The Pure Emotions Of Chico O'Farrill

Latin Beat Magazine, June-July, 1999 by Luis Tamargo

Born in Havana in 1921, Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill was the great-great-grandson of an Irishman who fell in love with the "Pearl of the Antilles." In fact, there is even a Calle O'Farrill (O'Farrill Street) in the Cuban capital It was named after Chico's great-uncle, a former mayor of the city.

As the son of a prominent attorney, Chico was expected to pursue a law career. Il Chico had not dropped out of Havana University in 1941 to become a full-fledged musician, the history of Latin jazz would have been quite different. As novelist Oscar Hijuelos explains it: "Orchestral Afro-Cuban jazz as we know it today would not exist. "

From 1948 to 1956, Chico functioned as one of the most prolific catalysts of the Cuban jazz movement in New York. During the second half of the '50s, upon returning to his native island, he was a major force behind the legendary descargas recorded by Panart and other pre-Castro labels. From 1958 to 1965, Chico resided in México City, but eventually got bored and moved back to his adopted Big Apple.

Throughout his musical career, Chico has arranged for musical performers as dissimilar as Stan Kenton, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Moré, La Lupe, Cal Tjader, Clark Terry, Gato Barbieri, Mario Bauzá, Ringo Starr and David Bowie, while composing symphonies fora variety of philharmonic orchestras in the Western Hemisphere.

The following conversation covers diverse chapters of Chico's existence, from his early conversion to swing and his adventures with Havana's jazz pioneers to his triumphant return to the recording studio as a bandleader in the mid-90s, after a 30-year hiatus.

LUIS TAMARGO: Where and when did you learn to play your first instrument?

CHICO O'FARRILL: I learned to play the trumpet at the Riverside Military School in Gainesville, Georgia, when I was a teenager. My family sent me there because I was misbehaving in Havana. That is where I heard jazz orchestras for the first time. That is where I fell in love with jazz, and where I decided to become a jazz musician, particularly after I joined the school's jazz orchestra. Fue peor el remedio que la enfermedad(*) (LAUGHTER).

LT: After dropping out of law school in Havana, you worked with guitarist Isidro Pérez's jazz band. Was this the first Cuban orchestra which performed jazz tunes composed and arranged by Cubans?

CO: Yes. It was the first to prominently feature Cuban arrangers, such as yours truly. Isidro Pérez's band granted great expressive freedom to those Cuban musicians who cultivated the jazz idiom in the early 1940s.

LT: Did you study with Félix Guerrero, the author of Tríptico Campesino?

CO: Yes. I do not know il he is still alive, but he had a tremendous musical knowledge from a technical perspective. That is precisely what I needed to acquire at that time. Fora couple of years, Félix instructed me in the areas of composition, orchestration, harmony, etc. We were also bandmates while he played guitar with Orquesta Bellamar, a band led by saxophonist Armando Romeu Jr.

LT: It appears that Romeu, Isidro Pérez and other Cuban jazz pioneers did not receive much recognition.

CO: Back then, Cuba's upper class only recognized classical music. It was rather pretentious on their part. They did not recognize jazz because it was associated with people of lower status.

LT: Shortly after moving to New York in the late 1940s, you wrote the successful Undercurrent Blues for Benny Goodman, who had formed a new orchestra to play bebop. Was he surprised to find a Cuban who could write jazz arrangements?

CO: Yes. He even confided to some of his close associates: "This is incredible . . . I can't believe it! This Cuban fellow can write jazz!" (LAUGHTER). When I came up with Undercurrent Blues, he was so impressed that he hired me as a permanent arranger. That piece brought much recognition to Benny's new orchestra...He had a difficult time articulating my first name, which he pronounced as "Arrtoorow" (LAUGHTER). This is why he ended up calling me "Chico", a nickname applied to all Cubans back then.

LT: You also arranged for the puerto Rican pianist Noro Morales, author of María Cervantes.

CO: Noro was a tasteful and exciting pianist. He had plenty of swing, as well as a significant technical command of his instrument. Nevertheless, he failed to develop his own style.

LT: You were commissioned by Norman Granz to write Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite, a piece recorded by Machito and his Afro-Cubans in 1950. Do you think that it was the first suite of its kind ever written?

CO: I think so. Ah extensive section of that suite was dedicated to highlight great soloists associated with Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic (Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, Buddy Rich, etc.) These soloists were accompanied by Machito's orchestra.

LT: Eventually you were so busy as ah arranger that you stopped playing the trumpet.

CO: Yes. I did not have any time to practice. Around that time, I organized my own orchestra and began to record for Norman Granz. That is when I recorded my Second Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite. I thought that it was superior to the first one, but it was not as successful. Perhaps it was rejected by the public precisely because it was more complex and elaborate that the first suite.