'El Mambí' performed by Santiago Feliú will be broadcast starting today on Cuba's network of radio stations

October 10, 2020

A version of the song El mambí, by Luis Casas Romero, will circulate starting today as a tribute to the celebration of Cuban Culture Day, which will extend until October 20, the 152nd anniversary of the Bayamo Anthem, a symbol of the nation.

Broadcast on the country's network of radio stations, the work is performed by Santiago Feliú (1962-2014), one of the most original voices of insular trova.

A possessor of his own style, which connected with rock and gave rise to a language laden with bold metaphors and innovative melodic and harmonic turns, Santiago saw fit to revisit a classic of the patriotic songbook, at the stroke of a guitar, as testimony to his belonging to the lineage of minstrels.

He did so in the album Con olor a manigua (Colibrí label, cd 459, 2014), a project to which he was invited by producer Rolando Montes de Oca, advised by the notable poet, essayist and lover of trova Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera.

In addition to the radio broadcast of the piece, the Ministry of Culture commissioned an audiovisual production to Roly Peña (Duaba, LCB and U.N.O.) and Alejandro Pérez, specialized in video clip production, which not only rescues Santiago's interpretation but also highlights the timeliness of the work and the importance of inserting it into the memory of new generations.

El mambí was composed by Casas Romero (1882–1950) in 1912, and musically responds to one of the most frequent rhythmic patterns of Cuban song in that era, the criolla. Initially there was only the music, performed for the first time one March night of that year, at an improvised evening at the Casino Español, by Moisés Simmons, author of El manisero, on piano, Mexican violinist José Morone, and Casas Romero himself on flute.

Until later, in order to complete the literary tribute to the combatants who fought against the colonial regime throughout the Island, the composer urged the young Havana poet Sergio La Villa (1891–1930) to write the verses that would make of the criolla an emblem of the Homeland.

Casas Romero expressed in the composition a heartfelt experience, since he himself had interrupted his musical studies in his native Camagüey to join the troops of the Liberation Army with the resumption of the emancipatory struggle in 1895. During the war he served as a first-rate cornetist in the battles and was seriously wounded in one leg.

His legacy, of vast scope in music, comprised of around 500 pieces, plus the mark left on the musical scene and concert bands, also included radio broadcasting: he is credited with the first transmission in Cuba, on August 22, 1922, from the 2LC plant.