Press

Press

The Portland Tribune: Musica that moves
Restaurateur revives the Cuban music of his grandparents’ era
 by ERIC BARTELS Issue date: Fri, May 21, 2004Cana Son

 

John Connell Maribona doesn’t expect everyone’s understanding of Cuban culture to rival his own. But he’s working on it. His teachings began when he opened the popular eatery Pambiche on an unassuming stretch of Northeast Glisan Street and a stylish downtown campus, the restaurant and bar Cañita on West Burnside Street. Though Cañita soon may relocate, it has been home for the past year to the nine-piece band Caña Son, Connell Maribona’s latest attempt to conjure his ancestral Caribbean homeland. He says the group, which will continue regardless of the restaurant’s future, is a devotional to the son music of his grandparents’ youth.

“Without being a snob and saying we only play Cuban music, we’re a son band,” says the energetic Connell Maribona, 36. “I was looking for something that was dusty and buried under a rock.”
The music that Caña Son re-creates originated in Cuba’s rural, largely African working class in the first half of the 20th century. The bandleader Arsenio Rodriguez, a descendent of Congolese tribesmen, is widely credited with creating the instrumental configuration that produced the signature sound of son. Connell Maribona says the music later evolved in the embrace of Cuba’s more prosperous population centers. By the ’50s, son was giving way to the big band sound of mambo as practiced by bandleaders such as Perez Prado, who placed two No. 1 hits — “Patricia” and “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” — on U.S. charts.

“What John’s doing is standards,” says local bandleader Bobby Torres, a New Yorker of Puerto Ricandescent. “It’s a more traditional type of music. If you were to hear ‘Danny Boy’ and you’re Irish, that’s the feeling.” “Danny Boy” on really strong coffee, perhaps. To the untrained ear, there may be little to distinguish son from the popular Latin dance music it spawned. Connell Maribona gets it all the time at Cañita: “People say, ‘Oh, I love salsa music.’ That’s fine. Whatever.” The particulars mean little to crowds that fill the place on Saturdays, pinning Connell Maribona and his band against one wall of the narrow, rectangular space. With vibrant island colors — lime, mango, fuchsia and deep blue — splashed on the walls and ceiling fans whirring above, the heyday of Havana is easy to visualize.

Songs typically open with guitarist Gerardo Calderon strumming rich chords on the tres, a Cuban guitar with two sets of three strings. But the sharp cracks of percussionist James Travers’ timbales are the starter’s pistol. Bass, congas, clave and voices join in and the complex instrumentation creates the rolling momentum of a freight train, with buoyant piano lines bouncing along on top. It is nearly impossible to stay still. The frenzy on the cozy floor sometimes leaves little room for more practiced dancers. “That’s my favorite part about it,” Connell Maribona says. “It’s not about the spins and twirls. The point is for everybody to go out there and dance.” Connell Maribona views son much as he does Cuban cooking, where the simplicity of black beans and rice offers a rootsy contrast to faddish cuisine that comes and goes. “That’s what we want to do in music: Just do it the right way. I want to base this on tradition. We’re not going to add anything or try to reinvent it. We’re trying to represent the culture.”

Modern-day pioneers

Family history was sometimes an afterthought to Connell Maribona, whose maternal grandfather came to Oregon to represent Cuban business interests in the ’50s. “Some guy from PSU said we were the first Cuban family in Oregon,” he says. “So we’re pioneers.” Growing up in Portland, he and his siblings were exposed to the music of the old country. “It was around us because we’d go to our grandmother’s house and she’d have all these old love songs and put them on the stereo,” he says. “You were like, ‘C’mon, turn that crap off! Put on some Michael Jackson!’ ”

Maribona spent portions of his college years — he attended Portland State University — in various Latin American countries, most notably at the University of Santiago in the Dominican Republic, where he did an independent study internship among the musical archives. Back in Portland, Connell Maribona held jobs in local restaurants while playing in a rock band called Silicone Joe. “We had blue hair and the whole thing,” he says. He worked for three years at Greek Cusina, a downtown restaurant where Greek music, dance and customs are energetically promoted as part of the dining experience. He wondered if he couldn’t do the same for his own culture.

Lots of ideas

Once Pambiche and Cañita were under way, Connell Maribona’s thoughts returned to music. “I started putting the word out and we assembled a band,” he says. Getting eight other musicians from varied backgrounds onto the same page was another matter. “There were some ideas here and there,” says guitarist Calderon, who is Mexican. “A lot of the problem is the dedication to a music that was popular in the ’20s,” Connell Maribona says. “It was considered hick music because it came out of the country. The guys want to put flavor in it. They want to do all the newer things.” He says conga player Giovanni Cruz, for instance, arrived with some of his own leanings. A native of El Salvador, Cruz is an enthusiastic fan of more up-to-date dance music.
“He would tend to want to drop the guitar and just have piano,” Connell Maribona says. “I favor the guitar because it’s more traditional.” “John just loves the traditional music,” Cruz says. But competing notions about musical directions are part of the creative process, Connell Maribona says: “There’s this conflict, which is good. It’s good to have a tug and pull. It keeps things strong.” Says Calderon: “I’m glad that John kept his idea. I don’t know how he does it sometimes. I really admire his vision. He’s an inspiration.”
The expiration of Cañita’s lease may force the establishment to close its doors at the end of this month. Connell Maribona says Caña Son, which performed twice at the city’s recent Cinco de Mayo celebration, will continue to play at private functions and selected events. He is looking for a new space for the restaurant.

Cruz, the conga player, says the band has good reason to carry on. The best moments for Caña Son’s players, he says, come when older Cubans and Americans who remember the Cuba of long ago hear the band play. “They love us,” he says. “They recognize those songs.” “We feel like, if we do it right, we’re trying to keep the tradition alive, so that it never dies. So that young people don’t forget.