Maraca's Flute with Rhythm and Swing

While presenting an excellent album, which pays homage to the entire tradition he feels he has inherited and he is part of, the first thing Orlando "Maraca" Valle does is give thanks:

«I’m very grateful for the opportunity to continue this path of the flute, which began more than forty thousand years ago in the south of Germany in a cave, where it was the first time ever recorded of a musical instrument. And in the case of Cuba, where the wooden flute was first played, but it evolved and it’s an instrument that encourages, that communicates, and later there have been excellent flutists, creators not only in the flute, but in Cuban music".

—Is that what Esa flauta is about, paying tribute to the history of the instrument in Cuba?

 —The flute kept its progress, it didn’t stay in the 20^th century, that’s what this DVD is about: paying homage to the flutists, to the instrument, but above all also to mark the path to follow, trying to explain a little our vision of the flute, where we are heading.

—And from your own experience, what would that path be?

“The path is everything. The flute is a magical instrument, but sometimes it gets boxed in. What happens? I was born in Párraga, where Santería is present; the Santa Bárbara Church sits there, where Celina González used to sing; and there was a lot of Afro-Cuban stuff: batá, rumba, conga, comparsa, everything was there; it’s a very black place, very African. My dad used to listen to show in Radio Progreso station on Sundays where Aragón was on air and I got washed by Aragón playing charanga; it was a live show. On television it was charanga, charanga and charanga. Then I studied classical music at school. In the middle level, at Amadeo school was the headquarter of the National Concert Band, they were a group of old men who played super, but were already 70, 80 years old. So I said: I don't want that, and I don’t want to be a charanguero either.

«I began to hear other influences, I began to know there was a very important movement of incredible flutists in Brazil, in jazz too, I didn't know that existed. I began to discover things that were no longer classical music, nor was it Párraga's rumba. So I began to mix all that, plus what I experienced later with Irakere, with Chucho Valdés, with Emiliano Salvador the pianist, with Frank Emilio and his friends, Bobby Carcassés, Changuito, Tito Puentes...

«Life took me down paths that led me to meet and record and play with flutists from many places, and the flute became a whole, that is, it has percussion, it has a tres guitar; I like that instrument, I love the tempo of son music, that of the changui, the music made in North Africa, the musc made in various regions of Africa. I have collections of records of that music as well as things I have experienced. So that made me a different flutist. I started to be known as "The liberator of the flute" in the United States, because I didn't want to be just another charanguero like the ones I saw on television, nor to be a member of the National Concert Band. And I thought: well, how do I do it? And I began to see José Luis Cortés, el Tosco, who began to introduce things that were not typical Cuban and I said: look how interesting, he plays differently from the charangueros. And I began to investigate and look for people from abroad who played differently, that is, the flutists here had a lot of rhythm, they sounded very Cuban, it seemed that you were hearing a mockingbird — that's what Frank Emilio's wife told me: the Cuban mockingbird —; flutists abroad had a lot of swing, but no spark, and the ones here had a lot of spark and no swing. So, I said: there’s a contradiction here, there’s a huge distance between two worlds I love».

—And then the way was to unite them...

—I was forced to unite them because, on top of that, the flute was somewhat prohibited: in the group formats there were four trumpets, Chapotín, Arsenio Rodríguez, Roberto Faz and millions; there was no flute, ever. I had no right to play there, that is, I had no perspective, however, I had a melodic line to play there. I had melody lines to play in a jazz band. If I offered myself to play in a jazz band, they would ask: what saxophone do you play? I'm not interested in playing saxophone. I play flute, not saxophone. I’m not a flutist who plays saxophone, I am a flutist who plays flute. I had no room.

«Then I began to write the music myself, I trained myself to compose and began to make music, my first albums prove it. That's how I started playing flute in groups, flute in jazz bands. So I liberated the flute a little, and from then on a trend has begun, not only with me, but with others as well, until a moment came when some records really hit, they were nominated for a Grammy, they won movie awards with films like A man apart, where Vin Diesel performs, the actor from The Fast and The Furious; that movie is very famous worldwide. I had an American label for years in Los Angeles and they put that music in an Australian movie, sold by Hollywood, and where it said: "Blowing, Maraca"; then comments came: "hey, you recorded a really good thing with Oscar de León". No, that's with my group in Cuba, but they thought it was from abroad. All this travelled long and farm and  it was possible for me to get to know and also place myself at levels of acceptance».

—Is that flute “with flavor and swing” what we are going to find on this record?

—You’ll find a little bit, that is, there’s nothing absolute, just like medicine, where two and two is not four, in music it’s the same. This is not an encyclopedia; in fact, "other flutes" would have to be made, other records, other DVDs, because, furthermore, the flute is not me at all. I’m just another one in a chain of flutists who, thanks to them, we have been respected in the world. I know about 65 countries, I traveled half the world with Irakere and with my group I have also been to remote places, and wherever the Cuban flute is known, and where it was not known, it was presented and people liked it. The Cuban flute is strong, Cuban music has a strength, an identity, that we cannot lose. You have to try to connect young people with that.

—And how to accomplish that connection?

—I believe there are smart ways to connect them, just as I connected myself when I was young. I’ve read in some books that in the 1920s, which have nothing to do with our current reality, folk trop, which was the fashionable American rhythm, permeated Cuban music and destroyed the presence of the timbal in danzón music; people didn't even know what to do: well, shall we do a danzón with American drums? Even son music wavered a little because other rhythms sounded. There are ways for that, like the ones I lived through when I was little, the TV show A Bailar, which connected us with prizes, competition, stimulation of young people, and from there I connected with danzón music, mambo, chachachá, and it helped me start a career studying that music.

—Perhaps getting closer to elementary music schools...

—That's what I've always wanted, even in general schools. I think that music, ballet, visual arts, art in general and many aspects of culture, of history, should be given another approach and interact with children. As simple as, for example, the television series Calendario, which has actors and actresses who communicate very well. If they take them to schools so that they explain about these issues, they will surely listen to them, and in the future we will have people who are more connected, more Cuban, and who know their country better, the culture of their country. I’m willing, I have volunteered and I hope they call me to do so.

—Maraca, what does the flute mean to you?

—The flute is an instrument established as a classic, that is, you can find Mozart concerts, you have impressionism, romanticism, baroque, contemporary, all the styles, there are millions of composers, millions of famous flutists, but my story is particular because, first, I did not seek to study the flute. They didn't impose it on me, they recommended it to me and I accepted it, a 10-year-old boy.

«In the end it’s a pretext, a connection, a tool to be able to express yourself, to be able to sing, to say what’s going on, what you feel. That is the flute for me, a tool that has helped me to communicate with many people. In some places I have been and there have been thousands and thousands of people. With Silvio in the National Stadium of Chile there were no less than 80 thousand people, and there I was playing the flute. In other places there have been 20,000, 30,000, I don't know how many thousands, who react to something that does not speak, but sounds, and it’s the primary sense of the human being, we first sound and then we speak, and the first instrument discovered was a flute, so we’ve lived with that since then...»

—The CD + DVD Esa flauta has several songs dedicated to important Cuban instrumentalists and covers various genres of our popular music. You yourself have said that it’s a tribute to the Cuban flute. Is it possible to speak of a Cuban flute school? What elements distinguish it?

—Many of the elements are even extra musical. In the classes I teach I insist on that, because I’ve gone deep in this with this same work, into the technical and expressive particularities of many flutists, not only in terms of the genres they defended most. I've been trying to go further and see how each one played, why they played like that. So, I believe there’s a Cuban flute school. The flute in the 19^th century was important, in the 20^th it was very important and in this 21^st it’s still important. We have to keep going, because there are flutists here like Niurka González; like Jose Luis Cortes; like Eduardo Rubio, from Aragón; Herrera, the wooden flutist. I’d like to rescue the presence of the wooden flute in Cuba, we can’t leave it behind, it must not disappear, because that is our heritage and we have to defend it. I think that in the Cuban flute school there are all the ingredients to support it, to develop it and keep on creating.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff