Day 8

            Today was an incredible last day in Havana, Cuba! I woke up early, had breakfast, and was ready to leave the hotel by 9AM. I had to be at the La Ena conservatory by 9:30AM, and had to find a taxi that could take me and return for me around noon. I was able to get a taxi right in front of the hotel, and told him where I was going. The drive itself took about 25 minutes and took me to the other side of Havana. We finally arrived, and the taxi dropped me off at the front gate. He waited while I went up to speak to the woman at the entry point, and after a short conversation in Spanish, I discovered that this was La ISA (Institute Superior of Art) and not La ENA (National School of Art). So, I got back in the taxi and we drove a few hundred feet further up the street to the next gate, which was in fact the gate for La ENA. I explained to the guard (more on him later) that I was visiting the school with an American group of students from California. He pointed to a big tour bus parked in the parking lot and let me pass right through. That seemed too easy! I walked towards the bus, which was parked very close to the building. As I looked to my left, I saw beautiful grounds that were once a golf course. I had read that this entire campus used to be a country club prior to the revolution. Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara decided to turn this former country club into the conservatories for the arts in the early 1960’s.

            When I walked towards the front of the building, I saw all of the High School students standing around with their instrument cases, looking like they just got off the bus. No more than two minutes after I arrived, the director of the school greeted everyone and introduced some Cuban students to give a short performance of traditional Cuban music. These Cuban students couldn’t have been more than 16 years old, and were wonderful! The American high school students were in awe of these musicians and were fascinated by the virtuosity and cohesiveness of the ensemble as well as the Cuban rhythms and vocal melodies. This group performed three or four selections.

            Next, the entire group was ushered further into the music school, into a small lecture hall. The director of the school explained (in brief) what goes on at the school and how the Cuban music education system works. I was able to corroborate many of the facts that I have learned over the years about the Cuban system. I was amazed at how I more or less knew all of the information that was presented.

            After this short presentation, we were ushered into a third room, where I would remain for the rest of my time at the conservatory. This was a rehearsal space with chairs for the audience to sit in. There was a Charanga Orchestra (string instruments, Cuban percussion, piano, bass, etc.) made up of students from La ENA. Their director had to be in his 70’s, and was wonderful to watch. His conducting style was unorthodox, but extremely effective. Once we were all settled, the Charanga Orchestra performed a few selections for us, including a medley of all of the famous Cha-Cha-Cha’s from Cuba. On the last selection, the director invited the Berkeley High School students to join the Cuban students. Only a few brave high school musicians got up on the bandstand to join the Cubans (a piano player and a drumset player). The drummer knew what was going on, and played the correct rhythms with the particular style that was being played). The piano player struggled with the montuno pattern, but I gave him a lot of credit for getting up there and trying to learn. After all, that is what cultural exchange is all about!

            After the Charanga Orchestra’s performance, the Berkeley High School Jazz Band set-up and performed for the Cuban students and faculty. This group performed well and performed a few straight ahead jazz selections (“Sepia Panorama” by Duke Ellington) as well as a tune called “Nuyurican Salsa” (or something similar to that title). For those of you who are not familiar the word Nuyurican, it refers to people of Puerto Rican descent who live in New York City. This song portrayed many of the Cuba rhythms and presented a great piece for the Cuban and American students to collaborate on. The American jazz band director invited Cuban students to join her students on this last selection. A trumpet player, trombonist, bass player, drummer, and saxophonist all joined the group, and boy could they play! They sight-read the parts and improvised with wonderful vocabulary and precision. Just observing this cultural exchange was incredible. This is truly the definition of “people-to-people exchange,” and I was very humbled by the fact that music can break all language barriers. Many of the students did not understand each other because they didn’t speak more than their own native language, but they communicated through music and were successful with this. The goal of any cultural exchange in music is to share your own music and be open to learning about the music of the other person’s culture. I believe that this was already occurring with these students and they had only been together for three hours. Incredible!

            I began my departure around 11:45AM. I thanked the man who made it possible for me to visit the conservatory and told him I would be in touch in the future about bringing my own High School students to Cuba to perform and study. My last stop before walking to the front gate was to donate some musical supplies (reeds for saxophone and clarinet, guitar strings, etc.). I found my way to the main office and ended up meeting the principal without even asking to do so. She was very friendly and very grateful for the donations. I asked if I could use her phone to call my taxi driver to come and pick me up; she agreed. When I spoke to the taxi driver, he told me that he was at the airport and wouldn’t be able to come and pick me up for at least 45 minutes. This wasn’t going to work because I had to meet my tour group for lunch in 30 minutes. I explained this situation to the principal of the school, and she called the main taxi number and requested a taxi for me. I waited out by the street (right by the guard post). While waiting, I started chatting with the security guard who I had met earlier. I asked him if he spoke English, and he said: “No. Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese.” I told him I would try to speak in Spanish as best I could. We had a fruitful conversation, where at one point he gave me some Portuguese lessons. I told him where I was from and what I was doing in Cuba and at the conservatory. He then shared with me that he always wanted to play the piano, but his parents couldn’t afford lessons when he was younger. We spoke some more, and he told me that before working at the conservatory, he was a fighter pilot for twenty years. He told me that he was stationed in Angola for a while, which is where he learned Portuguese. He told me that after being a fighter pilot, he was a commercial airline pilot for the state-run airline, Cubana, for twenty-seven years. After telling me all of this, I looked at him and said in a shocked voice: “¿Cuantos años tiene? (How old are you?). I was shocked when he told me that he was seventy years old. He didn’t look that old! He then proceeded to tell me that he never smoked in his entire life and only drank on occasion. (By now you are probably thinking that I was talking to him for a while; you would be right!). The taxi did not show up, so I had to resort to standing even closer to the road and seeing if a taxi drove by. It took a while, but I finally flagged down a taxi (a 1957 Chevrolet). I said farewell to the guard and gave the taxi driver instructions on where I was going, a restaurant called La Ferminia. I arrived only a few minutes late, but the group was already close to finishing their main course (all of our meals in Cuba involved multiple courses, even lunch). This was not a big deal though because the group had actually arrived to the restaurant early, and they were prepared to wait for me to eat. Luckily, the food was served on skewers and served family style. Thus, there was cooked food already on the table, and I just had to serve myself. After I ate, there was a live band performing for us (a trio), and I was able to play a few selections with them. They did not have a piano, so I played maracas on a Bolero and sang and played claves on a Son tune (“Bilongo”). This was a lot of fun!

            After lunch, we returned to the hotel for a private concert held in the cigar lounge. It featured the great (and young) Cuban pianist Rolando Luna and his group (bass, drums, and a vocalist). This group was world class and very fun to listen to. 

Rolando also performs with the current incarnation of the Buena Vista Social Club now called: Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club. I spoke to Rolando and his ensemble after the performance and they were such friendly people. I took some audio/video recordings during the concert, and they asked if I could make them a copy of it for their own use. I was happy to give them a copy of the recordings, and plugged my memory card into their laptop and transferred the files. It was a shame because Rolando told me that the Buena Vista group was performing in Havana the following night. Rolando invited me to the event, but I unfortunately had to tell him that I would be back in the United States by that point. O well…Next time!

            At the conclusion of this concert, we had a few hours of free time. I had a mission of locating baseball hats of Havana’s premier baseball team, the Industriales. I offered to pick up hats for two of the members of our group as well. I also had aspirations to find sheet music of Cuban songs as well as books about Cuban music. I explained my plans to Meylin (our tour guide), and she offered to come with me to help locate these items. We got in a cab and ventured to Old Havana in order to search for the music books and sheet music. There was a huge square of many different book vendors and we searched and searched. Each vendor had something that they thought I would be interested in, but it was never exactly what I wanted. After the fifth or sixth vendor we found someone who said that he had exactly what I wanted. He took a folder out of a box and handed it to me. This was it…A treasure trove of exactly what I was looking for. There must have been thirty musical selections in this folder, all with so much oxidation that they must have been at least fifty years old; all of the sheet music was published prior to the revolution. Some of it was piano/vocal music and others were the complete score (with parts) for a large Cuban ensemble. The gentleman wanted $5 CUC’s per piece of music. I asked him how much he wanted for the ENTIRE collection, and he paused for a moment. He counted all of the pieces of music, did some math in his head, and told me he would sell it to me for $100 CUC’s. I probably would agreed to this deal if I had more money in my wallet, but if I spent all of that money on the music, I wouldn’t have had enough for the baseball hats and the taxi ride back to the hotel. I decided to purchase eight pieces of music or so, but made sure that I selected the larger pieces of music (books with more than one song). The price was per item, not per song, so I got a good deal by selecting items with multiple songs and parts in it.

            After this purchase, Meylin and I hailed another taxi and asked him to take us to the baseball stadium. We were afraid that since it was after 5PM, the stadium shop would be closed. When we finally pulled up to the stadium and saw that the shop was still open, we cheered! I purchased three hats (one fore me and two for members of my group), counted my money and luckily JUST had enough for the taxi ride back to the hotel. And…like that, all of my goals for the afternoon were fulfilled! When we arrived back at the hotel, I went up to my room for a bit to drop off all of the items that I had bought, and then went back downstairs. I met up with Meylin again and also Jerry, another member of our tour group (he was one of the people I had bought a hat for). We spent some time together talking and then met up with the rest of the group for our farewell dinner at Tocorro, the restaurant where Fidel Castro’s chef used to work. The name of the restaurant signifies a type of bird found only in Cuba.

            Our dinner was very good, full of great food and wonderful company. We shared memories of our time together in Cuba and enjoyed the live band that was performing (that Tom and I got to play with…we played In a Mellow Tone). We also took time to recognize Meylin, Annie, and Julio. Meylin was our fabulous and extremely knowledgeable Cuban tour guide, Annie was our fabulous tour guide from Insight Cuba who teaches at Tulane University, and Julio was our extremely friendly and personable bus driver. All three of these individuals contributed to a simply incredible trip and we were all very grateful for their support, knowledge, and help throughout the week. After dinner, we returned to the hotel, and the majority of the group called it a night (it was 10PM at this point). I decided to go up to my room to relax for a few minutes and pack most of my things into my suitcase. I had plans to meet a few people in the lobby for a drink after packing.

            When I got to my room, I looked on my bed, and saw a few little creatures crawling around on the pillow and the comforter. I immediately called the front desk and asked for a room change. They told me that they would have to send housekeeping up to the room to verify the problem. While waiting for housekeeping, I packed up all of my belongings and got ready for the impending change in rooms. When housekeeping arrived, she took a look at the critters, and told me that they would change my room. She didn’t seem shocked or anything; it almost seemed like she had seen this before in the hotel. About 30 minutes later, a bellhop knocked on my door with the key to my new room on the 16^th floor (I was currently on the 15^th floor). I took all of my luggage and belongings up to the new room, and got settled. I checked the bed and did not find any bugs. I was satisfied with everything and was happy to get away from the creatures. Once I got settled in my new room, I went downstairs to the lobby and looked for the members of my group. Unfortunately, the room change took way too long and they were nowhere to be found. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I was in America; I could have pulled out my cell phone and called to find out where they were. Unfortunately, this was in Cuba, where nobody’s cell phone worked while we were in the country. While I was bummed that I couldn’t hang out, it was probably for the best. I went back up to my room, got ready for bed and went to sleep. I had to wake up early to finishing packing, eat breakfast and meet the group for our departure for the airport at 7:45AM. Our flight was at 11AM and we had to get to the airport in time to check our luggage, obtain our plain tickets, and go through security and customs. ¡Hasta Mañana! (Until tomorrow!)