Omara Portuondo ''THANKS''
(CUBA, 2008) @
there any film in the history of Omara Portuondo (Havana, 1930). The daughter of a English family woman, well he left his social circle to marry a beautiful black player of the Cuban national baseball team, which led to having to hide in public this link, for mixed marriages were not seen anything good in Cuba at that time, "Omara contacted the
music and in his early childhood. As in any Cuban household, the future singer and his brothers grew up surrounded by music, in the absence of a gramophone, sang their parents. Those melodies, some of which still survive in the repertoire of the singer, were the first music lessons informal small Omara.
Before entering the track, however, Omara tried his luck, by chance, in the world of dance, following the footsteps of her sister Haydee, who was part of the company's prestigious cabaret Tropicana. One day in 1945, two days before an important premiere, a dancer of the company threw in the towel. Omara had watched her sister rehearse for hours and knew by heart the steps, which is why we propose to occupy the vacancy. "It was a very elegant cabaret-Omara recalls," but that made no sense. I was a shy girl and I was ashamed to show my legs. " It was her mother who convinced her not to let the opportunity pass, and so began a career as a dancer who took her into a celebrity couple
with the dancer Rolando Espinosa and in 1961 allowed him to work as a professor of popular dances School of Art Instructors. Omara's relationship with the Tropicana has endured, and even in 1998 there still acting occasionally.
American, was known as "feeling" or "feeling." In his radio debut Omara was introduced as "Miss Omara Brown, the girlfriend of" feeling "and know it by that name even many Cubans. As he recalls the singer, the Cuban music of that era was influenced by music popular in different countries, including Argentina, Brazil and, of course, the United States.
In 1952, Omara and Haydee formed, with Elena Burke and Moraima Secada, a vocal quartet led by pianist Aida Right, and became one of the most important in the history of Cuban music, though that the original lineup only recorded one single in 1957 for RCA Victor. Omara stayed in the Quartet The Daida 15. "We went on tour in the United States, and Aida's vocal arrangements were very innovative. Everywhere we cheered, and when Nat "King" Cole played the Tropicana, came on stage to sing with him, " Omara recalls. Magia Negra, Omara's debut album, appeared in 1959. In it, the singer argued for combining Cuban music with American jazz, and included versions of "That Old Black Magic" and "Caravan" by Duke Ellington. Despite having released his first solo album, Omara Portuondo continued within The Daida. Two years later, were forced to return to the island during a series of concerts at a hotel in Miami because of the missile crisis, which caused the rupture of relations between the U.S. and Cuba and the start of a long period isolation of Haiti. The Daida Omara stayed until 1967, when he decided pursue his solo career. "They had left the island so many singers who had to fill that gap," he says. Cuban culture took on new momentum and the emergence of different schools of art and music, which would leave a large number of musicians respected by society, served to encourage artistic creation. Since that time, Omara not only picked up the baton of representing his country in various international film festivals around the world but continued to reassert a national scale.
Omara joined one of the country's leading orchestras, Orquesta Aragon, with whom he traveled around the world, and subsequently recorded several albums, as he did with Adalberto Alvarez in 1984 and Words and Challenges both for the English label Nubenegra and which was accompanied by Chucho Valdés.
However, the fact that Omara Portuondo catapult definitely the place to which by right belonged reached the mid-nineties, with the help of film. After participating in recording sessions for Buena Vista Social ClubTM (World Circuit), singing "Twenty Years" with Compay Segundo, Omara Portuondo thrilled the audience and was moved on the screen when Ibrahim Ferrer
interpret a subject as heartbreaking as "Silence."
The success of the album and movie of the same name released to the public the voice of a woman who had spent years stirring the lucky ones who had been lucky enough to see her perform in cabarets and clubs in his native Havana. As for the other veteran musicians of that project, that marked a new turning point in their careers that would take in the coming years around the world and recorded several works in front of a dream band that brought together large Cuban music as Rubén González, Orlando "Cachaito" López and Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal.
Following this work, Omara began one of his most fruitful career stages and successful. After a solo world tour in 2002, served in the fall of that year at the Jazz Festival in Japan, accompanied by Michael Brecker, Herbie Hancock, John Patitucci, Wayne Shorter and Danilo Pérez. In 2003, he returned to European soil to intervene in a legendary event, the UK's Glastonbury festival,
before continuing that same fall with more dates Montuno more in Canada and U.S. productions and events, leading a band that included players from the category of Papi Oviedo to three, Rolando Baro at the piano and Fabián García
bass.
That same year, Omara returned to the studio to record his second solo album for World Circuit. Production was commissioned Nick Gold and Ale Siqueira, a renowned Brazilian producer who guarantee their work with Carlinhos Brown, Caetano Veloso and Tribalistas, winners of a GrammyTM Latino. Crew completed the acclaimed engineer Jerry Boys and the famous Cuban musician and arranger Demetrio Muniz.
Flor de Amor (World Circuit) marks a turning point in the career of Omara Portuondo: we have a record marked by a more subtle sound and rich textures On this occasion, the singer was surrounded by a mix of Cuban musicians and Brazilians, and this is precisely one of the factors that influence the characteristic style of the work.
Allergic to rest on their laurels, Omara returned to Europe in 2004 to present this work, which cruised prestigious venues such as the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Marble Hill House London, the Olympia in Paris and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. That summer, Omara gave "the first concert" Berlin's legendary Gendarmenmarkt, within the series "Classic Open Air." To 7,000 people, surrounded by 68 musicians, among whom were the members of the Deutsches
Filmorchester Symphonic Orchestra Babelsberg, conducted by Scott Lawton, and wrapped by a guest as special as his good friend Ibrahim Ferrer, that was an unforgettable night marked the beginning of a new and ambitious world tour, the Special Project Symphony, which, in 2006, leading to major theaters and major festivals of classical music.
Before the end of 2004, Omara was two big surprises: in Montreux, International Red Cross the appointed International Ambassador, making her the first Cuban artist to achieve such a distinction, and Flower of Love was nominated for GrammyTM awards in the category of "Best Traditional Tropical Disco." This was not, however, the only mention that fell on the disc. At the gala 16th edition of the Billboard Latin Music Awards in 2005, the discose won the award for Best Tropical Disc of the Year in the female category.
Omara's career continued its frantic pace this year and reunited on stage with other great divas of song-like Chaka Khan, Nina Hagen and Marianne Faithfull, with whom he performed in the legendary Vienna Festival Festival, with more than 45,000 people, "string ensembles, I Musici, a collective of 15 musicians, led by the brilliant master Turovski, with whom he shared the stage at the 26th Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, and that inspired the project with string orchestra that would tour a year later, or your
own band, which toured Europe and in the last part of the year, Asia.
In 2006, Omara continued delving into the lines that have characterized his work in recent years. On the one hand, its entrenched social and human conscience led her to create the Foundation Friends of Omara in Cancun to help women around the world who are victims of social and economic circumstances that affect developing countries. On the other hand, maintained its intense musical activity
concerts in Latin America, Asia and Europe, including one of particular importance to the singer: the united action in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bMayte Martin and Martyrdom in the show "Entre Amigas "and that served to honor his beloved Ibrahim Ferrer, also served to honor that contained the songs" Casablanca "and" Killing Me Softly, "which both interpret disk Rhythms del Mundo (Universal) where several Cuban artists joined hands with rock bands to reinterpret tracks from Radiohead, U2 and Sting, among many others.
And if in 2006, two figures could work with English vocals, 2007, he contacted one of the legends of Brazilian popular music: the singer Maria Bethânia. With it he recorded in Rio de Janeiro, supported by musicians from both countries, as the pianist Roberto Fonseca and the Brazilian Carlos Baia and Jorge Hélder, and under the watchful eye of producers Swami Jr. (the current music director Omara) and Jaime Alem (the current music director Bethânia).
.
In Gracias, Omara has sought to recover items that have most shocked, and work with authors she admired as Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanes and Jorge Drexler, composer of the song that names the album, especially dedicated to Omara. Not these, however, the only guests luxury of this event: if the cast was not already stellar, have sought to add to it Chucho Valdés
, who plays a song written by the son of Omar, the sensational African musician Richard Bona and the Brazilian maestro Chico Buarque. With the album's release, Omara has toured extensively in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East for the first time in his career, the Cuban singer has moved to the Persian Gulf to participate in the prestigious festival "Spring of Culture", a multidisciplinary event with music, theater, performances and conferences. Omara Portuondo's debut in this event resulted in an unqualified success.
month later, the album Thanks was awarded the Latino GrammyTM 2009 in the category of "Best Contemporary Tropical Album."
was a very special night, Omara was present at the ceremony and made history as the first artist in residence in Cuba to take the stage of Latinos GrammyTM to present one of the prizes.
No better way to end the year 2009 with a nomination for the awards GrammyTM 2010 as "Best Tropical Latin Album of the Year. Omara
is bringing its rich Latin music to the public. After touring the U.S. with Roberto Fonseca in the spring of 2010, during the summer months he played with the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club ® in one of the most prestigious festivals in Europe. Omara autumn travel to the U.S. again in 2011 and is already planning new projects. Text by Ferran Esteve
Source
Tracklist:
1. I saw
2. Goodbye happiness
3. O to be (with Chico Buarque)
4.
Vuela pena 5. Story for a child
6. Love me for me (with Pablo Milanés)
7.Tú my disappointment
8.
Cachita 9. Rabo de nube
10. Thanks (Jorge Drexler)
11. Our great love (Cachaíto Lopez and Chucho Valdés)
12. I have left to live
0 comments:
Post a Comment