“Chano’s grandparents - Don Fernando Ortiz said - "spoke through his drum, but all of Cuba also spoke; because Chano, the musician who grafted new and powerful energy into American jazz, was hundred percent Cuban."
Hence, the notorious Cuban anthropologist said, "We must remember his name, to keep him from getting lost, like so many other anonymous artists who have preserved for centuries the musical art of their genuine Cubanhood.”
Such words compelled the noble endeavor that has undoubtedly motivated researcher Ricardo Oropesa, author of the book titled “Las oscuras leyendas de Chano Pozo” (“Chano Pozo’s dark legends”), published by Editorial Acana (Suma y Reflejo collection, 2017, 208 pp.)
As the author says, “It is not a biography of the Cuban percussionist and composer, born in Havana, in 1915, and murdered in New York, in 1948; a fundamental figure in the music of his time.”
Oropesa writes in the presentation note of the volume:
“We intend this tribute book to help promoting Chano as an artist of the Cuban people and to inspire scholars and lovers of his music to create new bibliographical and musicological works that allow future generations to understand the greatness of his talent.”
Through these pages, born from a comprehensive and thorough documentary and testimonial research, we will know passages of the life and the work of an artist who has not been fully valued in his true dimension yet.
“Las oscuras leyendas” ... thus manages to inform, comment, clarify and shed light on realities and riddles that have surrounded the life of who, in Dizzy Gillespie’s view, was "the greatest drummer I have ever heard in my life."
In the foreword to “Las oscuras leyendas”..., musicologist Gabe Romero commented:
“The difference between nonfiction and fiction is equal to that between reality and fantasy. Everything that seems to be factually reliable must be rigorously checked out before accepting it.
The appeal of a book like this totally depends on connecting its central character, Chano, to the narrative, not in a categorically definitive and incontestable way, but in a convincing and provocative fashion, which the author fully achieves.”
Before this book, Ricardo Oropesa (Cienfuegos, 1955), Dr. in Pedagogical Sciences, artistic producer and member of “Ignacio Piñeiro National Septet”, had already published another book related to Cuban music. With the research titled “La Habana tiene su son” (Ediciones Cubanas ARTEX, 2012), he won the International Grand Prix of Puerto Rico Book Fair, held in 2015.
Now, on the 70th anniversary of the death of the author of "Manteca", Ricardo Oropesa publishes “Las oscuras leyendas de Chano Pozo”, the first book that rescues on the Island the mark of someone that has not stopped making all of Cuba speak from his drum.
Translated by Pedro A. Fanego
