Repeating Islands

The bandleader was pianist for the Afro-Cuban All Stars and father of jazz great Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Judy Cantor-Navas reports in this obituary for Billboard.

Pianist Guillermo Rubalcaba, leader of classic Cuban dance band Charanga Tipica de Concierto and his own La Charanga Rubalcaba, has died in Havana. The master of the danzón and other enduring Cuban styles, who also interpreted jazz standards with his own improvisational swing, was 88 years old.

Rubalcaba, who typically wore a hat and a smile, was born into a prestigious musical family. His father was the musician and composer Jacobo González Rubalcaba, known for advancing the evolution and popularity of the danzón in the first half of the 20th century.

Guillermo Rubalcaba, who was born and raised in Pinar del Rio and later moved to Havana, performed early in his career with cha-cha-cha pioneer Enrique Jorrin’s orchestra. He frequently backed Omara Portuondo, Elena Burke, and other artists identified with the ’60s jazz vocal movement known as filin.

In the ’90s, Rublacaba became more familiar to international audiences when he toured with the Afro-Cuban All Stars, as well as flamenco vocalist Diego el Cigala.

Just before his death, Rubalcaba released a new solo album, Como en el Ayer, on Cuban label Colibrí.

“Calmly, as if nothing could throw off his gait, his own way, Guillermo Rubalcaba plays the piano,” Pedro de la Hoz, the chief music critic for Cuba’s Granmanewspaper, wrote of the new album in a review published just one day before the musician’s passing.

“He’s always been that way: profession, tradition, good taste and above all a ‘Cuban-ness’ that inside and outside is lush, essential, without excesses but free of affectations.”

Rubalcaba passed the musical torch on to his children, one of who is the acclaimed jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba. His death on Sept. 7 was announced on Cuban national news and made headlines in Havana newspapers.

For the original report go to http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/latin/6692997/cuban-pianist-guillermo-rubalcaba-dies-88

Leila Cobo reports for Billboard.

Grammy-winning producer Emilio Estefan has enlisted an all-star small army of famous friends — including Carlos Santana, Thalia, Pepe Aguilar and his wife, singer Gloria Estefan — to combat the spate of anti-Mexican rhetoric that Donald Trump sparked earlier this summer.

Estefan, 62, tells Billboard exclusively that, after listening to a TV talking head make false and vindictive anti-Latin statements on TV, he has rounded up dozens of Latin celebrities to record “We’re All Mexican,” which he describes as a musical “celebration of Hispanics and our accomplishments.” The track, set to be released later in September, will also include reggaeton singer Wisin, Wyclef Jean, radio personality Enrique Santos and famed Spanish-American chef José Andrés, most of whom will be rapping on the record.

R.E.M. Slams Donald Trump for Using Their Song in ‘Moronic Charade of a Campaign’

“There’s a message being sent out to the world where people are giving opinions that are plain wrong,” says the Cuban-American Estefan, who has won 19 Grammy awards. “We need to lift up our pride and show the world what we’re doing.”

Although issues of immigration and citizenship have long been lightning-rod topics of discussion among cable-news pundits, the public debate — on the airwaves and in the streets — has grown more brutish in the aftermath of comments made by Trump when he announced his presidential run in June.  “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump told an applauding crowd at the time. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems [to] us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Estefan, who says he’s known Trump “for many, many years,” insists that “We’re All Mexican” “is not so much an answer to the real-estate developer turned Republican candidate as it is an answer to the sentiment that we’ve progressed [as Hispanics] and we need to let people know that.” And with this song, he adds, “I want to send a message that represents unity.”

“Trump doesn’t represent anything to me,”  Estefan tells Billboard. “Everyone has their opinion, and he can have whatever opinion he wants, as long as he doesn’t humiliate my people.”

For the original report go to http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6692459/emilio-estefan-were-all-mexican-song-donald-trump-bigotry-shakira-gloria-estefan-carlos-santana

Creatively Speaking Film Series celebrates the opening of its 20th consecutive season Sept. 11 to 13 with “Spotlight Caribbean” at MIST/Madiba Harlem. From Jamaica to Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago to Haiti, the season premiere of our monthly series features a diverse selection of documentary and narrative films, with each screening followed by a dialogue with the filmmaker.

Spotlight Caribbean opens Sept. 11 with a sneak preview of Gladstone Yearwood’s narrative film “Sweet Bottom” (2015). When Roy Ashby is suddenly deported to his native Barbados, he is desperate to return home to Brooklyn, where he immigrated as a child. With a new love interest and no means of support, he turns to an old friend who takes Roy’s life in a dangerous direction. “Sweet Bottom” tells the story of the emigrant experience as rarely seen from inside the Caribbean. Roy’s journey reveals how understanding one’s culture and the power of love can lead to a surprisingly positive path.

“Art Connect” (2014) by Miquel Galofre reveals the profound impact of creative expression on a group of students from Laventille, one of the most economically challenged communities in Trinidad and Tobago. The Art Connect program at Success Laventille Secondary School offers students the opportunity to collaborate with local artist Wendell McShine and musicians from the Freetown Collective. Galofre documented this life-changing experience and provided students with GoPro cameras so they could actively participate in telling their stories. “Art Connect” was selected as the Best Documentary Feature at the MAC Film Festival in Brazil, Best Documentary at FEMI in Gaudeloupe, Best Feature and People’s Choice Award at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.

“The Price of Memory” (2014) by Karen Mafundikwa examines the enduring legacy of slavery and the case for reparations in modern Jamaica. When Queen Elizabeth II visits Jamaica for her Golden Jubilee in 2002, she is petitioned by a group of Rastafari for slavery reparations. The film traces the ensuing lawsuit brought by attorney Michael Lorne and the history of the fight for reparations from the 1960s to today. The film was nominated for Best Documentary at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and was an Official Selection at the Pan African Film Festival and the Africa in Motion Film Festival.

“Songs of Redemption” (2013) by Galofre and Amanda Sans explores the transformation of inmates at the General Penitentiary in Kingston, Jamaica under a superintendent who implements programs in practical training and creative expression. Told from the perspective of prisoners, the film is a moving story of redemption and rehabilitation. “Songs of Redemption” won the audience prize for Best Documentary and was co-winner of the jury prize for Best Documentary at the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival.

“Women of the West Indies” (2012) by Stephanie and Steven James presents portraits of 41 Caribbean women from across the Diaspora. This screening will feature portraits of Lili Bernard, Rosie Gordon Wallace and Nora Gasparini. Lili Bernard, born in Cuba and residing in Los Angeles, is an actress and activist campaigning for the visibility of Black, Asian and Hispanic artists in the vast California cultural landscape. Rosie Gordon Wallace founded the Diaspora Vibe Gallery of Miami Beach, a platform to cultivate the vision and diverse talent of emerging artists from the Latin and Caribbean Diaspora. Nora Gasparini is originally from Martinique and now resides in Bali, where she has established L’Atelier Parfums et Creations, an olfactory workshop where visitors can develop their own perfumes from local, natural resources.

“H-2 Worker” (1990) by Stephanie Black reveals the systematic exploitation of Caribbean laborers by the Florida sugar industry for more than 40 years from 1943 through the 1990s. Providing historical context for the current crisis surrounding the denationalization and deportation of Dominicans of Haitian ancestry, the film also illuminates the current debate over guest worker provisions in immigration legislation. Winner of the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was clandestinely shot in the cane fields near Lake Okeechobee, Fla.

The Creatively Speaking Film Series has become known as the leading film series for presenting independently produced media of realistic, universal portrayals of people of color. Shorts, documentaries and narrative films tell universal stories that are rarely presented in the mainstream media. Screenings are followed by lively and thoughtful discussions about the art and craft of filmmaking as well as the social issues presented in the films.

All screenings are at MIST/Madiba Harlem, 46 W. 116th St., New York, N.Y. Advance tickets are available at http://tinyurl.com/PC9QAYU. For information and showtimes, visit www.creativelyspeaking.tv or http://bit.ly/1U4OaDn.

For the original report go to http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2015/sep/10/mist-harlem-hosts-caribbean-film-fest/

A review by Martha Schwendener for The New York Times.

‘FIELD NOTES’

‘Extracts’

Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts

80 Hanson Place, at South Portland Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Through Sept. 27

Field notes are central to the disciplines of ethnography and anthropology, yet they were usually composed by someone observing a culture that wasn’t his or her own — in other words, an outsider. The seven artists in this show — all from the Caribbean or the Caribbean diaspora — reverse that tradition, making “notes” in the form of art that highlights myths, superstitions and practices native to the islands.

Gilles Elie-dit-Cosaque, originally from Martinique, makes lovely notebook-collages called “Lambeaux” (“Scraps”), a series from 2009 to 2015. Filled with personal and historical photographs and ephemera, the works borrow from Creole, a heterogeneous mixing of elements, to add a Caribbean tweak to the French “collage.” “Field Notes” (2014), a film by Vashti Harrison, an artist based in California whose roots lead back to Trinidad and Tobago, offers ruminations on ghosts and apparitions, and considers the etymological difference between zombies and Trinidadian jumbies (mythological spirits).

Holly Parotti’s photographs of silk cotton trees in the Bahamas conjure similar spooky mythologies, while Kelly Sinnapah Mary’s video and collage images of exaggerated female bodies, clearly inspired by the Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu, suggest how African and Caribbean diasporas might mix and overlap. Deborah Anzinger, Joiri Minaya and Jasmine Thomas Girvan have all made lateral installations, hung on a wall or suspended in space, with paintings, photographs and found objects that refer to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.

Sprinkled throughout the show, particularly in the wall text, are references to writers and thinkers like James Baldwin, Aimé Césaire, Jean Rhys, Édouard Glissant and Stuart Hall, who all eloquently addressed colonialism, racism and migration. The art here often falls short of these models, though the artists are all described as emerging in the news release. Thinking of these works as notes rather than opuses supports the provisional, exploratory process proposed by the exhibition’s title.

For the original report go to http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/arts/design/review-field-notes-uses-visual-art-to-explore-caribbean-heritage.html?_r=0

A review by George Elliot Clarke for Canada’s Chronicle Herald

The challenge for the intellectual poet is to be accessible without becoming mystical or sentimental. A Guyanese-Canadian living in Florida, Sasenarine Persaud is dauntlessly brainy, a fact that makes his eighth poetry collection, Lantana Strangling Ixora (TSAR, $18), a bit like reading T.S. Eliot mixed up with Rabindranath Tagore.

Jennifer Rahim’s fourth collection, Redemption Rain (TSAR, $18), is more immediately clear than is some of Persaud’s work, but also moves between and among worlds so fluidly that one can be mystified about just where the Trinidadian-Canadian is locating herself — in Toronto, Trinidad, Haiti or elsewhere.

Persaud’s work is “as much about love and people in and out of relationships as it is about origins and the process of estrangement,” states the publisher.

These notes are helpful: Persaud is disturbed by neo-colonial encroachment that resembles that of the lantana — a South American creeper — that can engulf other plants, such as the transplanted Indian ixora. But his “love” is abstract.

Persaud attempts to bear witness to the erasure of Indian culture and thought and heritage in the Americas — and in the West in general. To this end, he sees “place as muse” and engages in witty and scornful excoriation of Indians and Westerners who forget or deny India’s cultural contributions to humanity, who prefer to acknowledge ” ‘Papa’ (Hemingway) . . . travelling in the hills of Africa / or (Pearl) Buck . . . observing the Chinese.”

Finding “A yoga studio” in Plymouth, Mass., the speaker and his interlocutor recall the imperialism of Christopher Columbus and the roots of Thanksgiving as a de facto peace pact between Puritan settlers and the natives who helped them survive.

The dislocation of an Indian cultural practice to a place where First Nations were confused with India(ns) is central to the irony of the poem, but one needs a background in history to see it.

If you don’t get Persaud’s subtlety, or his deep understanding of the subterranean connections among politics, history, and culture(s), you may feel lost, no matter how lofty the verbal transport.

One literary debate Persaud returns to frequently is the argument between two Caribbean-born Nobel laureates in literature, namely Derek Walcott and V.S. Naipaul, over the proper attitude toward British colonization. In one poem, Persaud seems to say, “a plague on both your houses,” but in another he seems to prefer Naipaul’s British Indianness to Walcott’s Greco-Roman Africanness.

Persaud’s poems are unapologetically learned. If you want to understand his erudition, you’d best bring an education.

Jennifer Rahim’s Redemption Rain is, in contrast, invitingly and overtly lyrical. One proof of her reader-friendly simplicity is that her previous collection, Approaching Sabbaths (2009), received Cuba’s 2010 Casa de las Americas prize for best book in the category of Caribbean literature in English or Creole.

Even so, Rahim also challenges a reader to keep up with the deft movements of her almost whimsical poems.

See Earthquake 2010, a meditation on the Haitian disaster, but also on personal ramifications and aftershocks that the poet experiences as a Trinidadian-Canadian. So, when tremors strike Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, the speaker is being questioned by a Canadian border agent in Toronto: “When tectonic plates, / began secretly negotiating / their catastrophic shift,/ the officer was asking, / ‘How much did you pay / for your candy, miss?’ ”

The point is made that the questioning, perhaps reflecting a subtle racial harassment, is a minor, small-mind-perpetrated shock in comparison with the actual earthquake unfolding with deadly force in the Caribbean.

Arriving at Kipling subway station in Toronto, Rahim’s persona recalls “the injurious (British) poet / whose verses pined for ‘Home,’ ” and reflects, “Heaven . . . is a location.”

The shuttling back and forth between Haiti’s tragedy and the poet’s T.O. homecoming is an odyssey of sorts. Yet, the fine reflection of most of the poem is not served by the rhetorical conclusion: “If poetry means anything, / let this be a mouth charged / like Jeremiah’s call to build / with much more resolve / the temple we too dimly / dream ourselves.”

For the original review go to http://thechronicleherald.ca/books/74802-easy-get-lost-persaud-rahim-s-odyssey-more-accessible?from=most_read&most_read=74802&most_read_ref=%2Fartslife%2Fbooks