Nov 11, 2005 - In Cuban music, Marquez finds an unexpected blend

by Carolyn Lamberson
The Register-Guard

It's been a year since Eugene singer Jessie Marquez released "Sana Locura," a collection of music she recorded in Cuba with Cuban musicians.

"Sana Locura (Sane Madness)' covers a wide range of genres - guajiras, boleros, guanguancos, trovas, a son-timba and even a salsa. But a return trip to Cuba earlier this year inspired a new direction for Marquez - the Cuban genre of 'filin."

Jessie Marquez in CubaFilin, a Cuban spelling for "feeling" music, is a melding of the traditional Cuban bolero (love ballad) with American jazz and blues, Marquez said. It's a style born of the 1950s and '60s, when the bolero underwent a renaissance in Cuba and became highly influenced by American music.

'It became much more harmonically colorful," she said. "It started adopting those kind of harmonies. It became freer rhythmically. They called it 'feeling' music."

She'll bring a little filin with her when she teams up with jazz guitarist Mike Denny and his trio - Josh Hakanson on drums and Greg Nathan on bass - for a show on Saturday at the Jaqua Concert Hall at the Shedd.

Marquez points to the American music of the 1930s and '40s as the closest comparison to filin.

'When you listen to a song in the filin style, next to a song of an American standard, they're speaking the same musical language,' she said. "It's like whoa, these are the same.

'Well, they're not the same, but they're related. They're talking to each other.'

Her repertoire at the Shedd will blend traditional bolero, filin and American standards, including "Night and Day," "Some Other Spring," "In My Solitude" and "God Bless the Child," among others.

Marquez will sing in English and Spanish, and will translate one bolero, "Nostalgia," from Spanish into English. Marquez was introduced to filin music earlier this year when she spent three weeks touring Cuba with a group of musicians as part of the national bolero festival.

'When I came back I knew that I wanted to explore the genre," she said. 'I knew I had a lot of work to do and I knew I had to get as much experience as I could.

'I wanted to start working with a guitarist. I really like paring down and just working with another instrument or a couple other instruments.'

Marquez knew Denny from when she took guitar lessons from him.

'I showed him my ideas, the repertoire, and we started playing together," she said. "He is really a master who has taught me so much, not really instructing me in any way, but just playing with great players elevates your own work.'

Marquez knows that people who have come to appreciate her work through "Sana Locura" or her tenure with Eugene's salsa bands - Lo Nuestro, Son Mela'o and Caliente - might be surprised by her "genre shift."

"But I think it's wonderful music,' she said. 'I've had a lot of people say to me, 'Wow, I've never really heard you sing, or was able to distinguish your voice.'

"It's very exposing to sing just with a guitar or with the trio. It certainly requires a different approach to singing, which has been great.

'It's been great to challenge myself that way."