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Feature and Concert Mention
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Chicago Tribune, Feature and Concert Mention >>
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
By Achy Obejas
The eeriest element on "Ska Cubano," the debut release of the new Cumbancha world music label, is not the counterintuitive fusion of Jamaican ska's scratchy, frequently manic meter with Cuba's more sensual beats.
That's weird enough, but it's nothing compared to hearing the ghost of Cuba's great singer, Beny More, riding the Jamaican rhythm as if he'd been born to it.
"I was in Santiago in a coffee house next to Plaza Dolores when this guy started singing and everyone just stopped talking," remembers Natty Bo, the British ska vocalist and deejay who, together with producer Peter Scott, had traveled to the Caribbean with the idea of marrying Cuba and Jamaica through ska.
Bo, whose vinyl collection includes iconic Cuban musicians such as Cachao and Machito but especially Beny More, could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Really, he sounded just like Beny More," Bo says with a laugh from London.
But the Cuban singer, a 44- year-old named Juan Manuel Villy Carbonell, who calls him self Beny Billy, has a simple explanation. "Beny More died in 1963," he proposes. "I was born in 1972. It's supernatural but true: I'm the reincarnation of Beny More."
Still, More never sang ska. The closest he ever got to Jamaica was a smashing mambo called "(Soy) Jamaiquino." So where'd he get the chops?
"Ah, ska ... to me, it's like drinking a glass of water, that easy," says Billy, talking from his neighbor's static-filled phone in Santiago, Cuba. "Natty wanted to do ska, but I do Cuban ska. In fact, I'm the king of Cuban ska."
Bo remembers it all a little differently. "He'd never heard ska, he didn't know it---it's not rhythm that's heard much in Cuba. At first, he couldn't understand it at all. He had to change the way he sang. It's a matter of phrasing. This was the major problem we had with the Cuban bands---they had never tackled that rhythm. Hearing it, it sounded simple, but actually playing it became much tougher, especially for the rhythm section, because it's not like Cuban music, on the beat, but rather offbeat"
To smooth the blend, Bo went back to London after meeting Billy and enlisted Key Crespo as co-musical director. Crespo had played bass with Omara Portuondo, Ruben Gonzalez and bunch of other Cuban superstars. He'd moved to, Europe in 1997 and began playing with groups such as Africando and Bo's own Topcats, one of Britain's better known ska outfits.
"Ska's not for everybody" Crespo acknowledges. "It's pretty fast, it's demanding. I really first learned it when I moved to London. What we do, what makes our ska Cuban is that, first, we recast Beny More's repertoire as ska. So that's Cuban. And we introduce Cuban instruments, such as the tres, the bongos, the congas. And so we add Cuban rhythms to the ska. "But Ska Cubano has a sly little secret: nestled between the Jamaican and Cuban parts, it's got Columbian heart."
"Well, it's more of a cumbia ska," Billy says. "The difference is that a natural cumbia has hot rhythm. A cumbia ska has the same rhythm but uses the guitar to scratch up front."
"There must be some cumbia ska bands in South America, there must be," adds Bo.
When Ska Cubano plays at Chicago's SummerDance
Thursday, however, it'll be missing a vital Cuban element: Beny Billy
Because he couldn't secure visa to the U.S., he'll be replaced by Carlos Pena, a longtime collaborator of salsa singer Oscar d'Leon.
"Carlos will sing but in his way, since he's Venezuelan," says Crespo. "I mean, he can't copy Beny Billy, Beny's unique. Also, he has nothing to do with Beny More, though he will sing the repertoire. We don't want him to mick or copy, it would be disrespectful to him, to the band."
Back in Cuba, Billy's unfazed by the notion of being replaced. "It'll be different, that's for sure. To find a singer like me for that genre is really impossible," he says.
Hearing this, Crespo laughs aloud. "Of course! Of course he'd say that!" he says. "But we're bringing Ska Cubano anyway, believe it or not!"
SummerDance
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Spirit of Music Garden in Grant Park, 601 S. Michigan Ave.
Price; Free; 312-742-4007 06/30/06
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