>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Okay.
I'm going to start.
I was giving people a couple of minutes to find the room.
Good afternoon, everyone,
and welcome to the Library of Congress.
My name is Talia Guzman-Gonzalez and I am reference librarian
in the Hispanic Division.
On behalf of the Hispanic Division and our co-sponsors,
the Music Division and the Hispanic Cultural Society,
it is my immense pleasure
to welcome three outstanding musicians.
Eva and I have been working on this event for a month now
so it's very exciting to finally see it,
you know, come to fruition.
We have here with us Adonis Gonzalez, Yunior Terry,
and Yosvany Terry, three highly accomplished musicians
that will be talking about sounds and rhythms
of Cuban music, and their careers as musician
and educators in the United States.
I will talk a little bit about them in a little bit.
I want to say something first
about our collections at the library.
We have a small display in the back,
and you're welcome to browse.
They're books from the general collections
so please take a look at them.
The library has been collecting Cuban material
since the mid-nineteenth century.
And we have probably the largest collection here
in the U.S. The Hispanic Division is the gateway
to explore those collections but it is in every format
across the library, including, obviously, music.
Some resources that you can use
to explore those collections come from the work
of the Hispanic Division.
One of them is the Handbook of Latin American Studies and it's
in the Hispanic Division.
And also the Archive of Hispanic Literature and Tape
which has recorded nearly 30 authors, Cuban authors,
reading from their work.
The American Folk Life Center also recorded Cuban music
and culture from the 1920's onward.
And there you can find a set of long playing records titled
"[Foreign Language Spoken]", published in Havana and compiled
by the great anthropologist, Lydia Cabrera.
I could on and on about our resources and I hope you come
to the division and learn about them with us, but you're here
to hear our three guests today.
So I will introduce them in this order,
starting with Adonis Gonzalez.
Adonia is a pianist and composer.
And he's a graduate from the [Foreign Language Spoken]
and holds a Master's of Music Degree from the University
of Southern Mississippi, and a Doctorate Degree
in Piano Performance from Rutgers University.
He has performed as a soloist with many orchestras
around the world, including the Stuttgart Radio Symphony
Orchestra in Germany, the National Philharmonic
of Venezuela, the Master Awards Festival Orchestra
in Washington, D.C., the Cuban National Symphony,
and the New York City Opera Orchestra among many,
many, many others.
As a composer, Adonis has collaborated with the Works
and Process Series
at the prestigious Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
And his symphonic poem for piano and orchestra,
"[Foreign Language Spoken]", was premiered
by the National Symphony of Costa Rica.
He was a composer in residence
of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
And he's currently an artist in residence
of the Cuban Artists Fund in New York, and a professor of Music
at Alabama State University.
Adonis has a long list
of impressive collaborations including legendary artists
such as mezzo soprano Denyce Graves,
violinist Arnold Steinhardt,
and also
with clarinetist-saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera.
Gonzalez won the first prize
of the [Foreign Language Spoken] International Piano Competition
in Caracas, Venezuela, and the first prize
of the most important Cuba piano competition organized
by the National Association of Cuban Writers and Artists.
He's also a laureate of the International Piano Competition
of the Principality of Andorra,
and the Ernesto Lecuona International Competition
of Havana.
Adonis is a Latin Grammy nominee in the category
of Best Classical Album for his solo debut, "Adios a Cuba".
Our second guest, Yunior Terry is a clinical assistant
professor of music at New York University School of Music.
He is a graduate of the National School of Art in Havana, Cuba,
with a double major in violin and bass.
And he holds a bachelor's degree from CalArts and a master's
from Rutgers University.
While in Cuba, he performed and toured
with the Havana Symphony as a violinist.
Yunior Terry is an [foreign language spoken]
and cultural bearer of the African rhythms, chants,
and ceremonies that originated in the African [inaudible].
He continues to research these
and other African diaspora based musical and cultural traditions.
In the United States, Yunior Terry has studied
under Charlie Hayden, Derrick Olds,
Peter Row from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Porter Smith,
Alfonso Johnson, and Kenny Davis.
Since moving to New York he has deepened his understanding
of jazz traditions through performing with Steve Coleman,
Jerry Gonzalez, and the Fort Apache Band, Jeff Watts,
Daphne [Inaudible], Eddie Palmieri, [Inaudible],
Michelle Roseman, Andy Marrow, [Inaudible],
and Yosvany Terry, his brother.
He was part of the Latin Jazz All Stars Project
with [Foreign Language Spoken], and Steve Turr,
and [Foreign Language Spoken].
Prior to joining NYU, Cabrera taught master classes
and workshops around the world.
Yosvany Terry is an internationally acclaimed
composer, saxophonist, percussionist, bandleader,
educator, and cultural bearer of the Afro-Cuban tradition.
In Cuba he studied at the prestigious National School
of the Arts in Havana, and the [Foreign Language Spoken].
He has performed with major figures in every realm
of Cuban music, including celebrated [foreign language
spoken], pianist [Foreign Language Spoken],
and [Foreign Language Spoken], the band led by his father,
violinist and [inaudible] master [Foreign Language Spoken].
Since arriving in New York, Terry has collaborated
with many important figures in the jazz
and contemporary music community,
playing along Branford Marsalis, Rufus Reed, Dave Douglas,
Steve Coleman, Roy Hargrove, and many others.
In 2015, Terry was named a recipient
of the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award and was hired
by Harvard University as Director of Jazz Ensembles
and Senior Lecturer of Music.
He has received recent commissions
from the San Francisco Yerba Buena Garden Festival,
the French American Jazz Exchange with support
from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation
and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
His album, "New Throned King", which features music based
on cantos and rhythms of the Arara people
of the western Cuban province of Mantanzas, was nominated
for a 2014 Grammy Award.
His previous album from 2012, "Today's Opinion", was selected
as one of the top ten albums of the year
by the "New York Times".
And last, but not least, is my colleague, Eva Reyes Cisnero,
who is here, and you don't know that she's also a musician.
Maybe you do, but maybe you don't.
Eva is my dear friend, colleague,
and partner in organizing this [inaudible] for you all.
She was born in Cuba, and, like our guests,
is a classically trained musician.
She studied guitar performance
at the [Foreign Language Spoken], and musicology
at the [Foreign Language Spoken] in Havana.
In the U.S. she received a bachelor's in Guitar Performance
from Florida International University,
and she did her graduate work in Latin American
and Caribbean Studies with a certificate in Cuban
and Cuban-American Studies.
Prior to coming to D.C., she worked at the University
of Miami Libraries and the Florida International
University Library.
Today she's a librarian in the [inaudible] section
of the Africa, Latin American, and Western European Division
of the Library of Congress.
Eva will lead this first part of the conversation
with some questions for our guests.
Then we're going to open the floor
for your questions to them.
And maybe we'll get to listen to something, I don't know.
We'll see.
So join me in welcoming our guests to the library.
[ Applause ]
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: Thank you, everyone, for being here today.
And thank you, the three of you.
Oh, it's not on?
>> Adonis Gonzalez: It's not on.
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: Can you hear me now?
[ Inaudible ]
Let me say that again.
Hello, everyone.
Good afternoon.
Thank you so much for being here today.
And thank you to our guests for coming.
It's a pleasure.
This is a long time friendship like a family, extended family,
more than three decades of studying together,
and going to school together, growing together.
So I have a few questions for them
to allow you to know them better.
And I'm going to start, using Yosvany first.
Yosvany, in a video about your visit to Cuba
with the Harvard Jazz Ensemble, we hear your mom,
who wasn't there before, saying that when you were little,
she wanted you to be a doctor because you were so serious.
[ Laughter ]
Instead you chose to be a musician like your father.
The same is true for your brother, Yunior,
also for the three of you.
To me the association of being serious
with medicine is very interesting since your training,
and this is true, is a leading testament
that studying music is a serious business.
Can you talk a bit about your schooling in Cuba
and how did it prepare you
for continuing your musical education in the U.S.
and succeed professionally as musicians,
composers, and also, educators?
I'm passing the microphone to you.
>> Adonis Gonzalez: That microphone.
Who wants to start?
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: Who going to start?
>> Yosvany Terry: Well, music is serious, as we all know.
And it's such a rigorous discipline, I would say.
But I believe from my mother, since my father was a founder
of [Foreign Language Spoken], which is one
of the more important [inaudible] orchestras
in the interior, and she saw how much sacrifice he put
in behind his craft with the orchestra.
And besides that since she was a nurse, you know, specializing
in pediatrics, she has different ambitions for us.
But unpredictably we all decided for music.
You know, music played such an important role
in the house growing up.
And also it was one of the biggest sources of experience
because every time when my father would play in town
and we will go to his performances, that was clearly,
that's what we wanted to be.
So but my father was really adamant in instilling
in us the disciplines and the rigorous work
that was behind music.
And that's why at the beginning it was opposed for us
to be [inaudible] but then after we showed that we were serious
about it then that was the end of playing
with friends on the weekend.
So, yes, you know, because of that incredible role model
that we have at home, we had at home,
we went through the conservatory system [inaudible] right before.
And, yes, for me, it's like music is an art in general.
It's a serious [inaudible] discipline as we know.
And the time, the dedication, the discipline
that goes behind the incredible work that most people don't see
when they see you performing on stage.
It's a testament of like how hard musicians have to work
to polish and develop their craft.
So just because of that I would say and because
of the [inaudible] work that we put behind all the time,
we have been able to keep growing.
And this is something that doesn't finish.
It's like we still today, we're just working as hard
as we were working before in order to keep growing
and to keep doing different things.
And I think it's this hard work also that help us
to join a bigger community which is a community of New York,
and the community of where we live now also has I would say
allowed us to join the big educator community
which is something that we believe before leaving Cuba,
and even the time we were living in Cuba.
So I hope this answer the question.
I don't know if I, it was a long question.
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah. Let me give a chance to Adonis as well.
And talk - sorry -- if you can comment a little bit more
about the school of art system [inaudible].
>> Adonis Gonzalez: Absolutely.
The music education in Cuba is very well organized
that you have to study certain instruments at a certain age.
So I wanted to play the piano but he didn't know [inaudible].
And because piano and violin you start earlier
than other instruments like from the third grade on.
When all my courses were [inaudible] I finally had
to put some hours.
And my mom was very strict about that
and I'm very grateful because of that.
But that discipline, you know, carry on all through your life
and that's, just expanding on what he was saying,
that has helped me, has helped me to keep growing
as I became a professional, so to speak.
But I also wanted to say there is a similarity
between being a doctor and a musician
because I know the doctor had to constantly be updating
so we have to do exactly the same.
This never ends like Yosvany said.
But it's a great thing,
especially when you played a long [inaudible] ready to teach,
you are teaching but at the same time you are learning so it's
so enriching for our lives
as a [inaudible] musician [inaudible].
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: What about you, Yunior.
I have a microphone here.
>> Yunior Terry: Oh.
Okay.
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: You can use this one.
>> Yunior Terry: I'll go stereo.
[Laughs]. Hello, everyone.
I just want to add a little bit what they said.
Yes, we have the, in Cuba, the system,
it's like a conservator based on the Russian standards.
So like at a certain age, what Adonis said, violin, piano,
cello, dancers like ballet dancers,
start at seven years old.
So all the instrument like the saxophone, percussion,
start when you're like ten,
eleven when you're already in fifth grade.
So for us, we have to make a decision really quick.
Actually I didn't, I knew from the start I was going to be a,
that I wanted to be a musician and a violinist
because my father plays a violin.
And that was real important for us growing
up that we already knew so how, like I already,
my mom has like a story of me already saving soap
to go it's a boarding school.
So you have to be in the boarding school
so I was saving soap when I was five years old.
This is coming for when I go.
[ Laugher ]
At the boarding school.
And all the other kids I remember, she always said
that all the other kids were like crying
or their parents were crying because imagine taking your kid
at seven years old to a school
and only see him in the weekends.
From Sundays to Friday and on Friday you come back home
and you go back again on Sunday night.
So a lot of moms kind of like in the middle
of the week they would cry and bring sandwiches
and I said to her, "Don't come.
I'm good here."
[ Laughter ]
"I'm enjoying it here."
But, yeah, so based in that system we had our first teacher
was Russian.
I don't know for you guys?
My first teacher was a Russian, [Foreign Language Spoken].
And I just remember that we couldn't understand a word he
said and we had a translator.
And all of us came out of the room crying
because [inaudible] brought napkins
for us like, "Oh, you going?
Okay. Can you not [inaudible]?"
He couldn't talk but he wanted to say so much, you know,
and be so specific about it to [inaudible]
that at certain times it was too much
and he was kind of [inaudible].
But he was really, he provided a really strong foundation
for all of us.
Since we grew up in Cuba, you know, a lot the books,
a lot of the information was, you know, Russian information
and the way of approaching the music was from Russia,
either directly from Russia or some of the professors
that went on study [inaudible].
That was like one thing you look forward to,
to like be really good to get a scholarship to study in Moscow.
So that was something to look forward
at that time [inaudible].
So based on that I just wanted to add a little bit
about the education because that's something
that maybe wasn't clear because here it's completely different.
I've been here in the system here.
I did my bachelor in California.
And when I came in, the levels are completely different here,
the levels of knowledge [inaudible]
completely different.
In Cuba you sort of, you can track like everybody sort
of at the same level because studied like the same roots and,
you know, here you maybe have like a private teacher
until when you get to school you have, you arrive
and maybe you [inaudible].
It's completely different way of studying here.
I don't know where I'm going.
I could say many things.
>> Adonis Gonzalez: But, yeah.
I also wanted to add that for me has been like a full circle
because of what you said about the Russian teachers.
My theory teachers and my [inaudible] teachers
from early on were Russians.
And I didn't understand them, but I make fun of the accent.
So now I'm on the other side.
They say [inaudible] the accent is so different [inaudible].
>> Yunior Terry: Yeah.
It's like -- .
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: That is great
that you bring those stories right now
because part of that I forgot.
[Laughs]. It's also [inaudible] to mention that in the school
of art, that system, that is a boarding school,
is not only the music students living in, it's all dancers,
classical ballet students, the fine arts.
>> Yunior Terry: Painters, too.
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: Later on the actors
and actresses join the school.
So you can, basically you build a family that's going
to continue with you.
It's not just like, you can track the students,
but every one at that year are going to be playing something,
at the same level, but it's also you can track the group
of the family.
You go back three decades so.
[Inaudible] we played together since second grade
so it's very interesting.
And finishing with that, let me just move on to something
that is very important because that is what you're doing
right now.
And there is a long tradition with musical exchange
between Cuba and the United States.
Starting in the nineteenth century with, for example,
the [inaudible], even through the frequency
of the social exchange it was many times dictated
for a long time, especially in the twentieth century,
I have been dictated by the political climate
between the two countries.
During your years as musicians in Cuba,
could you mention any musician from the United States
that inspire you, that you were looking forward to playing with,
that you were trying to copy in the style of the performance,
that you were I imagine at a certain point
that you would come to the U.S. and study here
because you were listening to them in Cuba and there was kind
of like a goal to go to -- .
>> Yunior Terry: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
>> Yosvany Terry: Yes.
Well, the saxophone is different than piano and violin
because it's like the saxophone school was developed in France
so all of the saxophone teacher,
at least that's the information that they had.
There was a strong French school.
But looking up to American artists, yes, something happened
to me at the age of thirteen,
fourteen years old I discovered jazz.
And jazz became for me an obsession.
It was an obsession but at the same time I loved classical
music for sure so you have to really work harder
in order to practice both.
But, yes, some of the biggest inspiration for me
from the U.S. came from the jazz [inaudible],
looking up to Miles Davis, to John Coltrane,
to Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell,
Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown.
I mean the list is on and on
which is basically they biggest contributors
to these musical traditions.
So, yes, I remember growing up and finding what jazz was about
and then finding great stations and then -- .
There were two radio stations that broadcast jazz in Cuba
so that became, we knew exactly when the jazz shows started.
So they had a really white programming I would say,
going from the 40's all the way
to the most contemporary art parts of jazz,
including Ornette Coleman, and everything that was happening
with what then was called new music.
So that's in my imagination, you know, the biggest influence
that I would say from jazz from the same time I,
so that I noticed that there was always a collaboration
between Cuban and American artists, not only going back
to [foreign language spoken] which was like the, you know,
the great [foreign language spoken].
They were the architects of what is called African [inaudible]
but also even going back in history, you know,
when the word [inaudible] between bands from Cuba
that would interpret [inaudible],
that would visit New Orleans, would visit Mexico and Haiti.
And there was a lot of exchange in the Caribbean.
So it's always been a great exchange between Cuba
and the U.S. and the central Caribbean.
You want to say something?
>> Adonis Gonzalez: Honestly, because of the times
when I was student, we didn't have that much exchange
of American classical musicians coming to Cuba.
So for me it wasn't an inspiration at that time.
I did have the opportunity to see many American artists
at the jazz festival in Cuba.
Dizzy Gillespie, I remember
when I saw Carmen McRae it was really -- .
>> Yosvany Terry: Max Roach.
>> Adonis Gonzalez: Oh, yes.
But unfortunately not even the recordings
of the first biggest stars of the American pianist tradition
like Van Cliburn, [Inaudible], we didn't get any of that.
We got a whole bunch of Russian recordings [inaudible].
But I do want to mention that before that happened,
a century before that, there was [inaudible]
and we was constantly [inaudible].
It was like his backyard.
Because when there he toured the whole island
and I did the research on him and [inaudible] for piano.
And I considered him, even though he was born
in the United States, the first Afro-Cuban musician.
He wrote more, probably almost more Cuban dances than any
of the other composers.
He was especially supported music from the Caribbean.
They called that kind of music Caribbean freedoms.
His symphony, one his symphony [inaudible] is called
"A Night in the Tropics".
He goes at first to [inaudible] to bring a group
of Black musicians playing their drums, amazing classical music
that had not been done.
The popular music of Cuba was the influenced
by the country dance and for the European dances.
But it has its place.
It was at the ballroom, but not in the concert hall.
So the first one that dared to do that was him
and [inaudible] what we call today crossover.
But that exchange of culture and traditions between the Americans
and the Cubans goes a long time,
even before the jazz is started doing the same thing.
>> Yunior Terry: No, I just, yeah, I would just want
to add a little bit of what you were saying.
[Inaudible] was really ahead of his time
because he was really traveling, and picking up information
and tradition from different places,
and including it in his music.
And even the titles [inaudible] so it's
like a real important composer and actually influence
at the time what was [inaudible] influenced like [inaudible].
He met at the time [inaudible].
But he influence, he was,
he had like a this [inaudible] he was just compiling
and then was able to put it in his music
so he was really ahead of his time.
So let's just keep it as a [inaudible].
[ Laughter ]
>> Adonis Gonzalez: [Inaudible] the culture.
>> Yunior Terry: Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
>> Adonis Gonzalez: Even the [inaudible]
which is a very specific things [inaudible] not many know he
wrote one of the biggest fantasies for piano based
on the greatness of that.
>> Yunior Terry: And brought musicians to Havana
from Santiago and made one of the biggest concert,
he put one of the biggest concert at the time
with [inaudible] musicians.
So it never happened before.
I would say that I came, I'm younger than him.
We're brothers.
So he was already listening to jazz and he got me into it.
I was first started with the violin and after that switched
to bass because somehow he was playing the piano.
He was like, "Oh, can you find the notes on the bass?"
And so how little by little I started.
And after that went to school and really studied.
But there were some recordings of artists that we grew
up listening to like Coltrane, as he was saying,
but also some more contemporary like Branford Marsalis,
Jeff "Tains" Watts, Charlie Hayden that we got,
that we've been here and since we've been here,
we've been able to work with them.
And that's been really an experience for us and an honor,
actually, to being able to be friends with them
and actually to work with them.
I was able to study with Charlie Hayden, as I said earlier,
which I listened to when I was a kid.
I just never imagined my life
that I would be able to study with him.
And with Jeff "Tain" Watts, one of the living legends,
drummers these days, that I never imagined to be working
with him and to be, you know, to call my friend, you know,
that's just been really an amazing experience for us.
And it's something that we both always keep -- .
One time I was in a tour with Tain.
That's an interesting story.
One time I was in a tour with Tain and we went in Europe.
And I felt, when I started working with him,
we had a couple of drinks at the time.
And I asked him, "Why did you call me?"
Because there's a lot of other bassists, young bassists,
anybody from here that already grew up playing jazz.
And he said, "Because you have something different.
You have something interesting that is different.
You have another way of looking at it."
And that broke open the gate for me to be even more wild.
[ Laughter ]
Now I knew he was really interested
of me not really imitating while they're recording
that I have to play.
I could be more myself.
And that was something, that was some kind of illumination for me
to appreciate and to believe in my knowledge
and my roots even more because I know that's something
that he's interested about and that's the same thing
that I'm interested about him.
He's interested to learn from me.
I'm interested to learn from him.
And that's how we both keep growing, right.
So that was an experience.
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: Great.
Thank you.
Talking a lot about Cuban music and the influence
of the American music in Cuba, vice versa.
I would like to for maybe people that are not so familiar
with the Cuban music roots, if you could explain,
if you're going to dissect the Cuban musical landscape,
what is it made out of?
What the foundation of that?
What we call Cuban music,
for some people it could be a stereotype
of the conga line, or Carmen Miranda.
>> Yunior Terry: Ricky Ricardo.
>> Eva Reyes Cisnero: Ricky Ricardo.
[ Laughter ]
Exactly. But that the Cuban music is a lot
of different things.
And what are the roots of that music?
What is the musical landscapes made of ?
If you could dissect that?
>> Adonis Gonzalez: Do you want to start?
>> Yosvany Terry: Do you want to -- ?
You can start.
[ Laughter ]
I guess I'll say something, yeah.
>> Yunior Terry: Go ahead.
>> Yosvany Terry: Go ahead.
>> Adonis Gonzalez: Well, obviously it started
with the mixing of the European traditions
and African traditions, but not only for the sense
of what happened in Cuba, but the sense that what happened
in the Caribbean in general.
So what we call the [foreign language spoken] is something
that sounds very Haitian to me.
Sounds like from Haiti.
>> Yosvany Terry: Mm-hmm.
>> Adonis Gonzalez: And just before [inaudible] our musical
roots is like a rainbow.
We have French influence.
We have Chinese influence.
It's not only the Spanish and the African traditions.
There is English even because the [inaudible]
at one point became for us the first national kind of dance
that we're calling the [foreign language spoken] came
from the country dance that was something that was danced
in England and then it went to France, changed name
to [foreign language spoken] like the games.
Once was country but it got lost in translation.
[ Laughter ]
And then I guess in Cuba got again the translation got
to [inaudible].
So we say we feel so many things.
But I will Yosvany expand that.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Yunior Terry: Responding all that is all that plus a lot
of different tradition from West Africa.
It's not just anywhere in Africa.
We're talking about West Africa.
We're talking about [inaudible] tradition.
We're talking about [inaudible].
We're talking about tradition that came also from the Congo.
So it's a vast area that accounts for a lot
of different traditions and how all those traditions,
at one time they have to coincide in one place in Cuba
and kind of melt because there's a lot of things that in Cuba
and you see that in Africa.
They are separate, you know, if you are from [inaudible],
you just practice, you know, [inaudible].
You are from [inaudible] you practice just one [inaudible]
in Cuba.
They all have to coexist in one place and they have
to bring all the traditions together and, you know,
sort of form this big palate of freedoms, and knowledge,
and traditions that's what we have in our music.
>> Yosvany Terry: And also I will add
because most have been said,
that [inaudible] Cuba is an island.
It's a big island so sometimes you could be traveling
from the most western side of Cuba to the most eastern side
and there [inaudible] that these people didn't know
from are practiced in the other side of the island.
There's a lot of musical traditions, I mean [inaudible]
that are different than the one practiced
in my province [inaudible] that has nothing to do
with what's practiced in Matanzas and then [inaudible].
But different set of drums played in different places,
different [inaudible].
Even from Spain they're like influences from different side
of Spain in difference parts of [inaudible].
Like Eva said, we cannot just say Spain,
but we have to open it to a lot of different countries,
even from the northern,
from Morocco there were influences in Cuba, too.
So it's like a huge, huge hybrid that somewhere,
somehow found way to create an identity
that at the same time defines Cuba music.
For us, even for us it's really hard
to define what Cuban music is.
But and also at the same time happens something
which is really interesting and it's
like the Caribbean being one of the centers in which a lot
of places, a lot of countries from the world came.
Turned the Caribbean into like something, for me,
[inaudible] at some point became like the center of the universe.
And it was interesting when [inaudible] I will explain why.
There was an exhibition in New York four years ago
that was about Caribbean art.
And this exhibition that was
like in different museums across New York.
And the studio museum in [inaudible], in the museum
in [inaudible], and there was another museum in Queens
and I'm forgetting the name.
You could go to the museum and they,
the curator of the exhibition were really smart
because they selected pieces from artists from the 1700's,
1800's, 1900's, up to the present.
So when you would visit that exhibition it was really hard
to define or to accept that this is a Caribbean artist.
It looks like it could be a French artist.
It looks like it could be a Velasco, it could be a Rubens.
It could be any artist.
So after visit that exhibition for me it was a big revelation
because even though we were born in places
that you can [inaudible] history by just seeing a building
that was built in the 1600's, but at the same time,
you really understand the centrality of this geography
for the culture of the world.
And you really understand how hard it is
to define what the Caribbean is, what Cuban is because, I mean,
the concept of the art,
the concept of the music defies any given concept
that you could have of the geography.
So it can bring an artist from the 1700's,
it's could be a European artist, could be a Chinese art.
It could be an artist from anywhere in the world.
So as you can see that nowadays, you can either see
that through the music, you can see
that through the visual arts, through the films.
You can see through, I mean, most of the art forms.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Adonis Gonzalez: I just want to add so when we talk
about Cuban music especially now, there is mixture of purity
and impurity in terms of African music.
In many other countries
where the slaves were brought [inaudible] us
on how they managed
to be disguised especially the religious traditions
because they were allowed
to [inaudible] do what they celebrated in Africa
but using the saints that the Europeans wanted them
to worship.
Those [inaudible] with a great sense of purity.
You can go to all the islands
and you see there is still a sense of Africa,
of African traditions [inaudible] so pure.
But I say purity and impurity because what Terry said
that it got mixed with that music
from so many places and it got mixed.
So it's hard to find something purely
from the Congo or from Nigeria.
It's all mixed.
But not, when you listen to any music now,
whether it's a jazz number, or something for the masses,
something like to dance in a party,
there will always be a section
that is totally Afroid [inaudible].
And if it doesn't have that, something is lacking in the mix.
So I just wanted to add that part.
>> Eva Reyes Gonzalez: thank you.
Before we go on to the next questions
and turn the microphone to the audience,
I would like to ask you, make a comment first
and then the question will come up from there.
About art as an instrument of transformation
because I think the three of you believe on that.
The power of the music as a instrument of transformation
on so many different levels and the power of the music
that goes beyond walls and different barriers.
So if you can expand in that sense and [inaudible]
and a cultural ambassador because I will say that.
How do you manifest that, how you work on that?
>> Yosvany Terry: Well, this is something with,
that is really relevant and important to artists in general
and especially given the nature of music,
and even when you go back to the first musicians,
you can see how [inaudible], how important was [inaudible]
and also was because of work opportunities they have
to be moving in between countries,
they have to start traveling [inaudible]
different geographies.
When they have to learn how to communicate in different parts
of the world where they are.
You can go back to Mozart, so once he go to Italy,
he learns the Italian opera.
He needs to learn how to write that opera in the Italian style.
But then he goes to France, he learned how to treat it
as a French, and as German.
But also you can see it here in cases like Duke Ellington
and Louis Armstrong who were ambassadors of,
you know, jazz in the world.
So I think that was really important for me growing up.
It was the teaching of my own father, being a musician,
and also having the opportunity, especially the opportunity
to play in places where Cuban didn't even have political
relationship with those country at the time.
And music was the way in which Cuba established relationship
with those country.
So he instilled in us, again, at very early age, the importance
to understand art and music as an ambassador and also
to understand the mission that we have as an artist to erase
and also, not only erase barriers and barriers
that can make us, can create differences,
but at the same time to see ourselves as someone
that is unmuzzled, that has to reestablish connections,
that has to really foster relationship that's,
we need to foster collaboration.
So it's with that idea that and that, you know,
we grew up in my house because it was practice from my father
and actually the house.
>> Yunior Terry: Mm-hmm.
>> Adonis Gonzalez: I haven't had the fortunate
to enter students to Cuba, but that's something that will be
so [inaudible] for them to see,
and to [inaudible] I don't see any reason why should
that barrier be there.
So I'm very, I'm not going to talk a lot about that.
But I'm glad that now there is this legal opportunity
for the exchange between both cultures,
to have them with more freedom.
I just hope that it remains that way for a long time.
It's very, it is very limited for the people to not be able
to share their traditions and empower their roots
by learning what is [inaudible] more similarities
than there are differences so I'm totally for that.
>> Yunior Terry: Yeah.
I want to add that I've been [inaudible] we're brothers,
as Yosvany said.
One of the reason I wanted to take music as a profession
from the beginning was because all the tales of my dad
of traveling and how he saw the world through the music.
He was able to visit many places in Africa,
in the eastern European places, the way he went out before.
And I've been able to see, with the music I've been able
to see a lot of the world,
and I've been able to teach also abroad.
I was teaching in India for six weeks
in a university over there.
And it's really enriching to see how the students over there were
so eager to learn the music.
And at the same time I was learning with them,
trying to learn a little bit of their culture.
And that's information and that's a way
of like really getting to know each other
and what's really important, not just for itself but also
for everyone involved in that change.
I was talking about my culture,
about how who plays certain things because it's related
to certain dynamic in our culture.
And they explaining to me,
[inaudible] to me something similar how, you know,
in the music these had to deal
with this other aspect of the culture.
And also how the music is loved by many people
and like the [inaudible] style, for example, in Africa,
when you go to Africa playing [inaudible], I don't know
if you guys heard of [inaudible] style music with violins,
and piano, flute, and was really prevalent 40's,
50's, 30's, 40's, 50's.
That's a tradition that it kind
of stay frozen over there in Africa.
You go to Senegal, you go to some of those places
like they revere you playing their music.
The same with when you go to Columbia as well.
I think it brings down the barriers as they said,
brings us closer to each other and it's real important for all
of us to feel that [inaudible], to have that serious.
>> Eva Reyes Gonzalez: Okay.
>> Yosvany Terry: I also wanted to give you an anecdote.
Last year I had an opportunity to take the Harvard Jazz Band
on a trip to Cuba and we stayed there one week.
And during that week I organized all
of the activities for the tour.
We visited three music conservatories
and we [inaudible] them.
They played for us.
We played for them.
I arranged to have one of the important music coach
to work with the band.
I took them mostly to Matanzas to visit even
like [inaudible] museums where they have a lot
of remnants of the slavery.
They saw [inaudible] one of the big authorities in some
of the Africa communities [inaudible].
And we did a concert with special guests
and professional musicians from Cuba Casa de las Americas.
And the most amazing part of the trip it was at the end,
to see the power of transformation that music
and art has in all the students.
So they went to Cuba, not even
with the concept of what Cuba was.
And I made sure before we went on tour
to bring different professors of the university to lecture them
about where they were going.
They'd talk about politics.
They'd talk about history.
They talked about everything.
But nothing that they,
I mean none of those lectures prepared them to the reality
of being [inaudible] the culture.
And so that was a truly transformative experience
for those students.
I mean they were changed I believe
for the rest of their life.
So, again, this is just like a little anecdote the power
of transformation that music and art have.
Yeah.
>> Eva Reyes Gonzalez: Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So we're going to take [inaudible] someone
from the audience.
Before that, thank you very much.
Please join me to -- .
[ Applause ]
Yes. We'll be able to take some questions.
>> Yes. So my question is [inaudible].
The first part of the question is I know that like
in Afro-Cuban religions certain rhythms are sacred.
Can you incorporate those sacred rhythms into jazz or something
if you are not a [inaudible]?
And the second part of my question is
in two weeks I'll be in Havana.
I'm very excited.
I've been waiting five years in Miami
and [inaudible] that Havana.
Is there one place that you could recommend that I would go
to hear the best [inaudible] jazz?
[ Inaudible ]
>> Adonis Gonzalez: Okay.
There are many sacred things
about the Afro-Cuban religions but,
not I think the rhythms are used I think what they pray
[inaudible] but the rhythm itself we can't be using
[inaudible] it cannot be used but we don't [inaudible].
They permeate everything.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
>> Yosvany Terry: No, no.
It's important to understand that life is not separated
from the daily spirits, meaning
like the practitioners are also the musicians that are part
of the popular band and there also are musicians that went
to the classical music conservatory,
or the composers, or everyone.
So it's impossible that if I'm a practitioner that I'm not going
to use something that for me has a lot of importance.
So like, as just he's commenting,
what Adonis said, you can't use it.
Of course there is that it also happens.
I'm looking in the other side of the spectrum.
Appropriation happen also there.
People that aren't the practitioner
that also use those musical tradition
for different purposes, you know.
But, yeah, there's no I would say limitation, and especially
because when you're, it all depends on the mission
and what the result of what you're using it for.
I could give you an example of there was a CD that I created
that the name is "New Throned King"
in which the entire CD is based on the musical traditions
that came from the [inaudible] which is now in [inaudible].
Yes, I used everything from the, that I've learned
from this type of, from this culture.
But at the same time, to me it's not a religious record.
It's a cultural record.
So therefore it isn't one that context that we working with all
of this, this is this vast heritage that came
from West Africa, yeah.
>> Yunior Terry: Responding to that, of course,
you could also find some close minded people that might say,
"Oh, you shouldn't really use that."
But your using it out of [inaudible].
You don't use it at [inaudible], you know,
the religious aspect of it.
So it would definitely have completely different
like if you listen to the recording of [Inaudible]
when he was [inaudible] nobody hardly ever [inaudible]
the society.
But, you know, we're using a [inaudible]
that is complete world now to be able to use [inaudible]
at the time when he was doing it,
it was something completely new.
But he was doing it so out of context, he was doing,
playing with Dizzy, he was at Carnegie Hall,
was a completely different, you know, it's one thing to do,
you know, so it's accepted to use it.
And talking about -- .
[ Inaudible ]
And that would be one of them to go and see live music.
I will say if you're there with somebody [inaudible] experience
on the street that is every, every Sunday
and it's really the neighborhood people,
and the neighborhood playing.
And it's an amazing experience that I will say something not
to miss if you go there.
[ Laughter ]
>> Eva Reyes Gonzalez: Any other question from the audience?
[ Inaudible ]
>> Yunior Terry: I think it's, we talking about two things
that are really interesting because music
at one point here was pop music here.
Jazz was pop.
I always made the comparison like Ella Fitzgerald was
like Beyonce or something at the time.
You know, was [inaudible] was on TV was like really popular.
So -- .
>> Nat King Cole.
>> Yunior Terry: Nat King Cole.
Nat King Cole.
One of them two was
on television all the time performing
and influenced many people.
We don't have that anymore here.
It's different.
For a certain degree it's harder to see.
It's a little more expensive
for the younger [inaudible] to have access to it.
I think that that makes it a little more far to,
a little sad, for to find a way for them to have a opportunity
for they don't see it closely every day.
We can talk about many other things.
I could say Cuba jazz still is like anything.
Now we're [inaudible] we've been here for a few years now.
There's a generation of people now that it's more
into like whatever is really popular right now there's people
doing reggae tune that for me it's
like completely different music and maybe I'm not
into it at the moment.
But maybe.
[Inaudible].
That's what popular over there.
There's so more people doing it because it's maybe catchy
because a sort of somehow people make money quick.
I remember we had the time when we were over there.
We were listening to more jazz because there was groups
that were included in their music
and it was more prominent like [inaudible].
There were more groups that were really like the top group
at the time that were infusing it more.
So we grew up in a generation in Cuba that had more jazz.
We're like every day seeing it.
And maybe they, like I said, the kids now, they see it less
because some of the [inaudible] hit the country so strongly
that they just wanted whatever is popular at the moment.
They still, but still if you go there,
there's some amazing players over there, young players.
I don't think it's died off.
I think -- .
>> Eva Reyes Gonzalez: Different times.
>> Yunior Terry: Different, just different.
But it's a lot of the great players.
When you go over there, Jazz Festival is in sometime
in December, sometime in January.
[Inaudible] a lot of music and a lot
of great players you get to see.
>> Yosvany Terry: There's a question.
>> I have so many questions for you but I'd dearly love
to hear what you're talking about.
So if you could play something -- .
>> Yosvany Terry: Right here.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Adonis Gonzalez: We're trying to figure out what.
[ Laughter ]
[ Inaudible ]
[ Applause ]
[ Inaudible ]
>> Yosvany Terry: It was too early to bring to wake
up the saxophone and the bass.
[ Music ]
So instead I brought the [inaudible].
>> Eva Reyes Gonzalez: Yosvany, could you tell us
about the [inaudible] quickly?
>> Yosvany Terry: Yeah.
Yeah. This instrument is named [inaudible].
And the tradition that my father learned it from is come
from the [inaudible] from Nigeria.
He learned with his uncle
but then he developed his own technique.
And he's now considered like the king of this instrument in Cuba.
He's even, he had even traveled back to Nigeria and went
to different [inaudible].
And, yeah, [inaudible].
And it's just a gourd that is pressed with a net of beads
and outside this and it make a change depending
on where you get it.
If you, in Africa they sell it dressed with curry shells.
In Cuba it's different [foreign language spoken], a nice red
or black and that's how you use it, that how you dress it.
And now these [inaudible] are using beads, plastic beads,
or even sometimes glass beads.
So, as I said, the gourd grows in many different places.
This gourd is actually from North Carolina or South Carolina
because it grows here in the United States as well.
And [inaudible].
It's like I can give it to you and [inaudible] it will be hard
to get something out of it.
But, yes, let's listen to it -- .
[ Inaudible ]
[ Laughter ]
It's an improvised concert.
[ Inaudible ]
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.
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