Afro-Cuban All Stars – Land of the rising son
Midway through the All Stars’ most recent recording, Gonzalez makes the band’s only direct political gesture. The song “Reconciliation” includes an opening verse that will ring true for any Cuban, or for anyone who has tasted exile and separation:
You went to find another life
Dreaming of a triumphant return
But incomprehension threw down her veil
And we couldn’t understand
“This song has no specific political objective,” Gonzalez emphasizes. “Politics don’t interest me. But in the case of Elian Gonzalez, for instance, I think like any intelligent person: If the mother has died, the father then must have the rights to the child. It’s all become a political game, and the child has suffered for it. This song ‘Reconciliation’ is really just a call to conscience for the Cubans in Havana and in Miami. We’ve passed through more than 40 years of political problems, and what good has it done any of us?”
Politics will pass, and reconciliation is, despite the relentless efforts of politicians, inevitable. Cuba — musically, economically, and spiritually — shares too much with the land just 90 miles to the north. Havana, city of columns, stained glass, baroque spirals, ornate iron, and narrow, cobbled streets winding down to the ocean; city of flower vendors on bicycles, generals carrying loaves of bread, cabbies hustling, college teachers turning tricks in parks to survive, and musicians gathering to play in bars, along the sea wall, and in the plazas…It will remain, and its music will always reach, soak, and change other shores.
“No one could have imagined what we’ve accomplished,” Amadito Valdes says. “What we’ve done has been for Cuban music itself, not just for the people involved. We broke the wall that has been between the United States and Cuba, and between Cuba and the world.”
Roy Kasten is a writer and teacher in St. Louis, Missouri. He thanks Alejo Carpentier, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and the members of Postcard2 for their contributions to this essay. As far as the Department of Treasury is concerned, he never set foot in Cuba.