On the penultimate day of 2022 we arrived at Calle Cuba between Tejadillo and Empedrado, Old Havana. The producer and friend Enrique Carballea insists weekly on the artistic proposals offered by this site and it is better to pay attention to a man like him.
We are the first to arrive. Half an hour later everyone sings classic Argentine songs. I discover Liliam Ojeda accompanied by some outstanding musicians. People hum songs by Fito, María Elena Walsh, Charly García…
Someone close to us wishes us for 2023 “health and exit”. It has been a “dog” year, but music helps a little and on that terrace on Calle Cuba one tries to forget.
We are at Café Solás, which is also known as El Café de los Artistas.
I return to Carballea, “more of a musician than some who are out there”, says the music lover Humberto Manduley and we agree with him. He is one of the most recognized music producers on the island. Several times awarded at the Cubadisco International Fair, Enrique Carballea is constantly creating and does not think twice to bet on beginning artists.
As executive producer, he began working with the unforgettable Santiago Feliú and continued with other artists and groups such as Sergio Vitier, Emiliano Salvador, Monte de Espuma, Donato Poveda, Frank Delgado, among others.
Linked to cafe solas He has been one of those responsible for bringing musicians such as Francis del Río, the Pyra group, Emir Santana, Janio Abreu, Alejandro Falcón, Emilio Morales or the Spanish group Las Mónicas, among others.
Why bet on a project like this? What motivated you?
I have known the owners since they were children. I was lucky to be “protected” in my youth by the exceptional teaching of the Uruguayan intellectual Sergio Igor Benvenuto Machado. He was my university, my tutor, my spiritual patron and still is. At his house I met and was interviewed at the age of 25 by Daniel Viglietti to tell my experience as an apprentice producer. Sergio generously opened that door for me as if he were having a mate.
When one of his sons, Aldo, called me to “invent” programming, I didn’t hesitate. Since May 2022 it has been a magical night every Monday. I am passionate about hearing great Cuban musicians so close.
How to describe this place in a few words?
In this magical Havana Jazz terrace, music heals any heartbreaking situation. Café Solás is a good stage of life. I don’t know how long it lasts, but I enjoy it. Even when I return home at so many in the morning and the miracle of having lived an illuminated night in a deserted city accompanies me. It’s miraculous sometimes.
A community cultural proposal
Café Solás is the son of a first project called Café de los Artistas located in Callejón de los Peluqueros, an initiative of the artist Luis Carlos Benvenuto Solás.
«After a few years we decided to bet on this project Café Solás that maintains as slogan ‘The artists’ café’, focused on the figure of Humberto Solás and is open to all Cuban culture. We have always dreamed of it as a cultural project with a bar-restaurant included, precisely because we come from that world: that of dance, the Gibara Film Festival, etc. ”, he comments to OnCuba Sergio Benvenuto Solás.
«In this post-Covid stage we have been able to launch ourselves to experiment, we have been more daring. For example, we take great care of the jazz project coordinated by Enrique Carballea. The Barrio Cuba film club coordinated by Sergio Adrián Benvenuto is also aimed at young people from 20 to 25 years old. The boys come to see movies and we have invited national cinema figures.
A few months ago, Café Solás celebrated the 25th anniversary of the film’s premiere Sapphires, blue madness, directed by Manuel Herrera and various tributes have been organized to other personalities such as the leading actress Daysi Granados, the Spanish cultural promoter Pilar Zúmel or the premiere of the documentary Bye daddy by the director Aarón Vega dedicated to the filmmaker Pastor Vega.
«We want to contribute to this area of the city with a purely community cultural proposal, without flirting with what gives money. We say to jazz musicians that you don’t have to compromise. The public comes to listen to good music”, says Benvenuto.
«We are surviving the crisis and it is a complex process but we are enjoying it because we do what we like and it works. I can’t tell you that today I came to work, I came to enjoy a concert. Our world is not the commercial world, we know that what we are placing has a level and we are looking for people with experience”, he adds.
