Attending a concert of (Manaca Iznaga, Cuba, 48 years) implies going through an emotions carousel. Graduated in classical guitar by the, the instrumentalist, arranger, composer and singer, usually play, sing and dance for more than three hours on stage. In his recitals he travels along with his audience the most traditional genres of his country, such as the Chachachá, the son or the bolero, to which he adds the overflowing energy of the timba and improvisations inherited from jazz. The one who was bassist of Paco de Lucia for a decade, presents for the first time live – along with his compatriot Isaac Delgado – this Saturday in the Apollo room in Barcelona, Bingohis last album. Produced in Cuba, the United States and Spain, work adds to other dance music works such as THE TALE OF THE GOOD PIPE (2020), ADN (2018) o Tea tea: Honor traditional lo, that earned him a Latin Grammy in 2021.
Although reside in Cuba – País who returned in 2018 after two decades living in Spain – the musician considers Spain as a “second house.” He arrived in Europe as a musician of the Isaac Delgado Orchestra in 1998, and worked for two decades with artists as a child Josele, Celia Cruz and especially as bassist of, who left him “fascinated by his aura and character” and who inherited “trying to achieve perfection and to excite the public.”
After his encounter with the guitarist, the composer had flamenco an instant connection. “I have a good amount of gypsy rods that the patriarchs have given me,” he says with a smile.
After two decades in Spain, he returned to his island to “transmit my 20 -year experience working in different scenarios of the world and bring all that learning to the new generations,” he says. The orchestra to which it will lead on Europe and scenarios such as Lincoln Center, composed of 12 musicians from his alma mater, has an average age of 23 years, and some of the members have just fulfilled the age of majority. “I feel in the commitment to continue teaching so that the aesthetics of Cuban music are not lost, it is the second generation of musicians I form,” he explains. Through his experience he emulates what they once did for him, who took him to play in Irakere – one of the most important Latin jazz orchestras in history – with only 17 years: “The sound marked me forever, it was like making a master’s degree ahead of time,” he recalls.
Coming from a family of musicians, it was his father, Gradelio Pérez, with whom he has composed several of his songs, the first who discovered his innate talent. “Traditional music stayed in my bowels and I was lucky to start in that direction, with the Guajiro point, the son and the Guaracha,” he says. With 7 years he already sang and played the guitar, and with 9 years he left his hometown in the direction of Cienfuegos to play with Cielito Lindo, his first group. “The same day they tried me I stayed far from my house, since then the music flooded everything, even the shortcomings were replaced by music,” he confesses.
Although on his return the island welcomed him with open arms, his last works have been marked by the difficulty involved in a shortage of electricity. “There are energy problems, five -day current collapses, being in the study and having to return home because there is no current, having to suspend recording shifts …”. “Working in that precariousness makes you more sensitive and at the same time stronger,” he says.
The bassist’s arrangements and compositions can be heard at the same time in the best Jazz schools in New York and in the streets of Havana. “I look in the mirror of people like Juan Luis Guerra or Rubén Blades, Benny Moré himself made very popular music in the fifties and at the same time were exquisite compositions,” says the musician, who usually uses in his concerts a cane in homage to Moré, “the barbarian of the rhythm.” His creations begin with a melody, which takes shape immediately with a guitar or a piano. “The most important thing is that my songs have spirituality, I always put emotions in the foreground,” he says.
His latest album, “the one with greatest maturity,” according to the artist himself, is plagued by traditional Cuban rhythms, to which songs like songs will be added It is no longer worth itcomposed with his father more than 20 years ago and sung with Tito Nieves or others such as Queen of hearts o I was alone, With Gilberto Santa Rosa. Among the novelties are the incorporation of his brother, Rainer Pérez, as a composer. In relation to other albums, “there is a difference in the level of production, love and Curatorship of the songs “, although always,” with a lot of delivery and a lot of passion. “This Saturday will be the fifth presentation of the bassist in the Apollo room of the Catalan capital:” I think this time there is a tremendous illusion, it will be an injection of brutal desire and adrenaline, “he concludes.
