Chucho Valdes Considers Himself Exiled from Cuba
The Cuban jazz pianist was interviewed by Juan Manuel Cao on America TeVe television based in Miami.
HAVANA TIMES – At 83, Cuban pianist Chucho ValdEs has been trying to detach himself from the Cuban regime for more than a decade, although never with as much effort as since he supported the anti-government demonstrators in 2021. “It makes me very sad what my people are suffering, including my family. It hurts a lot to see the subhuman conditions in which they subsist. Enough of deception and lies. International humanitarian aid is essential,” he wrote that day.
It did not take long for those who recognized his courage to respond, but so did those who reminded him of the episode for which he will never be forgiven among many exiles who doubt the artist’s honesty: his signature on the letter in 2003 that almost thirty Cuban artists and intellectuals signed supporting the shooting of three young people who tried to hijack the Regla ferry to escape to the United States.
This Saturday, the artist was on the program A Fondo, presented by Juan Manuel Cao on America TeVe, where he vindicated himself as an exile and again strongly denied having signed the letter.
“Never, never,” insisted the musician, asked by the journalist. “It’s one thing that they put your name in a newspaper for no reason and try to sully your prestige and career in such a disgraceful way. And it’s another that there is a doubt, that there is a doubt,” he lamented.
Valdes explained that not only would he be unable to support something like that, but that he was not even on the Island when the events occurred. “I was here, in Miami, when all that happened. I was on tour in the United States, on the spring tour I always do, it was in March or April. And I find out, here in Miami, when I was in a hotel with a friend of mine named Raul Artiles, and he tells me that I’m in a photo and that my name is there. I was destroyed, because it’s very sad that they use you,” he says.
The artist assures that of all the things that have been said about him, this is the worst that has happened in his life, because he cannot erase the doubt that remains in many people, although he did say he was “calm” with respect to his family and friends, who “know it never happened.”
The pianist is the son of another piano legend on the Island, Bebo Valdes, exiled since the Revolution destroyed his work in the Cuban music scene. Having lived in Mexico, the United States, Spain and Sweden – where Bebo settled in 1963 and remarried – he died in 2013, after having returned to stunning success and performing with his son, who this Saturday agreed when Cao said he was exiled.
“Yes, yes, I live in Broward,” said the artist, referring to the county of East Florida where he has his main home, although he also spends time in Malaga, Spain where his father had a residence, after becoming famous with the help of film director and music producer Fernando Trueba. Both, in fact, participated in the multi-award-winning documentary on Latin Jazz Calle 54, which the Madrid filmmaker shot in New York in 2000, and which featured other Cuban artists.
Many missed the presence in the film of Arturo Sandoval, who later recorded an album called Calle 54: Music for Friends. He also spoke on Cao’s program this Saturday and referred to the matter.
“It’s very sad, very sad. That is the result of a hateful dictatorship that uses everything and everyone at its convenience. In Cuba the law does not exist; absolutely nothing is respected. There is no respect for the Constitution, which is the greatest mistake that a country can make, and they have abused and created horrors for many years,” he said before joking and showing his affection and respect for his friend, Chucho Valdes, who closed the program by playing, as in the opening.
Silvio Rodriguez, although more lukewarm, also distanced himself years ago from having signed the letter of support for the shootings. “I never supported those executions. And I’m sure none of the signatories of that letter did,” he said in 2020, almost on par with Valdes. Too late, for some.
Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.
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