The lights dimmed and the musicians positioned themselves on stage in a broad tiered setting with the 50 strong La Pena Community Chorus at the top in half-circles, the Onyx String Quartet a step below with a brass and woodwind section on each side, and three-sized bata drums on the floor which featured percussionist Michael Spiro playing the large Iya drum.
As the drums began a slow drony series of rhythmic patterns, Cespedes came out glowing in a gold yellow African outfit to sing the opening prayer to Elegba . In a raw raspy tenor voice he sang out in full voice, as the chorus responded. The imbalance in the acoustics made them sound distantly faint. But when the strings came in and the full ensemble struck you with a ping pong of counterpoints with these lush harmonies, it felt powerful, majestic, if you will.
After the first piece, Guillermo spoke about the project which was funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Zellerbach Family Fund. The next Oru (ancient prayers that form part of the liturgy in the Yoruban Orisha tradition) was to Ogun and Guillermo resumed as concert master guiding the massive group through a complex road map, playing the chekere gourds, or taking a break to explain the vignettes as they unfolded. It was a delightful aural journey. The instrumentalization of these prayers showcased their innate melodic beauty with commendable writing and arranging assistance by Chilean singer Lichi Fuentes and trombonist Wayne Wallace. The prayer to Yemaya was exquisite and a perfect example of the high caliber musicianship involved. The Onyx String Quartet played with superb intonation and an exceptional cohesiveness with a collective emotionalism that is rare.
Originally Guillermo's aunt Bobi Cespedes, the renown Afro- Cuban singer, was slated to sing the lead Akupon parts but she landed a gig with drummer Mickey Hart on his Planet Drum 2 - "Supralengua" tour and couldn't make it. It suffered as a result in that respect. Overall "Suite for Iya" was marred at places but reflected a beautiful work that was still in progress. There were also alot of unseen spiritual layers to the project that really were more about ritual involvement of the local santeria and Ifa communities than musicality.
"The real story of Suite for Iya," Guillermo wrote me a few days after the event," is it's process coming forth. It began with a request from Ochun for a concert in her honor using violins and symphonic instrumentation. Before the piece was arranged I spent alot of time talking with elders from the Ocha community playing sequenced tapes for them and in a formal manner requested their blessings to do something that to me is out of the ordinary. It was real prayers, by real priests, directed to real Orishas.
The next step was to recruit priests from the various houses in the Bay Area willing to participate and do their best to create an artistically valid piece. The prayers to Ochun had to come from priests as well as our broad community. In addition I had to bring Ochun to the concert, which requires not only nerve but ritual as well supervised by elders.
At every step of the way any decision I made had to balance musicality with the 'real ritual', the spiritual part of it. The piece was a mandate for me to publicly affirm and acknowlege Ochun , mixing how I sing to her at bembe's with as lush a classical orientation as my budget would allow. Not a cultural acknowledgment of the Orisha but a very real one, done by practicing priests and not neccessarily performers. Undoubtedly this took some emphasis away from the piece just as music, but Ochun wanted her community to come together through this piece."
An important and commendable work, it marks a musical and spiritual maturity for a tremendous musician who has given the Bay Area a wealth of music over his almost 20 years as a performing musician and bandleader here. I hope Guillermo Cespedes presents this work again maybe as a musical symbol of cultural healing between the races leading into the year 2000. It's message and musical fusing that says alot about the acceptance in this day and age of a religion that arrived on slave ships but that has bloosomed into a strong spiritual force in the Americas.
Chuy Varela is a freelance journalist who covers the San Francisco Bay Area Latin music scene for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Chronicle, the Eastbay Express, and Latin Beat Magazine as well as being music director at Kpfa Radio (1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, Ca. 94704 - 510 - 848 -6767 x 219) and host of the Latin Jazz Show (Sun. 2 - 6pm) on Jazz 91 KCSM 91.1 FM.
