines for me to play over. Oh how I longed to play this song and songs like this myself.
Two years later, I got my wish. My dad would return to Cuba with Frank, this time visiting Santiago de Cuba. I would tag along with them on a cultural exchange visa. While Frank was there for photography purposes, I was there to study. For a week I would study with a pianist who would teach me the basics of Cuban piano.
This pianist was Severiano Alfonso Lolo Troisi, a pianist in the bloc of soloists of the Centro Provincial de la Música de Santiago de Cuba and adjunct professor at Facultad de Humanidades en la Universidad de Oriente. Little did my ten-year-old self know, that I was about to intersect with an important part of the music and piano traditions of Santiago.
Alfonso Lolo was the student of pianist Dulce Maria Serret, director and a piano professor of Conservatorio Provincial de Música de Oriente of which she was the founder. Serret, a native of Santiago studied at the Madrid Royal Conservatory in Spain, where she was awarded the prize of honor during her studies. Following her graduation she performed before the royal family of Spain at the Grand Theater of Madrid and performed in venues across Spain and Portugal. She continued her studies at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, France, at a time where Paris sat at the center of the arts in Europe. This was the Paris we Americans know depicted in the writings of authors such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Paris of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.
In an interesting coincidence, the Schola Cantorum was the site of a composition summer program I participated in with the American European Music Alliance back in 2012, where I studied with French composer Narcís Bonet, some 90-odd years after Dulce Maria Serret.
Serret would return to Santiago where she would found the Conservatorio Provincial de Música de Oriente, the first conservatory ever established in the city. This school would train generations of pianists and teachers, such as Alfonso Lolo.
In my time studying with Lolo, at the age of ten I had no idea of the history I was interacting with. Lolo who authored a book on the pedagogy of Dulce Maria Serret, no doubt was transmitting what he could of this tradition of piano in Santiago that Serret strived to develop over her lifetime. My lessons with him lasted a week, but its impact can still be felt today. I was taught the basic rhythms and ostinatos that make up “Son Cubano” with my studies culminating in my learning of a song entitled “Pequeno Son Para La Mano Izquierda”, a piece for the “weaker” left hand, the hand that is much neglected by young pianists. But this hand is fundamental in piano playing, especially Cuban piano, as it provides the stability harmonically and rhythmically of the bass. This was the part I had previously struggled with years prior, trying to imitate the playing of Ruben Gonzalez. This was also a commonality I found with early jazz piano, such as ragtime and stride. These styles were defined by the left hand and the focus Lolo put on this hand no doubt helped me develop as a pianist.
My education with Alfonso Lolo didn’t end with the lessons. Each night, as he performed in the hotel’s lobby bar, I sat beside him, watching and listening. But it was in the quiet of his home, during the day, where he taught m. He patiently guided my hands through the rhythms of Cuban piano. It was there that I finally learned to play “El Cumbanchero” on my own, with both hands. The song that had once felt impossibly out of reach was now mine. And when I saw Lolo perform his own solo rendition, something settled in me. I realized I hadn’t just learned to play a piece, I had stepped into a living tradition. The journey that began with my father’s CD had brought me to the heart of Santiago’s musical lineage. Everything had come full circle.