2-
The Early Stages
a- African influences.
At this point, we must look into the difference
in the treatment of the millions of Africans brought as slaves
to the continent of America. There was a fundamental difference
in their treatment depending on the national identity of the masters;
Dutch and English on one side or Spanish-Portuguese on the other.
The Dutch and the English had no history or experience with slavery
and did not know how to deal with it. They viewed the slaves as
creatures that had to be stripped of all their cultural accoutrements,
such as language, religion, and customs. They thought the slaves
should be trained immediately in European ways. In other words,
they had to be culturally neutered. As their economic system in
the beginning consisted mostly of small plantations, the master
could keep his eye on the slave and force a quick conversion.
On the other hand, the Spanish and Portuguese knew about slavery.
There had been African slaves on the Iberian Peninsula before
Columbus and their dances and customs were known to the Spaniards
and the Portuguese masters. They had learned that the slaves were
happier and worked better if they were allowed to keep their own
music and dances. Also, the great plantation systems of the Spanish
and Portuguese leaders needed huge concentrations of slaves and
it was difficult to enforce individual control on each one.
Religion also made a significant difference. The Dutch and English
settlers, being Protestant and very fundamentalist, demanded that
the slaves be stripped of their beliefs and trained totally in
the faith of their masters. The Spanish and Portuguese, and to
a certain extent the French, were more tolerant of the slave's
belief system and allowed them to keep a considerable part of
their own customs and religions.
When the slaves finished their daily labor and during their half-day
off on Sundays, they were locked in their common barracks and
there, through oral tradition, kept alive their customs and beliefs.
While in the English and Dutch colonies, the slaves were literally
stripped of their language and memories, in the Spanish and Portuguese
colonies; the slaves reconstructed a great part of their culture
through oral communications.
Africans from different regions played an important role and contributed
to the development of Cuban music. Some of the most influential
included the Yoruba from Nigeria, the Mandinga from Sudan, and
the Bantu from the Congo, the Ewe-Fon and the Fanti-Ashanti of
present-day Dahomey.
Although African drums were not brought with the slaves when they
were transported, the Africans recreated these instruments with
materials found on the island, making adjustments along the way.
With slight differences, they were similar to their African counterparts.
These consisted mainly of drums, shakers and bells.
Some of the African musical traditions that survive and flourish
to this day in Cuban music are: 1) call and response singing in
which a voice is followed by another voice or a choral response,
2) polymeter in which different meters are played simultaneously,
3) polyrhythms in which different parts are superimposed and,
4) pentatonic and non-western scales, especially with improvised
vocal lines.
b- Out of Africa
At the beginning of the XVI century, when the
Spanish started importing African slaves into Cuba, the Yorubas
of West Africa had a very elaborate religious liturgy and a religious
culture older than Christianity. The center of Yoruba religion
was music itself. They had a complex liturgy of songs, dances
and chants dedicated to a pantheon of several dozen gods and saints
or "orishas." The Yorubas for use in their religious
rituals developed many instruments. For example, the making of
a batá or a religious drum, begins with a ceremony performed
before the cutting down of the tree.
As mentioned before, because of the nature of the extensive plantations
that existed primarily in Cuba and Brazil where there were large
number of slaves and minimal supervision in the "barrancón,'
the compounds were the slaves were kept after their labors, the
African traditions were kept alive. Another factor was that the
catholic church had a policy that conversion of non-believers
should be a gradual thing and native beliefs be incorporated into
the peoples liturgy, as opposed to the protestant ethic of Anglo
America where the goal was to obliterate the original culture
and replace it with the master's version of Christianity. Thus
in Cuba the original orishas were transformed and blended with
Spanish saints. Thus Chango became St. Barbara, Obatalá
became The Virgin of Mercy (La Virgen de la Caridad, Patron Saint
of Cuba), and Babalú Allé became St. Lazarus and
so on.
So it came to pass that the African religions were conserved in
Cuba. Not only that of the Yoruba but also the Congo and Carabalí.
Throughout the centuries in the 'barrancones" and "cabildos"
a complex religion consisting of ritual, songs and dances were
kept alive. Meanwhile, colonizing agents, mainly English and French
were busy taking over the African continent and destroying their
cultural heritage and their way of life. Thus it is interesting
to note that much of the ancient African religions are better
preserved in Cuba and Brazil than in Africa itself!
c- the French connection
In 1791, an event occurred in Haiti that would
forever change the course of Cuban music history: the overthrow
of the French masters by African slaves. The French colonists
fled Haiti with some of their slaves and established themselves
in what was then known as the province of Oriente on the easternmost
part of the island of Cuba. There they built huge coffee plantations
and in a short time, by virtue of their economic power, became
a force in local affairs. Santiago de Cuba was then, and is now,
the second largest city in the country. The French masters became
a part of its high society.
The French also brought with them dances such as the gavotte and
saraband, the contradanza or danza Francesa, a salon dance based
on French country dancing which had found considerable popularity
among the French middle class. This dance was played with European
msucial instruments, but often the musicians they used were blacks
or mulattoes. Of course, drums were not used at these dances at
this time, as they were thought to be a "lower" kind
of musical instrument reserved for African slaves and not for
European or upper class ears. It is interesting to note that even
though the drums became the center of Afro-Ciban music in the
20th century, as late as the 1950s drummers and percussionists
were still the lowest paid musicians in the Cuban orchestras!
It is a good example of lingering cultural attitudes and prejudices.
The black and mulatto musicians in the French orchestras that
played the danza Francesa, often plucked the violins like a percussion
instrument with plenty of pizzicato in their playing. The resultant
rhythm owes its vitality to the "cinquillo," a rhythm
element clearly of African origin. The cinquillo can be found
in the bata-rhythms of the Santeria cults as well as in Haitian
voodoo.
As an interesting footnote, two of the most famous black violin
players of the 19th century, Brindis de Sala and Joseito White,
became internationally famous violinists. White, born in 1837,
was the composer of the fine dance called "La Bella Cubana,"
a masterpiece of early Cuban music and it is still played today.
De Salas was called "the Cuban Paganini." He became
a musician of the German court , was even made a baron and decorated
with the Legion of Honor! He played all the European courts from
St. Petersburg to Paris and was admired wherever he went. He had
a life of great contrasts, however, and died cold, hungry and
penniless in Buenos Aires in 1911. That city, just a few years
before, had been filled with admirers and presented De Salas with
a Stradivarius violin.
To: 3- Habanera and Danzon
To: 1- Roots of Cuban Music
