Chucho Valdés at Bellas Artes: A Heavenly Orgy of Congas and Batá

May 29, 2019

The Cuban composer, pianist, and cultural disruptor Chucho Valdés premiered a composition on Saturday night at Bellas Artes in homage to the person who made him a musician: Caridad Amaro, his grandmother, and he corrected the history of written music in popular imagination: it's true, Chucho entered the pantheon by the hand of his father, Bebo Valdés, but to whom he owes his love for sounds and their silences is his grandmother. And that happened amid a bacchanal of very fine music, which blended the traditions of baroque, romanticism, modernism, with a trio of batá drums and the rhythms of Nigeria and Arará.

Chucho Valdés' return after nine years of absence was imperial.

The theater, filled with pagan devotees, received him as what he is: one of the best musicians on the planet and furthermore greatly beloved, and he, surprised by the tempest of applause, cheers and jubilation that received him, joined his hands in front of his chest, smiled and the public went into delirium after that smile illuminated the entire night, which filled with son guajiro, bolero, rumba, enchantment and guaguancó, interwoven with phrases from Rachmaninov, Ravel, Debussy, Lennon and McCartney, Johann Sebastian Bach and the magic of piano, batá drums, acoustic bass and a set of congas, instruments enough to throw together a tremendous party of fury and fair and fables narrated with those instruments like few times sounds something that makes people so happy.

Dreiser Durruty took his place at the center of the stage under a ritual bundle: the trio of wooden cones, ebony water clocks, pieces carved by hand and from a single piece, which receive the name batá: three ritual drums of magic and santería: Iyá, Itótele and Okónkolo, thus named for their size, from largest to smallest and symbol and use to cure the ills of the soul.

From those drums, Dreiser answered each note, each wink, chord, beauty in alluviums born from the paws of that marsupial-like fellow called Chucho Valdés, whose enormous humanity gave way to the entries of Yaroldy Abreu on the congas and the spell of the acoustic strings of Ramón Vázquez, bassist who brings together in one the styles of Eddie Gómez and Anders Jormin, the first, battle companion of Bill Evans, the second, Swedish bassist.

It was no coincidence such a mixture of styles, since Chucho's father, Bebo Valdés, settled in Sweden and Eddie Gómez in turn refers to a way of dimensioning the genius and musical importance of Chucho Valdés, whom European experts place among the top five pianists on the planet, alongside, precisely, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, and one off the bat would think: they're exaggerating, but it's a matter of sitting in an armchair in front of Chucho Valdés, like the prodigious night of this Saturday, to corroborate the assertion: Chucho Valdés is a giant, not only because of his physicality: his music dazzles, nourishes, puts people in orbit.

In the seat next door, Michael Nyman, in turn pianist and composer: exclaimed between tears: "fucking amazing, this is beautiful", and remembered the atmospheres that another genius similar to Chucho Valdés usually creates: the South African Abdullah Ibrahim.

But Chucho Valdés is one of those true geniuses, a simple man who before announcing each piece would warn: "it's something very simple, we just composed it and now we're going to premiere it and it's dedicated to my grandmother. She really liked Rachmaninov".

And Rachmaninov was the first visible author in the imagination of what sounded the Saturday night at Bellas Artes. The Cuban pianist's paws slid clusters like Cecil Taylor and then deployed in the left hand the theme of Eleanor Rigby while the right hand linked a son montuno.

Now the right hand intones Thelonious Monk while the left hand plays with the main theme of Ravel's Bolero.

The second piece of the concert barely sounded and everything was ecstasy and smiles among musicians and audience. Music of extreme beauty, simple and at the same time extremely complicated, enchanting, irresistible. Dazzling.

Yoruba chant, batá drums, the prodigies of acoustic bass, the chorus of congas, Chucho Valdés' piano, the song of Nigeria and Arará.

Chucho Valdés at Bellas Artes. A celestial orgy of congas and batá, a Carpentier novel in underwear, a baroque concert without wig or makeup or perfume. Only the powerful aroma of naked music.

An eighth wonder.

(Taken from La Jornada)