Band From Cuba Plays the White House with 1940s Havana Rhythms
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
For a couple of hours on Thursday afternoon, the ornate East Room of the White House – normally the backdrop for buttoned-up presidential statements and protocol-steeped official events – pulsed with the rhythms of a 1940s Havana club.
The Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club, a descendant of the 1990s Cuban band that was many Americans’ first exposure to Cuban music of decades past, performed at a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration on Thursday, the first time a musical group from the island nation has appeared at the White House in more than half a century.
“We’re thrilled to have them here,” President Obama said. “For nearly two decades, this group has been a symbol of the strong bonds between the American and Cuban people – bonds of friendship and culture and, of course, music.”
It was the latest sign of the thaw that Mr. Obama and President Raùl Castro of Cuba set in motion in December when they agreed to normalize relations between Washington and Havana and restore diplomatic ties severed in 1961.
On Thursday in the East Room, José Ramón Cabañas, the newly installed Cuban ambassador to the United States, was on hand to hear the group perform some of the original Buena Vista Social Club’s best-known songs – “Dos Gardenias,” “El Cuarto de Tula,” and “Quizás, Quizás” (“Perhaps”) – as the roomful of attendees swayed to the rhythm.
The conductor, Jesus “Aguaje” Ramos, with a trombone, prowled the stage in a bright-turquoise suit and bow tie, while Barbarito Torres elicited hoots and cries playing solos on his laùd, a traditional Cuban guitar-like instrument related to the lute.
Mr. Obama said he recalled buying the Buena Vista Social Club CD when the documentary about the group came out in 1999. The group is now on its farewell tour in the United States.
“I hope that I look as good as they do in a few years,” Mr. Obama said.
