Ignacio Piñeiro Martínez

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Ignacio Piñeiro was a true chronicler of the era in which he lived. He founded the Sexteto Nacional first, which later would become a Septeto, which continues to the present day without renouncing the essence of the Island's traditional music, which he defended and proudly showed to new generations.

Various consulted sources agree in affirming that he was one of those synthesis cases that managed to capture, develop, and express the full richness of son, and through structural modifications, cadence, rhythm, the use of refined melodies and lyrics, he converted it into classical son, which still makes its mark in popular dance music.

Author of well-known and popular pieces, Ignacio Piñeiro demonstrated ancestral roots and the gift of inviting whoever listened to his interpretations to sing and dance.

By 1906 he already knew and had assimilated the different touches of the African cabildos that existed in the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood, which he later incorporated into some of his creations.

He began his artistic career with the keys and guaguancó group El Timbre de Oro, later he directed Los Roncos de Pueblo Nuevo, in which he developed as a decimist and director, while taking his first steps as a composer. From this period are: Cuando tú, tu desengaño veas, Dónde estabas anoche, El Edén de Los Roncos, Mañana te espero, niña. Later he joined the Renacimiento de Pueblo Nuevo group. To the folkloric values that Piñeiro cultivated in these groups, he contributed a broader melodic-harmonic development and greater depth and poetic scope.

In 1926 he was one of the founders, along with María Teresa Vera, of Sexteto Occidente, with which he made his first tour to the United States in order to record a record with this group.

In 1927 he founded the Sexteto Nacional, made up of Ignacio Piñeiro, director and bass; Alberto Villalón, guitar; Francisco González Solares, tres; Abelardo Barroso, lead voice; Juan de la Cruz, tenor; Bienvenido León, baritone and maracas, and José Manuel Carrera Incharte (El Chino), bongó; that same year trumpeter Lázaro Herrera joined. With this septeto he traveled to New York, and there he recorded his first works.

In 1929 he participated with the Septeto Nacional at the Fair-Exposition of Seville, Spain; in that country they were contracted as exclusive artists by the company SEDECA, and they made a tour through other cities in that country: Vigo, La Coruña, Santander, Madrid, and Valladolid; furthermore, they performed in the Torero, Jovellanos theaters, the Cine-Teatro Grado, and the Maicú cabaret, all in Madrid.

In 1930 he was one of the founders of the National Association of Cuban Soneros. They performed at the Sans-Souci cabaret (1930); in 1931 they were presented on the radio stations Lavín and CMCG; in 1932, at the Dos Hermanos hotel, he premiered Buey viejo; that same year American composer George Gershwin came to Havana, and on the CMCJ radio station he heard Piñeiro's son Échale salsita, from which he later used the theme executed on the trumpet in his Cuban Overture.

In 1933 he performed at the Fair-Exposition A Century of Progress, held in Chicago, United States. In 1934 Piñeiro retired from the septeto, which from 1935 onwards was directed by trumpeter Lázaro Herrera. In 1954, Piñeiro reappeared at the head of the septeto, with which he was presented on the television program Music of Yesterday and Today.

As a composer, Ignacio Piñeiro broke away—although he took elements from it—from the form of eastern son, in which its creators used the quatrain and the décima; an example of that break is his son Buey viejo, from 1932:

"Carretero no maltrates a ese pobre buey tan viejo,
que ya dobla la cabeza por el peso de los tarros,
y por senda de guijarros va tirando la carreta,
y nunca llega a la meta, término de su dolor."

Piñeiro was one of those synthesis cases that managed to capture, develop, and express the full richness of son. The structural modifications, cadence, rhythm, and the use of refined melodies and lyrics, achieved by this creator and interpreted by the Septeto Nacional, make it possible to say that the work of this singular artist, while it did not mark the boundaries of son (which fell to the Sexteto Habanero), did convert it into a son that today we can call classical, which became a model for its later development.

When Ignacio Piñeiro founded the Septeto Nacional, his purpose was for it to be a high exponent of Cuban son and its various variants—he himself made use of those variants, when composing guajira-son, canción-son, afro-son—, so he worked with the elements that eastern son offered him, to which he imparted a broader treatment, both musically and literarily.

According to Miriam Villa: "If we analyze the organization of the literary text, we observe in his work the formal use of metrically heterogeneous links subjected to rhythm, characterized by the presence of stressed and unstressed elements within the system of units that repeat at intervals between them.

Meter in the text as a pattern should not have been worrisome for Piñeiro, since through the rhythm of the composition he achieves relations of contrast, making the change of meter express a change in thematic movement, whether from intermittencies or accentuations or sometimes both that imprint various semantic nuances and alternations of tensions and relaxations [...]."

And in another part Villa suggests: "Another aspect that in relation to the literary text is reflected in Piñeiro's creative work is that of thematic contents; these are shown from a diversification with greater scope in relation to his contemporaries. His work can be divided into multiple themes among which are found love, homeland, philosophical reflection, politics, the bucolic, the infantile, expressed in diverse forms: satirical, apologetic, humorous and with greater depth than in the son production that preceded him and even with that which he shared [...]."

With the Septeto Nacional, Piñeiro appeared in the musical short El frutero, and in the film We Are the Music, directed by Rogelio París.

Works
Afro-son, Abarreime eteifón, Canto lucumí, Dichosa Habana, Drumi ñaño.

Song
Canción de cuna, Comedia de amor, Donde crece el amor.

Canción-son
A gozar mujeres, Alivia sin dolor, Como ninguna.

Conga
Adelante senador, Alegres sonidos, Aprovecha, Caramelito pa'chupá, Caramelito pa'ti, Come come, Dale el golpe, Déjala, La chonono.

Danzón
Club Cubaneleco, Hay que moverse.

Guaguancó
Cadencia que electriza, Cuando tu desengaño veas, Dónde estabas anoche, El desengaño, El edén de Los Roncos, Mañana te espero, niña, En la cáscara de coco, Guaguancó callejero, Guaguancó mamá, Guaguancó papá.

Guaguancó-son
A divertirse, señores.

Guajira-son
Alegre floresta, Alma guajira, 1928; Arriba guajiro, Canta la vueltabajera, Eco melodioso, En una lejana campiña, Eterna primavera, Mi son genuino, 1927.

Guaracha
Borincano, Como todo un macho, El cocinero oreja, La sangre vibra.

Guaracha-son
El guanajo relleno, 1933.

Pregón
La maraquera.

Rumba
Diana la rumbera, Dónde andabas anoche, 1908; Eterna novedad, Hay que bailarle suave, Más calentico, 1933.

Rumba-son
Coco mai-mai, Los rumberos de La Habana.

Son
A cogerlo, A gozar del vaivén, Acordes del bongó, A sonar las maracas y el bongó, Ahora se ríe, Al decir que sí, Allá en Jovellanos, Aquella noche, Arrocha cubano, Arrullo, Así, Asturias patria querida, Bamboleando, Bardo, 1933; Boquita chiquita, Buey viejo, 1931; Busca el alfiler, Camagüeyana, Canta trovador, Carita de virgencita, Castigador, Como voy a sufrir, Contentura, Cuatro palomas, 1927; Cubaneo, Cumbre florida, Chaquetón, Dámelo, De pura miel, Déjame reír, Desvelada, Dichosa suegra, Don lengua, Dudas, Dulce vocerío, Échale salsita, 1933; El castigador, El globero, El oso polar, El que quita las penas, El rey de los bongoseros, Entre preciosos palmares, Entre tinieblas, 1933; Esas no son cubanas, 1927; Esencia y matiz, Fernanda, Ganaste tú, Garita roja, Granito de misterio, Incitadora región, Juégame limpio, La cachimba de San Juan, La Hada misteriosa, La Mañunga, La mulata cubana, Las cuatro palomas, Lejana campiña, Mentira, Salomé, 1932; Mi son genuino, No juegues con los santos, 1928; Pero qué lengua, Que bonita es, Quién será mi bien, Suavecito, 1930.

Son-montuno
A cuerda limpia, Allá en el monte, Arriba guajiro, Bururú barará, El montuno llegó, El montuno se siente, La batidora.

Carol
Clave al niño Jesús, Clave armoniosa.

The musical legacy of Ignacio Piñeiro reaches the present day, from which musicians and performers draw to keep alive the roots that had, in a certain way, the responsibility of perfecting and strengthening identity in Cubans.

If not... Let anyone raise their hand to whom their feet haven't moved in any venue, when they hear the rhythm that comes from the Septeto Nacional: "suavecito, suavecito, suavecito is how I like it..."