By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Pedrito Martinez learned music on the street in Havana.
As a child, he lived across the road from a theater where the great Cuban orchestras of the time rehearsed. He’d spend the day listening to them.
At 11 he joined a folk group playing cowbell.
And when 14 years later he arrived in New York, he hit the streets to listen to as much music as possible.
The percussionist and singer has taken what he learned on the streets to stages around the world and recording studios with his own quartet and some of the biggest stars in pop music.
On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, the Grammy-nominated Latin jazz performer and his quartet will perform a free concert Thursday (Nov. 7) at 8 p.m. in Kobacker Hall. As the Hansen Musical Arts Series visiting artist, he will also share his experience with students, both those studying music and those learning Spanish.
When talking with young musicians, Martinez said in a recent telephone interview, he tries to pass on lessons gleaned from “the way I learned, my roots.”
The key is to play as part of the ensemble, “to work as a team because that’s essential.”
As a folk musician he had to know how to sing the chants, and how to dance as well as play percussion. Mastering these skills was essential to being able to contribute to the ensemble. “If you don’t know the dance, you can’t make the changes,” he said. “Same with the singing.”
This training came in handy throughout his career as he worked with other musicians. “This versatility is a powerful tool,” he said.
“Playing a simple instrument like a cowbell in any kind of group you learn to keep time, keep discipline and learn to follow the rules and the director,” Martinez said. As a performer “I always focus on what people need from me.”
And that’s what he expects as a leader. But he also wants the members of his ensemble to contribute their own ideas that he can then work into the arrangements.
“All these kids in school have such brilliant ideas,” he said. “The teachers have to be flexible and to allow them to put those ideas on the table and work on it. This is essential.”
Sometimes rules need to be broken, “but it must be what’s best for the music and the arrangement. That’s what makes the music beautiful and more exciting, when you open it up to other ideas.”
In his youth in Havana he heard all kinds of music, both Cuban and by breaking the law and surreptitiously listening to radio signals from America.
“It was like a healing for me,” he said. That was true for most Cubans, who faced economic, political, and social hardships. “Music makes us better human beings. It was very healing.”
Martinez said: “I was a walking everywhere, checking everything, from traditional and folk to contemporary music, called timba. I learned so much in the street. There’s a lot of things in school you cannot get especially in Cuba.”
The island nation’s conservatories teach exclusively classical music. They don’t teach timba, or contemporary music. If you want to do it, you have to go to the street.”
He listened to all the music coming from across the water — The Meters, Michael Jackson, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton and more. It was forbidden fruit, and all the sweeter because of it.
Martinez urges music students when they finish schooling to experience that as well, checking out all the musicians they can, visiting all the clubs.
Living in the cosmopolitan city of New York affords him boundless opportunities to hear music from around the world, the Indian subcontinent, Brazil, Argentina, and Africa.
He made it out of Cuba at 25 with the help of Canadian jazz saxophonist Jane Bunnett. He toured with her, and then moved to New York. When he got there he went to Tower Records to find all the music he’d listened to secretly back home.
Martinez sought out music from Mali, Senegal, and Nigeria. When he heard artists such as Fela Kuti, he recognized something of himself in the soul and heat of the music.
“This is where I came from. This is what I love.”
In 2000 he won the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition.
Martinez, 46, also found himself in the recording studio with Paul Simon, Sting, Elton John, and other artists he remembered listening to. “I never thought I’d be playing with all those great artists when I was a percussion player who learned on the street.”
He formed his own quartet. The band shaped its sound with a four-nights a week residency in a midtown Manhattan club. They didn’t rehearse. The sound evolved naturally.
“My goal was to have the big sound of contemporary Cuban music,” Martinez said. Those timba bands usually sport horn sections, singers, and several percussionists. “It’s a big band,” he said. “I was trying t get that big sound with four people. … We finally have it.”
Besides the leader’s percussion and singing the quartet is rounded out by another percussionist, an electric bassist, and a keyboard player.
Martinez own set up consists of a cajon that he uses as a kick drum, five congas, a high hat, two other cymbals, and a snare drum. “I’m trying to do the work of a drummer and percussionist,” he said.
Martinez also sings. Martinez said he’s proud that he’s been accepted into the jazz family. He sees himself as carrying on the tradition established by such legends as Chano Pozo, Candido, and Mongo Santamaria. “I just follow those masters,” he said. “I don’t do anything they didn’t do before. I’m just trying to keep the legacy alive. It’s a big responsibility.”
For Martinez that means the music must continue to develop and change. Each of his recordings features the quartet blending in different elements, different styles, and different guests.
The most recent “Habana Dreams” includes guest appearances by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and singers Ruben Blades, and Angelique Kidjo among others.
“Curiosity, that’s one of the things that keeps my ideas flowing and creating,” he said. “I try to continue innovating. That’s a big thing. I always want the challenge of trying to find new things …trying to move forward with new ideas and evoke different emotions.”
He tells his musicians, “my brothers,” not be afraid “to give everything they have on stage.”
“Let’s have good time, have fun,” Martinez said. “I take music so seriously. I love music so much, and music will bring me back a lot of love and respect.”
He added: “you need make sure people feel at home and feel comfortable. You need to connect with people right away. … Let’s change people’s lives.”
