by DJ Carlota - KSFR, Santa Fe Public Radio

DJ Carlota: How did you get involved with Havanaway?

Kevin Maestro: Havanaway started as a tourist company, believe it or not. I had an idea of bringing people to Cuba to learn music, like the cultural exchanges. But when the new administration came in everything went down the toilet. So there I was in Cuba without anything to do. After a little bit of thinking I thought about starting a group. At that same time I ran into Gustavo Erik Jones. I didn't know much about him, but someone said, You should talk to Gustavo because he's got a lot of ideas, a lot of charisma, writes good stuff, but he's in another band right now. I went by his house and talked to him; I threw the idea out of what it would take to start a new band in Havana. He explained everything, how hard it would be and said it would be tricky to pull off but not impossible. The first thing I did was I brought a piano down and we started from there. I could go on forever about the amount of stress and obstacles. But now I've done it and there's no turning back. If I'd have known before the amount of sacrifice I wouldn't recommend it to anybody, even my worst enemy. Unless you really have nothing else to do and you're devoted to starting something like that.

C: Which you were.

KM: I'd thought it would be easier--foreigner, a little bit of cash. Not that I have any money, but comparatively speaking I can buy a few things, make things happen a little faster. To accomplish a band at this level that we're at in a year would probably take four years to six or seven years for other groups. In every salsa/timba group in Cuba there's always a foreigner involved. If not the band never moves. If an instrument breaks, who's going to buy a new instrument? And now it's so hard to get into a position where you're able to work into an impresa--it costs money. It's just always good to have someone on the outside--that creates a lot of interest. If they don't have the outsider, everyone knows nothing's going to happen.

C: Did you play in a latin band in the United States?

KM: No. I messed around with some Brazilian music percussion, but nothing serious; I had a djembe in my house, and then I had the congas later on, it was just a hobby. I would come to Cuba and take a couple of classes and then go back. Now I'm much better, thank goodness, but I can attribute that to just being in Cuba. If I were in California no matter how many classes, no matter how much I practiced I wouldn't get to the level of just being in Cuba. It's the environment.

The rehearsals are brutal, brutalizing, demoralizing and emotional. They give you five seconds to come up with a rhythm... well, they give you about two minutes, and if you're still having a hard time they start abusing you, ridiculing you.

C: It's extraordinary to go from a hobbyist who had a djembe in house to being a conga player playing with a Cuban band.

KM: In front of a Cuban public. Which are vicious. The public can either put you up or put you down on the floor. And if you screw up in front of the public they're not going to forget that.

C: And you passed the test.

KM: I didn't screw up too bad, I don't think. I'm still here, I'm still going.

C: What is an impresa and how does that whole system work?

KM: That's an agency that represents you. Each impresa in Havana has about 25 to 40 groups, or more--traditional music, folklore, rock, alternative, classical, they have dancers, they have everything. And they have the culture within to Cuba and to export. You can't do anything without an impresa. Some people do and they pay the consequences. The impresa looks out for you and you take care of them.

C: What are your hopes for the group?

KM: For now to go outside of the country and play, and then come back and revel in the commentary-- "They went out and now they're back, they must be good." You go up a ladder, another level.

C: Do you tend to get more work in Havana when you've played abroad?

KM: That's what they say.... that once you go out, when you come back you're not some little group playing in a bar for some school kids. You should be able to raise your price at the clubs.

C: Tell us about the first, second and third level timba bands.

KM: That's kind of complicated; the first level groups have been first level groups ever since I've been here--Paulito, Van Van, Adalberto Alvarez, Bamboleo, Manolito y su Trabuco, Charanga. And no matter who comes up, they won't be able to topple them, I don't think. They're famous and they're on a roll.

C: And there's just not enough room for...

KM: This is an island, this is the capital, how many venues are in Havana city? 50? How many good venues are there, maybe a dozen. And there's how many groups? A zillion.

C: How have you seen things change while you've been in Cuba?

KM: The music changed, that's for sure. It was more timba style; now everything is changing, there's more cumbias, merengues--

C: Cuban groups are playing merengues?

KM: Yes, they're imitating Puerto Rican salsa groups. Timba had its day. Everyone will tell you a different story, you'll hear people say, "We Cubans are tired of timba, mucho pelao, mucho bomba." A lot of people say, "It's too vulgar for me. I can't go to a concert they're fighting all the time." I like it, I like the music, it's fun and exciting, but there's too many aggressive episodes, it makes people too hot, too hot-tempered.

C: What groups among the first level groups are changing from Timba to a more Puerto Rican or pan-Latin style?

KM: Paulito's changed 100%. He's changed his music completely.

C: Issac has done all sorts of different styles.

KM: He seems to go back and forth. Any band, even Paulito, though he just plays in Casa de la Musica [a nightclub frequented by foreigners], can change their sound, they should be able to adapt to any situation.

C: Are the top bands playing in venues that Cubans can afford to go to?

KM: All the groups play in the street. They rotate them. The impresa says, now you're going to play for free in La Piragua [a free, open-air venue]. So everyone sees them for free sooner or later. But Cubans aren't going to Casa de la Musica in the night unless someone brings them there, or unless they've got some money.

C: Do they play differently for the Cubans than for the tourists?

KM: Definitely, definitely. It's always a mix in Casa de la Musica, tourists and Cubans. Charanga Habanera, they're the ones that change radically. If they were playing in Marianao, they'd play a certain way from Casa de la Música in the night.

C: How would you characterize the difference?

KM: Longer songs, longer coros, extending and extending the coros. And the way they address the crowd; in Marianao they'll call out the names of the different parts of the town, and there'll probably be a fight.

C: What draws you to Cuba?

KM: Cuba is a nice place, if you're a foreigner. If you're a Cuban who has some money and a good lifestyle you're fine. The way I was doing it without any money, there's things that rub you the wrong way, a lot of frustration. People say, "Cubans are so friendly." They're friendly in some respects. But if you're a foreigner--this will probably make a lot of people mad--if you're a foreigner in Cuba, let's say every day you're in Havana on vacation with 40, 50, 60 dollars in your pocket, you're not really here, and you've never been here.

C: What's it like to be in Cuba and not have any money in your pocket?

KM: You find out who your friends are. But then even if you don't have money, you still are treated like you have money in a bag hidden somewhere--it's just not conceivable to them that you don't have a dime. They'll scratch their heads for weeks trying to figure out what's going on, it just doesn't compute. If you don't have any money there's no category for you, someone new, hanging out, playing music from another country who can't buy beer.

C: How did you survive?

KM: I don't know. You change, you adapt, you become more instinctual. You learn how things function and you hustle. You try to learn how to talk without people realizing that you're a foreigner. It's easier if you're able to blend in. I wouldn't recommend it. You've got to have money. I've learned to appreciate money, I know it's a terrible thing to say. I've learned to appreciate California more. When I came to Cuba, I thought, people have got to be unified, but it's not easy. It's extremely difficult. And then relationships, that's a whole other story.

C: What's different about having relationships in Cuba vs. in the United States?

KM: You're in a different category. There's rules, it seems like they must be written down somewhere on a stone, the way people refer to them. You have to show off some money. I could be here without any income , living as a Cuban, but that just doesn't cut it. Maybe the girl thinks you're very good, but her parents will flip out, or her friends will make fun of her.

C: For going out with a broke American.

KM: Yeah, who needs that, might as well be with a Cuban. I've been accused of being a Cuban with a fake passport. The girl will say, "Show me your original, I want to see your original now." It's just crazy. Anyone can come here, hook up, get married, but it's not the same.

C: When I first came to Cuba on a dance and music program, the leader of the program said something like, "Get this through your head right now, every relationship you have, friendship or otherwise, is an economic relationship."

KM: That's right. And after I was in Cuba for a long time, the Cuban women became more unattractive to me each passing month, and foreign women became so attractive that I would lose control. I would see a blonde with the birkenstocks and the bottle of water in her hand walking with the camera in her hand and I would think, "How can I talk to this person and hang out with them?" That happened after about six months.

C: You thought maybe they'd buy you dinner?

KM: Anything. Just hanging out. You miss things, like your favorite sandwich, your favorite drink, ice cream, and those little things drive you crazy. I know it sounds silly, but it drives you crazy after a while, and you obsess about them.

C: When I've lived abroad the thing I've missed has always been the humor, to find someone who will laugh at your wordplay or jokes in English.

KM: Well, you learn Cuban jokes, and they laugh twice as hard, because how could this foreigner know this Cuban joke that I don't even know.

C: How do you feel about returning to California?

KM: Fine, I'm looking forward to it. But I don't get that same stimulus that I get in Cuba, and parts of my brain start shutting down, the parts that are amped up, the music, it goes dormant for a while. Then I come back green and kind of lame and I have to pick up where I left off.

C: I want to go back to the musical thing. You said that Gustavo would give you a couple of minutes to come up with a rhythm. I know little or nothing about conga playing, but I thought there were some basic rhythms that everyone uses.

KM: Yeah, you start off with the basic marcha rhythms, that has to be really tight, and then you put in things that they call adornos, adornments. It's hard to read a book and try to figure out how to play the stuff. It's like learning a language, you have to live in the country, and then you pick it up.

C: Did you have any particular mentors?

KM: No. I learned by rehearsing. One rehearsal is worth so many classes with the best professor, Giovanni Hidalgo. A week of rehearsal, you can't even put a price on that.

C: How often do you rehearse?

KM: With these guys when we started we rehearsed every day, seven days a week, that was the rule, five or six hours a day. My hands were broken up and swollen, and I thought I couldn't do it any more. A lot of pain, and they said, Keep going, it'll go away. And then the calluses come, and they were right, the pain went away and I was able to play. That's the way to do it, and I think that's the way people used to do it before instructional videotapes.

C: It's also this tremendous luxury, where else are people able get their band together to rehearse more than even one day a week.

KM: It's still hard. That's what people say outside, Oh the Cubans have this great luxury, they have rehearsals every day because they don't have jobs or anything.

C: But that's just what you did.

KM: We did at the beginning, but we didn't have the whole group together. Now that we have fifteen people playing in a band, they all live far away, and the transportation here is really shoddy, the buses take forever, sometimes they don't come at all. Then when everybody's there it'll rain. [Rehearsals are in someone's yard.] Or if it doesn't rain, the electricity will go out. So you have other things to worry about, it's not this paradise of rehearsals and creativity. It could be, but not in our case.

It's a shame that money is such a powerful thing. It's the reason that everyone is doing what we're doing. I don't think Timba would be so ferocious if it weren't for the economic need. It's the money, the speculation, the showing off that you've made it.

C: The timba groups are seeking money, but also they have this intense public following that's not going to make a penny off of it, who are still responding to it very strongly.

KM: They're playing in the barrios, in the street--it's powerful, a thousand people in the street, in front of the stage, a big audio system like Issac Delgado, or Charanga, or Havanaway, whipping people into a frenzy. It's fun, you can't buy that in a tour package to Cuba.

C: Have you had the experience of whipping people into a frenzy?

KM: Of course, all the time, girls jumping onto the stage. Of course the singers get everything, us in the back don't get anything. But the girls jump on the stage, grinding on the floor, grinding on the singer, dancing in front of the crowd. I've seen the singers get out of control and I've watched Gustavo reprimand them in the middle of the song, try to cool them off.

C: And you must see the cliche thing of Cuban women going off with foreign men.

KM: Yeah, every day. And Cuban men with foreign women.

C: I once was watching a band in one of the big tourist hotels, and I saw a couple together, two slim, young Afrocubans dancing beautifully together, and then the next thing I know the woman is with this chubby, middle-aged Italian guy, and her boyfriend was looking stone faced, and I thought, this must happen ten thousand times a day. I felt bad because he was basically watching his girlfriend prostitute herself.

KM: It's a different culture, you can't put the United States point of view on the Cuban culture. Maybe the guy wasn't even her boyfriend. Even if he was, you have to understand that boyfriend and girlfriend isn't the same thing as in the U.S., it's not a contract deal, "Where were you last night?" It is in some cases, but with the youth it's more free and open, completely different. If you see a foreign guy who's interested in you, or a foreign woman, you're not going to say, "No, sorry, I don't have time for you." What's that going to prove? Being with a foreigner is another way of showing off, it's like a watch, or new shoes.

C: You don't see this creating problems and tensions?

KM: No, it's just a necessary part of the scene. If anything, they're congratulated. Anyway, what if the fat Italian was a better dancer than the Cuban guy? A lot are.

C: Believe me, he wasn't.

KM: Look, any Cubans who are in a club like that are in there for another reason than just to dance. They're working the crowd. Any foreigners who are in there, they're going to hook up with them, and they're going to hook up with someone different every night. The guy was probably working the crowd as well. What do you think he was doing, drinking soft drinks? Write them off. Anyone in Casa de la Musica at night, well, 98%, write them off as just Cubans here for the moment on their way out to another country any way possible. And if they're not on their way out, they're going to milk Casa de la Musica as much as they can, until they're too old.

C: I've met older people who love Fidel and believe in him and watch his four-hour speeches with great enthusiasm. Have you met any young people like that?

KM: Sure. Yeah. There's more youth than older people, a lot of teenagers. Fidel is a smart guy and everybody knows he's smart. Some people don't agree with him, some think he's the greatest thing ever. I've run into all kinds of people who if I complain about something become very defensive, they're conservative in that regard. Fidel is the father of the country, it would be like George Washington were still alive. Or father of the revolution.