David Calzado and the Charanga Habanera
A necessary cyclone

One can aspire to the most incredible goals, and even reach them; however, the definitive success always needs an extra, which is not included in the mere good intentions. It is something divine, linked to the mysteries of the human nature, which has the same naming even when it is expressed in diverse languages: Talent.
Any human work depends on this gift to look different from the rest, to glow among its equals.  In music it seems to me like a miracle, gifting the chosen ones with an unmatchable ability to feel and give off pleasure.
David Calzado is one of these lucky people. The work he has displayed with his Charanga Habanera during the past 14 years has catapulted him to fame, but this has been only because of his profuse capacity and his very well defined pretensions.

About dreams and realities

His first steps in music – as in most cases – started as a child when, dressed in a suit, he used to impress everyone with his surprising dancing skills, while Estrellas Cubanas, then his father’s orchestra, played.  Afterwards were the violin studies, which he started late, taking in consideration that normally children start learning it at seven or eight years, and he did it only at ten. However, this did not bother the young violinist to have and reach his first dreams….” I always dreamed of a day when I would stand before a symphonic orchestra, dressed into a smoking wearing a necklace, and play, for instance, a Chaikovsky concert. It seems that I used to have quite good conditions with my instrument, to the point that I had once that symphonic behind me, but the one of the school. I reached that dream in the Teatro Amadeo Roldán, during a graduation ceremony, when I was chosen to be the orchestra’s concert player and to interpret a Bach concert, which was great….”
The illusion continued, but it did not fully meet his aspirations. Classic music does not count with a numerous public in Cuba, and the young David aspired to be as popular as he never could, being a concert violinist. Thus, he turned into the dancing halls and worked with several orchestras.
Personally, I can remember the “waking up” of the Ritmo Oriental orchestra in the 80´s, with a very young Tony Calá as the leader singer, and that “Sugar lesson”  the public followed with true delight. I was amazed when; only a few years ago, I learned that the David’s genius had been linked to all that renovation process experimented by the Ritmo, mainly between 1984 and 1986.
Later on he abandoned a bit the dancing halls to develop an interesting work as a producer in the discography house EGREM, but, a new turn in his course got him to the Violines de Tropicana, a phase that he remembers with pleasure, although it called a lot from him. “I came playing the violin just so-so, because I had lost practice, and I had to study a lot”.
It was during that tough period when he found the opportunity of his life. There he was selected to play in an orchestra that would be performing in the Montecarlo Sporting Club, and which the entrepreneur responsible for the idea decided to name Charanga Habanera…

About fate and designs

That group was conceived to interpret anthological themes of the Cuban popular music, but it in the end turned to become the detonator that blew, this time in a definitive way, all the ability David had as creator and leader of a contemporary Cuban popular music orchestra. Because of different circumstances, three years after the “Charanga” was founded, David was designed as its director. He then changed the orchestra concepts, and soon made of that group, that used to animate the Montecarlo evenings, an unavoidable orchestra within the panorama of the popular music in Cuba.
Since they made their first presentation before the Cuban public, these musicians impressed everyone, not only because of their indisputable quality, but also for their image and for their way to perform in the scenery, very different from all styles shown at the time in the national sceneries.
Although dancing popular music enjoyed then an unprecedented health, and consecrated groups like Los Van Van and Adalberto Álvarez, along with more recent ones like NG la Banda, Isaac Delgado and Paulo with his elite, were acclaimed almost with frenzy by a dancing public more and more numerous, the musicians -well trained in Montecarlo - managed to attract the attention from their colleagues as well as from the public.
From the beginning, David Calzado had a very well defined concept about how much he intended to do. “When acting, I prefer people to look at me and get amazed with the show. That is why I always try to have an orchestra that does something more than mere music, and I’ll die thinking like that. When I’ll be an old man already, walking with a stick, you can be sure that the stick will help me to create some kind of choreography…. That is my concept.”
Such a conception is not a fortuitous one. “As a musician my formation was very different, maybe, from of other artists.  I studied violin for many years, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and the whole symphonic music, but then my father was a singer in a very important orchestra during the sixties, it was called Fajardo y sus estrellas .  It was the orchestra of the so called “magnates” (the great ones), and they had a great show.  Being a child I used to watch my father and the rest of the group changing clothes from one piece of music to the other. For example, they used to have a piece called El tamalero ( The tamal-seller), and they dressed like tamal-sellers…” that experience along with the one he lived in Montecarlo provided David Delgado with a complete notion about the way he had to follow as the leader of the orchestra.  The possibility to share the scenery and watch the performances of personalities like Stevie Wonder, Barry White, Donna Summer, James Brown, Ray Charles, Charles Aznavour, Jerry Lewis or Kool and the Gang, helped him completing his idea about how should a life performance look like. “Up to date this is still influencing me.  I am an artist formed in the music that I am making now, and I formed myself in the Montecarlo Sporting Club, watching the great artists that have become a part of the history. “

About intuition and constancy

In order to accomplish his conception, David is very careful when selecting the musicians, who also have to be able to interchange their roles, and at the same time perform as singers, players or dancers. “I believe that I have been a talent maker.  Because almost all of the singers the Charanga have had – as I always tell them – if I had heard before the way they used to sing, I had never admitted them in the orchestra. I devote myself to look for other things. They do not have to be handsome or ugly, but to have the character, the disposition for what I want from them.  An important thing, long time ago I decided to have two pale-skinned singers and two dark-skinned. That is my thinking.
Of course, I bear in mind if he is in tune or not, but it is me who form them. I devote time to him, I take him home with me, get to the piano, and …sing...don’t say this that way... And about some persons that have sang with the Charanga, some others have said: But, are you actually going to let him here? He doesn’t fit! And afterwards I have reached success with him. Because, you know, one thing is just to sing, and another is to have behind you a producer, the support of a director.”
And I have an example for that: Haila is one of the greatest singers born in this country, along with Vania, Jenny, Osdalgia, all of them star singers; but Haila is one of the most sensational in the Cuban music of all times. She used to sing with Bamboleo and had success during that phase… afterwards she made two discs that were very good, produced by Ceruto, Joaquín Betancourt, good musical producers… All of them knew how to make good music for Haila, but none of them how to conduct her – No, Haila, don’t do it that way, do it this way – And I remember that in the beginning, for more than a month, she was in disagreement with the way I asked her to sing; and now after she has been singing with different people, she sings always the way I told her to. So, one of the important things in music is direction, how to conduct people.”

About passions and priorities

His work as the producer of the disc Haila Diferente, meant David’s return to a world that is his passion, where he could do very well during the decade of the eighties, when he directed and produced important records for EGREM.  “The feeling of being the master, leading the orchestra  ... is something fantastic. Actually it attracts me so much as the work with the Charanga; but it takes a lot of dedication. Now, with Haila’s disc I was almost two months locked into a studio, while the Charanga keeps me thinking all the time.  Then I cannot devote myself to production right now. The day I feel I have to make a stop and leave the active music, maybe then I’ll start to devote me to produce.”
This is a huge paradox for a person who considers popularity as one of his main goals, taking into account that the work of the musical producer is almost always ignored.  “This is an anonymous work. But when you acquire the popularity in what I am doing now and just afterwards you dedicate to it, then it works.  What I did in the eighties passed inadvertently because then I wasn’t anybody.  But now I am a renowned name, because I have the love of the people; and whatever I do, even behind the curtains, people will know and value.”

About the will and the inescapable

Contrary to his own expectations the Charanga Habanera has kept enjoying an extraordinary popularity during several years in an uninterrupted way. David is one of those who think that it is impossible to keep forever on the top of success. For him, the Van Van are a extraordinary case, they are the model, because during 36 years they have kept the preference of the public; numbers one come and go, but Van Van is always in the same position.  “I wish I could do the same, but it doesn’t depend on me. It depends on my muse accompanying me to maintain such a level. And I have had a lot of popularity peaks in my history since 1992, a lot of them.  But, evidently, you have to give up for some time, an artist have to come and take the bat for a while, and then you return again … that is normal.”
However, the moment of abandoning “the field” is not near by any means.  The popularity this orchestra has is impressive, moreover if you take into account that it is not precisely the kind of music that is the most demanded currently. “So, that gives a credit to the Charanga.  It is very difficult to reach to a song played in a dancing way; there are only a few orchestras that still manage to make a natural dancing music. Ok, Van Van, with its seal keeps having songs in full popularity, playing within their own idiosyncrasy. And almost everyone is making concessions with their own working concepts. “

About the essence and the options

When in 2004 EGREM gave away its awards according to the discs selling numbers, the Charanga Habanera became the Revelation Orchestra thanks to the astronomical selling levels it reached with the disc Soy cubano, soy popular, considered by many specialists its best-selling disc, comparable only to the 1997 delivery titled Tremendo delirio.
However, this disc totally “timbero”, which themes are still demanded by the public, was followed by Charanga Light, a work with a certain tendency to pop music that seems to be one of these concessions: “No, what really happened was that I told myself: Now that I am so strong with a disc that may last two and three years, I will give me the pleasure to make a disc for me.  That way I got a new public that is not “charanguero” because they were no interested in that music, a public with other way of thinking, from different levels and concepts of life.  Then I managed to sum up another public that I did not have before. Moreover, I have a style, you hear my orchestra and you instantly know that it is the Charanga.  But I have been an artist …- always Formell has been an artist too – I always try to follow the fashion, to evolve, but always doing it my own way, in my style. That is to say, I do the same that others do, but you can find that it is not the same. I always try to find a “chanraguistic” way to do things.”
This is the way I learn that the Charanga has been recording a “reguetón” with Eddy K for about six days now; an idea that David did not like in the beginning, but in the end had seduced him, and he explains it to me, supporting his previous comment: “But I have to manage to make this “reguetón” different from other existing versions.”

The opportunity becomes ideal then to learn about the musician’s opinion about this controversial musical trend: “I believe that all music that people like has its value, independently from the interests working towards or against it.  Now, you either like it or not. One cannot manage the taste for music.  Of course, they already have being doing it for a year and a half or two years, with great strength; I am of those who think this rhythm has quite a repetitive sound, so I do not think it will last for many years.  Although we have here another phenomenon, the “reggae” has become part of the history and it is also a repetitive rhythm.
However I have been fighting all the time, trying to avoid the “reguetón”. When the Eddy K kids told me about that, - they are only too enthusiastic with their genre – at the beginning I was not very much for it, as I couldn’t imagine how could I combine my “charanga” with a hard “reguetón”, a natural one, like theirs. But, in the end we are doing it, and we are trying to make a very special piece with it, one that people like. Because all the music I make is made for the public.”

About evolutions and returns

Being one of the leaders of the so-called Timba Cubana, which had its most splendorous time in the early nineties, David considers that this genre has not declined; it is just taking a break. “This is a country of dancers. We are not rock-dancers, or pop-dancers, we are casino and “tembleque” dancers. In the end the Cuban popular music of our times will have the lead.  In the disc I recently finished, El ciclón de la Habana, (The Havana cyclone), I played as I like to. The only piece I did with other concept was Esta es mi charanga. But all the rest is timba and timba. But it is less suicidal than before, because the times are not asking for that.
Already in this disc there are about two themes that can be danced very well by a couple, because they are made in a more Casino style, some of them. And in others I kept mi “Charanga heavy metal” way.  However, with this disc amazing things occur. Soy cubano, soy popular was a great success in Europe, in Cuba I cannot tell you.  Charanga Light did in Cuba very well; in Europe so-so. However there is a site in INTERNET, where they say that the best of them is El ciclón de la Habana. Because, maybe the way I made the music for this disc is precisely what they needed.”
David considers La Timba start as a genre and its “contribution” to the so called “Casino crisis” a natural process. For him La Timba is no more than the evolution of the Cuban popular music towards a more aggressive expression, and he compares it with the rock development. “The Cuban popular music has suffered that transformation. You cannot dance it in couples because it has other canons and other musical conception.”

About influences and other dreams

Whenever I watch David on scene he reminds me of Benny Moré and that peculiar style of his own when leading his Orchestra. I know that David admires him and in his formation he has learned from that powerful legacy that the great musical talents born in this Island left us with their works.
However, when asked about who has influenced him, I was amazed to hear the passionate charanguero mentioning his contemporary colleagues: “I would say that Juan Formell has not influenced me so much musically, I have another concept, but he is the photo I watch when I wonder how one can manage to do something similar. Another musician I have a great respect for is José Luis Cortés, a musical eminence; Adalberto González, an unparalleled composer…Manolito Simonet, whose band is the one that sounds best when playing life.  It is a whole range of great musicians that influence in the criterion on how I have to conduct myself. 
And evidently, I always say Formell, because he is the Dean, but all those are great specialists and they help me think on the way I have to prepare myself and conduct myself to be able to fight among them.”
Nevertheless, as I am convinced that in some corner of  David Calzado’s creative world live the spirits of  Arsenio, Matamoros, Chapottín, Marcelino Guerra and Benny among many other illustrious names; as I know the Pare Cochero’s excellent arrangement and interpretation, a theme included in the first of the Charanga’s discs, and because I know that during his first phase in Montecarlo, the repertoire was composed by anthological titles of our traditional music, I refuse to finish my conversation without having talked about the topic.
This time the answer fully convinces me: “This disc has a version of Píntate los labios, María sang by a trumpeter playing in La Charanga, a great singer in my opinion.  I had to put that version because once in Europe we were playing that music during a concert and I was selling Soy cubano, soy popular. When I finished the concert the foreigners said: Is the theme the trumpeter sang in the disc? Ah, if it is not there, then I don’t want the disc.
I would like to make a disc; I will prepare a plan to make a disc with that whole music. Ten themes like these with my Charanga style. This will be another one big pleasure a will give myself.”
Evidently, in David’s time there is not much space for other things then musical creation.  Definitively, his muses accompany him and cooperate in winning superior goals.  If once this artist sacrificed his dreams as a violinist in change for notoriety; nowadays ha has become a very popular Cuban, and he gives all his creative capacity in search of greater challenges: “I try to be a person that transcends to posterity. Then, even if I am not popular at the time, I’d wish the people to remind me and say: this is David Calzado.  That is a further phase very difficult to achieve.”