It wasn't just that he was the largest Cuban musician in his generation. Nor that many years had passed in the almost revolutionary forgetfulness, working as a tobacco torture. Nor that, despite his talent, he had no more ambition than to be remembered "as a book."
It was, above all, that you were surprised by his immense host capacity, the particular way he had to get you to feel comfortable in his presence. His way of communicating, guitar in hand, improvising songs and talking about his life. Of the much lived and of the much that still longed to live.
These are some of the memorable phrases that he shared with me:
"There are times I get my songs when I'm almost asleep ... if I don't get up and copy them right away, the next day I say concho! If I had an idea yesterday. ”
"I have left work to remind me ... and no, as the saying goes: I have passed through the world without knowing what I passed ... no ... I like it: like the bird that I am, that crossed swamps and did not stain your plumage" .
"So I will always keep my humility, I will do my things and I feel proud to have done them ... but that pride does not lead me to feel the most important composer in Cuba."
Every time I hear the notes of his wonderful Chan ChanI can't help smiling and remembering our conversations in his apartment in Centro Habana, where he met, with his musicians, to rehearse.
He gave me the good morning with his voice of thunder, he took a cigar from his guayabera pocket, offered it to me and told me "Fume, friend, that good tobacco lengthens life. Or did you not see how it extended it to me? "
Pepe Navarro
Company friend
