Anacaona (band)

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Anacaona is the name of the Cuban women band that Concepción "Cuchito" Castro Zaldarriaga founded together with her sisters in 1932 during the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado . Little by little, all eleven sisters integrated into the band. The idea of ​​creating the first female septet to master Son Cubano was born out of necessity: the universities of Havana had been closed due to student protests, and Cuchito was forced to give up studying dentistry. They were pioneers at the time when women were still considered incapable of playing Son music and instruments such as trumpet or drums. Musically, Anacaona worked closely with the great Cuban artists of the time: with the musicians of the Septeto Nacional , which was directed by Ignacio Piñeiro , in particular with Lázaro Herrera. Graciela Pérez , the sister of Machito , who laid the foundations for Latin jazz as a band leader in New York , was Anacaona's singer for over a decade.

history

The name of the band was borrowed from the musicians, Cuchito's friends and sisters, the Taíno- Kazikin Anacaona , who had resisted the Spaniards during the time of Columbus. The septet made its debut at Havana's Teatro Payret. Anacaona appeared on the radio and soon became the attraction of the Aires Libres' open-air cafes across from the Havana Capitol. The founding members of the septet were Isabel Álvarez, Berta Cabrera, Elia O'Relly and the four Castro sisters Ada, Olga "Bola", Cuchito and Ondina. Later, Caridad “Cachita”, Emma, ​​Flora, Alicia, Argimira “Millo”, Xiomara and Yolanda joined them and formed a women's jazz band. The musicians toured through Cuba (1933), Puerto Rico (1935), Mexico (1936), Panama, Colombia and Venezuela (1937). In 1937 she signed RCA Victor, the world's leading record company at the time, and the women's band began an international career. In the winter of 1938 the Son Septet opened the Havana Madrid nightclub on Broadway in New York. Anacaona gave guest appearances on the NBC radio station in New York, in the Hotel Commodore, in the Hotel Pierre and in the Waldorf Astoria in a show on the occasion of the birthday of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt . Then in 1938 Anacaona traveled to Paris with Alberto Socarras , the Cuban musician known as the “magician on the flute”. As a jazz band, she was the train number in the cabaret "Les Ambassadeurs" on the Champs-Elysées, where she appeared with the revue of the International Casino of New York. Anacaona then played in the septet formation in the scene Boîte Chez Florence on Montmartre in the program with Django Reinhardt and his quintet du Hot Club de France . Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the women's band returned to Cuba.

Anacaona achieved international fame with performances in New York and Paris. In the mid-1940s, Anacaona toured Mexico for a year, and in 1947 she engaged Ernesto Lecuona for two seasons at Havana's Casino Nacional, the "Monte Carlo of Latin America". In addition to tours to Central America, Colombia and Venezuela, Anacaona made her screen debut in 1948 in the film A La Habana me Voy ( Off to Havana ). They shot other feature films in Mexico, including with rumba star Ninón Sevilla. Well-known singers such as Celia Cruz , Omara Portuondo (" Buena Vista Social Club "), Haydée Portuondo, Moraima Secada and Dominica Verges were part of the band during the 1940s and 1950s.

As a show band that played mambo, cha-cha-cha and Latin jazz, Anacaona performed on a year-long tour of South America in 1958 in radio and television stations as well as in renowned theaters in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. In Cuba, the revolutionaries under Fidel Castro were on the rise, and when the sisters re-entered Cuban soil, the revolutionaries had taken over the government. The women's band integrated into Cuba's Consejo Nacional de la Cultura in 1962 and later into the state-owned company for traditional music Ignacio Piñeiro. Although they were no longer visible on the international stage, Anacaona continued to enjoy great popularity in Cuba and performed publicly in the original cast until 1989.

Current band

In 1989 the band was reorganized and the remaining five Castro sisters withdrew. Georgina and Dora Aguirre González, who had strengthened the original line-up of the band in 1987, took over their leadership. Since 1991, Anacaona has released several CDs in this new formation and has performed in over 20 countries, including the USA, Canada and China. On the occasion of the women's band's 85th anniversary, they toured Cuba in 2017.

Discography

Anacaona in the original cast

  • Maleficio, Bésame aquí , Algo Bueno , Oh, Marambé Maramba , Amor Inviolado, Después que sufras (RCA-Victor, 1937)
  • Septeto Anacaona & Ciro Rimac, 1936–1937 (Harlequin Records, 1994)
  • Anacaona: The Buena Vista Sisters' Club. The Amazing Story of Cuba's Forgotten Girl Band (Termidor, 2008)
  • Anacaona - Ten Sisters of Rhythm . Termidor Musikverlag / Pimienta Records, 2002. DVD
  • Buena Vista Sisters' Club . (Pa'ti Pa 'mi / Termidor Musikverlag, 2008) DVD

Anacaona today

  • ¡Ay! (Discmedi 1992)
  • Como un milagro (Bis Music, 1995)
  • Lo que tú esperabas ... (Lusafrica, 2000)
  • Cuba le canta a Serrat vol. II (Discmedi, 2007)
  • No lo puedo evitar (Bis Music, 2008)

literature

  • Alicia Castro (together with Ingrid Kummels and Manfred Schäfer): Anacaona. From the life of a Cuban musician . Munich: Econ, 2002.
  • Alicia Castro (together with Ingrid Kummels and Manfred Schäfer): Anacaona. Het moved leven van een Cubaanse muzikante en hair salsa band . Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Sirene, 2006.
  • Alicia Castro's Queens of Havana: The Amazing Adventures of the Legendary Anacaona, Cuba's First All-Girl Dance Band (Grove Press, 2007)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC: BBC - Radio 4 Woman's Hour - Anacaona. Retrieved January 24, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Castro, Alicia, Kummels, Ingrid, Schäfer, Manfred .: Queens of Havana: the amazing adventures of Anacaona, Cuba's legendary all-girl dance band . 1st American ed. Grove Press, New York 2007, ISBN 0-8021-1856-9 .
  3. ↑ Moore, Robin D., 1964-: Nationalizing blackness: afrocubanismo and artistic revolution in Havana, 1920-1940 . University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1997, ISBN 978-0-8229-5645-7 .
  4. ^ Vazquez, Alexandra T., 1976–: Listening in detail: performances of Cuban music . Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5458-1 .
  5. ^ Acosta, Leonardo .: Cubano be, Cubano bop: one hundred years of jazz in Cuba . Smithsonian Books, Washington 2003, ISBN 978-1-58834-147-1 .
  6. ^ Salazar, Max, 1932-2010 .: Mambo kingdom: Latin music in New York . Schirmer Trade Books, New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-8256-7277-4 .
  7. ↑ Kummels, Ingrid., Schäfer, Manfred .: Queens of Havana: the amazing adventures of Anacaona, Cuba's legendary all-girl dance band . 1st American ed. Grove Press, New York 2007, ISBN 0-8021-1856-9 .
  8. ↑ The book introduces the history of the band in their early period. The UK edition has a different title: Anacaona: The Adventures of Cuba's Most Famous All-Girl Orchestra .