This virtuoso Cuban pianist has returned from New York to Havana with immense pride in his origins and training. During the dialogue with the press within the framework of the Jazz Plaza 2022 Festival, Dayramir González evoked:
“When I was at ENA I had the opportunity to be invited to play at the Casa de la Cultura de Plaza and I have been growing with the Festival, literally, since I was 16 years old I have been working at the Festival and it has always been a wonderful platform. , which has always had the courtesy to invite young people and trust young people”.
Later, exclusively with Cuba Si, he told us about his exchanges with young art education students:
“For me it has been the most rewarding moment of my stay here in Havana so far. On Monday I was at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, on Tuesday at the ENA (National School of Art) and then I was at the ISA (Higher Institute of Art). It was gratifying to be with the young people, wonderful feedback, going back to the school where I studied and being able to go back. Many of the things that I have been learning in New York, all the harmonic, cultural, counterpoint, thought baggage, how to study, how to prepare a study routine, we talk about all that with young people because they have to be motivated in that way ”.
For him, the potential of Cuban musicians, and especially pianists, are immense, as he expressed in response to a question from journalist Joaquín Borges Triana:
“It is very strong, because we are blessed that the Cuban pianist has such a high background, not only in jazz, we Cuban musicians are lucky that we can play jazz and bebop in the same way that blacks play it. Americans, but we have the “bullet”, later, of religious music. Cuba is blessed, because we have ethnic groups that came from the Congo, Benin, Nigeria, we have the Haitians with the French tomb, we have the purely Cuban rumba, classical music with the European training that we also receive here.
“When a Cuban musician is said, we are talking about a musician who is quite comprehensive, from the point of view of language, of preparation and I, as a cultural, social, Cuban ambassador who consider myself, aware, I know that I have a responsibility very beautiful on my shoulders, which is to raise the name of Cuban piano music”.
And that’s what Dayramir is doing around the Big Apple and around the world, making Cuba sound, in his own way and with a lot of heart, as in Tribute to Juan Formell and the Van Van, the album that he will present next Saturday:
“This is a wonderful album, where I wanted to take the Van Van out of their comfort zone. It is an album where I was aware of wanting to work with the Van Van, but from the composer. We made wonderful versions, there is a song that perhaps young Cubans do not know so much, called “Your decision which is.” This is a song that didn’t have lyrics, so it was a wonderful justification to make it jazzy.”
“There is a lot of Cuban within the album,” warned the author at a press conference and in an aside with CubaSi he added: “There is a wonderful tour of the Van Van’s music, but with many influences from Benny Moré, from Jorrín from Duke Ellington with his Big Band, from Mozart, Beethoven with European classical music, there are a lot of wonderful colors there that you are going to listen to and I hope you like it”.
He has come to Cuba for the first time with his New York musicians and with them he performed this Thursday at the Tito Junco room of the Bertolt Bretch and on Friday at the Teatro América. Both concerts offer us the opportunity to get closer to his most recent record production: “The Grand Concourse, a wonderful album that has also opened many doors for me, because it is the music that I have been composing for the last four or five years.”
