Cuban Music From A to Z ed. by Helio Orovio (review)

Book Reviews 179 Cuban Music From A to Z. By Helio Orovio (ed.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press,2004, $24.95. Cuban Music From A to Z by Helio Orovio is a very interesting quick reference dictionary of Cuban music. The book consists of 230 pages of more than 1,300 entries followed by a short appendix that includes a list of instruments, music magazines , orchestras and band names, and a bibliography. This edition is the first published in the English language. I did not find any information in the book on any precedent Spanish language version. Although, in the entry assigned to Mr. Orovio himself there is mention of a Cuban Dictionary of Music (Diccionariode la Misica Cubana) with a first edition in 1981, a second edition followed in 1993. I suppose the work examined here is based on those originaleditions;there is no mentionof the place of publication or the publicationcompany in the entry but is logical to infer that it was done in Cuba. An introductionwith a brief outline of Cuba’s music history is included at the beginning of the book with the main emphasis on the 20th century. The work is cross-referenced and includes terms as well as biographicalentries. In the preface Mr. Orovio, a musicologistand historian at the Instituteof Folklore and Ethnology of Cuba’s Academy of Sciences, mentions that the present work is the firstbook where “the music of Cuba and its musicians appear in a reference format”. A great variety of sources were used for the compilation of the information, these included preexistingworks by authors likeFernando Ortiz and Emilio Grenet, interviews and articles taken from popular magazines from the 1940ssuch as Bohemia and Carteles, and interviews with living musicians that the author collected during his travels through the island.As the author mentions, entries for equally important subjects varies in length, this dependedon the sourcesof information available;to be expected in this kind of work. The scope of the book is very ambitious and goes from entries of recognizedmusiciansto very littleknown Cuban artists. For instance, in the entry of the famousjazz band Grupo Irakere you find information on famous members like Paquito D’Rivera and Arturo Sandovalas well as informationabout the style of the group. On the less known artists you have an entry on Arturo Bovi, an opera tenor who was born in Italy and died in Havana,no mention of birth and death dates or the historical period. Cuban musicians from the island and from outside the island are found in the book without references to political affiliations, that is 180 The Latin Americanist Fall 2005 the case of artists like Celia Cruz and Arturo Sandoval who are very well known exiled artists, and Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo MilanCs who still live and enjoypopularity in the island.All areas of music are covered, from Afro-Cuban instruments to classical musicians. One learns about the origins of AfricanAbakufi music as well as about Harold Gramatges, an important contemporary classical composer. SinceI am a classicalguitaristI looked for entriesin my area and was pleased to find a great variety. I found entries for JosC Rey de Latorre, Ricardo Fernfindez Iznaola, Manuel Barmeco, and Carlos Molina; all these are recognized classical guitarists living in the United States. Isaac Nicola, Jesds Ortega, and Leo Brouwer are some obvious names of classical guitarists that stayed in the island after the revolution. Sometimesthe informationgiven for a particularartist is not totally accurate, that is the case for JosC Rey de Latorre whose death date cannot be 1944as stated in the entry. There is also the case of RenCe Barrios, a femalepianist and singer livingin Puerto Rico, she is mentioned severaltimes as a male singer. Some artists that enjoyed a successful career outside the island are not mentioned. For instance, popular singer Lissette Alvarez, who lives in Miami, has an entry whereas her parents, Tony Alvarez and Olga Chorens, have none; they were hosts of a very popular television program in Puerto Rico during the 1960s. There are entries that need to be up-dated like that of MiguelVillafruela , a classical saxophonistwho established the first class of classical saxophone in Chile and is professor of saxophone at the...