THE REVELATION

But the live version of Pegaíto, pegaíto also has a new coro -- "El trabalenguas". Like all great albums, El puente, to paraphrase David Calzado, es como una película -- it's like a great movie -- it grabs your attention, develops its themes, and then builds to a dramatic and fulfilling climax. In El puente, a perfect script is provided by constructing the second set from six of Timba's greatest songs, and the overwhelming performance of the band brings the script to life. But it's this new material at the end of Pegaíto, pegaíto, more than the infamous el puente coro, that provides the real emotional climax of the concert, both musically and lyrically. As I listened to it, it moved me as profoundly as did my first Manolín concert:

spoken: bueno, mira, mi gente [okay, listen my friends]
hace poco, le escribí a mi mamá [a little while back, I wrote to my mother]
le hice una carta a mi mamá contándole todo, y le dije [I sent a card to my mom, telling her everything that's been going on, and I told her...]

mami, te cuento una cosa [mami...I tell you something]
aquí todo me va muy bien [everything's going well for me here]
me adapto de maravilla [I'm adapting marvelously]
tengo buenos amigos también [and I have good friends]

he visto aquí tanta gente [I've seen so many people here]
gente que viste crecer [people you watched growing up]
que si te digo los nombres [and if I tell you all the names]
no me lo vas a creer [you won't believe me]

es como estar el La Habana [it's like being in Havana]
to'el mundo aquí habla español [everyone here speaks Spanish]
la gente aquí es bien Cubana [the people here are very Cuban]
y Cubana de corazón [and Cuban in their hearts]

nadie olvida sus raices [nobody has forgotten their roots]
lo digo con emoción [I tell you this with emotion]
todo el que se fue de La Habana [everyone who leaves Havana]
está en Miami bailando el Son [is in Miami, dancing the Son]

coro: no, no sé si tú lo entiendas [no...I don't know if you understand]
esto es un trabalenguas [this is a tongue-twister (or a non-sequitor)]
lo que te cuento mami [what I'm gonna tell you, mami]
La Habana se fue pa' Miami [Havana has gone to Miami]
[audio example 33]

The El puente coro is a fantasy, but Manolín's trabalenguas is about something real, and the emotion in his melody, one of the first really beautiful melodies he's written since leaving Cuba, tells us as much as his words do.

Miami and Tampa are now full of thousands of Cubans who lived in Cuba in the 90's and witnessed the birth of Timba -- people who feel it in their bones, who understand and love it -- and their numbers are growing steadily. This is the core audience for Timba in the United States -- and the audience that Manolín should be singing to -- and listening to.

He needs them in many ways. The Havana of the 90's -- where the songs on this record were created -- was a community, and the people of that community were part of the creative process. It wasn't by accident that David Calzado held almost daily public rehearsals in the crowded neighborhood of El Fanguito where he could get instant feedback on his new musical ideas. As Leonel Limonta told us in his interview, the idea for Quítate el disfraz came to him while watching a dancer at El Palacio de la Salsa. Juan Formell has said many times that his musical ideas come from watching the people dance. If you start asking Cuban songwriters where they get their inspiration, a phrase you're certain to hear is "la calle" -- their ideas come from people in the street.

The staggering amount of brilliant music that was produced in Havana in the span of a few short years was a not the product of a few writers or bands working in a vacuum. It was the product of the constant interaction that was taking place among the writers, the musicians, the dancers, the listeners and the people on the streets and neighborhoods of Havana. It was in that environment that Manolín and his band created the great musical ideas on this record, and since they left, the hard truth is that they have not created any more music of that caliber. Nor are they likely to do so outside of the musically nurturing environment that existed in Havana when they left.

The failure of Timba to catch on outside of that environment always seems to return to three questions:

Why doesn't the global market buy more Timba records?
Why doesn't the global market know how to dance to Timba?
Why doesn't the global market relate to Timba lyrics?

Manolín's El trabalenguas coro should be like a giant lightbulb going on over our heads.The answer to all these questions is simply:

Who cares? La Habana se ha ido pa' Miami. Havana has gone to Miami.

But though Manolín, the genius lyricist, penned this trabalenguas, Manolín the bandleader doesn't seem to grasp the deeper significance of his own revelation. Havana has gone to Miami, but what has Havana found there? At Issac Delgado's recent concert in Tampa I looked around and everywhere I looked, I saw Cubans who had come from Cuba within the last decade. It was perhaps the most appreciative audience I've ever been a part of because it consisted of people who truly felt the greatness of the music they were hearing, but who also realized that they had lost their lifeline to it when they left Cuba. What's it like to be a Cuban music lover in Tampa the other 364 days of the year -- when Issac is not playing two sets down at the Moose Lodge? Ten pesos is a lot easier to come by in Tampa, but you can't go down to La Tropical on Friday night and spend it to see La Charanga Habanera! A friend of mine was the soundman for one of Cuba's most popular bands for seven years before he came to Miami to seek the good life, but when he found it, it wasn't what he had expected. His life is easier and more luxurious now, but you can feel the sadness in his voice when he talks about the vibrant musical world he left and the shallow, sterile imitation in which he now finds himself.

Manolín and his band have a golden opportunity. They could bring the real Havana to Miami, along with the Havana work ethic of playing in only one band and rehearsing every day. Manolín could play his music "para su gente" -- for the real people who appreciate it, instead of the brain-dead Ricky Martin fans who will probably reject his efforts at "pop" anyway. The band could play regular gigs at small clubs in Hialeah and Little Havana. They could write six more masterpieces as great as the six in the second set of El puente. They could make the magical buzz that set Havana on fire in the 90's come to life in Miami in 2002. And they could remind the thousands of young Cubans who have poured into South Florida of the truth that the pursuit of The American Dream is making them forget: Somos lo que hay.

Or they could just call it quits and set off on their separate ways in hopes of finding monetary success outside of the world of Cuban music -- leaving us with this one last great concert.

As El trabalenguas ends, Pegaíto, pegaíto is brought to a grand climax. Barroso plays a guitar lick which shows a deep understanding of the emotional power of American rock guitar playing. This band, perhaps more than any other in Timba, is able to take the best of what American music has to offer and make it their own without ever sounding derivative or non-Cuban. The guitar lick is so simple, and yet it opens the floodgates for the return of the earlier coro against El Gola's majestic pedal tones, as the concert builds to its inevitable finale. [audio example 34]