The Afro-Cuban All Stars perform during this year’s Singapore Sun Festival. Courtesy of Singapore Sun Festival

"Cuban music is like cultural cocaine," said Juan De Marcos-Gonzalez. "At the end of a concert, people are touched. They dance!"

This was a bold statement indeed, yet so true. Cuban music has the magic to make our head, hips and legs move on their own, even without us realizing it. And that is just what happened when the Afro Cuban All Stars performed at the Esplanade.

Part of the Singapore Sun Festival festivities, the Afro Cuban All Stars were the closing concert for the festival. It was a really great choice to end an international festival such as this one. Orchestrated by Juan De Marcos-Gonzalez who brought you the world-renowned Buena Vista Social Club album, the Afro Cuban All Stars is his grand plan to showcase the diversity of Cuba's musical heritage by presenting the country's brightest talent, such as veteran trombonist Alberto "Molote" Martinez and percussionists Calixto Oviedo and Jose "Pepito" Espinosa.

Coming from a musician family in Havana, Juan has a direct lineage to the greatness of the golden era in his blood. His father (Marcos Gonzalez Mauriz) was a vocalist who performed with Arsenio Rodriguez, the legendary bandleader of the Gonzalez family who achieved fame with Dizzy Gillespie's big band in the *40s. As a musician himself, Juan demonstrated his love for his own musical roots from an early age.

"In 1978, we created the first teenage traditional band in Cuba. We used to dress up like punks; you know the kind of style. We were at university and we created this band called Sierra Maestra," he said. "The reaction of the old guys was huge and the reaction of the young generation mirrored it. So we brought the old-time music to the young guys, in fact after the Buena Vista Social Club."

The response made him "very proud", he said, "because Cuban youth and young musicians started to look at traditional-style music."

But now, he fears, Cuban youth are becoming "too American".

"It is OK to use the elements of American music. Hip hop it's all right, the good hip hop like Tu Pac, Ice Cube, Snoop Dog - they used to be really good, but were becoming too American," he said. "After the Buena Vista Social Club album came out they turned their eyes to more traditional music. Of course, they didn't play danzon in traditional style. But they were playing danzon with synthesizers and rappers used what we had in the past. You cannot forget what you have, your history and your ancestors, and your roots."

He pointed out that Cuba does not have the same racial divide as in countries like the United States or South Africa. Rather, he said, people get together and create clubs.

"There was a society for poor black workers called the Buena Vista Social Club because it was in a neighborhood in Havana called Buena Vista," he said. "In 1939, a great Cuban composer and double bass player, who died couple of years ago, named Israel *Cachao' Lopez wrote a kind of pure music called danzon called Club Social Buena Vista in Spanish. And when we recorded this danzon while making the Buena Vista Social Club album, we decided to use this title for the album and, later on, for the band too."

The danzon that Juan talks of was once known as the official dance of Cuba, before it became thought of as scandalous and controversial during that era. Apparently, the danzon, which later became an insipid dance for older couples, was at first danced with "obscene movements" of the hips by young couples in close embrace, with bodies touching, and by couples who might come from different races.

However, that was in the past and now danzon is back with a more contemporary sound, like that which the Afro Cuban All Stars performed in their one-and-a-half-hour nonstop stage performance.

Juan De Marcos-Gonzalez dedicated this concert as a tribute to several key players of the original Buena Vista Social Club such as Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Fehrer; and gave tunes that were popularized by them, such as "El Cuarto de Tula", a more contemporary sound, a la Juan.

"Ibrahim *Fehrer* died on Oct. 12, so I thought the best thing was to do a tribute to them," he said. "We are going to perform a few of their songs at the concert, in my style of course, which is more contemporary. To make it a little bit more understandable to the youth, but in the end it is still the same music and same roots."

Though Juan enjoys much success overseas, support from his own government is not forthcoming. You might expect that world-famous musicians, such as him and his group, would be well-known in their own land, but none of them actually live in Cuba any more.

"No, no, I even lived in London for a while, and then I moved to Mexico to take care of my daughters who are studying there. It is the same in any country. If you can get a position and if you can make it there, then you are going to live well. Even under the embargo," he said.

"Most first-class musicians are leaving the country. If you don't have the support of the government, you can't do much."

Without support from the government - "difficult because they are communist and I cannot operate freely" - Juan was not able to start a record label in Cuba, doing it in London instead.

"I hope it will change in the future, hopefully. I think I won't see any change in Cuba during my lifetime. But perhaps, during my grandchildren's time, there will be change," he said.

"I have never had any problem with the government but what I would like to have is the freedom to create a business in my own country. It is very stiff and *the government* want to control everything in the country. It doesn't matter if you have a dictator or are communist as long as they are open economically, like China. Cuba is a beautiful country. It has nothing and is very poor, but this is my land, my spirit and my people."

The country might be poor under the embargo, but the music is so rich, with such lively melodies, that it makes you glad to be alive and want to enjoy every minute of it. The Afro Cuban All Stars brought that to their concert in Singapore and moved everyone who watched it. For one night only, the Esplanade was transformed into the Buena Vista Social Club, with people dancing to the danzon melodies.

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