Apr 2, 2024 12:59 PM
Saxophonist, Sonic Explorer Casey Benjamin Dies at 45
Casey Benjamin, the alto saxophonist, vocalist, keyboardist and producer who stamped his distinctive sounds on the…
Dear George,
As a regular goer to your JVC Jazz Festival for more than 25 years (99 percent of the time just as part of the audience), I went to see John Holland’s 18-year-old documentary A Night in Havana, about Dizzy Gillespie’s second visit to (what was left of) the once beautiful capital city of my impoverished country. Well, I must tell you that my second visit to the rather mediocre flick was even more deceptive than the first, mainly because this time I stoically stayed until the end, enduring all the oddities, the hypocrisy, the snobbishness and even having to put up with the repugnant presence of the oldest dictator on this planet, absurdly mixed with a certainly dearest––yet ill-advised––representative of an art form that epitomizes the very concept of artistic and personal freedom. It’s worthy to remark that while Dizzy was proudly posing with Castro at his luxurious office, the Cuban government denied my son and his mother their exit visas for the eighth year in a row. I wonder if the “Yankee embargo” or the Miami ultra right wingers are also to blame for that flagrant violation of our most basic human rights. Painfully enough, Dizzy, my mentor and great supporter of my jazz career, was pretty much aware of the injustices against my family for the longest time. A few words from his mouth to the ear of the tyrant would probably have put my family in the JFK Airport in a matter of days. But unfortunately, those magical words were never pronounced. I lost my marriage. The rest is history.
Musically speaking, with all due respect, that movie is no big deal either; and Gillespie’s comparative commentaries about a country he didn’t know at all, were amazingly inaccurate and superficial. So my question is: Having on hand so much footage of Dizzy’s masterful performances, what is the point in portraying him in such an embarrassing environment? Filmmaker Holland’s answer was that A Night In Havana was commercially very rentable. For my money, it is unfair to take advantage of Cuban people’s terror and absolute lack of freedom of speech. Marketing our misery, is highly cruel, insulting, racist and disrespectful. Although throughout the years, the names of too many great artists have been associated with dictators and delinquents of different styles, we rarely see the images of Herbert von Karajan, Frank Sinatra or Agustín Lara next to the likes of Adolf Hitler, Meyer Lansky or Francisco Franco. There is no difference in the case of Gillespie and Castro, since it is no secret that the comandante earned his well deserve reputation as a juvenile gangster in his very early university days!
On the other hand, looking at the Cuban musicians on tape, you’ll easily find out that a great number of them are now living in different countries around the world, far away from the “paradise island” that Gillespie describes on camera. Among them Arturo Sandoval, whose spectacular defection from that European tour, was orchestrated by Washingtonian impresario Charlie Fishman, backed up by Dizzy himself, using his contacts at the Reagan’s White House. Is this a credibility conflict here, or what?!
Taking all of this into account, it is clear that to insist in distributing this outdated film, it is misleading for our jazz audiences; and the use of a charismatic and prestigious figure like Dizzy Gillespie to promote such a foul society is irresponsible, immoral and poisonous for our youngsters.
Since Cubans haven’t been able to travel freely for the last 47 long years of dictatorship, very few jazz fans from the island were able to attend any of your music events around the world. But they know that all this time, you have been presenting nothing but ”la crème de la crème” on those events, my dear George. So we bet you have better choices than that crappy flick, don’t you?
Sincerely,
Paquito D’Rivera
Benjamin possessed a fluid, round sound on the alto saxophone, and he was often most recognizable by the layers of electronic effects that he put onto the instrument.
Apr 2, 2024 12:59 PM
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