The second of a planned series of four albums, Natural continues in the direction of Ferrer's previous release, Rustico. He aims for the series to have "a rustico flavor ... that rawness, that roughness in the music. I mean music without makeup." Ferrer says his latest work uses "a broader palette of genres and concepts from the length and breadth of the island ... a diversity that counters the common notion that Cuban music is comprised only of son, mambo and cha cha cha."
Ferrer's music draws on better-known Cuban genres (including son, guajira, guaguanco, guaracha and the classic trova song) that will make your feet move. But his signature style is one he has named changuisa, inspired in part by disappearing styles from rural Cuba. His own "reinvention," changuisa draws on changui from the mountains of Guantanamo in southeastern Cuba, and on coros de clave espirituano, a strolling, vocal street-music tradition from central Cuba, where Ferrer was born. By choosing a feminine term, changuisa, Ferrer says he not only pokes fun at some of eastern Cuba's more macho playing styles, but also feels freed from changui's musical conventions.
Changuisa is "my own manner of mixing traditions," says Ferrer, "but this time, I'm trying to move closer to Cuban song." Ferrer adds that Natural features themes "based exclusively in percussion, surrounding myself in the essence of Yoruba and Bantu cultures." Other songs, including La Nieta 'e Micaela, are inspired by son, a popular rural dance form that may date back to the 1500s in Cuba's eastern Oriente province and is considered a predecessor to contemporary salsa music.
Despite his fervent support for the 1959 revolution that overthrew the Batista dictatorship, a regime under which his family suffered, Ferrer's independent spirit and biting lyrics have at times cost him airplay and album sales in Cuba. "For two years, I wasn't allowed to perform in official performance spaces and wasn't aired on radio or TV. Any work of art that questions the established order--whatever or wherever it is--inconveniences those in power." At the end of the 1980s, he says, the government expressed itself clumsily and "there were tremendous discussions with the political/administrative bureaucracy. I think now there is less of this. Or maybe my desire to discuss this has lessened."
VOCALS AND INSTRUMENTS
Ferrer's gutsy yet beautifully sonorous voice and six-stringed tres are seamlessly intertwined with the full-bodied, spirited sound of his daughter, Lena Ferrer, who sings backup and some lead vocals. They are joined by Lerlys Morales' well-matched backup vocals and guitar, and everyone joins in with percussion instruments, augmenting percussionist Basilio Perodin's inventive playing. Leandro Gracia and Claudio Nunez also sing backup vocals; Jorge Wrve pitches in on bass.
The group's tight ensemble playing and impeccable tres and guitar lines never detract from the album's spontaneity: Ferrer prefers a relaxed singing style that maintains the spirit of West African Bantu and Yoruba-style song, or of Cuba's dance bands, over the "symmetry and perfectionism" sought by more formal vocal groups. "For me," Ferrer asserts, "to sing in a group means simply to invite everyone to sing."
To accompany the vocals, Ferrer revives instruments not commonly used, seeks out others from beyond the island, and invents some of his own. On many songs, Ferrer plays the tres, which has three double sets of strings and is related to the Arabic oud. "I've given a central role to the tres as the only accompanying instrument, as I've seen it used in the Sierra Maestra, in Guantanamo," says Ferrer. "Or the way it's played by El Guayabero, a popular bard who sings verses with double meaning, accompanied only by tres."
As a bass instrument, Ferrer brings back the little-used marimbula, a large wooden box with metal prongs that belongs to the same family as the African mbira, or thumb piano. "Africans tune these instruments," says Ferrer. But in Cuba, according to Ferrer, the marimbula was used to provide only the tonic and dominant (I and V) notes. "It was later replaced in son music by the double bass, to give more precise tuning and a wider range of notes."
Percussionist Basilio Perodin plays an ingenious "drum set" that he and Ferrer created. Perodin plays bass notes on the marimbula with one hand, and bongo (drums) with the other, leaving the clave (wooden sticks) and cowbell for his feet. Ferrer calls this invention a "bunga, "an old rural term for a small, improvised music group.
And, in place of the sharper sounding cajon traditionally used in Cuban rumba, he uses a deeper sounding Afro-Peruvian cajon. The player sits on top of this six-sided wooden cube, while drumming on its front.
BEGINNINGS
Ferrer was born in 1952 in what is now Sancti Spiritus province in the central region of Cuba, known as the "cradle of the revolution," and moved to Havana at age eleven. After repeating the seventh grade twice, he never returned to school. Self-educated, he has continued to study music, guitar, poetry, literature and philosophy, coming of age during Cuba's Nueva Trova (New Song) folk-music movement. After working in the 1960s with an experimental rock band called Los Dada (the Dadaists), a lack of personal resources caused Ferrer to return to more traditional, acoustic Cuban styles.
Immersed in music as a child, Ferrer learned from his songwriting uncle, Rafael, and from older friends and relatives who played guitar and tres. "By imitating my father, Rodolfo," says Ferrer, "I learned to invent decimas," an often improvised ten-line verse brought to Cuba by the Spaniards that took root in the countryside. "As for the rest, to be truthful, radio, TV and records increased my appetite for music."
Ferrer also grew up hearing unschooled troubadours who, without intending to, improvised nonsense love songs by changing and omitting parts of words in order to fit the musical meter. "A complete mangling of words that my uncles, Rafael and Raul, made fun of with gusto as they sang them. This had a profound effect on me. In this spirit, I composed "Pelito de mi Bigote (That Little Hair in My Moustache)," a song on Natural written in Ferrer's own changuisa style.
Ferrer says his daughter, Lena, began to sing with him as soon as she was able to reason. "Since my daily activity was music, it was an agreeable way for her to relate to me. When I had rehearsals, she'd stop playing, and sit observantly among my musicians. She got involved on her own, showing a facility for reproducing melodies and rhythms.
"She was twelve when I invited her to perform with me, and at thirteen--at a time when it was difficult for me to find accompanists--she performed as part of my quartet. Since then, her timbre and phrasing have brought me freshness of her youthful spirit. She is not very passive, and critiques everything we do. And she often finds ingenious solutions. I confess it gives me pleasure to work with my daughter, above all, because in addition to having talent, she fulfills her professional obligations."
ROOTS OF CUBAN Music
Ferrer has an uncommon view of the origins of Cuban music. He believes that the mix of cultures that shaped the Americas first began to form in Europe's own regions. Essential threads of Cuban music were brought by the Moors --Muslims of Arab, Spanish and Berber origins--to create the culture of Andalusia in southern Spain in the early 8th century. Later, they settled as refugees in northern Africa.
"Music critics often refer to the African elements that originated with the slaves," he says. "But African elements also arrived from Spain, thanks to years of Moorish domination! There are elements from Moorish culture that still survive in Cuban styles: in changui, the tres guitar plays in unison with the singer, without the use of harmony," as the oud does in Arabic music.
"The origins of changui are as uncertain as those of son," according to Ferrer, who thinks changui probably originated in Guantanamo (southeastern Cuba), where there were large concentrations of ethnic peoples from the Caribbean, Africa, France and western and southern Spain.
Ferrer says changui may be linked to the people of Guantanamo in the same way flamenco has been associated with the Roma people (gypsies). "Changui's roots," says Ferrer, "are as diverse as those of flamenco ... which united in one musical vessel Arabic melodies, Jewish synagogue chant, ancient parts of Byzantine liturgy and elements from Andalusia"--the music of marginalized and persecuted peoples, including Jews, Arabs, Christians and Roma.
"As a young nation," says Ferrer, "we are like an unraveling ball of yarn: our origin extends far beyond ourselves, and our music is rooted in that of ancient cultures."
Today, Ferrer adds, "We can't look at the African influences on Cuban music as if they were a passive, frozen photograph of the time when the slaves arrived in the Americas. We can't forget that our music bounces back to us from Latin America, the Caribbean, the U.S.--and even from Africa." Ferrer notes that Cuban music leaves and later comes back, interpreted by foreigners in a new way. Then Cubans take elements from outsiders, and they, in turn, interpret their own music in a new way.
Ferrer continues to enjoy digging out musical seeds from the past and reclaiming them. "Subtle changes allow us to give a new perspective to tradition. I think that to stand still is to destroy a culture. At times, I feel I'm reinventing tradition, bringing to light elements that were hiding under the surface. My connection with tradition is what has allowed me to find the original sources of contact with our mestizaje (mix of races, cultures). In this way, whatever I come across is a door that allows me to communicate with the universe."
DISCOGRAPHY
Pedro Luis Ferrer, 1978, EGREM (o-o-p)
Debajo de mi voz, 1979, EGREM (o-o-p)
En Espuma y Arena, 1980s, EGREM (o-o-p)
100% Cubano, 1994, (self-released) (o-o-p)
The Best of Pedro Luis, 1994, EGRE (o-o-p)
Pedro Luis Ferrer 1999, Havana Caliente / Atlantic #83188
Rustico, 2005, Escondida #6507
Natural, 2006, Escondida #6527
