Juan Formell Interview

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Juan FormellAuthor(s): Silvana Paternostro, Juan Formell and Benjamin MoserSource: BOMB, No. 70, The Americas 2000 (Winter, 2000), pp. 118-123Published by: New Art PublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40426249.

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silvana paternostro The firsttime I went toCuba was in 95, 1think,ndwhat impressedmethe most was that I was gettingto know thecountrynotthroughnewspapers or the radiowhich s a journalist s how I usually pproach acountry 'm visiting or he first ime- but that Iwas learningabout life in Cuba by listening oCuban music, speciallywhat's now called timba.Musicians nCuba seemtoplay he roles of chron-iclers nd sociologists, venheart doctors.Tel meaboutthisprocess.Juanformell Well, t s notnew, certaintype fCuban musician has alwaysdone this. t is an oldtradition hat started n the20s, withpeople likeMighelMatamoros;afterwards t was kept upbyPineiro. Beny Mor chronicledgeography.NicoSaquito was also a chronicler,ewas more ikeus,a chronicler of everyday ife.That's what we'redoingnow.Those ongswererelating osomethingabout life t that ime, reference hatyouwouldordinarily ave to look up ina book,butby isten-ing o the ongsofMatamorosor co Saquito yougeta sense of what ifewas likethen.sp Giveme an exampleofa Matamorossongyourememberwith hat kind freference.jf The Matamoros onguLas Frutasde Caney," r"Mam yo quiero saber de donde son los can-tantes, isn de La Habana, sisn de la loma"-Mama, I want o knowwhere he ingers re from,if hey're romHavana or from hesticks.sp Ofcourse, t's so well known hat it's almostbecomean anthem.What do you hink t's about?jf That'skind f ike skingwhere olcarne from.sp Or a history f sonwithin hesong.jf Yes,sortof.Matamoros came fromOriente, owhen he sings La Habana, tierra soberana,Havana,sovereign and,he istalking bout the dif-ference between beingfrom Havana whichhis-toricallyhas always been the capital- no?- andthe people fromOriente,from the east of theislandhave a differentocial status. In the song"la mujer de Antonio cuando va al mercadocaminaas, cuandova a la plaza caminaas" he istalking bout how flirtatious nd coqueta Cubanwomen are.sp Something lse I've alwaysnoticed s that helyrics fmanyofyour ongs enter he street an-guage. It's the questionofwhich comes first,hechicken rtheegg?What comes first?Doyou akethingsfromthe popular language that alreadyexist,or do you say it first nd then it enters thecommon rgot?jf Eitherway,there's no rule. Manytimes I've

taken a phrasethat lreadyexists.You knowwhatis nterestingboutCubans s thatwe have thisgifttocondense a verybig thing nto small phraseoftwo orthreewords.Andour ongsuse those two orthreewords.Forexample: yque se sepa, let itbeknown,ndyoureal y re not urewhat t s that sknown. t's like a reaffirmationwhen someonetellsyou, was there, witnessed his, ndy que sesepa. So people start aying hatall the time andfrom hat came upwith eso que anda" -whatgoes around. Eso que anda can be a disease or atrendor an addiction or a songor whatever.So,yes,Cubanscondense with ittle hrases nd I takethem nd buildmy ongsfrom hem.Other imes,it's he otherwayaround.Yougivepeoplea phraseI ke, Yosoynormalnaturalyunpoquitoacelera-do"- I'm normal,natural, nd move little ast.sp Yes, lovethat.jf Well,thatoneismine.sp Andwheredoes it come from? hear t s partofCuban conversationnow.jf I know. made itup.Therewas a similar ayinggoingaround at thetime:"vengo fresco, uave ybajito de sal"- I'm coming mellow, laid-back,smooth nd with little alt.sp Yes. (laughter).jf There are things uggestedby hat aying, ndthen came upwithmy wn version.sp It's an old tradition, layingwith words likethat. Cabrera Infantedoes it ll the time. t seemsespecially Cuban. It's an essential part of lacubanidad.jf It is. Andthere are many phrases that comefrom Cubanwayof alking, romhat cubanidad.Cubans don't beat around hebush, hey aythingsright ut or invent hemon the spot,and after-wardsyouswear youhave no idea where itcamefrom.A phrase just appears. Sometimes it's usmaking hemup nour ongs,but ometimes t ustcomes out of the blue and it startsbecomingasaying. Like dame dato, give me some facts.Cubansare always saying dame datos,"givemesome information. 've been wantingfor longtime to make a song usingdame datos.sp Changing he ubject.There's hephenomenonof Cuba's musicality. 've heard expressions inCuba like, fyou hrow stone inCuba you'llhitamusician.Ifyoupick up a rockyou'll findmusi-cians underneath. t's the onlyplace in the worldwhereparentswant heir hildren ogrowupto bemusicians.Wheredoes themusicality omefrom?jf I think hat thas to do withourgeographical

position.Being n heCaribbean basinwhere, ikein omepartsof NorthAmerica,blackpeoplehavemixed nto he differentultures, heSpanishandtheAmerican.sp It is likewhatyou ay inyour onguLleguedeCarabal" - I come fromCarabali .jf Yes." Vengode Nigeria,de Yoruba,Yara"... "IcomefromNigeria,from oruba,Yara."Thesearedifferent fricanreligionsor sects. "Llegue deCarabal, mis tierras on Angola, Mozambique"meaning hatwe have a mixture f o many iffer-entAfrican ountriesfromwhich heslaves werebrought.What's been created is not the culturefrom ach countryo much s a bigmixture. heAfricans ada big nfluence nCuba. But notonlyAfricans, uba is geographicallynthe middleofthe Caribbean so it was the center of Spanishdominion rom he16th nto he19thcentury.TheSpaniards had to stop inCuba- especially intheports,Havana and Santiago de Cuba - on theirway to send things to Europe: gold, coffee,tobacco. So the French, Spanish, English,Swiss- practically ll theraces and nationalitiesof the world- passed through, ll these peopletogether.Themusic was influenced y hat.Then,inOriente, heeast of he sland, fter he HaitianRevolution, here was an exodus of the Frenchwho brought heir slaves from Haiti. So a lot ofcultural influence and new ideas came fromHaiti. In the interior fCuba there were a lot ofSpaniards called canarios from the CanaryIslands, who also broughtmusic. That reallyimpactedourmusicacampesina,themusic of theCuban countryside, he son cubano and the sonmontuno.Tomixtheirmusic,which has a veryopen tempo, offered a lot of possibility andcreated many,manydifferent enres.All of thismakes Cuba a musical island. Jazz also had aninfluence. We have New Orleans verynearby.ManyCubanswent to the UnitedStates, to NewYork,and got involved in jazz and practicallycreated Latin azz. All these things eem to haveinfluenced nd made Cuba's musicality.sp Andwhendoyou hink uban music tarted oexport tself,o influencemusicianswho were notfromCuba?jf Its mportance eganat the turn f hecentury.There was a Cuban composer whose songs gotpicked up all over the world, called ErnestoLecuona. He was very nfluentialnCuban lyricalmusic. His work became partof the repertory fgreat ingers f he ime- famous enors nEurope,in the United States, New York, Boston andPhiladelphia. Then there was Matamoros.Matamoros went to the United States in the 20s

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and 30s, he even lived n New York.He arrivedwith on de la Loma andFrutas del Caney. In the 40s it wasalmostobligatoryo include Cubanconga or a Cuban rumba inHollywoodmovies. A Cuban singernamed MiguelitoValds was alsoimportant.He appeared in manyAmerican musical films n the 40sand really influenced Americanmusic. He made Cuban music thatbecame knownhroughoutheworld.sp What kinds f musicwerepickedup?jf Mainly hecongaandthen, ater,the rumba.sp But what kinds of musicianspicked it up here in the UnitedStates?jf Almost all the important azzbands, ikeDizzyGillespie. azzmusi-cians workedwithpeople like MarioBauza, Machito, Chano Pozo, andthat'swhere Latin azz came from.sp When didtheCuban influencenrock music tart?jf With antana, in Oyecomo va "It's the same idea,but he rock nflu-ence was more in the 80s; Stevie Wonder hassongsthat ound ike sonplayed by Cubancha-cha-chaorquesta.sp In the last fiveor six yearstherehas been aninternational esurgenceof Cuban music,whichhas become veryfashionable. In New York,forexample, there are restaurants that only playCubanmusic lthough nCuba peopleare listeningto timba.jf Whatpeople inCuba are not isteningo ispre-cisely he older music.sp Here it's heard as the onlyCuban music,butwhen goto Cuba, I don't heartraditionalCubanmusicas much.jf Yes,youmighthear it on one or two radio sta-tions but t's not the musicyoungpeople inCubalisten o,or dance to. It's notthe music thatgetsthe big crowds. It's a political thing- althoughyou may not believe it- recognizingthat newCuban music s ustas good, it's n the same classas the music from he 50s. In my opinion it is.That's one of thereasons why urmusic s heardless there. Also, all this was handled bya very

Juan ormell. hoto yFadil Berisha. uba, 999. Courtesy avanaCaliente.

smart record producer who produced greatmaterial with very high-quality technicalsupport.Themusicthat came out is of ncrediblequality, talways has been. The producerswerethen able to introduce t and make itpopular inthe UnitedStates.sp And timba,on the otherhand,which is themusicofCuba today is less known. o me it is sovital, o modern,o aggressive nd fu f oyat thesame time.Onecan say you rethefather f timba.Howdid t tart?jf LosVanVanstarted t n 69; Irakere n73 andthen n 78 AdalbertoAlvarez and NG La Banda in1980. That was the beginningofwhat we havetodaydecidedto call timba.sp Where does the name come from? I'mColombianndtimbanmy ountrymeansdark kin.jf It meansdifferenthings ndifferentlaces. Insome places it means uego, a game. Here intheold days,timba was a typeofbread, bread withguava jelly, an con timba.sp I love that.

jf Timba for Cuban can also meanplaying, imbiar.Or timbiar an meanto party, umbea, or to jam, to playmusic.There was a time here whenalot oftheprofessorsn henational rtschoolscame from ocialist countrieswith very martbutvery trict cade-micapproach. They playedand taughta classical repertory.o whenthe stu-dentstried to playCuban music, heywould be admonished and even pun-ished.They'd ose weekend privilegesbecause thismusicwas practically ro-hibited.t became a clandestine ctivi-ty. his ended years ago, but it was aweirdphase and during hat time thekidshadto doeverythingidden n heirdormrooms. heywould ay: "Tonightthere's timba n room numbernine."Or "We're going to have a timba,tonight.We'regoing o timbiar"sp Which is a classic situation. It'swhathappenedwith he rumba nd theguaguanc- the musica de cajn-during heperiodofslaverywhen heywere not allowed to play Africanrhythms,ight?jf That's right.This was more likethose where the school's rules,theydidn't realize that this music reallycalls for technique- the professors weren'tCubans. Theywere good professorsof violinorpiano,for xample,buttheywere fromBulgariaand fromHungary.Theyadnothingodowith urmusic. These professorswere annoyedthat the

students ould playmusictheyweren'tteaching.Once the kids eft chooltheywereprepared ech-nically ndthey ouldplay nything heywanted.Whiletheywere inschool, theyhad to find wayto get together nd jam,to playforfun.Andtheystartedcallingthis timba.'Nestarted ncorporat-ingwhattheywere doingwithwhat VanVan andothergroupshadbegan inthe70s. In the80s and90s there was an explosionoforquestas nd musi-cians that ame out of hese schools and we wouldall get together nd playand fuse oursounds.Wedecided amongst ourselves that our music wasmost ike those timbas.

sp Whenyou aythattimba s playeddifferently,whatdo youmean?jf It is all partof thephenomenon fhow it wascreated. It looksdifferent;t oundsdifferent. urmusic sa lot moreaggressivethan ay, alsa.

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sp Yes.jf We owe its ggressivenessand dynamic o thedancers, who,afterall, demand it fromyou.Asmusicians we have to recognize what it is thedancerneeds. From here, t ll has to do with hedancer and the musician.See, that'swhy here'sdifference.We givethe dancerswhattheyneed.sp How doyounoticewhen he dancersare shift-ing, hattheyneed more?jf It's instinctiveo a musician. can feelthat hedancers want me to play a littlefaster, littleharder, little ofter. ou feel it.sp So is it ike he dancers wereneeding musicfor heirnewdance,for hetembleque?jf Yes, slowly, tep by step, you and the dancersearch for t untilyouunderstandwhat satisfiesthedancer.sp Wouldyou aythat hetembleque s the danceof post-SovietCuba, ofthe Cuba of the SpecialPeriod?jf Yes, yes, hey ame at about the same time.sp Andthat it has a lot to do with heopeningofCuba,the end ofSovietsupport, he arrival of thedollar and of tourism. All of these factorscreated changes in the music and in the waywomen weredancing.jf I think o. It has to do with ll that.We had aplace called the Palacio de la Salsa, whichwas thecenter of t ll.sp Yes. I was there manytimes. I heard youplayinghere.But understandheynolonger avetimba t Palacio.jf Yes.Theychanged it. Nowtheyhave cabaretshows. But for lmostfiveyears tplayed n impor-tant role. The best orquestaswere there becauseinmy opinionwe are the best inthe world.Thismusic can't be matchedanywhere nthe world fwe're talking bout salsa or howeveryouwant tocall it.sp I agree. I love to watch the dancing.Cubandancers are so good. It's verydifficult o do thetembleque.Tve tried. think ouneed to be Cubanto get t. laughter).jf Don't think t's so hard,because we've seen itdone. We go more to Europe thanto the UnitedStates. We've seen it nFinland,nDenmark, nd,justso you know, here are people inthoseplaceswho dance as well as Cubans. nTurin,taly here'sa club called Van Van en Latino where youhave2,000 people dancingcasino style nd doingthetembleque.And hey'retalian Italians and Danish

Danesand Finnish inns, ota single olitary lackperson, nd it'sweird,buttheydance itperfectly.Andthey lso come to Cuba often nd are alwayslooking, ooking, ookingforpeople to do it with.Now we're comfortable in any of those placesbecause the publicalready knows the songs,themoves- and I'm talking boutthe timba. Not theold-stylemusic.sp Howdoyoudefine imbamusical y? s it mixofsounds ikehiphop?jf There'sa little azz, it has a littleLatin, littlepop rock, oo.And hen here sCubanmusic t thebase of t ll. Ofcourse,noteveryone playstimbathe ame way.The ommondenominator s the soncubanoandthesonmontunowhich sstronger,utthere re peoplewhotone itdown nd otherswhomix twith onga or with on. We mix twith hesongo- which s a genrethatVan Van created. Itdependswho isdoing t.But there sa base of sonwiththe influence f Latin azz and rap,a lot ofinfluence rom ap,nothiphop,butrap.sp Didyoupickupthese nfluencesrom our ripsabroad?jf No,fromhere inCuba itself.People here areinformedbecause ifyou have an FM radio youcan pick up stations fromeverywhere in theUnited States and Canada, from he DominicanRepublic. So sometimes we've been influencedby merengue, or maybe by cumbia or PuertoRican bomba. Same with elevision and also theattentionyoungerCubansgiveto keeping upwithwhat's going on elsewhere- theyfollow the hitparades. There are veryfew people here whohave thechance to travelwith ny frequencybuttheyhave a radio at home,and sometimes U.S.televisioncomes inspontaneouslyeven withoutan antenna and itbringsa lot with it. In Cuba,althoughalbums aren't sold as much s they reelsewhere, our geographic position is still anadvantage.sp Tve always noticed how,when Tve been inconcertsat theTropical or in thePalacio, every-one knows all the words to your songs, eventhough they don't even have your cassettes.Anotherphenomenon hat is different ere thaninCuba, people here ike o go to hear songs theyalready know, heold songs. In Cuba people liketo hear the new stuff.jf Sometimesthey ike to hearthe old songs, oo,because theyhaven't heard them na longtime.Andyes,one personhas a tape and itgets passedaround and copied many imes. But as a market,it'snogoodthatpeople piratefrom ach other ndneverbuy he album. It's bad forus.

Los Van Van. Photo by Fadil Berisha. Cuba, 1999. Courtesy Havana Caliente.

Our music omes from ommonone can relate to themand thafter ll that'swhatthisreallysp How do Los Van Van do it,keepon beingthenumber ne dance bandfor30 years?What's thesecret ofJuanFormell?jf My ecret s that 've neverforgottenbout thedancers. It reallyis the dancers who dictate theformulayouhave tofollowboth n herhythmndin he yrics f hesongs.They'rehe reasonfor hesongand you adapt to them.You payattention owhatthey re doing nd at the endyougetpeopleto feel likethey'repartof thesong, hatthey rethe characters n hesong.Ourmusic comes fromcommon hings nd commonfactsof ife o everyone can relate to them and theyfeel like charac-ters in a play because after all that's what thisreally s about- a great piece oftheater. But it'salso important o remember he rhythmnd thebeat. Keep upwithbut don'tchangethe dancers'steps.Givethem omething un o dance to.That'swhy, earafteryear,we have threeor four ongsthat become hits ndthatkeeps us ontop.sp For an orquesta itseems out of theordinaryfor hegroup eader to playthe bass. Howdo yousee this?jf I think he bass is the most important hing,although really ompose and write music on thepianoand theguitar. 've realized that the bass is

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;and commonfacts f ife o everylikecharacters na playbecause-a great piece oftheater.

like the spinal cord. If itgoes, youcan't walk atall; youcan't move around. It's the centerof thestory.Rememberthat nall musical culturesyoucan't do without t.You make a jazz trio; t'sbass,piano and drums. If you want, it can be guitar,violin ndbass.The bass isthe center f ll musicalcultures in the world. Even more so in Cubanmusic. The Cubans dance to the bass. It's thetumbao hat he bassgives hat rients eople, et'sthemknowhow o dance. Youknow,npublic, canplaythepiano orguitar.Butwith he bass I reallycarry he wholegroup. feel ike theowner oftheorquestaA laughter).sp Let's talka little bout thecreation fLos VanVan. I'm sure you'vebeen asked a lot about thename Los Van Van.jf Whenever 've told thestory o a journalist Ithink this is the millionth time that I've toldit they nterpret tbadlyor manipulate itfor,don'tknow, arrative easons orsomething.sp ( laughter).Let's hear it one moretime.jf Really his s thestory tellabout our name. InCuba in he ate60s, at thetime of he 1969 sugarharvest,hegovernment as tryingoproduce en

million ons of ugarand it ame upwith slogan:"Los diez millones de que van... van"- The 10millionmust o .. go. Ourname hadnothingo dowith hat. t was justa coincidence, phrasethatwas fashionable then.Nothingmore. Andthere'snothing lse, no otherstory.Van van in Spanishmeans twillhappen, twillgo. It was veryhard tthat timeto get the musicianswe wanted to get.One lived in Pinar del Rio. Another one was inanotherorquesta .. I don'tknow. Each time wewould spend a week, two weeks, waiting for amusician,so not to get discouraged, we wouldalways say, va,esto va,yde que van i/atf"That'show we ended up being Los Van Van. But everytime I tell the story t ends up beingas ifFidelCastro made us call ourselvesthat. And that is averyugly torybecause I don't even know FidelCastropersonally nd I don'tknow fhe likesmyorquestaand on thecontrary,t ook a lot of workto get started. No one made me do anything.nthe beginning,heywouldn'tapproveus becausehere inCuba- I don't know f t tillexists,but-youhad to have a government-approvedayroll oputtogether n orquesta. Ifyoudidn'thave thatpermit or n orquesta youcouldn'tput ttogeth-er. didn't, o theywouldn't et me do anything.No one in the governmentmade us do it- aspeople keep saying.All these stories have beenmanipulated n different aysand the story hatgetstold is often heoppositeofwhatreally hap-pened. Every ime hear thestory oldbackwardsI justsaytomyselfhatpeople are deaf.sp At the timeyoucreated theband,uc/e ue vanvan" was a popular saying, ut t lso came frompoliticalslogan.jf Yes. Yes. It was verypopular.Everyoneused it.Imagine namingyourband at the same time thata political campaign is also using hose words.sp But do you thinkat the time therewas anadvantageto callingyourselvesLos Van Van?jf No, none. As I was tellingyou, twas kindofstrangewhenpeople startedaskingme aboutthename because I just aid,uLet'scall ourselvesLosVanVan," nd thatwas thegeneralconsensus.Webecame Los Van Van. And anywaywe got theapprovalof theband after heharvest.Ourdebutwas in December 1969 and the harvest nded inMay 1970- we were playing without beingapproved, our official approval only came inSeptemberorOctoberof 1970.sp And thename real yhas entered nto ommonCuban slang because now,to say something sreallygood, people say, it's a van van."

jf Yes, hat's ight.Andwe won hatbecause ofourworkas a group. always like to recall myownexperience. ouknow, he ruthsthat hefirsthingI everwantedto do in lifewas to singbut neverwas able tosing- I didn'thave theconditions.sp Whereare you from, uan?jf Iwas born ere nHavana, utmy arentsre fromOriente.Even as a kid I wantedto be a singer;wanted o do thekid hing ndchangemyname toJohnnyries rHarry.n he ndmy ame sJuan;t'sone of he most ommon ames. It turned ut hat twas thebestname. ou an makeup namebutnot nartist. osVanVancouldhavebeencalled ChuChu rwhatever.The ame sn't mportant.t's he rtist.sp And...jf Holdon a minute,'m tired.sp Here's the astquestion: fyou're lwaystrav-elingaround theworld,do youthinkyou lose theflavorofthe street and of what's goingon,eventhoughyou'rethe numberone chronicler,r thenumber ne band inCuba?jf First f ll,we playhereevery imewe getthechance. We just got back from ur U.S. tour butwe're ready to play here - this weekend we'regoing o be at La Tropical. nevermiss chance toplay nCuba.Also, s soon as I getbackfrom eingabroad I immediately it hestreet, 'll alwaysgosee a friend r have a drink. o live like normalpeople. Ofcourse,when I arrivepeople want tocome over, ongratulateme,say hello, nvitemefor drink.But I am involved n daily life. 'malways finding ut what's going on,whatpeopleare talking bout. I getupdatedon thenewslang.sp Andwhat's happeningnow? Dame datos?jf (laughter)Dame datos.There's notreally ny-thinggoing on. Saturday we're playing at theTropical. People are really nterested nthe newalbum nd are listeningo the newsongs.Butrightnow, lthoughyoumaynotbelieveme, veryone stalking bout theWorld eries. Everyone scallingeveryone p especially hosewho have radios ndTV antennas- to find ut aboutYankee-Atlantagames and about the scores. I'm getting eadytowatch he astonetoday. have friendsoming verto watchthegame but t s also an excuse to gettogetherwith riendsnd havesomedrinks.sp Who are yourooting or?jf TheYankees, o

Translated y ilvanaPaternostro& BenjaminMoser

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Juan Formell Interview

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