Alain Pérez: "I am driven by hope, the desire to sing with people again"

September 1, 2021

Considered one of Cuba's most virtuoso musicians, Alain Pérez shows his excitement and desire to be able to meet up with the public again on September 2nd in Barcelona, after more than a year and a half of pandemic, and to once again "reach people, to see their faces, to have them sing with me".

In an interview with Efe, Pérez recalls that, although he has been able to hold the occasional concert during this period, even outside his country, the concert at Poble Espanyol, together with Chelosaoko & La Calor, Arrels de Gràcia, Adrían Rodríguez "Papito control" and the dancers Savage Girls, is the first "big one, in an extraordinary space for me, and that leads me to ask myself many questions".

"How will the reunion be? Will people be afraid to come with so many restrictions? How will they receive us?", he wonders.

However, he is very clear that it is now time to interact again with the audience, in the case of Barcelona, "very loyal. Over the years -he says- it has always given me a positive response".

In the venue on the Montjuïc mountain, he will present his latest album, "El cuento de la buena pipa", which includes twelve songs and was launched in February 2020, with a European tour planned, cancelled because of the coronavirus.

With a career in which he has accompanied major world figures, from Paco de Lucía and Celia Cruz to Chucho Valdés, on this occasion different musicians from the Caribbean island were with him in the recording such as Alexander Abreu, Rolando Luna, Dairon Oney, Adonis Panter, Maikel Dinza and Yuri Nogueira, as well as American Marc Quiñones and the Camerata Romeu.

He is pleased to be next Thursday the "host" of a concert with "much diversity, much talent, with each of the participants offering their own".

The songs on his album, his sixth solo production, range from rumba to son and bolero, and he reveals that he embarked on this venture "to continue maturing everything I have lived, felt and experienced in recent years, while it has also served to correct other previous productions".

In his view, he has now achieved "a better finish, a better interpretation, a better coordination and a tremendous repertoire production", which many have been listening to in their homes during the months of confinement, while critics gave it the best ratings.

Alain Pérez clarifies that from the beginning he sought a work that "would sound intertwined in intentions, interpretations and stories narrated through Cuban music, which has a great wealth of genres, styles, airs and atmospheres, which we sometimes overlook".

"I -he confesses- feel committed to the roots and to the beautiful range of genres and styles we have within popular dance music".

On the album there are songs that "sound a little more Caribbean, since I have salsa -he assures-, romantic salsa, guaracha and, of course, timba, the most contemporary dance genre in Cuba. In my productions I try to find a balance and this is an example of it", he adds.

On the other hand, he does not hide that for the final result of the work "it is essential to count on these great musicians who perform it", with a collaboration on the song "Son con moña" with his father, Gradelio.

In his opinion, all of them "are makers of the album, they are the ones who give it energy and color, in addition to having been able to interpret my music, my ideas, to capture the feeling that is heard through the music".

With the idea that the Barcelona concert will be the one that sets the pace for the tour he will carry out in winter, if the pandemic does not stop it again, Alain Pérez reveals that during the "stoppage" he has been developing new repertoire and that what he would like to record later is an album of boleros.

On this point, he highlights that it is a genre he likes very much and that "we must continue cultivating, nurturing and defending", he says.