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Trova is a style of Cuban popular music originating in the 19th century. Trova was created by itinerant musicians known as trovadores who travelled around Cuba's Oriente Province, especially Santiago de Cuba, and earned their living by singing and playing the guitar.Canizares, Dulcila 1995. La trova tradicional. 2nd ed, La Habana. According to nueva trova musician Noel Nicola, Cuban trovadors sang original songs or songs written by contemporaries, accompanied themselves on guitar, and aimed to feature music that had a poetic sensibility."Trata de poetizar con su canto" in the original. Nicola, Noel . Por qué nueva trova? El Caimán Barbudo #92, p10-12. This definition fits best the singers of , and less well the Afrocubans singing funky sones (El Guayabero) or even guaguancós and abakuá (Chicho Ibáñez). It rules out, perhaps unfairly, singers who accompanied themselves on the piano.Bola de Nieve was an unusual case: a trained pianist who accompanied his piano with a gravelly voice. He is better classified as a salon entertainer than a trova artist.
Trova musicians have played an important part in the evolution of Cuban popular music. Collectively, they have been prolific as composers, and have provided a start for many later musicians whose career lay in larger groupings. Socially, they reached every community in the country, and have helped to spread Cuban music throughout the world.Giro Radamés 2007. Diccionario enciclopédico de la música en Cuba. La Habana. vol 4, p206 et seq.
The first, and one of the longest-lived, was Sindo Garay, born Antonio Gumersindo Garay Garcia (Santiago de Cuba, 12 April 1867 – Havana, 17 July 1968). He was the most outstanding composer of trova songs, and his best have been sung and recorded many times. Perla marina, Adiós a La Habana, Mujer bayamesa, El huracán y la palma, Guarina and many others are now part of Cuba's heritage. Garay was also musically illiterate – in fact, he only taught himself the alphabet at 16 – but in his case not only were scores recorded by others, but there are recordings as well.
In the 1890s Garay got involved in the Cuban War of Independence, and decided a stay in Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic) would be a good idea. It was, and he came back with a wife. Garay settled in Havana in 1906, and in 1926 joined Rita Montaner and others to visit Paris, spending three months there singing his songs. He broadcast on radio, made recordings and survived into modern times. He used to say "Not many men have shaken hands with both José Martí and Fidel Castro!" Carlos Puebla, whose life spanned the old and the new trova, told a good joke about him: "Sindo celebrated his 100th birthday several times – in fact, whenever he was short of money!"Sublette, Ned 2004. Cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo. Chicago. p298de Leon, Carmela 1990. Sindo Garay: memorias de un trovador. La Habana. Garay's life story as told in his nineties; includes a 16-page appendix listing his compositions.
José 'Chicho' Ibáñez (Pedro Betancourt,now Pedro Betancourt 22 November 1875 – Havana, 18 May 1981)date of death from the program of LatinBeat 2003, Film Society of the Lincoln Center, New York. Orovio, Helio 2004. Cuban music from A to Z. Revised by Sue Steward. p112 gives 1987 as the date of death; earlier date here preferred on grounds of probability. was the first trovador (that we know of) to specialize in the Son cubano and also on guaguancós and afrocuban rhythms from the abakuá. He played the tres rather than the Spanish guitar, and developed his own technique for this Cuban guitar. During his extremely long career, Chicho sang and played the son in streets, plazas, cafés, nightclubs and other venues throughout Cuba. In the 1920s, when the Sextet became popular, he was forced to sell his compositions to these larger groups and their composers in order to survive. His compositions include Toma, mamá, que te manda tía, Evaristo, No te metas Caridad, Ojalá (sones); Yo era dichoso, Al fin mujer (bolero-sones); Qué más me pides, La saya de Oyá (guaguancós). He worked throughout Cuba, and latterly a short film was made of him ('See also' below).
The composer Rosendo Ruiz (Santiago de Cuba, 1 March 1885 – Havana, 1 January 1983) was a trovador almost as long-lived as Ibáñez and Garay. He wrote the criolla Mares y Arenas in 1911, the workers' anthem Redención in 1917, the bolero Confesión, the guajira Junto al cañaveral and the pregón-son Se va el dulcerito. He was the author of a well-known guitar manual.
Manuel Corona (Caibarién, 17 June 1880 – Havana 9 January 1950) started his career in a red-light district of Havana. Originally a singer-guitarist, he became a prolific composer after his hand was damaged by a pimp's knife. It was a case of "She was a whore, and she had her man, but I loved her". Alberto Villalón (Santiago de Cuba, 7 June 1882 – Havana 16 07 1955) advanced the trova guitar technique and had a hand in the birth of the son septetos.
Garay, Ruiz, Villalón and Corona were known as the four greats of the trova, but Ibáñez and the following trovadores should be regarded as of equally high stature.
Most trovadors were creolized, drawing from both Spanish and African traditions and styles even-handedly. There were exceptions. Guillermo Portabales (Cienfuegos, 6 April 1911 – San Juan, Puerto Rico 25 October 1970) and Carlos Puebla were mostly in the guajiro (peasant) tradition, whilst El Guayabero – Faustino Oramas – (Holguín, 4 June 1911 – Holguín, 28 March 2007) was black and funky in style and content. He was the last of the old trova, the oldest working musician in Cuba, at 95, when he died. His Double entendre were a joy.
Trova musicians often worked in pairs and trios, some of them exclusively solo (Compay Segundo). As the sextetos / septetos / Conjunto grew in popularity many trovadores joined in the larger groups.
The technique of guitar-playing gradually improved; the early trovadors, being self-taught, had rather limited techniques. Later, some tapped into classical guitar techniques to revive the accompaniment of the trova. Guyún (Vincente Gonzalez Rubiera, Santiago de Cuba, 27 October 1908–Havana, 1987) studied under Severino López, and developed a modern concept of harmony, and a way to apply classical technique to popular Cuban music. He became more adventurous, yet still in Cuban vein, and in 1938 stopped performing to devote himself to teaching the guitar. This bore fruit, and two generations of Cuban guitarists bear witness to his influence.
Perhaps the greatest guitarist amongst modern Cuban trovadors is Eliades Ochoa (b. Songo – La Maya, Santiago de Cuba, 22 June 1946), the leader of Cuarteto Patria. Ochoa learnt both Spanish guitar and the Cuban trés; Cuban composer and classical guitarist Leo Brouwer told him that he did not need to learn more about musical technique as he already knew too much! Ochoa plays now with an eight-stringed guitar (a self-designed hybrid of an acoustic six-string and the Cuban trés). Cuerteto Patría includes his brother Humberto Ochoa on guitar, son Eglis Ochoa on maracas, William Calderón on bass, Aníbal Ávila on claves and trumpet, and Roberto Torres on congas.
The filín movement, which originally had a place every afternoon on Radio Mil Diez, survived the first few years of the revolution quite well, but somehow did not suit the new circumstances and gradually withered, leaving its roots in jazz, romantic song and the bolero perfectly healthy. Some of its most prominent singers, such as Pablo Milanés, took up the banner of the nueva trova.
The regime gave plenty of support to musicians willing to write and sing anti-U.S. or pro-revolution songs; this was quite a bonus in an era when many of the traditional musicians were finding it difficult or impossible to earn a living. In 1967 the Casa de las Américas in Havana held a Festival de la canción de protesta (protest songs). Much of the effort was spent applauding causes that would annoy the U.S. government. Tania Castellanos, a filín singer and author, wrote ¡Por Angela! in support of Angela Davis. César Portillo de la Luz wrote Oh, valeroso Viet Nam.Linares, María Teresa 1981. La música y el pueblo. La Habana, Cuba. p182 These were hot topics of the 1970s, but their topicality declined as time passed.
Nueva Trova, initially so popular, was dealt a blow by the fall of the Soviet Union, though it was already fading. It suffered inside Cuba, perhaps from a growing disenchantment with one-party rule, and externally, from the vivid contrast with the Buena Vista Social Club film and recordings. Audiences round the world have had their eyes opened to the extraordinary charm and musical quality of the older forms of Cuban music. By contrast, topical themes that seemed so relevant in the 1960s and 70s now seem dry and passé; once a theme is no longer topical, the piece rests solely on its musical quality. Those pieces of high musical and lyrical quality, amongst which Puebla's Hasta siempre stands out, will probably last as long as Cuba lasts.Giro Radamés 2007. Diccionario enciclopédico de la música en Cuba. La Habana. vol 4, p211Cristóbal Díaz selected two nueva trova numbers for his list of 50 canciones cubanas en el repertorio popular internacional: Unicornio azul (Silvio Rodríguez) and Yolanda (Pablo Milanés): Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1998. Cuando sali de la Habana 1898-1997: cien anos de musica cubana por el mundo. Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. p221
Floro y Miguel: Floro Zorilla and Miguel Zaballa. Outstanding in their day.
Floro y Cruz: Floro Zorilla and Juan Cruz. Cruz was a terrific baritone.
Pancho Majagua y Tata Villegas: Francisco Salvo and Carlos Villegas.
María Teresa y Zequieira: María Teresa Vera and Rafael Zequeira.
Dúo Ana María y María Teresa: two female voices, Ana María García and Ma. Teresa Vera. Justa García also sang duo with each of these two women.
Lorenzo Hierrezuelo and María Teresa Vera.
José 'Galleguito' Parapar y Higinio Rodríguez.
Juan de la Cruz y Bienvenido León.
Manuel Luna y José Castillo.
Dúo Hermanos Enriso: Enrique 'Chungo' and Rafael 'Nené' Enriso.
Dúo Luna–Armiñan: Pablo Armiñan (primo) and Manuel Luna (segundo and guitar)
Dúo Pablito–Castillo: Pablo Armiñan (primo) and Augusto Castillo (segundo).
Dúo Pablito y Limonta: Pablo Armiñan (voz primo and guitar accompanist) and Juan Limonta (segunda, guitar and author). Extremely popular in Santiago de Cuba in the 1920s.
Dúo Juanito Valdés y Rafael Enriso.
Dúo Carbo–Quevedo: Pablo Quevedo (primo) and Panchito Carbó (segundo and guitar).
Dúo Hermanas Martí: Amelia and Bertha.
Dúo Sirique y Miguel: Alfredo 'Sirique' González and Miguel Doyble.
Los Compadres: Lorenzo Hierrezuelo, first with Compay Segundo, then with Rey Caney.
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