Celia Cruz; Guardian obit

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 21:58:49 -0400
Newsgroups: alt.obituaries
Size: 4,875 bytes

Celia Cruz
The queen of Afro-Cuban music - from the mambo to salsa
Tomasz Zaleski
Friday July 18, 2003
The Guardian
Celia Cruz, who has died aged 77, was the most intensely, and extensively,
loved artiste in Afro-Cuban music, which, after the mambo craze of the
1940s, had, by the 70s, become a phenomenon for a second time, from then on
to be known as salsa. Her passionate and powerful singing, coupled with
humility and devotion to her public, was an extraordinarily durable
combination in a notoriously difficult field.
She came to represent the emerging identity of hispanic America, struggling
to keep up without losing its original cultural orientation. Her
performances were celebrations of this Latino identity, and so more than
purely musical occasions, with Celia symbolising a sensibility that seemed
under threat from the relentless homogenisation of modern life.
Born in the Santa Suarez neighbourhood of Havana, she began singing at home
to younger siblings and cousins. Even then, her voice was unusually rich,
attracting the attention of neighbours. Her father - a railway stoker - had
ambitions for her that precluded formally developing this talent, and she
trained as a teacher of literature. But occasional classes at the Cuban
national conservatory led to her instructors enlisting her mother's support
in allowing her to peform on the radio. After that, full-time
professionalism was inevitable.
During the late 1940s, Celia sang with the group Gloria Matancera, toured
the Caribbean with the dance troupe Las Mulatas de Fuego (The Mulattas of
Fire) and sang Afro-Cuban Yoruba religious music on radio and record. When
Myrta Silva, singer with the orchestra La Sonora Matancera, returned to
Puerto Rico in August 1950, the band's director, Rogelio Martinez, was quick
to ask Celia to replace her. They had the top-rating weekly show on Radio
Progreso, and after some initial disgruntlement with the change, listeners
were won over by the new star.
Many recordings from this period have survived to bear witness to a
phenomenon. Female singers were notoriously disparaged in Latin music, but
the sheer power, abandonment and skill in improvising of Celia's live
performances were unique.
They stand as evidence of her commitment, talent and radiance, and explain
how, years later in New York, she reclaimed her career as the leading spirit
of the new wave of salsa. Tito Puente (obituary, June 3 2000), the music's
most eminent bandleader, was to say on first hearing her, "I couldn't
believe the voice. It was so powerful ... I'd never heard a woman sing like
that."
Celia's golden age with La Sonora Matancera lasted for 15 years, with many
recordings and tours of Latin America. New York was conquered in 1957 with
her debut at the St Nicholas Arena. After the Cuban revolution of 1959, the
band escaped to Mexico, their greatest market; according to Celia, Fidel
Castro never forgave her, refusing permission for her to return home even
for her father's funeral.
In 1962, she was finally able to part company with her chaperone, as she
married the band's trumpeter Pedro Knight. He was to remain her devoted
husband, manager and musical director, and survives her.
It was not until 1973 that Celia was to re-emerge as an international star.
She was cast as Gracia Divina in Hommy, Larry Harlow's Latin version of the
rock opera Tommy. Her performance at Carnegie Hall stole the show and,
crucially, launched her career to a new generation of Latinos, comfortably
American enough to want to discover and express their ethnic pride. New York
Latin music was labelled salsa, and it easily became the vehicle of choice
for that expression.
It was the combination of Celia's perhaps old-fashioned sincerity and the
passionate delivery of her talent, leavened by a sly and salty humour, that
was to win her a unique place in the public's heart as the queen of salsa.
No one quite believed the sumptuous extravagance of her stage costumes; she
dazzled and beguiled. Across the generations, she represented their heart
and soul.
Professionally, this was the start of a dizzyingly successful period. She
was untouchable as the voice of the music. Her 1960s recording successes
with Tito Puente now paled before her triumphant collaboration with the
younger bandleaders who were modernising the idiom, yet queuing up to use
her to front their music - Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colon, Sonora Poncena and
Ray Barretto, groundbreakers all, were the hit bands who brought her to the
new generation. Together, they toured the world.
Among her many honours were three Grammies, the most recent in 2000, a star
in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999 and an honorary doctorate of music
from Yale in 1998. Of the many more than 70 albums she recorded, over 50 are
available today.
· Celia Cruz, mambo and salsa singer, born 21 October 1925; died July 16
2003