Highlights of the Cubadisco 2013 Awards

Article by Bill Tilford, All Rights Reserved. 

This truly was an excellent year for recordings by Cubans around the world, and the results of Cubadisco 2013 reflected this fact in both the nominations and the list of winners.   In the categories of greatest interest to Timba.com's readers, all of the winners were worthy of awards AND they had strong competitors that would also have been deserving of the honor.   The final results also illustrate that the industry that produces Cuban music has both diversified and become global.   When we look at the winners by label, for example, Colibri had the most awards (24), followed by independent projects and miscellaneous labels (14), then EGREM (7) and finally Bis (7). Colibri and EGREM also shared one award for Otra Forma Más by Vocal Sampling. Colibri obtained the largest number of nominations (67).   Interestingly, EGREM took the awards in the categories of Metal, Latin Music and Rap / Hip Hop, and it was responsible for Dial by Buena Fe, which was nominated for Trova-fusion without winning the category. There has been some controversy about Reguetón on the island in recent months, it was recognized as a distinct awards category this year.    

Cubadisco has become very progressive about recognizing artists living and recording in other countries (including the United States) as well.   We especially draw your attention to the Jazz and Jazz Cubano categories, where Cubadisco apparently shares our own enthusiasm for the accomplishments of Cuban musicians in places like New York and Madrid.   We hope that our colleagues in LARAS (The Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) in the United States are noticing this trend. An increasing number of Cuban artists are submitting recordings for consideration in the Latin GRAMMY process, and the best of the music that is submitted to that process from the island and around the world deserves to be taken very seriously by academy members. 

One other thing that we find interesting about Cubadisco is its recognition of other countries of honor (this year the country was Ecuador) in the annual event.   Since the Cubadisco awards program is a much longer event than the Latin GRAMMY awards, it would not be easy for LARAS to duplicate this feature, but it does raise the question of whether there are new things that could be done to help further raise the profile of more recording artists in countries other than the United States.  We don't have an answer to that question today, but it is a subject worthy of discussion. 

Here are some key categories of special interest to our readers: 

Traditional Popular Music   
The winner is Vamos pa' la fiesta by Septeto Santiaguero (Picap).  You can read our review here.  This recording had some serious competition from some of Cuba's icons of the Son, but this international project is worthy of its award. Like Jazz, the Son has now become a global phenomenon, and that fact emerges very clearly in this album. 

Popular Dance Music  
The winner is Pasaporte by Alexander Abreu y Havana d'Primera (Colibri). You can read our review here.  Overall, the 2013 nominees in this category were a better collection of recordings that the group from last year.  This recording deserves its award, but we want to give a special honorable mention to Todo está bien by Klimax, which would have been a perfectly worthy winner as well. 

Jazz  
The winner is Musae by Román Filiú (Dafnison).  You can read our review here. We salute the Cubadisco team for bringing this wonderful straight-ahead Jazz project to the attention of a public that was mostly unaware of the recording both in Cuba and the United States.   We should add that the other nominees in this category are also excellent recordings.  

Jazz Cubano  
The winner is Today's Opinion by Yosvany Terry (Criss Cross Jazz Productions). You can read our review here. This must have been the most difficult category for selecting a winner because this was an incredible period for this genre, and you should listen to the recordings of all of the other nominees in this category as well.    Yosvany is becoming a major force in this genre. 

Fusion
The winner is Yo by Roberto Fonseca (Jazz Village 2012), which also won the award in the Recording category. You can read our review here.
This is an intriguing recording from an artist who has been more well-known for Jazz.  It mixes multiple genres and actually does belong in this category rather than the Jazz category in which it was also nominated.  

Latin Music
The winner is Charanga Light 2 by David Calzado y su Charanga Habanera (EGREM).  You can read our review here. This was a digression from CH's Timba recordings, and many of the selections in the recording are indeed styles that you would hear on Latino radio stations in the United States.  Cubadisco did the right thing by putting it here rather than in Popular Dance Music (Never fear, Timberos, CH is going back to Timba for the next recording.)

The complete list of awards as published by Cubarte may be found here.