Juan de Marcos:
A clear, unique, and different voice

I arrived for the interview with musician, composer, arranger, and producer Juan de Marcos almost an hour late. This particular neigborhood outsideof Havana did not have many street signs and it had been a little difficult finding the house. No problem, he said, as I was welcomed inside. I appologized profusely for my tardiness and sat down with this talented man for an unforgettable conversation.

Q:Tell me a little about yourself.
Juan de Marcos: I come from a family of musicians. My father was a musician, and I studied music as a child. I did not complete my musical training because I was a little disorganized. My dad never wanted me to become a professional musician, because he thought that being a musician wasn't really a career. They wanted me to become a professional. So they took advantage of the fact that I was expelled from the conservatory because of disciplinary problems and I finished my general education and obtained my college degree. But I always enjoyedmusic. I also took private classical guitar lessons with Garciano Gómez, a Cuban guitarist, and with Vicente González Rubiera, who is also known as Goyún, one of the greatest popular guitar players of Cuba. I took popular guitar and harmony lessons with him. After that, all of my education has been self-imposed. I've studied a lot of symphony music from the XVIII and XIX centuries to learn how to use to the techniques of symphony music within the popular Cuban music. I have studied a lot of Cuban music - - a lot. I was one of the first to start playing the tres here in Cuba, which was almost a lost instrument - - young people never used it. It wasn't until the late 70's, when I was in the university, that we created a band called Sierra Maestra, a son band. This was a band that broke the barriers and started playing Cuban classical music within the new generation. I worked with them up until two years ago, but because of work conflicts I wasn't able to continue with them.

I've studied all types of Cuban music, not only from the technical perspective as a musician, but also from the structural and morphological point of view, as a musicologist. I've worked in radio creating special programs on Cuban music. I consider myself to be very knowledgeable on the matter.

Professionally, I've been working with Sierra Maestra since '82. Then I worked on this project in '96 that is known in the United States and around the world with a British company called World Circuit, which is the company I'm working with, and they gave me the opportunity to bring forward this project that involved mixing different generations to play Cuban music [Afro Cuban All Stars]. A tribute to Cuban music, which was an idea I had for many years and I was able to make it come true with the collaboration of World Circuit and my family - - my wife, who has helped me all my life. She is the one who takes care of all of the administrative issues and is my general manager.

Aside from being a professional musician, I'm a hydraulic engineer, specifically hydraulics as it applies to agriculture. I worked as a university professor for ten years. When I decided to dedicate myself to the music profession full time was in 1990, since there was an economical juncture that allowed it to happen. I was earning a good living at the university &endash; I was doing well &endash; I was completing a doctorate in science, I was close to finishing my PhD. I have written close to five science books, over 25 science articles published in magazines worldwide, all about my career. I worked as a professor of conduit hydraulics at the university. But in '90, the day after the wall came down in Berlin, I knew what was going to happen, as far as the economy is concerned. And I decided that the best thing to do would be to devote myself to music. Besides, it was something that I also wanted to do. I would have continued working as a university professor, and I would have had music as an additional activity, like Egrem does, for example, but then I decided to devote myself completely to music. It was necessary back then.

I learned English when I was young since I started as a musician playing in rock bands, when I was 14 or 15, with a lot of musicians who now live in the United States. I'm from the era of Ricardo Bey Martínez, Arturo Sandoval, Jorge Conde and all of those musicians. Most of them now live in Miami and each one is on their own, playing different kinds of music. But I started playing guitar here with rock bands and I learned English in order to be able to sing songs by King Crimson, Rolling Stones, Deep Purple…

But then, in the late '70's, I discovered Cuban music. I was always surrounded by musicians, and in my house there were always rumbas going on, and down the corner from my house there was one of the most important places in the city for Cuban music, a place called El Solar, El Africa, where Chano Pozo was discovered, where great musicians like Eliseo Silveira were born. All of my friends were from there and I used to go to the rumbas that were taking place at El Africa, I used to go to the plantes of a region called Abacúa with my dad when I was a kid, and I always took part in a lot of parties where Cuban music was played. But when you're young you like to play foreign music, and I used to like rock n' roll a lot. There was a signal coming from a station in Florida, from Orlando I believe, and we used to hear it here, and then it disappeared when FM appeared in the late 70's and early 80's. And we used to listen to WQAM music and we literally copied the compositions and then we would rehearse them and play them.

I discovered Cuban music in the late 70's. I had to learn how to play the tres. I had studied the guitar. I took lessons with a couple of musicians, one of which was a very famous tres player named Isaac Oviedo, one of the fathers of the Cuban tres. I also studied with an older man from Matanzas named Hilario Ariza. They gave me three or four lessons, the rest I studied on my own. They taught me the way to tune the instrument and the basic positions on the tres, and I continued studying on my own. I studied the instrument to play it in the band. We created the Sierra Maestra band and it was a great success here in Cuba. I believe that Sierra Maestra was the beginning of renewed interest towards national music in Cuba in the early 80's. It was very big, old folks liked it because it was music from their generation, and young people liked it because it had a national flavor. Even though they were young and they liked American music, they felt represented in this type of music.

The work Sierra Maestra produced was very positive in general. I worked with them, like I said, up until two years ago. Then it became impossible because I'm doing too many things. And, well, they went their own way, and I'm going my way. I've working as a producer up until now with World Circuit and I'm planning on working independently. I'm going to devote myself to my own productions because there are conflicts of interest with the company. World Circuit is very interested in Cuban music in the pure sense of the word - - they really like pure Cuban music. I also like it pure but I also like the fusion, jazz, pop, rap; I like everything. So, in the future I want to produce my own music on an independent label, or work on independent productions for large companies. It all depends on how things work out

Q: Do you have any other projects with other bands or independently?
JM: Right now I have several plans for this coming year. I don't know if I'll be able to complete all of them, but I'm going to try. On the 27 of January of this year I start recording the second volume of Afro Cuban All Stars, an album in which I will try to mix the Cuban musicians who live here in Cuba with the Cuban musicians who live in exile, in order to send a message that says that one's nationality is beyond your place of residence. The most important thing is one's identity, and the Cuban spirit. Not everyone I want on the record is willing to participate. There are a lot of people in the United States who are afraid. We have no fear. I am not afraid of saying what I think. And not everyone I want will be on the album, but some will. Besides, I don't want to work with right-wingers, extreme right wing types, I mean, ones who think that working with a Cuban musician that lives in Cuba has some sort of political repercussion, because it is not so. Politicians are politicians; they are at their level and they decide matters of the nation. And the people are the people. I consider myself part of the Cuban people, not part of politics or the Cuban government.

Q: I think everybody says the same.
JM: Yes. Things are like that here in Cuba for the most part. Unfortunately, in the United States there are other people who are very committed with extreme right people. I would have liked Cachao López - the older one, to work on my album, but he's afraid since he works with Estefan, and Estefan is a bit on the right wing side, right? And maybe that…I don't know Estefan personally. Maybe if I speak with Estefan, he might be a good person who will approve, but, I haven't been able to get in touch with him since he has a lot of money, and people with a lot of money are somewhat inaccessible.

Q: I think things are getting better in Miami little by little.
JM: I had never been to Miami before and when I finished my last concert in the United States in New York, I went to Miami a couple of days later to get to know the city. And there are a lot of people with right wing attitudes who know that they don't have a chance to come back and reclaim anything because there are things that people have had throughout history. Nobody can take me away from my home, and I know that Elido Batista created this home. But if they come to get me, they'll have to kill me. This is my house - - I bought it. There are people who don't have a problem with us, but are afraid of some right wing organizations or something of the sort because they would take action against them or block them from the North American market, which would be a disaster for them. That's the problem I see.

Q: What happened with Company Segundo? I heard they made a bomb threat.
JM: Yes. They've never killed anybody, but sometimes they've made bomb and terrorist threats. That makes no sense whatsoever - - it's so stupid. Because, for example, if Fidel Castro goes to Miami Beach to make a speech and there's a bomb threat, there's justification. It's still terrorism, but it's political terrorism. But Company Segundo is a singer. There's nothing in common with…they play their music. So it doesn't make any sense to create a political terrorist attack against people who aren't politicians. For me that's completely stupid.

Q: I think the young people are better.
JM:Young people aren't interested in anything, and they're not coming back. Most of the people who have this absurd train of thought are small groups.

Q: Yes, but they have a strong voice. People in Miami who are against Fidel have people in Washington that are lobbying against Cuba.
JM: There are things about elections in the United States that I haven't been able to understand. I don't know the importance of the vote of Florida. The Florida vote is important for the presidents and Florida representatives that are Cubans like Lequinez, Díaz Valar, all right-wing people, in the sense that it favors the embargo issues and things like that, as well as the fact that they are anti-Castro. Apparently, they have a great amount of influence on foreign affairs and within the American electoral system, something I've never been able to understand, because I was in Miami and Miami seems to me like a Cuban country town. Miami is the same as Cuba, in better condition, but it's the same, and it looks like a beach, like a tourist attraction here. I don't see it as an important city like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York or Washington. As a matter of fact, it doesn't look like a part of the United States at all - - it doesn't look like America. But, nevertheless, it's important.

Q: I'm sure that there is a lot of interest in everything you're doing with the Afro Cuban All Stars. I believe that it's because of your CD that everyone is talking about Cuba and its music.
JM: I think that's good, but I also believe that the Cuban music market is going to get saturated. There are a lot of people creating low cost and quality productions of Cuban music. The problem is that there are a lot of people without scruples around Cuba. So, Cuba is presently like a gold mine. One of the potential assets &endash; maybe not a great producer, but moderate &endash; within the musical industry, is music. So there are a lot of people who are coming and exploiting Cuban music. Since the economical situation in Cuba is bad, musicians are paid poorly; they create low cost productions, with very little heart, and with the sole object of making money. In other words, to a certain extent, I am glad that there is a boom in Cuban music, and I'm sure that in some measure my work has influenced that boom: the Afro Cuban All Stars record, the record I produced for Rubén González, and the record I produced along with Ry Cooder to create the Buena Vista Social Club. That has been an influence. My fear is that this boom is going to pass and I fear that the boom won't be in favor of the music and in favor of the Cuban musicians. I'm very happy in the renewed interest towards Cuban music and I believe this boom phenomena could last two or three more years. What I am hoping for is that the music recovers at the level it was at in '59, and that the laws that prevent Cuban musicians from signing with major labels be abolished. I think that if Cuban music signs with major labels, we are going to recover lost ground. Our music was replaced in the North American market with music from Puerto Rico, the Latino migration and a few Americans, the music of the Fania All Stars, polkas, and that type of music.

Q: You are now working with some of the older soneros.
JM: What we've done is shown the world that the older soneros are the backbone of Cuban music aside from bringing back the nostalgic spirit, the nostalgia of the Cuban sound from the 50's. What I tried to do with the Afro Cuban All stars was to bring back the sounds from the great Cuban orchestras from the 50's, to bring back the sounds of Machito and the Afro Cuban, to bring back Mario Bauza, Chico O'Farrell…that's the sound. The compositions are more modern, a little more modern. I didn't want to complicate the harmony and the harmonic structure too much because otherwise, people wouldn't understand it. That's what happens when you know too much about music: you try to create music so that other musicians will say, "Wow, that's a great orchestration". But the ones who consume music aren't musicians. Musicians hardly ever buy records, they usually get them for free.

Q: At least the lack of communication between our two countries is easing a little.
JM: Now there is more communication and greater ease to travel to the United States. I hope that Cuban music will be able to enter the American market. Not only orchestras like the one I have, composed of musicians from different generations, but also young orchestras that are also good. The young orchestras of today are changing their style somewhat. There is a lot of interest towards new orchestra arrangements of classical themes; there is an interest in singing the way the old soneros did, and that's positive. In the future I plan to put together an orchestra of young people, but play the Cuban music sound within the parameters of my experience. There's a line you cannot cross so that music stops sounding Cuban. If you cross that line, it starts sounding Puerto Rican, like the music they play in New York, or it sounds strange, too complicated, so people can't learn the melodies. Music should be complicated in its content but not in its form. Popular music need to be accessible for everyone who doesn't know music - - the consumers.

Q: What do young people listen to here? Do they listen to classical Cuban music, salsa or what?
JM: Classical Cuban music is still not greatly promoted by the Cuban stations because the isolation creates a syndrome called "foreigner syndrome". When you are isolated you believe that everything outside is better than what you have, which is negative. That's why the success that some Cuban musicians have here is mediocre, but they are heavily promoted and are very popular with internationals, you see what I mean? Another important thing has been the reincarnation of Cuban music through young people who were able to make their presence known with the youth sector and retake the national spirit. They play a different type of music with a lot of values. It's not the type of music I like or would like to produce, but I find a lot of values in their music and they have been able to compete with the presence of foreign music pure in the Cuban airwaves. I think that what's missing here is a more open policy for music promotion. Since the media belongs to the state, the parameters under which the program directors or the DJ's are governed for their programming are very subjective criteria since there aren't any companies that will pay to have their music played. I think this is going to change in the future, radio is going to become more commercial, but at the same time is going to pave the way for the different genres of Cuban music.

Q: But there has always been a cycle, in which now there are new things, but there is always a return to the same point, don't you think?
JM: Not exactly to the same point, but to a higher point. That's what's starting to happen now. We're returning to the Cuban sound, somewhat more elaborate according to what young people listen to, with other instruments. And you have to use synthesizers, and you have to use technology. I'm not against using technology. I like to mix electronic instruments with acoustic instruments a lot. There are things that electronics have not been able to match. There is nothing that sounds like a piano, nothing. I've worked with the best synthesizers, the best amplified pianos, and there is nothing in the synthesizer world that can replicate the sound of a real piano, like a Steinway, recorded with ambience. They haven't been able to replicate a string orchestra. Nothing sounds like a violin, or like a cello. Therefore, you still have to use acoustic instruments. What I like the most is the sound called MG, which is a synthetic sound, completely synthetic; they are not instruments, they are made-up instruments. But I'm not going to use a Yamaha piano or a Roland on my recordings, because they don't sound the same. Whenever I record, I always use a grand piano. It's not possible to replicate the sound of a tres, it's not possible; it's not possible to copy the sound of a guitar, it's just not possible. They haven't been able to do it even with a '57 or '58 Gibson, like the one Elvis used - - it doesn't fit on the synthesizers; it doesn't sound the same because it doesn't have the same amplifiers - - it doesn't sound the same! That's why I like to mix synthesizers with natural, real instruments on my recordings. On the last album I recorded, the Afro Cuban All Stars, I didn't use any synthetic sounds. I recorded with a Steinway and all natural music. And on this upcoming record, I'm going to record with all natural instruments. In future recordings I may use synthesizers.

Q: And on this new Afro Cuban All Stars CD are you going to use the same band?
JM:No, a different one. I'm going to record it with a middle age generation, with people around forty, more or less, and some young people. It's not going to be like the other one, which was a tribute to the great interpreters of another era. It's possible I'll have some old folks, but it's not going to be an album with old folks. I'll have it done in two weeks. The last one I completed in a week's time. I'm going to record here in Cuba, and some of it in New York, and we'll do the editing in London. Since there some musicians who can't come to Cuba, I'm going to New York to record them, and invite them to play.

Q: And will you be going on tour this year?
JM: Yes, in June we're going to the U.S., to Los Angeles with Playboy [the Playboy Jazz festival], and we'll also be in San Francisco. I don't know if we'll be in Oakland or in San Francisco. I'm not interested in playing dance clubs, because that doesn't pay off. I like to play theatres, places like the Lincoln center, Carnegie Hall, Manhattan Sound Mall. I like the acoustics, and the fact that people go to listen to music. If they wan t to dance, they can dance and they always dance at concerts.

Q: But people have to dance when they hear your music!
JM: Yes, when we played in Oakland, people were dancing.

Q: Yes, but only during the last two songs!
JM: But I like it when people listen to the music, because I don't always play one dance song after another - - that's not my style. If Van Van plays in a theatre, that won't work out, because they play dance music, and if you just sit there and listen, all of their music themes are pretty much the same. But I always play a repertoire with variety. I play a danzón so people can listen, or I'll play Latin jazz, and I'll play a dance tune as well. The thing about the project is to show the different genres of Cuban music, to show that Cuban music is not monotonous, but that there is a lot of variety to it.

Q: Is there any other project you want to work on, something special?
JM: I have several ideas for recordings I want to do independently. Then I'll find a recording label to buy them, or I'll do it on my own. Those are things I've always wanted to do. I recorded with Félix Valoy, one of the soneros of the era. I've recorded the foundation, and I need to lay some vocals down, and some postproduction with the computer, and some editing. I want to record an album with Guillermo Rubacalba also, a pianist. He's old, he's seventy something and if he doesn't record an album in the next three or four years he won't be able to play anymore. I also want to record an album with one of the vocalist from Sierra Maestra, who started singing with me since he was a young man - - a great singer, his name is Alberto Valdés. I want to record an album with Pedro Calvo, who is the lead singer of Van Van, a good friend of mine for many years, and we've always wanted to make a dance album, something more on the commercial side, but with all of the different genres. I would do all of the orchestra arrangements.

Q: And all of those projects are for this year?
JM: I'm planning on doing them this year.

Q: And where will you be touring?
JM: A month in the United States, a month and a half in Europe, and then a return tour to Europe in the winter. The winter is very good in Europe. In the summer I play the jazz festivals, and in winter I play the concert halls. It makes no sense to play the concert halls in the summer, because everybody goes to the beach or to the festivals, but I can't organize a concert in important places. Next winter I would like to play at the Olympia in Paris, I want to play at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which we haven't tried to book yet, but we've filled two consecutive nights at the Royal Festival Hall, a great hall in London - - there were about 3700 people or 4000 each night, that's what we were selling. So we booked another date and we sold out as well. After that I think we can play at the Royal Albert Hall, which fits about 8000. We couldn't do five night like Elton John, but, ha, ha, ha…

Q: And is everything going well with you financially? The reason I ask is because I see a lot of Cuban bands that come to the United States and I think they don't pay the musicians well.
JM: We cannot charge money in the United States. That's the law…Normally, in Europe it goes well. In the United States people don't get paid what they should. None of the jazz musicians gets paid what they're worth in the United States. [Wynton] Marsalis, a great musician, makes his money with his programs, his lessons, and his tours in Europe; otherwise, he'd starve to death.

Q: Did you go to the Havana Jazz Festival here this year?
JM: I didn't go. I was recording. I've been working very hard because I had two commitments, aside from my album. Aside from the commitment with the album with Félix Valoy, I had another important commitment. There is a singer, Nora, I saw in Los Angeles when she was playing with a Japanese orchestra, the Orchestra de la Luz, who wants to record a solo album, and she asked me to write a composition for her, a Cuban composition. It was a lot of work to do it because it's a very famous song called Cachita, by Rafael Hernandez, and in order to do something with Cachita that hasn't been done before is very difficult. The other commitment I have is that tomorrow I start recording with Rubén González, and a Mexican rap band called Café Tacuba. They are very famous rap musicians and they want to record a hip-hop type danzón. They want to have the danzón on the first part of the song, and then rap over the danzón…it's crazy! So, tomorrow I'm going to record with him, and with Cachaíto as well.

Q: Is the recording going to take long?
JM: I'm hoping to finish in three or four hours, because I have to work hard on it. I have to work on six arrangements in a week and a half time. I'm very crafty writing music, and I'm very demanding. I try not to repeat myself, because whenever you write music, you get to a point where you end up repeating yourself, and whenever I work on an album, I try not to repeat myself when I working on the orchestrations - - they have to be completely different. I'm very focused at work.

Juan's wife signaled that he had otheappointments to keep. We ended here. It was the first time I had seen a home office run similar to what people might do here in the United States - his time was accounted for to the minute. The afternoon had passed quickly with insightful conversation and great company.

Be sure and catch Juan de Marcos and the Afro Cuban All Stars in April here in the Bay Area.

Hear a sound byte from their new CD, 'Distinto, Diferente'.

Interview ©2000 by Julia Sewell.
Transcription ©2000 by Isidra Menkos.
Translation©2000 by Wright Interpreting
Photos courtesy of Nonesuch/World Curcuit.
All rights reserved. No reproduction without written persmission.

Juan de Marcos:
A clear, unique, and different voice

I arrived for the interview with musician, composer, arranger, and producer Juan de Marcos almost an hour late. This particular neigborhood outsideof Havana did not have many street signs and it had been a little difficult finding the house. No problem, he said, as I was welcomed inside. I appologized profusely for my tardiness and sat down with this talented man for an unforgettable conversation.

Q:Tell me a little about yourself.
Juan de Marcos: I come from a family of musicians. My father was a musician, and I studied music as a child. I did not complete my musical training because I was a little disorganized. My dad never wanted me to become a professional musician, because he thought that being a musician wasn't really a career. They wanted me to become a professional. So they took advantage of the fact that I was expelled from the conservatory because of disciplinary problems and I finished my general education and obtained my college degree. But I always enjoyedmusic. I also took private classical guitar lessons with Garciano Gómez, a Cuban guitarist, and with Vicente González Rubiera, who is also known as Goyún, one of the greatest popular guitar players of Cuba. I took popular guitar and harmony lessons with him. After that, all of my education has been self-imposed. I've studied a lot of symphony music from the XVIII and XIX centuries to learn how to use to the techniques of symphony music within the popular Cuban music. I have studied a lot of Cuban music - - a lot. I was one of the first to start playing the tres here in Cuba, which was almost a lost instrument - - young people never used it. It wasn't until the late 70's, when I was in the university, that we created a band called Sierra Maestra, a son band. This was a band that broke the barriers and started playing Cuban classical music within the new generation. I worked with them up until two years ago, but because of work conflicts I wasn't able to continue with them.

I've studied all types of Cuban music, not only from the technical perspective as a musician, but also from the structural and morphological point of view, as a musicologist. I've worked in radio creating special programs on Cuban music. I consider myself to be very knowledgeable on the matter.

Professionally, I've been working with Sierra Maestra since '82. Then I worked on this project in '96 that is known in the United States and around the world with a British company called World Circuit, which is the company I'm working with, and they gave me the opportunity to bring forward this project that involved mixing different generations to play Cuban music [Afro Cuban All Stars]. A tribute to Cuban music, which was an idea I had for many years and I was able to make it come true with the collaboration of World Circuit and my family - - my wife, who has helped me all my life. She is the one who takes care of all of the administrative issues and is my general manager.

Aside from being a professional musician, I'm a hydraulic engineer, specifically hydraulics as it applies to agriculture. I worked as a university professor for ten years. When I decided to dedicate myself to the music profession full time was in 1990, since there was an economical juncture that allowed it to happen. I was earning a good living at the university &endash; I was doing well &endash; I was completing a doctorate in science, I was close to finishing my PhD. I have written close to five science books, over 25 science articles published in magazines worldwide, all about my career. I worked as a professor of conduit hydraulics at the university. But in '90, the day after the wall came down in Berlin, I knew what was going to happen, as far as the economy is concerned. And I decided that the best thing to do would be to devote myself to music. Besides, it was something that I also wanted to do. I would have continued working as a university professor, and I would have had music as an additional activity, like Egrem does, for example, but then I decided to devote myself completely to music. It was necessary back then.

I learned English when I was young since I started as a musician playing in rock bands, when I was 14 or 15, with a lot of musicians who now live in the United States. I'm from the era of Ricardo Bey Martínez, Arturo Sandoval, Jorge Conde and all of those musicians. Most of them now live in Miami and each one is on their own, playing different kinds of music. But I started playing guitar here with rock bands and I learned English in order to be able to sing songs by King Crimson, Rolling Stones, Deep Purple…

But then, in the late '70's, I discovered Cuban music. I was always surrounded by musicians, and in my house there were always rumbas going on, and down the corner from my house there was one of the most important places in the city for Cuban music, a place called El Solar, El Africa, where Chano Pozo was discovered, where great musicians like Eliseo Silveira were born. All of my friends were from there and I used to go to the rumbas that were taking place at El Africa, I used to go to the plantes of a region called Abacúa with my dad when I was a kid, and I always took part in a lot of parties where Cuban music was played. But when you're young you like to play foreign music, and I used to like rock n' roll a lot. There was a signal coming from a station in Florida, from Orlando I believe, and we used to hear it here, and then it disappeared when FM appeared in the late 70's and early 80's. And we used to listen to WQAM music and we literally copied the compositions and then we would rehearse them and play them.

I discovered Cuban music in the late 70's. I had to learn how to play the tres. I had studied the guitar. I took lessons with a couple of musicians, one of which was a very famous tres player named Isaac Oviedo, one of the fathers of the Cuban tres. I also studied with an older man from Matanzas named Hilario Ariza. They gave me three or four lessons, the rest I studied on my own. They taught me the way to tune the instrument and the basic positions on the tres, and I continued studying on my own. I studied the instrument to play it in the band. We created the Sierra Maestra band and it was a great success here in Cuba. I believe that Sierra Maestra was the beginning of renewed interest towards national music in Cuba in the early 80's. It was very big, old folks liked it because it was music from their generation, and young people liked it because it had a national flavor. Even though they were young and they liked American music, they felt represented in this type of music.

The work Sierra Maestra produced was very positive in general. I worked with them, like I said, up until two years ago. Then it became impossible because I'm doing too many things. And, well, they went their own way, and I'm going my way. I've working as a producer up until now with World Circuit and I'm planning on working independently. I'm going to devote myself to my own productions because there are conflicts of interest with the company. World Circuit is very interested in Cuban music in the pure sense of the word - - they really like pure Cuban music. I also like it pure but I also like the fusion, jazz, pop, rap; I like everything. So, in the future I want to produce my own music on an independent label, or work on independent productions for large companies. It all depends on how things work out

Q: Do you have any other projects with other bands or independently?
JM: Right now I have several plans for this coming year. I don't know if I'll be able to complete all of them, but I'm going to try. On the 27 of January of this year I start recording the second volume of Afro Cuban All Stars, an album in which I will try to mix the Cuban musicians who live here in Cuba with the Cuban musicians who live in exile, in order to send a message that says that one's nationality is beyond your place of residence. The most important thing is one's identity, and the Cuban spirit. Not everyone I want on the record is willing to participate. There are a lot of people in the United States who are afraid. We have no fear. I am not afraid of saying what I think. And not everyone I want will be on the album, but some will. Besides, I don't want to work with right-wingers, extreme right wing types, I mean, ones who think that working with a Cuban musician that lives in Cuba has some sort of political repercussion, because it is not so. Politicians are politicians; they are at their level and they decide matters of the nation. And the people are the people. I consider myself part of the Cuban people, not part of politics or the Cuban government.

Q: I think everybody says the same.
JM: Yes. Things are like that here in Cuba for the most part. Unfortunately, in the United States there are other people who are very committed with extreme right people. I would have liked Cachao López - the older one, to work on my album, but he's afraid since he works with Estefan, and Estefan is a bit on the right wing side, right? And maybe that…I don't know Estefan personally. Maybe if I speak with Estefan, he might be a good person who will approve, but, I haven't been able to get in touch with him since he has a lot of money, and people with a lot of money are somewhat inaccessible.

Q: I think things are getting better in Miami little by little.
JM: I had never been to Miami before and when I finished my last concert in the United States in New York, I went to Miami a couple of days later to get to know the city. And there are a lot of people with right wing attitudes who know that they don't have a chance to come back and reclaim anything because there are things that people have had throughout history. Nobody can take me away from my home, and I know that Elido Batista created this home. But if they come to get me, they'll have to kill me. This is my house - - I bought it. There are people who don't have a problem with us, but are afraid of some right wing organizations or something of the sort because they would take action against them or block them from the North American market, which would be a disaster for them. That's the problem I see.

Q: What happened with Company Segundo? I heard they made a bomb threat.
JM: Yes. They've never killed anybody, but sometimes they've made bomb and terrorist threats. That makes no sense whatsoever - - it's so stupid. Because, for example, if Fidel Castro goes to Miami Beach to make a speech and there's a bomb threat, there's justification. It's still terrorism, but it's political terrorism. But Company Segundo is a singer. There's nothing in common with…they play their music. So it doesn't make any sense to create a political terrorist attack against people who aren't politicians. For me that's completely stupid.

Q: I think the young people are better.
JM:Young people aren't interested in anything, and they're not coming back. Most of the people who have this absurd train of thought are small groups.

Q: Yes, but they have a strong voice. People in Miami who are against Fidel have people in Washington that are lobbying against Cuba.
JM: There are things about elections in the United States that I haven't been able to understand. I don't know the importance of the vote of Florida. The Florida vote is important for the presidents and Florida representatives that are Cubans like Lequinez, Díaz Valar, all right-wing people, in the sense that it favors the embargo issues and things like that, as well as the fact that they are anti-Castro. Apparently, they have a great amount of influence on foreign affairs and within the American electoral system, something I've never been able to understand, because I was in Miami and Miami seems to me like a Cuban country town. Miami is the same as Cuba, in better condition, but it's the same, and it looks like a beach, like a tourist attraction here. I don't see it as an important city like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York or Washington. As a matter of fact, it doesn't look like a part of the United States at all - - it doesn't look like America. But, nevertheless, it's important.

Q: I'm sure that there is a lot of interest in everything you're doing with the Afro Cuban All Stars. I believe that it's because of your CD that everyone is talking about Cuba and its music.
JM: I think that's good, but I also believe that the Cuban music market is going to get saturated. There are a lot of people creating low cost and quality productions of Cuban music. The problem is that there are a lot of people without scruples around Cuba. So, Cuba is presently like a gold mine. One of the potential assets &endash; maybe not a great producer, but moderate &endash; within the musical industry, is music. So there are a lot of people who are coming and exploiting Cuban music. Since the economical situation in Cuba is bad, musicians are paid poorly; they create low cost productions, with very little heart, and with the sole object of making money. In other words, to a certain extent, I am glad that there is a boom in Cuban music, and I'm sure that in some measure my work has influenced that boom: the Afro Cuban All Stars record, the record I produced for Rubén González, and the record I produced along with Ry Cooder to create the Buena Vista Social Club. That has been an influence. My fear is that this boom is going to pass and I fear that the boom won't be in favor of the music and in favor of the Cuban musicians. I'm very happy in the renewed interest towards Cuban music and I believe this boom phenomena could last two or three more years. What I am hoping for is that the music recovers at the level it was at in '59, and that the laws that prevent Cuban musicians from signing with major labels be abolished. I think that if Cuban music signs with major labels, we are going to recover lost ground. Our music was replaced in the North American market with music from Puerto Rico, the Latino migration and a few Americans, the music of the Fania All Stars, polkas, and that type of music.

Q: You are now working with some of the older soneros.
JM: What we've done is shown the world that the older soneros are the backbone of Cuban music aside from bringing back the nostalgic spirit, the nostalgia of the Cuban sound from the 50's. What I tried to do with the Afro Cuban All stars was to bring back the sounds from the great Cuban orchestras from the 50's, to bring back the sounds of Machito and the Afro Cuban, to bring back Mario Bauza, Chico O'Farrell…that's the sound. The compositions are more modern, a little more modern. I didn't want to complicate the harmony and the harmonic structure too much because otherwise, people wouldn't understand it. That's what happens when you know too much about music: you try to create music so that other musicians will say, "Wow, that's a great orchestration". But the ones who consume music aren't musicians. Musicians hardly ever buy records, they usually get them for free.

Q: At least the lack of communication between our two countries is easing a little.
JM: Now there is more communication and greater ease to travel to the United States. I hope that Cuban music will be able to enter the American market. Not only orchestras like the one I have, composed of musicians from different generations, but also young orchestras that are also good. The young orchestras of today are changing their style somewhat. There is a lot of interest towards new orchestra arrangements of classical themes; there is an interest in singing the way the old soneros did, and that's positive. In the future I plan to put together an orchestra of young people, but play the Cuban music sound within the parameters of my experience. There's a line you cannot cross so that music stops sounding Cuban. If you cross that line, it starts sounding Puerto Rican, like the music they play in New York, or it sounds strange, too complicated, so people can't learn the melodies. Music should be complicated in its content but not in its form. Popular music need to be accessible for everyone who doesn't know music - - the consumers.

Q: What do young people listen to here? Do they listen to classical Cuban music, salsa or what?
JM: Classical Cuban music is still not greatly promoted by the Cuban stations because the isolation creates a syndrome called "foreigner syndrome". When you are isolated you believe that everything outside is better than what you have, which is negative. That's why the success that some Cuban musicians have here is mediocre, but they are heavily promoted and are very popular with internationals, you see what I mean? Another important thing has been the reincarnation of Cuban music through young people who were able to make their presence known with the youth sector and retake the national spirit. They play a different type of music with a lot of values. It's not the type of music I like or would like to produce, but I find a lot of values in their music and they have been able to compete with the presence of foreign music pure in the Cuban airwaves. I think that what's missing here is a more open policy for music promotion. Since the media belongs to the state, the parameters under which the program directors or the DJ's are governed for their programming are very subjective criteria since there aren't any companies that will pay to have their music played. I think this is going to change in the future, radio is going to become more commercial, but at the same time is going to pave the way for the different genres of Cuban music.

Q: But there has always been a cycle, in which now there are new things, but there is always a return to the same point, don't you think?
JM: Not exactly to the same point, but to a higher point. That's what's starting to happen now. We're returning to the Cuban sound, somewhat more elaborate according to what young people listen to, with other instruments. And you have to use synthesizers, and you have to use technology. I'm not against using technology. I like to mix electronic instruments with acoustic instruments a lot. There are things that electronics have not been able to match. There is nothing that sounds like a piano, nothing. I've worked with the best synthesizers, the best amplified pianos, and there is nothing in the synthesizer world that can replicate the sound of a real piano, like a Steinway, recorded with ambience. They haven't been able to replicate a string orchestra. Nothing sounds like a violin, or like a cello. Therefore, you still have to use acoustic instruments. What I like the most is the sound called MG, which is a synthetic sound, completely synthetic; they are not instruments, they are made-up instruments. But I'm not going to use a Yamaha piano or a Roland on my recordings, because they don't sound the same. Whenever I record, I always use a grand piano. It's not possible to replicate the sound of a tres, it's not possible; it's not possible to copy the sound of a guitar, it's just not possible. They haven't been able to do it even with a '57 or '58 Gibson, like the one Elvis used - - it doesn't fit on the synthesizers; it doesn't sound the same because it doesn't have the same amplifiers - - it doesn't sound the same! That's why I like to mix synthesizers with natural, real instruments on my recordings. On the last album I recorded, the Afro Cuban All Stars, I didn't use any synthetic sounds. I recorded with a Steinway and all natural music. And on this upcoming record, I'm going to record with all natural instruments. In future recordings I may use synthesizers.

Q: And on this new Afro Cuban All Stars CD are you going to use the same band?
JM:No, a different one. I'm going to record it with a middle age generation, with people around forty, more or less, and some young people. It's not going to be like the other one, which was a tribute to the great interpreters of another era. It's possible I'll have some old folks, but it's not going to be an album with old folks. I'll have it done in two weeks. The last one I completed in a week's time. I'm going to record here in Cuba, and some of it in New York, and we'll do the editing in London. Since there some musicians who can't come to Cuba, I'm going to New York to record them, and invite them to play.

Q: And will you be going on tour this year?
JM: Yes, in June we're going to the U.S., to Los Angeles with Playboy [the Playboy Jazz festival], and we'll also be in San Francisco. I don't know if we'll be in Oakland or in San Francisco. I'm not interested in playing dance clubs, because that doesn't pay off. I like to play theatres, places like the Lincoln center, Carnegie Hall, Manhattan Sound Mall. I like the acoustics, and the fact that people go to listen to music. If they wan t to dance, they can dance and they always dance at concerts.

Q: But people have to dance when they hear your music!
JM: Yes, when we played in Oakland, people were dancing.

Q: Yes, but only during the last two songs!
JM: But I like it when people listen to the music, because I don't always play one dance song after another - - that's not my style. If Van Van plays in a theatre, that won't work out, because they play dance music, and if you just sit there and listen, all of their music themes are pretty much the same. But I always play a repertoire with variety. I play a danzón so people can listen, or I'll play Latin jazz, and I'll play a dance tune as well. The thing about the project is to show the different genres of Cuban music, to show that Cuban music is not monotonous, but that there is a lot of variety to it.

Q: Is there any other project you want to work on, something special?
JM: I have several ideas for recordings I want to do independently. Then I'll find a recording label to buy them, or I'll do it on my own. Those are things I've always wanted to do. I recorded with Félix Valoy, one of the soneros of the era. I've recorded the foundation, and I need to lay some vocals down, and some postproduction with the computer, and some editing. I want to record an album with Guillermo Rubacalba also, a pianist. He's old, he's seventy something and if he doesn't record an album in the next three or four years he won't be able to play anymore. I also want to record an album with one of the vocalist from Sierra Maestra, who started singing with me since he was a young man - - a great singer, his name is Alberto Valdés. I want to record an album with Pedro Calvo, who is the lead singer of Van Van, a good friend of mine for many years, and we've always wanted to make a dance album, something more on the commercial side, but with all of the different genres. I would do all of the orchestra arrangements.

Q: And all of those projects are for this year?
JM: I'm planning on doing them this year.

Q: And where will you be touring?
JM: A month in the United States, a month and a half in Europe, and then a return tour to Europe in the winter. The winter is very good in Europe. In the summer I play the jazz festivals, and in winter I play the concert halls. It makes no sense to play the concert halls in the summer, because everybody goes to the beach or to the festivals, but I can't organize a concert in important places. Next winter I would like to play at the Olympia in Paris, I want to play at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which we haven't tried to book yet, but we've filled two consecutive nights at the Royal Festival Hall, a great hall in London - - there were about 3700 people or 4000 each night, that's what we were selling. So we booked another date and we sold out as well. After that I think we can play at the Royal Albert Hall, which fits about 8000. We couldn't do five night like Elton John, but, ha, ha, ha…

Q: And is everything going well with you financially? The reason I ask is because I see a lot of Cuban bands that come to the United States and I think they don't pay the musicians well.
JM: We cannot charge money in the United States. That's the law…Normally, in Europe it goes well. In the United States people don't get paid what they should. None of the jazz musicians gets paid what they're worth in the United States. [Wynton] Marsalis, a great musician, makes his money with his programs, his lessons, and his tours in Europe; otherwise, he'd starve to death.

Q: Did you go to the Havana Jazz Festival here this year?
JM: I didn't go. I was recording. I've been working very hard because I had two commitments, aside from my album. Aside from the commitment with the album with Félix Valoy, I had another important commitment. There is a singer, Nora, I saw in Los Angeles when she was playing with a Japanese orchestra, the Orchestra de la Luz, who wants to record a solo album, and she asked me to write a composition for her, a Cuban composition. It was a lot of work to do it because it's a very famous song called Cachita, by Rafael Hernandez, and in order to do something with Cachita that hasn't been done before is very difficult. The other commitment I have is that tomorrow I start recording with Rubén González, and a Mexican rap band called Café Tacuba. They are very famous rap musicians and they want to record a hip-hop type danzón. They want to have the danzón on the first part of the song, and then rap over the danzón…it's crazy! So, tomorrow I'm going to record with him, and with Cachaíto as well.

Q: Is the recording going to take long?
JM: I'm hoping to finish in three or four hours, because I have to work hard on it. I have to work on six arrangements in a week and a half time. I'm very crafty writing music, and I'm very demanding. I try not to repeat myself, because whenever you write music, you get to a point where you end up repeating yourself, and whenever I work on an album, I try not to repeat myself when I working on the orchestrations - - they have to be completely different. I'm very focused at work.

Juan's wife signaled that he had otheappointments to keep. We ended here. It was the first time I had seen a home office run similar to what people might do here in the United States - his time was accounted for to the minute. The afternoon had passed quickly with insightful conversation and great company.

Be sure and catch Juan de Marcos and the Afro Cuban All Stars in April here in the Bay Area.

Hear a sound byte from their new CD, 'Distinto, Diferente'.

Interview ©2000 by Julia Sewell.
Transcription ©2000 by Isidra Menkos.
Translation©2000 by Wright Interpreting
Photos courtesy of Nonesuch/World Curcuit.
All rights reserved. No reproduction without written persmission.