Portuondo still singing at 86
Little known in the U.S., this Cuban treasure brings her bewitching voice to House of Blues
Omara Portuondo met American listeners 20 years ago, even though she’d been a legend in her native Cuba for nearly four decades at that point.
Time is worth considering with regard to Cuba and music because the sounds of the island were so scarce for so long. American musician Ry Cooder found a way to release an album 20 years ago that proved an international hit. “Buena Vista Social Club” put some of the island’s venerable musicians on a record that slipped through an embargo loophole.
Though the combined age of the performers was centuries, the music was ageless. Twenty years later, though, the performers are not.
Most of the prominent players on “Buena Vista Social Club” have gone: pianist Rubén González died at 84, guitarist and tres player Compay Segundo died at 95, and singer Manual “Puntillita” Licea died at 79 — all three in 2003. Singer Ibrahim Ferrer passed in 2005 at 78, and bassist Orlando “Cachaíto” López, who played on all of their post-rediscovery albums, died at 76 in 2009.
Suffice to say, Portuondo’s presence at House of Blues next Wednesday is a rare opportunity, simply based on the fact that she’s nearly 86. She’ll be accompanied by BVSC friend Eliades Ochoa, who is a sprightly 70.
Portuondo remains a treasure, and one whose body of work I don’t profess to know fully. I met her when most of America did, when she was in her mid-60s.
Unlike Segundo, who was rolling cigars when Cooder found him in Havana, or González, who was arthritic and spent time away from the piano, Portuondo was at the time still a successful performer in Cuba and beyond, just not here. Her American record label filled in some biographical details: Her mother grew up in a wealthy Spanish family but was shunned when she married a black Cuban baseball player.
Portuondo’s start in entertainment came as a dancer at the Tropicana in Havana, roots that would inform her music going forward. She started singing in the 1950s and always kept dancers in mind. Though Portuondo can burn hearts with ballads, her voice has long served as an extended hand at the periphery of the dance floor.
She sang with the ensemble Quarteto Las d’Aida for 15 years but also worked on her own, making a solo album in 1959 that showed her obvious affinity for the sound of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
She was in Miami when tensions between the United States and Cuba reached crisis mode, and returned home. She wouldn’t get back to the States for more than three decades.
But as a solo artist and as a member of La Orchesta Aragón, she continued to perform in Cuba and around the rest of the world. She was a revered figure when Cooder arrived in Cuba in the ’90s, and he recorded her singing “Veinte Años” with Segundo and “Silencio” with Ferrer.
The points of reference commonly made with Portuondo are to opera legend Edith Piaf and jazz great Billie Holiday, though Portuondo’s recordings only superficially remind me of either.
There is in her music a little of the pained vibrato of both, but she works in more subtle and folky shades than Piaf, and with crisper precision than Holiday.
Which isn’t to say she exceeds the talents of either: Piaf ’s hearton-sleeve and Holiday’s loose manner with tempo made each iconic vocalists.
Portuondo simply deserves mention independently.
Her range remains bewitching, as she ekes out both gravitas and vulnerability in her lower tones and pain when she goes high. I haven’t seen her in years, but I suspect her instrument has retained its luscious charm.
Three albums have circulated widely in the States: Released in 2000, “Buena Vista Social Club Presents Omara Portuondo” is an extension of her work on that first BVSC record; ““Flor de Amor,” released in 2004 expands her repertoire beyond the island, as does the heavily Brazilian “Gracias” from 2008.
Any provide an introduction to a singer whose work puts her in the same company as the greatest of the 20th century. That she’s still going 16 years into the 21st is a gift.