Polito Ibáñez: "I want transcendence for my world of creation, that is my greatest dream"

July 8, 2019

# TRANSLATION

Restless and incessant questioner of everything that happens within himself and around him, Polito Ibáñez continues to show himself as one of those essential names within the realm of singer-songwriter music.

Without interest in the whims of fashion, even with the fortune of having a faithful audience that, in difficult times for song, recognizes itself in him and in his texts, Polito, as he is affectionately called, continues to fill with authenticity that way of expression that has distinguished him since his beginnings.

After concluding a prolific stage in which he prepared a series of important symphonic concerts, he ventures into the preparation of his next album produced by ART Music, an Italian record label with which he signed a contract for the production of three records; the next one will be the second; the first was Sombras amarillas.

In light of this work, we took advantage of a lengthy conversation with Polito Ibáñez to update the followers of La Jiribilla on the current projection of the creator of Doble juego, Números, Recuento, Evocaciones, Axilas, Para no pensar, among other pieces that already remain treasured forever in an inclusive collective memory.

Next album… another child

My next album is practically in the mixing phase, although it still doesn't have a name. All the tracks have been recorded in Italy, by an engineer named Diego Fiotto; the musical production is by the same producer of Sombras Amarillas and myself. The peculiarity of this album is that it has songs made by both of us. The fundamental part of the melody and the texts is more my responsibility because I am the author of the songs in Spanish, but he has done performances from which I started to conceive the songs.

We've thought about presenting the album through the Bis Music label; we still don't know if we'll do a live concert because we recently did one at Teatro Mella, on the occasion of my birthday, and for that occasion we premiered some pieces.

While I was finishing recording these tracks, a project that has given me tremendous pleasure to undertake, I continued to perform at events that interested me for what they conceptually meant; such is the case of Al sur de mi mochila, in Cienfuegos, the Romerías de Mayo, in Holguín; I even went to Guantánamo with Waldo Mendoza for his event Chocolate con café. All these presentations have been preparing me for this new stage of work I'm immersed in, which seems interesting to me because in it I combine jazz music with the type of song I defend. It's a totally new phenomenon for me because of the way I approach the melodies. I can't measure the results, of course, but it's a work that demands of me a series of harmonic and melodic turns that are not habitual for me and that will give new life to the text.

As for themes, as always, there are songs with social relevance and romantic ones are sure to appear. The latter will be sustained by a jazzy orchestration that fits them "like a glove." The album speaks of man's relationships with himself and with others; it has pieces of a more introspective character, but I continue speaking of family, of politics, of what should change in personal relationships; therefore, I continue making songs of and for life.

It's about ten songs; some titles I remember are El cuerpo enferma y el alma sufre, Ser o no ser, Imagino, Así, La estrella, among others."

And as always when conversing with Polito, what begins as an approach to his most immediate projects takes the song as the center of analysis. And along those lines the reflection continued.

Benny Moré, I never imagined singing to you

Singing for me will always be an exercise of life, which is why I'm so grateful to have been invited to the gala offered to Benny Moré at the recently concluded edition of Cubadisco.

At first it was very difficult work; it was an odd arrangement for me, one that I had to work very hard on because I couldn't understand it, especially to remember the tonality that wasn't suggested from the beginning, but undoubtedly it was a tremendous opportunity to participate in a gala that was offered to the one who was the highest Cuban musician of all time. It's incredible, me from Cienfuegos and in Cienfuegos, I never had that opportunity. So the fact that they invited me and being able to feel the vibration while performing one of the many songs that he immortalized, I'm deeply grateful for; plus having done it with such young but seasoned musicians as those from La Banda Gigante was very flattering and made me feel part of work of great prestige.

On the other hand, I was somewhat pleased by the idea of breaking that cliché, that singer-songwriters don't participate in shows of that type. It happens that singer-songwriters almost never "lend themselves" to undertake this important exercise of interpretation. There's a tradition that was imposed, and just as it became habitual for some official to know which doors to knock on and whom to call for an event, it also became habitual that officials would notice that singer-songwriters weren't much interested in that work. I do believe that it's a prejudice, that it's valid to move away from it because, while it's essential for us to perform our own texts, it's also a responsibility to take on works by great Cuban singers and composers on stages designed for all audiences.

And precisely addressing the theme of interpreting great songs was another pretext Polito found to assess the current state of local trovadorismo...

If song is you...

Something curious happens to me when offering criteria about how the musical phenomena around me are doing, because when we talk about trovadorismo, a subject we address in a very coherent way, there are works by many authors on the street, it's a happiness, but when they're lacking, it's another happiness, since in that deep sense of crisis some talented and brilliant creators always appear who impose themselves. What I am convinced of is that trovadorismo, as a manifestation of culture, will never die; perhaps some of its best practitioners today are hidden, out of shyness or who knows for what other reasons. But particularly I always see the health of trovadorismo better than any other phenomenon of emerging or passing music. The health of trovadorismo is like that of traditional song, son or salsa; all its keys are in its own genesis, which is why I believe in its merit of rising from its ashes.

And said in those terms, Polito confirms the special relationship that ties him to poetry.

Poetry and song

Obviously in my beginnings I pursued making song poetic. But I no longer have that concern, because I already know what I can do and how far I want to go, because I can give a poetic nuance to the song, since it per sé is not poetry, or because I already have a craft that allows me to know the springs I can move to provoke certain emotional effects. That a text be poetic I think is something that either comes out or it doesn't; really making poetry with song is somewhat difficult, it's like a double task, because they're two different phenomena, although craft helps find an expression or phrases or sentences that string together a poetic sense, even though the primary thing is how to say what you feel, because what must prevail for both song and poetry is a right sense, an honest one, far from the slightest trace of "comfort" or "vulgarity."

And for this talkative interlocutor who has demonstrated his rejection of indifference...

The Song heals, matures

Song awakens emotions, ennobles feelings, which doesn't mean it necessarily has to be successful. The truth is that for a man of fifty-four years such as I am, the relationship with the environment and society is totally different, which is why I feel that song has helped me grow. I don't think the needs I had to be a questioner of reality have been extinguished; I continue speaking of family, society, fears, appearances and I do this beyond song; I speak about it in the street with my friends, my family, as an extension of what I write.

And within that maturity I was referring to, I owe a debt of gratitude to my own condition as an actor. I'm a graduated actor, and that condition lives with me and comes out when defending a song; however, when I'm writing it, another thing comes out that I learned while studying, which is the "yes, I imagine." For this moment the conflict also resurges with force. Because songs have their own conflict, their own dramaturgy; the creator must be very clear within the general dramaturgy about what the main conflict is and what those phenomena of contradiction are that generate climactic situations. That's why he has to confront the way he's going to express himself. It's not enough what to say, it's essential to know how to say it. In this duality is where the song heals. And that same duality is what has made me feel extremely grateful for my audience. They have understood very well each one of those specificities, and that's why we've established a relationship of so many years. I dare say it like this, without arrogance, but I always call it and always will, "my audience," those who didn't come to me because of fashion, although, for example, in times of Doble juego they would pack the venues. But I certainly take pride in an audience that fell in love with and through my songs, they have them as something that matters in their lives, their children were born to them, and they've made sure to instill them in their descendants. It's an audience with whom I can sustain a loving relationship, because they love you, they follow you, they value your songs, they respect you. That was demonstrated to me at my last concert at Teatro Mella, where the people never tired during the more than two hours it lasted. People cried, laughed, interacted with me. And that can't be exchanged for anything.

And the existence of that very audience makes you glimpse the future

Yes, of course, I owe that to my audience, which is why I can confess to you that for my world of creation I want transcendence, that is my greatest dream: transcendence as a phenomenon of culture. That it could mean something like the literature of Cortázar, Quiroga, the poetry of Vallejo or Eliseo Diego or the work of Günter Grass. I would like it to be like that, that each song I make has that purpose in life. If it's with my name, good; if not, also good, but I want that.

And this wish is sometimes not well understood. It happens that sometimes I'm called to events whose purpose is more ideological than purely cultural, then, and with all respect, I often refuse to accept. Because I consider that's one of the most effective ways, even if it's not the intention, to kill culture, to ideologize it.

I consider that sometimes singing at a political act rather than making a monument of culture provokes a boycott of it, and doesn't contribute anything. However, the interaction between manifestations is valid, say for example between agriculture and medicine, I applaud that. Doctors need agricultural producers to provide healthy products to hospitals so that cancer patients can feed themselves with healthy products that don't poison them. Collaborations of course are valid, and in that sense there's inexorably a collaboration between culture and politics, as long as one doesn't let itself be absorbed by the other, because they're two phenomena with different responsibilities and they play their role in society to obtain a final result, only they carry a different exercise and language.

An expected ending then

Well, what I'll tell you now is directed at that very audience to which I've been referring throughout. Expect from Polito future albums; I'm not at all in a stage of emptiness, I have many more songs and albums to make, and that's what I'm proposing for myself for the coming times.

Of course there will always be usual presentations, or at least spontaneous ones, as often happens, but I do keep myself somewhat apart from television. I have nothing against the medium, quite the opposite; what happens is that I feel that most hosts don't prepare themselves to interview, there are many valuable spaces but I would like other things to happen in them, that they be interested in more serious concerns, that it not just be knowing what you're writing about, because behind each song there are other stories to tell and that the audience might be interested in. I think that every artist, even the least tormented, the calmest, have lives that can turn out to be attractive, without thereby having to be proper gossip, which I have nothing against, but I don't want that for myself.

Ah, very important, let's not close this chapter without thanking the tremendous opportunity to be in this magazine La Jiribilla, a measured means of communication concerned with showing, among other manifestations, the voice of the music makers on this island of music and good speech. Thank you.