By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, May 2 2000 (IPS)

Singer-songwriter Jorge García says Cuba’s ‘trova’ music will always be trova, no matter what people want to call it, in response to some of his colleagues who are attempting to found a musical genre they would instead call ‘La Novísima’ (The Latest).

For this 42-year-old master of trova, Novísima is nothing more than the continuity of the Cuban ‘nueva trova,’ founded by Silvio Rodríguez, Noel Nicola, Pablo Milanés, and others – a musical genre in which the lyrics are all-important and often involve social commentary.

“A name does not change the essence and so far the essence remains the same,” stated García, who usually shares the stage with his guitar only, but is occasionally accompanied by a small band.

In the mid-1980s, what was known as the New Trova Movement disappeared as an institution that encompassed all Cuban ‘trovadores’ (poetic singers or ‘troubadours’), but “from the aesthetic point of view, trova is still alive,” García says.

“Qué voy a hacerle/ si soy un trovador que sólo quiere/ poder poetizar con la guitarra/ y no ascender a golpe de palabras” (What am I going to do to you/ if I am a trovador and want only/ to be able to make poetry with the guitar/ and not turn to the striking of words), he sings in “Nadie es perfecto” (Nobody is Perfect), one of his best known songs.

García wrote another favourite, “Los Salieris,” in response to Spanish singer Joan Manuel Serrat’s “Los fantasmas del Roxy” (Ghosts of the Roxy) and “La última palabra” (The Last Word).

García, a trovador of the purest stock, according to Nicola, appears more and more often on Cuban television and is currently on his first national concert tour, which will cover more than 40 cities and towns on the island.

A graduate of the Havana Conservatory in guitar studies, García began to make a living with his music and his voice in 1988 when he decided to leave behind, once and for all, his eight years of teaching Russian.

In just over 10 years he recorded the albums “Jorge García” (1991), “Más allá” (Beyond – 1996) and “Cambios” (Changes – 1999), in addition to two other albums of music for children.

One of these, “Vamos todos a cantar” (Let’s All Sing), is a tribute to the nueva trova of Teresita Fernández, who has composed the most popular children’s songs in Cuba of the last few decades.

García’s project, which included the participation of musicians from several generations of ‘trovadores’ who affirm that they “owe a lot to Teresita,” is a nominee for the island’s prize for the best children’s music album of 1999.

“The fact that he (García) is pursuing this project tells me he is very experienced in solidarity, in humanity and in trova, which are words and debates that have always been of great interest to me,” said Silvio Rodríguez, one of the movement’s founders and a contributor to the musical tribute.

“I think I am spiritually at a good creative moment and, though materially everything is not roses, I am making the necessary songs, at least for me,” affirmed García, adding that irony is “an effective weapon against feeling powerless.”

His songs include many stories of love, but also of the ripping apart, the deterioration of the Cuban capital, the pain of those who have died trying to emigrate to the United States, the new legions of beggars and the rejection of the military troops who take over the land.

“I sing to everyone (…) to my city that suffers, to the people who are desperate, to those who are no longer here, to those who chase their dreams, to those who reap adventures,” he says.

He adds that he only offers up his songs and hopes that they are of some use. “If I help to transform or solve some evil with them, all the better.”

“The traditions that are genuinely ‘popular’ are never broken because they are not based on an institution. Making songs is much more authentic than making some law,” said the musician.

The singer-songwriters who founded Cuba’s nueva trova in the 1960s declared themselves the disseminators of a traditional movement that dates back to the end of the 19th century and one of its most important figures: Sindo Garay.

Since then, the Cuban “troubadours” have been people who compose their songs, sing them and usually accompany themselves with a guitar, a very economical instrument compared to a piano, and much easier to transport.

But in recent decades trova has been defined, above all, as a way to make a song, and its performers began to use backup musicians who played acoustic and amplified or electronic instruments.

“I won’t deny that some day I’ll be accompanied by a group or even a symphony, but today all I need is my guitar,” García said.

Though some may believe that being a trovador no longer attracts the public, this singer-songwriter says, “in these times we have reached an interesting point. Anything goes, from the most piercing rock ‘n roll to the most modern musical suite. And for everything there is an audience.”

Excerpt: