Latinjazznet.com

1)   Congratulations on your debut release, Sana Locura. What is the significance of the title?

 

The title comes from a bolero on the album that was written for me by Jorge Perez Peña.  In that song, "sana locura" describes love.  I don't think it translates very well into English.  You could say "sane madness" or maybe "healthy abandon."

2)   Tell me about your formative years in Oregon and how you gravitated towards music. More specifically, Cuban music. 

 

We left San Juan when I was around 4 years old and moved to Eugene, Oregon (my mother had grown up in Portland). For the first few years, we lived in an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town.  I have vivid memories of that house and of singing and dancing on my parents' bed, then demanding they clap for me.  My parents had a lot of parties in that old house and I was always in the midst of it all, dancing. 

When I was eight years old, my parents divorced and my mother and I moved to San Francisco, where she enrolled at S.F. State University and worked as a secretary at an accounting firm.  She became good friends with a bohemian group of artists and performers.  I had a number of "aunties" in this group.  One of them was Margaret Burke, a young, beautiful and talented singer from the Midwest who taught me how to accompany myself on the guitar.  I had a repertoire of folk/country/blues/spirituals that I sang at parties and even performed in bars.  My mother signed me up for piano lessons, but I didn't practice very much and mostly just liked to improvise on the black keys.

I moved back to Eugene when I was 11 to live with my father, stepmother and baby brothers.  I performed in community theater, danced and sang in the high school jazz choir.

I was just 16 when I finished high school (in middle school I had somehow convinced the administrators that they should move me ahead because I was mature for my age).  I struck out on my own and lived in San Francisco, Barcelona and later New York where I studied at New York University.  I thought I wanted to be an anthropologist. I was given an internship by a professor from the University of Mexico to document indigenous culture in Mérida.  Before leaving, I went home to Oregon to work through the summer and save money.  I met my husband Donnie, became pregnant with my first son and abandoned my academic plans.  I was 23 when my son, Samuel was born.  Jackson was born three and a half years later.  

When Sammy was just a baby, I enrolled in some dance classes.  By this time my grandmother was living with us and suffering from Alzheimer's.  I would bring her to my classes and she would hold the baby.  One day, one of the conga players from the class told me the salsa group he was playing with was auditioning for a singer.  I tried out and began singing salsa. 

My first gig with them was at a local music festival called Fiesta Latina.  We were the headliners and played for a crowd of 3,000.  I just sang coros, but I was ecstatic.  I sang with Fernell López, the bandleader and his groups for a number of years.  He incorporated me into a 6-piece, folkloric group called Lo Nuestro, with musicians from México and Peru.  I hadn't played guitar since I was a child, but he encouraged me to pick it up again and taught me how to play Cuban son and bolero, joropo, son huasteco, son verecruzano, cumbias, plenas... We played a lot, everywhere we could- restaurants, clubs, festivals, parties, schools, parks, libraries, correctional facilities.  The guys in that band are like brothers to me. 

In 1996, not long after I began singing with the salsa band, I accompanied my father to Cuba to visit his boyhood home.  He grew up in La Lisa, what used to be almost countryside outside of Havana.  It was a profound trip for me, seeing this place though my father's eyes.  It felt deeply familiar-peoples' gestures, attitudes and sensibilities. Something resonated in me that I wanted to develop and express.  After that, I knew I wanted to sing Cuban music.

 

 

3)   Apparently your grandmother and grandfather, Anna and Antonio (Rocco) Marquez had a major influence on you both musically and politically. How so?

 

I never met my grandfather, Antonio. He died relatively young in Puerto Rico, before I was born.  I feel as though I knew him though because my grandmother always told me stories about him.  There was a hand colored photograph of him on her dresser that I often studied.  He had beautiful eyes that showed strength and kindness, the high cheekbones and full mouth of a Spaniard.  

My grandmother, Nani, and I were very close as I was growing up.  My parents would drop me off every Friday night at her house and the two of us had our special time together. She was a tremendous cook- well versed in Italian, Spanish and Cuban cuisine (arroz con picadillo, ropa vieja, frijoles negros, caldo gallego, bacalao a la vizcaina, cocido madrileño, favada asturiana).  She drank wine and coffee. She taught me to read in Spanish and how to sew.  She learned yoga from a program on TV and taught me some of the poses. She told me stories about her family's speak-easy in Brooklyn, and about how beautiful the Cuban countryside was.  There was a particular place in Cuba she said she used to go to on Sunday drives.  She called it "her valley" and said it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. 

 

4)   Another individual who influenced you is Angel Ervira Herrera, the musical director and voice instructor with Conjunto Folklorico Nacional I chuckled when I read that Herra once described you as  "a white woman who sings like a black girl..." What is your take on her description of your vocal style? 

 

Maybe she means I sing from my heart.  Angela has been a wonderful teacher and madrina to me.  She opened a lot of doors for me in Cuba.