Portal de Cartagena
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Omara Portuondo, the girlfriend of "Filin", as it is known in Cuba, Cartagena again tonight to give the 'Thank you' and to celebrate his sixty year career, years that have made her one of the leading voices and essential of Cuban son.
For ten years, when he first visited the city, Omara Portuondo and Cartagena have maintained a personal relationship.
In fact, the tour starts here presenting their latest album, 'Thank you' to an audience that filled the Teatro Circo and is given to the issues that Cuba has been singing throughout his career.
In a previous encounter with the media, Omara Portuondo has explained that with this record wants people to know that in addition to traditional ballad singing is jazz, but mostly, he wants to thank all those who have been linked to it throughout his career, beginning with their parents, the first to trust her.
It's time to give thanks for so many events I have lived, he said.
On this album also involved his son and granddaughter, plus collaborations with musicians young and merger issues Cuban rhythms with Brazilian rhythms.
Martyrdom is accompanied, as guest artist.
Together they will take the stage after the performance of Jose James, a Brooklyn girl whose voice is crossing U.S. borders with their album 'The Dreamer' in a double bill of Cartagena Jazz Festival.
The evening begins at 21:30 am in the Nuevo Teatro Circo and tickets cost 15 euros.
OMAR, 60-year career
Since his first records combined Cuban and American jazz, but thrilled the world with the heartbreaking silence that sang with Ibrahim Ferrer Buena Vista Social Club.
The success of the album and movie released to the public the voice of a woman who had spent years stirring the lucky ones who enjoyed it in clubs and cabarets of his native Havana.
Since then, she started singing in major concert halls and festivals in the world and from there his career has not stopped.
Omar was born in Havana in October 1930.
His mother belonged to a rich Spanish family and a marriage she expected the family to join another society.
Instead, she fled with her lover, a player from the Cuban national baseball team.
In addition he was black and in those days marriages between different races were deprecated in Cuba.
They had three daughters and as in any Cuban household there was music.
There was a gramophone (no money) but they had the voices of Omara's parents, singing in the kitchen where they made their daily lives.
When her older sister Haydee became a dancer at the famous cabaret Tropicana, Omara soon followed by accident.
The ballet company was reduced one day in 1945 when a dancer was removed two days before an important premiere.
Omara had watched her sister rehearse so often that he knew all the steps and asked him to enter the ballet was a very chic cabaret but I said it was unacceptable, Omara recalls.
I was very shy and ashamed to show my legs.
Her mother said she could not disappoint them and thus began a career as a dancer.
On weekends Omara and Haydee singing American jazz standards with some friends.
Cesar Portillo de la Luz, Jose Antonio Mendez and the pianist Frank Emilio Flynn, who still can hear him playing in the nightclubs of Havana.
They called Loquibambla Swing and playing style (a Cubanised version of the bossa nova with American jazz influences) is known as 'feeling' or 'Filin' (as is often written in Spanish. On their radio debut Omara was announced as "Miss Omara Brown, the girlfriend of filin. The English name was soon forgotten, but still known by many Cubans as" bride "feeling."
By 1952 Omara And Haydeee formed a female vocal quartet with Elena Bourke and Moraima Secada led by pianist Aida Right.
Became one of the most important Cuban musical history and Omara stayed with the Cuarteto Las D'Aida for 15 years, although the original lineup recorded only one album.
It was for RCA Victor in 1957.
His debut solo album, Magia Negra, appeared in 1959.
This straddling Cuban music and American jazz and includes versions of 'That Old Black Magic' and 'Caravan' by Duke Ellington.
After launching his solo album, stayed with the group and two years later was with Las D'Aida singing in a Miami hotel when the Cuban missile crisis caused the rupture of relations with America and began the long period isolation of Cuba, returned home immediately.
Continued with 'Las D'Aida' until 1967, when it began to pursue her solo career.
Cuban culture took on greater meaning and the art world was aided by the creation of various schools of music and art.
Many talented musicians emerged from these schools, and these artists gained the respect of his audience and the entire society.
Omara represented Cuba in international festivals, while maintaining its high level also in your country.
In 1996, during the recording sessions for Buena Vista Social Club World Circuit label, Omara was invited to sing a bolero and she chose "Twenty years."
I sang along with Compay Segundo, and became one of the highlights of the album.
There is a profound moment in the film by Wim Wenders 'Buena Vista Social Club' just as Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo just sing 'Silent' so heartbreakingly beautiful.
The song says that if the flowers in her garden see her sadness, surely wither and die.
When you receive the applause, a tear appears in Omara's eye.
Ibrahim takes a handkerchief from his pocket and gently clean tear.
It Wenders favorite scene in the whole movie by the way that captures the bittersweet romance of Cuban music into a single image.
In 2000 World Circuit released 'Buena Vista Social Club presents ...
Omara Portuondo ', the third launch of the series and an album that finally puts his expressive voice where it belongs: at center stage.
Omara recorded with a dream band that included musicians such as Ruben Gonzalez Buena Vista, Orlando 'Cachaito' Manuel 'Guarijo' ...
guest artists such as Eliades Ochoa, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer and Manuel Galban.
The album was received with great critical acclaim and led to Omara toured the world in 2000-2001 with fellow Buena Vista Rubén González and Ibrahim Ferrer, enabling a new generation of fans, the opportunity to see in a live concert this illustrious trio.
Source: Ayuntamiento de Cartagena
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