20090526_buena
The Bar at Buena Vista - The Legendary Grandfathers of Cuban Music
By Michael de Percy
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The tres guitar player was the stand out feature of the gig...81 and as cool as they come in gangster hat, long coat, and flashy shoes. |
26 May 2009: Last Friday evening the Canberra Theatre hosted the stage version of The Bar at Buena Vista - The Legendary Grandfathers of Cuban Music. The music is legendary and will be familiar to many from either the documentary or the CD. What shocked me entirely is the misleading title. These guys are the great-grandfathers of Cuban music, not the grandfathers!
The four surviving members who played the legendary bar at the Buena Vista Social Club in the 50s were all there. The eldest, Reynaldo Creagh, weighs in at a cool 93 not out. And can he sing!
The production incorporated a nice mix of the old and the new. The elder (two singers, a tres guitar player and a pianist) and a mix of younger (and popular) Cuban dancers and musicians. I really felt for the music director who has a great voice too as I can only imagine what it is like to coordinate voice and sound with musicians spanning several decades in age differences.
For me, the tres guitar player was the stand out feature of the gig. At 81, Papi Ovideo is as cool as they come in gangster hat, long coat, and flashy shoes. His tres guitar (an instrument like a guitar but with three pairs of strings like half a 12-string guitar) is a cut-down modern electrical version of the Cuban tres (Papi's father was one of the most famous Cuban tres guitar players in his time) which apparently was adapted from an earlier Spanish instrument. The sound was impressive to say the least.
The trumpet player provided some nice Cuban jazz grooves in the second-half of the production. This had me wishing for a cabaret setting rather than a standard theatre environment. Soon after, the performers had everyone standing up in an attempt to get people dancing in the cramped space (it was a full house). This didn't work so well for me, but it is the best way to make sure you get a standing ovation if you do it right near the end!
Overall, the gig was good enough to get me out of a foul mood, and that takes some shifting at times. It was one of those gigs where after you have seen it, you realise what you would have missed if you stayed at home. The history of Buena Vista carries the show sufficiently well, even though you might find the blend of history and youth a bit awkward at times. But another one of those stories to tell the grandkids one day. Or, even better, the great grandkids!
