Cuban
Entrevista con Silvio Rodriguez
Jun 6, 2010 The Cuban singer/songwriter Silvio Rodriguez was recently granted a visa to enter the United States for the first time in thirty years. He performed to a sold out crowd at Carnegie Hall and is going on to tour several other cities in the U.S., including my current hometown, L.A. I emailed Silvio in Havana for an interview for Billboard magazine. In his answers to my questions he talks about his mature perspective on the power of song to change the world, his love for MAD magazine in the 1960s, and his aversion to being called "the voice of the Cuban revolution", among other things. Here is the original, quite lengthy, interview in Spanish that appeared on BillboardenEspañol.com. Follow the link to the shorter english version that appeared in Bilboard magazine.
Jun 6, 2010 The Cuban singer/songwriter Silvio Rodriguez was recently granted a visa to enter the United States for the first time in thirty years. He performed to a sold out crowd at Carnegie Hall and is going on to tour several other cities in the U.S., including my current hometown, L.A. I emailed Silvio in Havana for an interview for Billboard magazine. In his answers to my questions he talks about his mature perspective on the power of song to change the world, his love for MAD magazine in the 1960s, and his aversion to being called "the voice of the Cuban revolution", among other things. Here is the original, quite lengthy, interview in Spanish that appeared on BillboardenEspañol.com. Follow the link to the shorter english version that appeared in Bilboard magazine.
May 30, 2009 Will 2009 bring another Cuban invasion?
Remembering Cachao
Mar 26, 2008 For Cachao, innovation was the anecdote to old age. He never stopped performing and recording, or telling stories, particularly about the musical history that he had a considerable hand in creating. Hearing of Cachao's death, I remembered a meal we shared in his favorite restaurant in Miami's Little Havana. Story originally published in The Miami Herald's Street Weekly.
Mar 26, 2008 For Cachao, innovation was the anecdote to old age. He never stopped performing and recording, or telling stories, particularly about the musical history that he had a considerable hand in creating. Hearing of Cachao's death, I remembered a meal we shared in his favorite restaurant in Miami's Little Havana. Story originally published in The Miami Herald's Street Weekly.
Revival house
Nov 24, 2007 The smell of chicken soup wafts through Club Tropigala as waiters in stiff black jackets prepare for the dinner hour, setting the long, white-clothed tables with china and crystal and straightening the worn velvet chairs. The candles on each table flicker under the current of the air conditioning, set to freezing as if to show off a luxurious new invention. The surroundings are faded, but preserved, the evening's preparations pretty much the way they were in the '60s, when the Fontainebleau hotel was ultra-modern and the Tropigala was the glamorous La Ronde night club, where the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. performed.
Nov 24, 2007 The smell of chicken soup wafts through Club Tropigala as waiters in stiff black jackets prepare for the dinner hour, setting the long, white-clothed tables with china and crystal and straightening the worn velvet chairs. The candles on each table flicker under the current of the air conditioning, set to freezing as if to show off a luxurious new invention. The surroundings are faded, but preserved, the evening's preparations pretty much the way they were in the '60s, when the Fontainebleau hotel was ultra-modern and the Tropigala was the glamorous La Ronde night club, where the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. performed.
!Viva Los Zafiros!
Nov 23, 2007 Miami businessman Hugo Cancio's musical saga of Cuba's greatest vocal group has taken the island by storm and is now headed here
Nov 23, 2007 Miami businessman Hugo Cancio's musical saga of Cuba's greatest vocal group has taken the island by storm and is now headed here
The Quiet Cuban
Nov 23, 2007 When he appeared in Miami last year, jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba ignited a firestorm of controversy. Though he now lives in South Florida, he just wants to play music, not politics.
Nov 23, 2007 When he appeared in Miami last year, jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba ignited a firestorm of controversy. Though he now lives in South Florida, he just wants to play music, not politics.
Exile Blues
Nov 23, 2007 As a lead singer for Los Van Van, Israel Kantor was a star in his native country. But Miami isn't Cuba.
Nov 23, 2007 As a lead singer for Los Van Van, Israel Kantor was a star in his native country. But Miami isn't Cuba.
Nov 23, 2007 Bring together musicians from both sides of the Florida Straits, let them mix it up, and watch what happens
Nov 23, 2007 Promoter Debbie Ohanian stared down the City of Miami and won a victory in the area's latest absurdo
The Politics of Music
Nov 23, 2007 Forget the protests, the visa hassles, even the bomb threat that marred MIDEM. In the end, Cuba's finest musicians rocked the house.
Nov 23, 2007 Forget the protests, the visa hassles, even the bomb threat that marred MIDEM. In the end, Cuba's finest musicians rocked the house.
Isla de la Musica
Nov 23, 2007 The biggest surprise at Havana's Cubadisco '98: A burgeoning retinue of Americans hoping to cash in
Nov 23, 2007 The biggest surprise at Havana's Cubadisco '98: A burgeoning retinue of Americans hoping to cash in