Rubén González Fontanills

It began in 1925 with his sister Josefa, and later with Amparo Rizo in Cienfuegos. He graduated in 1936 and moved to La Habana in 1940, the same year that Benny Moré did.

He performed with the Charanga de Paulina Álvarez. He worked in the dance academies Marte and Belona, La Gaviota and Rialto with the Elósegui orchestra. He was in the Orchestra of the old CMQ, in the Sans Soucí cabaret with Rolando Laserie. In La Habana he associated with good pianists such as René Hernandez, Elton Añejo "El Ñato", Anselmo Sacasa, Jesús López, Facundo Rivero.

The first significant turning point came in 1943 with his entry into the ensemble of Arsenio Rodríguez where he acquires the true school of son. "Arsenio taught me to maintain coherent time within the clave, taking care above all of the rhythm, so as not to misplace the notes," he affirmed. After following that line, I can do what I want, but always in measure, squared; with cleanliness in expression. In the solos he told me to enter with force, to give emphasis to what I do, to make the solo shine."

"When you're about to enter again," he would tell me, "you should stop to know where the music was going and then enter again. All those indications seem simple, but they have their magic. Arsenio taught me everything, he would tell me: 'Up Rubén', and I applied his teachings."

After a stay in Arsenio's ensemble, he resided for a time, at the end of the 1940s, in Panamá. From Panamá he went to Venezuela where he remained from 1956 until 1962. Upon his return he joined the Kubavana ensemble of singer Alberto Ruiz, creator of a special style within modern bolero.

At another time he joined the ensemble of Senén Suarez, in the jazz band Siboney, Riverside, América del 55, Jorrín, the Radio and Television Orchestra. In 1994 he was retired. Raúl Planas and tres player Arturo Harvey "Alambre Dulce" came to his house to pay tribute to Lilí Martínez; it was the precursor of what would come later.

Rubén's great moment happens from 1996 onwards with Juan de Marcos González's project in the Orquesta Afro Cuban All Stars (Buena Vista Social Club), where they record three albums, two of them nominated: Buena Vista Social Club and Introduction Rubén González. Finally he wins the 1997 Grammy for the album Buena Vista Social Club.

He also wins another Latin Grammy for the album Chanchullo, Best Tropical Music Album. "With these victories I feel like I've won the lottery," he told me on my last visit to his house on Lucena Street in Centro Habana.

Rubén was a performer who did not like to phrase in the style of American jazz musicians, but rather in the Cuban way. He worked the scales with elasticity and cleanliness in his phrases. One observes a rigorous craft of perfect training.

"I like to sound like Cuban son," he maintained, although I am an admirer of the jazz standard. I have more contact with Lilí Martínez than with Peruchín, I use my timbral variants that identify me in the phrases and the concept. In the "solos," what is important is not speed, nor the quantity of notes, but saying the phrases, the rhythmic flavor, the alternation of chords and arpeggios, in the musical motifs. Inspirations are like rapid and fleeting compositions in which natural intuition plays a role, that natural gift before which one has to be prepared."

Every time I met with Rubén I would ask him about his rheumatism, but he was so stimulated by his successes, by his travels around the world that he paid the slightest attention to his health problems.

In that stage of the Buena Vista Social Club, the prestige of his work, his entire family and his country rested on his shoulders. They were musicians who had a trajectory, sometimes a little forgotten, but prepared for the great opportunity. That opportunity came with the explosion and rebirth of traditional trova and son.

Papo Luccas spent hours copying Rubén's "solos," which he heard on the radio from Puerto Rico, "I consider Rubén my father in music," he confessed to me in 1978, on his first visit to Cuba, at the Havana-Jam (Cuba-USA Encounter).

Nick Gold stated: "I have never seen anyone who enjoys so much what they play. He would spend twenty minutes practicing fingering exercises and then he would launch into it. There was no stopping him."

Ry Cooder catalogues Rubén as the best piano soloist he has heard in his life. "It's like a Cuban mixture of Thelonius Monk and Gato Félix." Daniel Barenboim commented: "What I like about González is that he makes a tremendous amount of music easy and transparent." Composer Emilio Cabahilón composed the theme for the great pianist: Suena el piano Rubén.