Bebo Valdés, patriarch of three generations of great Cuban pianists, died this week at the age of 94. Here's an excerpt from an article written by Ned Sublette, published in downbeat in 2008, chronicling a performance by Bebo and his son Chucho in Barcelona, which Ned has called "the single most electrifying concert" he's ever seen:
For this listener, the high point was the four-hands version of “Sabor a Mí.” When that song was a hit, hundreds of thousands of Cubans were about to leave the island. This won’t last long, they told their families. The Americans won’t permit it. Forever after, in Miami or Union City or Albuquerque or Stockholm, “Sabor a Mí” stayed with them, converted into a standard.
The song’s lyrics express a nostalgia for the present, as if the singer were looking back from the future and wishing he could relive the moment of beauty he was experiencing at that moment. That was how it felt to be there, that night in October 2008 in the ancient city of Barcelona. Playing together, Bebo and Chucho affirmed that, as the lyrics say, “a thousand years might pass by, maybe more,” but the sabor — the flavor, the essence — of Cuba would continue.
“I haven’t left Cuba,” says Bebo, though he hasn’t set foot on the island in 48 years. “I keep on being Cuban.”
Nor did Bebo and Chucho ever stop being father and son.
Here's a live version of "Sabor a Mí," recorded in 2005 at the Village Vanguard with bassist Javier Colina.
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