I passed some of the classy bars like Cafe Paris and of course Anbos Mundos (of Hemingway fame). But on Obispa, I heard some terrific music from afar and walked toward it. A small crowd stood outside, I went into a not particularly crowded bar, sat my ass on a stool and ordered a beer. Wouldn't you know my luck, the band stopped playing. After a quick chug, I went to visit Museo Granma, and came back in time to catch the band playing.
The sign behind the bar said "Lluvia de Oro" - Rain of Gold. And man, the music, it lived up to it. And this was my first proper audience with a Cuban band - after all, I had been in town for just 4 hours.
Now, this place is not swanky and my (rather useless) guidebook described it as "rowdy and raucous". It was high-ceilinged in an old-fashioned sort of way, on the corner of two streets. You entered, a long bar to the right, a seating area with simple chairs and tables on the left and then the area for the band, with further seating behind and what appeared to be a kitchen behind. A ruddy woman who may have been pretty some time ago served with a hatchet face, although on future visits I'd see her smile and joke with customers and others. A bald, black man with a perpetual sheen of sweat behind the bar, and an older white gent who may have been the chief bar dude.
On this occasion, I am not sure I spoke to the band - I am sure I paid up the usual 1 CUC tip. I went there a few more times. Eventually of course I started making friends. The trumpetist was a Taino Indian, from Guantanamo Bay. A spirited discussion ensued about the fucking Americans illegally occupying his province, and he and his friend the singer insisted the US base was but a small part of that province. It transpired that the trumpetist had never heard Louis Armstrong, and he was rather puzzled by this name many listeners had apparently compared him to. I promised to send him a music CD with some Armstrong tracks. We discussed how that might be possible, given the potential for such packages to be opened up by the "authorities".
On my final visit, the short maracas dude with really greasy curly hair and the singer all also swarmed me. The former wanted to buy my camera. The latter wanted me to buy the band's CD. This charade had taken place on every visit. On this, I finally bought it for 5 CUC, half the starting price, which only goes to show that the real trick to bargaining is to not give a shit - i.e. not want the product at all. "It's good quality, we recorded at a great studio", the trumpetist said and indeed it is, as I listen to it on my portable music device.
Now for the band itself: it was a classic 5 or 6-piece - a singer, a guitarist, a dude with the maracas, a bassist, a drummer, a trumpetist and maybe one more. The singer would walk about and yell in that thin, high-pitched latino vocalist way without a microphone and I thought to myself that battery-powered-amplifier-used-by-tour-guides would have made his life easier. The guitarist was a young-ish dude with long hair who went into paroxysms of ecstasy when he got the rare chance to go solo. The trumpetist, I think, told me he was the manager, but he might as well have been the water boy, doing various other things as well. But it was a sight to see these guys - the singer, maracas dude and the guitarist lined up in front and syncing their steps even as each performed his respective role. Once in a while they would do a fancy step, sideways, forward, a leap, then back and sideways again.
I don't care what fucking Frommer's says - if you are in Havana, go to Lluvia de Oro. Great atmosphere, tourists and locals alike coming in, and hopefully you get to hear the band - I think they are called Havana Soul.
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