THE REVIEWER

El puente's second set begins exactly as the concert I heard at La Cecilia in 1999 began - with what may be Manolín's best song, Somos lo que hay. The very first notes the band played at La Cecilia that night were these [audio example 18], and the still-sane, pre-Timba Kevin Moore thought to himself: "Star Wars?? What kind of silliness is this? And when does the Buena Vista Social Club come on?" The next notes were these: [audio example 19]. Upon hearing this, the pre-Timba Kevin Moore, his sanity slipping away from him, fell silent.

There would be no more "thinking to myself" that night because I was experiencing severe sensory overload. I had managed to make my way to the left side of the stage, only a few feet from Chaka, the pianist, and Manolín's original bassist, Victoriano Nápoles. Two sets later, I hadn't budged from that spot. I just stood there -- in a state of euphoric shock -- taking in as much as I could.

It was a big night, even by Havana standards. Manolín was still the King of Cuba in February of 1999 and everyone was there to pay their respects and sit in. I didn't know who most of them were at the time, but some of their names remained lodged in my memory: Juan Formell, Samuel Formell, "El Tosco", Paulito FG, Michel Maza, Pancho Céspedes... There may have been others, but the piano and bass were already much more than my pre-Timba ears could handle. I was hypnotized by Chaka's piano tumbaos. Later, I began to realize that the Cuban kid I had seen playing piano in Cancún the night before (Tirso Duarte) was not a fluke or some jetlag-induced figment of my imagination. I also began to realize that the catchy song with the funny English phrase, "Hey You Loca," that someone had played me in the car on the way to a gig may have been more than just a one-hit wonder novelty number. By the time I left Cuba two weeks later, I had figured out that the Cubans had been playing this strange and wonderful new music for some time, and I was bound and determined to learn everything I could about it, so I took to the internet to see what I could find out. The first two CD's I bought after my return were both by Manolín: "De buena fe" and "Para mi gente". I listened to them literally hundreds of times before branching out to Paulito, NG La Banda, Charanga Habanera and all the other Timba groups. After four years of studying all the Timba bands, I'm now capable of listening objectively to Manolín in the broader context of the history of Cuban pop music, but the strong emotional connection remains, which is why I'm writing in the first person and also why this review keeps jumping back and forth between evangelism and sarcasm. I have an axe to grind and I admit it. It goes something like this:

The Manolín band created the music of Para mi gente, De buena fe, Jaque mate, and most of El puente's new songs between 1995 and 1999. Then the entire creative team went to the United States. Now it's almost 2003, and as El puente so powerfully demonstrates, the band is playing better than ever, but they're no longer producing new material at their previous pace, if at all. Suppose that Manolín had self-censored the lyrics to Que le llegue la mano and El puente in Cuba, as he's self-censored the lyrics to La vida no es tan tan in Miami. Suppose that he, like Formell and Calzado, had used double-entendre to fly under the radar of the Cuban government, allowing himself to continue his lucrative and artistically-rewarding reign over the Timba scene in Havana. Would we have four more CD's as good as or better than "De buena fe"? Having very closely following each of the principal creative figures involved, I'm quite sure that the answer to that question is "yes". On the other hand, was Manolín's political stand worth the tradeoff of losing those four albums? Is there more freedom of speech in Cuba as a result? Is Manolín better off in Miami than he was in Havana before all the trouble started? Are Miami and Havana any closer to building that metaphorical bridge and healing their wounds? I'm a lot less qualified to answer any of these, but if I were standing in front of a Dade Country voting machine, I'd have to muscle up and punch out the chad for "none of the above".