Jazz | Music | Arts & Culture | Jocelyn Square | Arts & Anti-racism
Iyla Bhandary-Alexander Photo.
Jazz music has changed lives, from the port city of New Haven to its Caribbean cousin Havana, the home of Cuban jazz and origin port of the Amistad. So has the fight for labor rights and fairer worker practices, including right here in Connecticut. Carlos Manuel Gomez lives in both worlds.
Gomez is a pianist and labor leader who is interviewed here by his sometimes friend, sometimes lawyer, James Bhandary-Alexander, and photographed by Iyla Bhandary-Alexander, a rising Senior at Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS).
The Carlos Gomez quartet plays Wednesday, August 28 at 6 p.m. at Next Door, 175 Humphrey St. in New Haven. Tickets are $25 at the door and all money goes directly to the musicians.
James Bhandary-Alexander: Tell me about your family.
Carlos Manuel Gomez: I was born in 1974, in Havana, Cuba, in a middle-class neighborhood called Vedado. My mother was an architect, and my father was an economist. My mom was of Spanish heritage, from the Canary Islands. On my dad’s side, my great-grandmother was from Africa. They were enslaved and brought to Cuba to cut sugarcane. The majority of slaves that went to Cuba came to cut sugarcane.
What is your first memory of music? In the house? In the street?
My maternal grandfather played the bass. He managed a medical laboratory and before the Revolution, he had a piano store. There was always a piano in my house. He was an influence. But musicians aren’t made because others demand it, it is inside of oneself already. If it chooses you, you must do it.
At what age did you start formally studying?
I began to study piano at about six years old. That’s how it starts in the schools there. I was in a musical school, Alejandro Garcia Caturla, named after one of the great Cuban composers and professors of piano. In Havana, the music schools have an incredible tradition. It was 100 percent classical for 13 years. You start at age 6, and finish at age 19.
What is a day like for a 16-year-old piano student there?
When you're 16, you would already have your own salon, a practice room, with a baby grand, your chalkboard and chalk. Because it wasn’t air conditioned, you’d have a pitcher of water. You’d have a schedule of classes each day, intermixed with time in the practice room. It’s based on the European system of instruction. You start about 8:30 and leave about 5:00. You’d learn music history, chorus, theory, piano; there were a lot of classes.
Were you interested in jazz?
Yes, by the age of 15, I was at the highest level, and so I had the best professors. The professors were all the greatest Cuban jazz musicians. For example, Chucho Valdés, Gonzalo Rubacalba, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval. All of them were music professors. The greatest bandleaders, who all now live here, were all our professors. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, there was a huge movement for jazz, those were the twenty sacred years. Almost everyone is now gone.
Was there tension between the classical professors and jazz professors?
No, there was not tension, because all the great jazz teachers were trained in classical music. Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval; they all studied classical music.
Was there an idea that a musician could play classical and jazz at the time, but also do it as a specifically Cuban musician?
The traditional Cuban music was always present, there were always a ton of orchestras. Jazz was an influence from the great musicians from here in the United States as well, like Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson. In Cuba there was always a lot of influence from jazz and blues from the United States. Cuban musicians were really influenced by in the 1970’s, especially.
You became a professor of piano yourself as well, in Colombia?
Yes, I lived and worked there. They needed music professors in their universities, so the government took me out and sent me there. I had a contract. The great Pablo Milanes opened a foundation in 1988, and he helped me get to Colombia. When I arrived, it was a different, very consumer-oriented capitalist system. I didn’t know anything. I arrived, and in the first six months, I spent my entire salary in two hours, because I didn't know anything. Eventually I made my way to Mexico, then Miami, and now I’m here in New Haven.
What type of music do you want to present to the people of New Haven?
Cuban music in the format of Latin Jazz. Son Cubano, boleros, montunos, mambos, in the format of Latin Jazz. The music that we do is not music primarily for dancing, although people are welcome to dance, it is music to listen to, and to criticize. We invite criticism, that’s what musicians want. We want to know: “Where is the mistake?”
Musicians live for this. We don’t necessarily look for what’s right, but what’s wrong. That's a big problem for us musicians! We don’t let good intentions be an excuse for a mistake, it’s something I’ve had to personally live with. Musicians have a good sense for when people need to dance however, and we can make it swing.
Where is the audience for this music?
Everybody loves Cuban music, but people don’t know where to find it. Music changes all the time, almost all music is commercial now. We don’t play commercial music. We have a public with hundreds of people, not millions. The biggest jazz festivals in the world don’t draw more than 10,000 people. This is music to enjoy.
It can be difficult to understand but it is music to enjoy. There are aspects to it that not everyone is prepared for, that’s the reality. Between jazz musicians, we must bring it to people in a simple manner. Let the people hear the song. Once they hear the song, then you can bring them deeper inside. If you start too aggressive, you lose the audience. Even if the great Gonzalo Rubacalba begins a song at full speed, 90 percent of people are not going to understand it, and he will lose them.
We have incredible musicians coming up from New York as part our quartet: Alberto Miranda on bass, Jesús Ricardo Anduz on trumpet, and Murphy Aucamp on percussion. They are coming because this city of New Haven has a role to play in the history of this music as well. Viva La Musica!