AFRO-CUBAN FUSION CONCLUSIONS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (07-14-22)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Even living right around the corner, we had not yet paid a visit to Caramoor Center for the Arts in Katonah until last Friday. Much like a good cup of coffee, the experience starts with the lovely grounds. There is an event space here for every type of show, from a covered outdoor 1500-seat theater to a small, indoor concert room almost like watching a performance inside a museum. The room is one of many filled with precious artifacts and works of art from the Caramoor founders' lifetimes of collecting.

     We joined our friends Margaret and Gene for a concert on Friends Field, outdoors on a gorgeous evening, in front of a spacious wooden stage, well lit and well mixed. Picnics were welcome, and although ours was a modest couple of sandwiches, this was Katonah, after all. There were elaborate spreads, fancy seating and wines of fine vintage. I think I saw some Louis XV furniture and a chandelier. By the way, I've never met anyone more bitter than Louis XV, because everyone else had his furniture and he remained standing most of his life.

     Providing the music was an Afro-Cuban quintet, lively and rhythmic. Afro-Cuban would have been great as a restaurant choice, but as a musical genus it was even tastier. I'm a drummer by nature and soon I was tapping both feet, both hands and consider yourself lucky if I left it at that.

     It was the type of performance that you could dial fully into if you wanted, or just sit back, relax, have a conversation and come back to the music when you wanted. I just let the sultry night absorb the music so I could bask in it. All the lyrics were in Spanish, and I only speak just enough to get me around at a Mexican restaurant as long as I don't mind ordering the wrong thing. I took Latin for two years in middle school, so I can easily break down the entomology of a word and figure out its basic meaning. Okay, it turns out that "entomology" is the study of bugs, but you get the idea. You simply find the root of the word, figure out its prefix and its suffix, and bingo, you're speaking Spanish. For instance, the phrase "La casa de los famosos" translated, means "The casa de los famosos."

     My friend Gene is a musician too, and as we listened we got into a conversation about how we started in music. He was well familiar with the sounds of salsa from working at his Dad's sign shop in the Bronx during summers out of school. His co-workers blasted Latin music out of their boom-box, and he became well acquainted with the busy rhythms and full horn sections. I went to high school in Chappaqua at a time when there was only one black kid in our class, and luckily he was a good guitarist. We recruited him for our band, and he showed us some blues, some soul and some color. I would have been happy to be somebody's influence if I could find anyone who thought a musician from the bewitching land of Westchester, white, upper middle-class and Protestant was exotic.

     Of course, even though I came out of the womb fully understanding the rattle as a percussion element, when it came time to choose an instrument in middle school my Dad chose for me, and he did not choose the drums. He chose the trombone, which although I appreciate now, back then I considered more of a comedy prop, useful for snatching peoples' toupees. There was a talented trombone player in last Friday's band, and I noticed two bald players with no toupee, just saying.

     Music can remind you of a time many summers ago, cruising in your car with your friends, or it can be the company that misery loves, or it can set the mood for something you'll remember every time you hear it. But I couldn't imagine me doing any of those things with a  trombone. And when the band teacher insisted I play the tuba, I knew my days in the brass section where numbered.

     When I think of all the time I spent not practicing the trombone, I realize that I could have used those valuable hours not studying to become the scholar that I never was. It fills me with regret every time I don't think about it. I suppose that when my parents heard me practicing the drums they just heard a lot of banging, but to me I was at the pulse of the music, the heartbeat. All you Moms and Dads out there, consider that even though you may be old enough to know better, you'll never be old enough to know your kid better than your kid.