Play, sing, dance … repeat Pedrito Martinez at the New Mexico Jazz Festival
that to be a musician in Cuba, one must learn three things: how to play an instrument, how to sing, and how to dance. “Yes, yes, it’s true,” said Cuban-born percussionist Pedrito Martinez, whose quartet appears as part of the New Mexico Jazz Festival on Wednesday, July 20, at St. John’s College, and the following two nights at the Outpost in Albuquerque. “The hardest thing for me was the dancing. Cuban dance, those Afro-Cuban dance steps, offer a lot of ways to go. You have to be really serious and give it time if you want to learn it correctly. Then you have to do those three things simultaneously. It’s not easy, but it’s what people love.”
Though he received no formal musical training, the Havana neighborhood he grew up in, Cayo Hueso, provided plenty of opportunity for mixing the three ingredients of Cuban music. His mother was a singer, he had an uncle who was a conguero, and another who excelled at dancing. There was a theater across the street from his home where classical Cuban orchestras played. He learned the rhythmic traditions of Santería, the Yoruba-inspired Caribbean religion with roots in Africa, from a local santero. “A lot of what I bring to
my music comes from the Yoruba culture,” he said. “Using the batá drum, a lot of the melodies and ideas; I grab everything I can from that culture. It’s a big part of who I am.” By the time he was in his twenties, Martinez was playing seven nights a week at Havana hotels for a dollar a month. But he was gaining invaluable experience appearing with such venerable Cuban musicians as Tata Güines, an Afro-Cuban percussionist who had worked with everyone from Arsenio Rodríguez and Chano Pozo to Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Sinatra. “Tata became a mentor. I played with him for three years and learned a lot.”
Martinez’s career took a decided turn when he left Havana in 1998 to join Canadian saxophonist Jane Bunnett’s ensemble Spirits of Havana for a North American tour that ended in New York City. “I knew as soon as she invited me that it was going to be a great opportunity,” he said. “It was my first time in Canada and the United States, and I knew the greatest, most amazing musicians were there in New York. But I never planned to stay. I thought I’d take three months and learn some things, play with everyone I could find. After awhile, I felt it was my time to stay and give myself over to becoming a better musician.”
Martinez crashed at the New York apartment of a Cuban drummer who had heard the young Martinez play back in Havana. His résumé quickly grew to include performing with an impressive list of both jazz and pop bands, including those of saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and keyboardist Eddie Palmieri, as well as rock musicians Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Paul Simon. In 2000, judged by a distinguished panel of percussion musicians that included Ray Barretto and Babatunde Olatunji, he won the Thelonious Monk International Afro-Latin Hand-Drum Competition, the only time the prestigious contest has focused on percussionists other than trap drummers. He was in the original lineup of groundbreaking crossover Latin-hip hop ensemble Yerba Buena and, in 2005, founded The Pedrito Martinez Group. The band’s long run of appearances at Manhattan’s Guantanamera restaurant drew a celebrity crowd and Martinez made valuable connections. Its first recording, produced by drummer Steve Gadd and including appearances from trumpeter Marsalis and guitarist John Scofield, was nominated in 2015 for the Grammy Awards Best Latin Jazz Album.
Martinez’s new release, Habana Dreams, makes for something of a prodigal-son story. Taking advantage of newly relaxed travel restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba, Martinez returned to Havana last October to record at the historic Estudios Areito of Cuban recording label EGREM. “There are a lot of great studios in New York, but it was amazing to be back where I was born and to have the opportunity to add my three older brothers recording with us, to have my oldest friends there in the studio. It was the sort of magic experience that I wouldn’t have had anywhere else. And the very first thing about doing it there was recording in the place where all the great Cuban orchestras had recorded. It’s the place where Ry Cooder recorded The Buena Vista Social Club. The same room. The energy there was amazing.”
Along with Marsalis and vocalists including Angélique Kidjo and Issac Delgado, the disc contains music from Rubén Blades, the composer-singer whom Martinez had met at Guantanamera. “He’s a great man, a very smart guy, and an extraordinary composer. We’ve been collaborating with him for a couple years now. I’ve listened to his music since I was young. He’s a hero.” Martinez agreed that Blades, who contributes a never-before recorded song, “Antadilla,” to Habana Dreams, has made an influence on his own composing. “Definitely. Every time I write, I think about Rubén and a couple of his lyrics, how they grab attention for his particular message. He’s a genius with lyrics.”
I didn’t just learn music in the streets. Talking to the people, I learned discipline, tenacity, and focus. People were very poor there. They may not have known how to read, but they were smart in their own way. And they had big hearts. The street gave me the passion to continue and be better every day. — Pedrito Martinez
The music on Habana Dreams features the Martinez Group’s core members — Edgar Pantoja-Aleman on keyboards, bassist Alvaro Benavides, and percussionist Jhair Sala (all scheduled to be at the Lensic and Outpost performances, and yes, all also sing and dance). It’s a hybrid of new approaches firmly anchored with traditional rhythms. In addition to the guest vocalists, there are added guitars and layers of percussionists. Rap lyrics, labeled “jazz poetry” in the liner notes, is aired, and the electric keyboards give the music a contemporary sheen. Martinez said that his sound is not representative of the timba movement, the mix of American funk, rap, and salsa that’s currently popular in Cuba. “Timba isn’t really a big influence on me. The main part of my style is the Afro-Cuban music I grew up listening to. But I’ve been in the U.S. over 17 years, and decided to open up the music by incorporating jazz, funk, and pop styles. Like Cuban music, there’s so many elements to the culture, so many styles here. Timba is one of those elements I’m using, but it really doesn’t define my music.”
There’s another element heard on Habana Dreams, one that’s less tangible than the plunk of bass and the ripple of congas, a certain spirit that seems to connect to the historic recording studio and the surrounding streets where Martinez learned his craft. “I didn’t just learn music in the streets,” he said. “Talking to the people, I learned discipline, tenacity, and focus. People were very poor there. They may not have known how to read, but they were smart in their own way. And they had big hearts. The street gave me the passion to continue and be better every day. I owe a lot to those people who showed me how to live life, showed me the right way to go. That’s what I tried to absorb while back in Cuba. It’s my medicine.”
Is he concerned that some of that spirit might be lost as Cuba opens up more and more to American business and travelers? “I don’t want that to happen. But I’m not really worried. The Cubans are very happy people, they are survivors. Hopefully that magic — the old cars, the music, the mysticism — won’t go away. Cubans are used to competing within their own culture, of going their own way even as they share together. That’s not going away.”