[Curiosities] Latin Images

[Noticias ALEJANDRO]

This January 28, 2024, 171 years of José Martí, Apostle not only of Cuba but of our Abya Yala, marks the 171st anniversary of his Havana birth. His mark is highlighted in his libertarian, poetic, narrative work, in his fiery speeches and ultimately in the honor of his life and his departure, fighting and defending his country. But it is also recorded in music, the identity card of the people that does not need a passport. When the Argentine Bernardo Palombo from New York gave shape to “Imágenes Latinas” in the lyrics, so that Andy González would play the music, he knew very well what he was doing. The “Free Set” took care of the rest.

 

 

His idea of forming the Latin American Workshop already had an outline; At his side was the Puerto Rican Antonio Cabán Vale, 'El topo' and on his back ten years of walking in New York City, which he arrived from his hometown, Mendoza, Argentina. In New York he stayed as an educator, teaching Spanish with songs and preparing the ground so that Latin American artists would have a good meeting point and excellent support for their presentations. The author of “Canción por el fusil y la flor” also poured into “Imágenes Latinas” all the burden assimilated by that transit in the north. And when “Con Conjunto Libre” recorded it, that song became an anthem that has always gone far beyond salsa, and of course, any physical border. It is not in vain that José Martí's sentence is included in this topic: I know the monster, because I lived in its bowels. Nor was it a coincidence that “Latin Images” honorably became a banned topic in the United States of America. As for the “Song for the Rifle and the Flower,” it is a good example of the eternal militancy of this man from Mendoza who is about to arrive, in May at the age of 80, fighting for South America from the North: “When The song is useless because there is no bread on the table. I don't know whether to give you my heart, my voice, the flower or some rifle.”… And if they kill me for saying that today the table is missing bread, it will be the cannon and not the rose bush. whoever repeats the song / If the new time is to come, I want it here today because I am tired of waiting, loving a world without love / Listen to me: I want to be a flower, but if not, I will be a rifle.

 

 

Martí in music “Men cannot be more perfect than the sun. The sun burns with the same light with which it warms. The sun has spots. The ungrateful speak only of the spots. The grateful speak of the light.” (José Martí) Alí Primera, the Venezuelan Singer of the Good Homeland, in his song “When I name poetry” raises it: I name the Simple Verse of Martí, and Alí Primera does it with devotion. As the Venezuelan poet Andrés Eloy Blanco also wrote with devotion in the legendary “Palabreo de la muerte de José Martí”, a gloss based on that enigmatic verse from Martí: “I think when I am happy like the simple schoolboy in the yellow canary that has his eye. so black.” Chronologically, it is known that in the 1920s the immortal troubadour Gumersindo 'Sindo' Garay, born in Santiago de Cuba, set music to some of Martí's Simple Verses. Apparently he was the first to set Martí's work to music. In fact, it is known that Garay met the Cuban poet and revolutionary, and served him.

 

 

In the legendary song “Guantanamera” the verses of José Martí are used. “I want when I die/without a country, but without a master/to have a bouquet of flowers/and a flag on my grave.” Arsenio Rodríguez, one of the architects of the Habanero son and the mambo, writes in the Babel de Acero, in New York, a composition called "Adórenla como Martí." The tresero says in its lyrics: We just need to ask God / for a little peace and a little love / and remember the patriots / who died in the fields / to give us their blood / democracy and freedom. The mother Trova and the Nueva Trova of Cuba have José Martí as a luminous and exemplary beacon. “Bolívar launched a Star / that shone together with Martí…” Other topics In honor of José Martí and the musical ideas of Bernardo Palombo and the widespread protest in the blood and music of Latin America, we turn to other relevant topics for the hours who live on the American continent and the world. Music in the Caribbean has resources for all tastes, which, of course, are known, handled and interpreted by those who have knowledge of the symbols, of the codes. And these codes are from life itself. The street is the place of teaching, of reflection, of alertness. And when the alert becomes aware on the corner, the code plays the music. “That's why I / live happy / when I sing my beautiful guaguancó.” Of course: he who sings guaguancó knows what he is singing...

 

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