Seven Hours with Jorge Luis Piloto in Miami / Ivan Garcia

Jorge Lis Piloto and Ivan Garcia in Miami

Iván García, 4 February 2015 — For the prolific and noteworthy Cuban composer, Jorge Luis Piloto Alsar, born in the winter of 1955 in Cárdenas in the town of Matanzas, some 145 kilometers north of Havana, not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that his songs would achieve international fame.

Let’s get into the time machine. An ordinary day in the ’70’s. Culturally speaking, Cuba was going through a rough period. Writers, poets and composers are being administered by the state, following Fidel Castro’s decree.

The cinema, novels, la guaracha, and sound must highlight the exploits of the revolution. The government controls all of it. In your profile, you have to indicate how many marches you have been on and how much voluntary work you have participated in, if you want to pass the summer in a house on the beach, have a Russian fridge, or reserve a table in a restaurant.

The Communist party membership card and loyalty to the “bearded one” [Fidel] are more important than talent. In the middle of all this greyness, where ideas, and the future, are whispers from on high, Jorge Luis Piloto was a social misfit.

He arrived in the capital at the age of 15, his cajón over his shoulder, and plans for the future. With his mother, Beba, he ended up in a room in an old apartment building in Romay 67 between Monte and Zequeira, in Pilar, in the Cerro district of Havana.

Looking like a long-haired freak, devoted to rock and caring nothing about Castro’s lengthy speeches. He took refuge among his friends, like the black man William (may God rest his soul) or his girl friend, who suspected that Cuba was not the place for them.

He distracted himself by going to Latino Stadium to watch his baseball team, the Industriales, play. Or by sitting in a corner or on the Malecón, dreaming of a different future.

1980 was an amazing year. One hundred and twenty-five thousand Cubans, including Piloto, took advantage of the opportunity to leave their country. Before they left, they had to put up with the regime’s vendettas, camouflaged in fascist-style acts of repudiation.

Or personal humiliations. Before getting on the boat to go to Florida, they had to sign a document in which they admitted that they were delinquents, prostitutes or homosexuals. The government owes a public apology to the honest Cubans who emigrated in the Mariel Boatlift

Piloto arrived in Miami on a rainy day in May 1980. Without either his guitar or any money. He only had his wishes. He worked very hard doing different things, not much of it playing music. One morning his wife reminded him that he hadn’t left Cuba to live as a labourer.

“Where is the Jorge who dreamed of being a composer?” she asked him. With his next wage he bought a cajón. His first song, La Noche, co-written with Ricardo Eddy Martínez, was recorded with Lissette Álvarez in 1983.

Jorge Luis Piloto was A & R with Sony Music (1988 – 1996) and was nominated nine times for Grammy Latino. He gained the first one with his song Yo no sé mañana, co-written with Jorge Villamizar and recorded by the Nicaraguan Luis Enrique. In 2010, the Society of American Authors, ASCAP, awarded him the Golden Note prize for his 25 years of work and his musical contribution to the Hispano-American repertory.

His ballads have been interpreted by singers of the calibre of Gilberto Santa Rosa, Christina Aguilera and the incomparable Celia Cruz. In 2012 he wrote a song for the Damas de Blanco which was played when they marched through the streets of the island.

On Monday, November 17, after 34 years, I met Jorge, my neighbour from the Pilar neighbourhood, in Miami. We chatted for seven hours. He still had a youthful physique, although he was almost 60. “There is no way I can put on any weight”, he says. He remembers his past in Cárdenas and Havana and his friends from that time.

But he is fond of Miami. His pride in this south Florida city is apparent. We drive along in his car, through every space, residential development, and places of interest, like the Marlins Stadium, the cruise ship port, the Ermita de la Caridad and the tunnel which goes under the port.

He showed me the only statue there is in the city and we ate in a tourist cafe on the banks of the Miami River. I asked him if he has thought about returning to Cuba the democratic future which we are all hoping for.

“No, I belong here, with my son, my wife, and my mother. I could contribute to whatever needs doing. But Miami is my home now,” he points out, while he talks in English  to his son on his cellphone about Giancarlo Stanton’s fabulous contract with the Marlins. The Industriales aren’t his team any more.

Travel journal (VII)

Translated by GH

4 February 2015