with  Sigfredo Ariel ( December of 2001 )

SIFREDO ARIEL Poet, journalist and Cuban music producer.
Son del Son

Son is taken te Havana City thanks to General Miguel Gómez' iniciative. He was President of the Cuban Republic in the first years of the XX century. He decided to transfer the soldiers of his army far from their regions. This meassure had the intention of fighting the corruption in Republican troops. Men enrolled in Pinar del Río Province were settled in Santiago de Cuba Province; men from Havana City, in Camagüey or Las Villas Provinces. These transfers seem to have been done in a capriciously way. People called them "the permanent soldiers"; but most of them never return to their original regions. A guitar was always present in the East Provinces soldiers' luggage, that's to say "El Tres", where son travelled to Havana.

On the days when the phonograph and the cinema were a novelty in Havana, many duets, trios and quariets proliferated singing songs, boleros, guarachas and bambucos. Hundreds of Edison cylinders and phonografic plates had a great time in the acoustic era, just like danzones, puntos guajiros, humorous plays' dialogues and monologues ending most of the time in a "hot rumba". Leyends tell that permanent soldiers from Havana and Matanzas took "La Rumba and Guaguancó lo the East Provinces. Perhaps Ihis news may upset some specialist because there is no possible way to verify and argue it academically. In February 1918, the first Cuban son record was recorded. The sessions took place in one of the rooms of the central Inglaterra Hotel; guitarist and director Carlos Godínez took part in the event. He arrived at Havana in 1910 together with the permanent army. Bongosero Alfredo Boloña and two singers: Manuel Corona and María Teresa Vera took part too in the recording. Some people assured that Guillermo Castillo was present and he was a pillar of Oriental Quartet togelher with Godínez. This quartet became the Sexteto Habanero in 1920, the first musical group of the time.

Those recorded songs, six sons, were made by the Víctor House's North American technicians who traveled by several South American countries armed wilh portable audio equipment. Son was listened to illicitly in cafes and bars situated in Havanian periphery. Sometimes, it had to face the govemment prohibition in public places. Years later, when the Sexteto Habanero's records was known by many people, the electric recording system was installed in September 2nd , 1925; at that time, son was sean as "Negros' stuff', indecent and outcast in exclusive saloons. It was welcomed in low reputation houses, saloons visited by young men and gentlemen seeking for pleasure and adventure; later in an increasing number of dance academies where people sang and danced danzones, paso dobles, polkas, charlestones... and son.

Fonographic record was a remarkable help te make public the new music; but refrains full of sexual allusions (like one which said: María, I saw you dancing while "your door was opened" or give a "cool move" to your daddy); others said things about santeríá s deities (Florinda aé, give me the ducks asked by Yemayá); allusions of Ñañigos' rites "in its tongue" are still considered indecent and vulgar. Today son lies on a solid base with a complex and attractive structure. Ernesto Lecuona's liric songs are now applauded by hands full ofjewels in Regina o Payrel theaters' boxes like Sexteto Habanero's Victor records and from 1927, in the National's Columbia plates. Boleros in fashion appears frequently in the first part of the sons of that time. Later, after a vibrant bongó solo, a montuno is heard till the end of the fonographic plate. Old people say: "It is a pale idea of reality because a good son is endless". Danzón appears and its principal creators began to "arrange" the wide sextetos' repertoire.

A Cuban sons record, Trio Matamoros' first record, became a success late in the second decade of the century. Ignacio Piñeiro united the guajira song with the son ambience; combined in the montunos, the rumba language, the yambú, the "toque de santo". The sextets and septets from the twenties and thirties modeled musicians that became famous in the following dacades. Arsenio Rodríguez, Benny Moré, Abelardo Barroso, Miguelito Valdés, Machito, Niño Rivera, Miguelito Cuní and many others. They are "black son men", said Nicolás Guillén; they proved to be good performers in groups, charanga or ajazz band. With the the Golden Twenty son, the mulatto poet find his true language and natural expression. It w as the proud irruption of a race that was destinad to stay unaltered in a not well illuminated social stratus; the appearance of negro in an unknown cultural sphere forced them lo keep their place. Son musical groups abolished the'negro professor' and the son macho man appears for the first time together with his language and filosofy in the National Theater. Son was rejected at the begining due to social descrimination and fear to black or black people. This situation has been suffered by many mestizo nations. The son's profound, direct and colloquial language had a rival repertoire full of Cuban tasteful songs from the time of Spanish colony. In one of the emblematic titles, the famous sextet intoned with no inhibition:

Among the most useless and tough Cuban controversias it is easy to remind the ones denied by soma who said that the African contribution to our music was not possible, overvuluing the Spanish influence, undeniable, vigorous previous and evident in almost all kinds of music; at the same time, they hoisted an Indian imaginary musical
heritage. Fernando Ortíz erased completely that theory in the son's boom. It dazzled the best symphonic music
composers in the island, Roldán and Caturla, who could not take advantage of the finding widely because of
their premature death, but they let us valuable works. Other'cultured' composers have cultivated the Cuban
son successfully. An unsettled subject is the necessary examination of Carlo Borbolla's work, practically
unpublished and centered in the generic complex of his different variants.

Cuban son is still alive and itdialogues with all audible things. It seems to be obvious to accept it like a system, spreading its multipleramifications, new routes, combinations and metamorphosis. The Cuban geography and our spiritual
fisonomy is completed by it. The Cuban son is a complex map that help to understand ourselves better; it is a
perfect remedy against sorrow. There is no doubt about it.