- Lots of jazz and few spaces.
In Cuba, we are not aware that, for years, Cubans have been at the forefront of so-called Latin jazz. We have had our own history of jazz practice, which already covers a period of one hundred years, with a tradition independent of that of the United States.
No one could ignore the good moment that jazz is experiencing both in the country and in the best of the diaspora, to which the Jazz Plaza festival and, more recently, the Jo-jazz competition have contributed.
Attempts have been made to keep the jazz flame alive throughout the whole year, by means of the creation of night centers where the genre 's masters perform. In the second half of the eighties in Havana the Maxim emerged. It was not until 1995 that the initiative resumed, this time in a place named La Zorra y El Cuervo. Later, the Jazz Café appeared, with an atmosphere that has never been able to record the magic and spirit that reign in La Zorra...
Outside Havana, the history of the clubs of the genre has been quite unfortunate. The most fortunate one has been Santiago de Cuba, where there are several interesting jazz groups. Performances like those in the Havana neighborhood of Santa Amalia, those of the Cuban Jazz Club and the Fábrica Cubana del Arte (FAC) could not be overlooked.
The last of the recently opened places has been the Cafe Miramar, conceived at the beginning for only jazz to be played there, which has changed in recent weeks, when a new administrative team took over the management.
What happens with jazz made by Cubans comes to demonstrate, once again, that a lot of our genuine creators have been and are underutilized and that we continue without an adequate and necessary policy of dissemination, promotion and hierarchy. Solving the incongruities that still persist in our musical sphere is the only way to create a favorable atmosphere so that the temporary or definitive migratory process that has typified the Cuban jazz in recent decades is not repeated.
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