Original document at: <http://www.picadillo.com/lotz.html>
Mark Alban Lotz, a German born jazz musician working in the Netherlands, plays a wide variety of jazz music. He has long been involved with Cuban music and not long ago, he travelled to Havana where he ended up recording several CDs, "Lotz of Music in Havana" with his band and a group of Cuban musicians.
"Blues for Yemaya" is one of these CDs. When I first heard of the project, I was expecting a European band playing their music on site in Havana with a few token Cuban percussionists. This was completely wrong. "Blues for Yemaya" is what Lotz calls "Santeria music", traditional African-Cuban chants over hand percussion in celebration of the Santeria religion. Lotz and his crew provide the lightest touch, with a flute or a horn answering the vocalists, going off into restrained improvisations, but never overpowering the traditional music. This provides a fine effect, the Europeans enhance this music, playing with great respect.
We wanted to live like our Cuban friends live! That implies: six people in one private small room in Havana Vieja with one fan to provide some fresh air. We ate Cuban food (though I have to admit that probably our everyday food was the kind of stuff Cubans eat only on Sunday). We shared even the restrooms with ten other people! We went to their places, parties, etc. This makes the music sound different, I hope.
There had no concrete plans to record in Havana in advance. We wanted to perform and hold a lecture. So suddendly there was a lot of work in very short time to be done! We had to organize a lot, like the studio (we were very lucky to be able to work there for two days!), the video tapes to record (difficult to find in Havana!), additional musicians (coros especially), the instruments (all the percussion as well as tuba and acoustic bass), the only two rehearsals we got (naturally with only the half of the musicians who appeared on time if at all!)
The airconditioning in the studio broke - this implied: horible working conditions (it was hot!) and a piano which completely got out of tune! Funny also all the people I never saw before who suddendly dropped by the studio to join, listen and have fun.
Working with our Cuban friends was very inspiring but also very exhausting. How to combine our two musical traditions? We decided to stay close to their music and way of performing it. The reasons are first - I just love the Yoruba music (for example: in my opinion the best tune of the CD is Oggun) and second - this made work easier for us.
Also it is, like Miles Davis stated, all about taste! I did not want to allow any Popular Music (Salsa, Rumba, Pop, etc) to influence our interpretations of the Santeria Music (I like the term: avoid the salsa trap). I do not like most of the popular (American and Cuban) Latin Jazz music and as European jazz musicians we ought to try something else. We tried to blend our background as Europeans and world-citizens with that strong and beautiful Afro Cuban music, without destroying it!
I never before went to a concert by just hiring a local bus after his duty! Great show!
The Cuban audience liked our music very much. After our performance, some musicians even asked our Cuban collegues if we by coincidence were of Cuban nationality! Which we are obviously not with our funny names, pale skin and disabilty to speak proper Spanish or Lucumi. The biggest compliment though came months later - Alexis and Javier told me that they liked our interpretations more than those of Sintesis, Irakere and others.
The distribution of the CDs in the US is in the hands of Jeffrey Skillen, J3S@valley-media.com.