March 23, 1999
As U.S. and European musicians land in Havana, organizers of a cultural exchange stress harmony, not discord.
A big week for U.S.-Cuba cultural exchange opened here Monday with all sides seeking to play down the politics.
But this is Cuba, and whenever Americans gather here _ for whatever reason _ it’s bound to set tongues wagging.
A group of 44 American and European musicians checked into Havana’s majestic Hotel Nacional over the weekend for a week of jamming with some of Cuba’s best artists. On Sunday, it’s the turn of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, which will play an exhibition game against Cuba.
Not since the country’s revolution 40 years ago, perhaps, has Havana hosted so many famous faces from its enemy to the north. Among them are composer Burt Bacharach and singers Bonnie Raitt, Gladys Knight and James Taylor. Florida’s own Jimmy Buffett is due to arrive Friday to join in a weekend concert. Actor Woody Harrelson is here.
Over the years the Hotel Nacional has witnessed its fair share of odd events. Built in 1930, it is inextricably linked with the country’s politics. Its casino was a popular hangout in the 1940s and ’50s for the Mafia, including Meyer Lansky and Tampa’s Santo Trafficante, who was reputed to be a mob boss.
It was a different scene Monday as Raitt strolled through the lobby armed with an electric guitar.
In an outdoor patio bar, the Americans were getting to know their Cuban counterparts. Names on crumpled pieces of paper were drawn from two hats _ one for Americans and the other for Cubans _ in order to team up the artists for the rest of the week. “It’s like blind-dating,” explained Alan Roy Scott, president of Music Bridges Around the World, the organizers of the event.
The musicians will spend the next few days composing songs in their rooms before getting together to perform them at Havana’s Karl Marx theater Sunday.
Despite the quality of the participating musicians, it remains a matter of debate how much good music will emerge from such an unusual arrangement of artists, with Cuba’s traditional Afro-Caribbean rhythms mixed with U.S. pop, folk, rap, jazz and country.
Some U.S. musicians declined to attend for political reasons. Organizers wanted to include more big-name Hispanic artists, ideally equipped to communicate in Spanish with the Cubans. “There was some resistance from that community as to concerns that it might not be good for their careers,” said Scott.
“If we can’t make any good songs, at least we’ll drink a lot of rum for sure,” said Carlos Alfonso, leader of Sintesis, one of Cuba’s top Afro-Cuban bands.
Jokes aside, it’s hard to separate politics from the week’s events.
It took Music Bridges almost 18 months to negotiate permission to stage the event with Cuban officials and the U.S. State and Treasury departments, the main authorities responsible for enforcing the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
With two such high-profile events in the same week, Cubans might be excused for wondering if there’s something going on politically behind the scenes. But, as everyone seems eager to point out, these are not politicians.
“I will say loud and clear, I am just here to make music,” Scott declared at a news conference. “We have absolutely no interest in the elements around us that we do not control.”
But critics say avoiding those elements ignores the realities of modern-day Cuba. Economic hard times mean that most Cubans continue to eke out a living on meager state salaries, worth barely $20 a month. Few Cubans are able to visit Havana’s popular tourist bars and nightclubs. Due to a recent crime wave, some Cuban nightspots have been closed.
Cuba’s Communist authorities also have launched a crackdown on political dissent, with stiff new penalties for any activity deemed to be supportive of U.S. policy toward the island.
Last week the Communist workers’ daily, Trabajadores, ran a tough editorial attacking terrorist threats by Cuban exiles in Miami. It was accompanied by an article denouncing the work of two Western journalists in Havana, Dennis Rousseau of the French news agency AFP and Pascal Fletcher, a British correspondent for Reuters news service and the Financial Times. The article, by a Cuban official, denounced the pair for writing “falsehoods” designed “to denigrate Cuba before the world.”
Most threatened by the new laws are Cuba’s small band of “independent” journalists who publish articles abroad critical of Cuba’s one-party Communist system.
They have welcomed the visit of the U.S. musicians and baseball players. “It’s good,” said Raul Rivero, founder of Cuba Press, a group of independent reporters. “It’s important for people to come here and see what’s going on.”
Music Bridges says that is part of its goal in fostering better cultural understanding between Cuba and the United States. While the group rejects any political role, the organizers say music can serve as a “healing force.”
It has chosen as the event’s musical theme Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water.
“It is troubled water, but the bridge is music, which is different than sitting around talking about treaties, laws and restrictions,” said Scott.
“We hope we can in a small way make a change, but it’s change coming from a creative place. It’s not getting into any of the areas we are not supposed to. I don’t care and I don’t want to be part of that.”
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