Celia Cruz vs Talk Radio

October 25, 2010

At one time I listened to news/talk radio on my way to work. I gave up on that when I got sick of listening to the anger and bigotry of the callers and the "radio hosts" whose job it is to pour gas on the fire and re-enforce the callers' prejudice.

I can probably write pages about these talking heads on radio and cable, both conservative and liberal, who make millions by manipulating us into thinking they are the source of absolute truth.

It is so sad that so many people in this country rely on people like Glen Beck and Kieth Olberman for their facts.

Anyway, what does this have to do with Celia Cruz. Since I don't listen to the news anymore on my ride in and I get my sports on ESPN.com, I have recently taken to listening to NPR. Yes NPR does cover the news and world events, but during my ride time they mostly cover human interest stories. Today, they covered the "Queen of Salsa", Celina Cruz. Her NPR music clips were all terrific!!

Even though my ability to Salsa dance is about as good as my skills for riding a rodeo Brahma bull, I do love the music. Niece Rachel broke the mode of tradition and had a Salsa band at her recent wedding. It was so much fun and got everybody into the act. Imagine a group of mostly East-Coast Jews dancing Salsa..LOL , but it worked.

Ask me to name any Salsa artists and I can list two, Ricky Martin and Desi Arnez. So I found it so interesting to learn about Celia Cruz on my 15 minute trip to the office. Ms. Cruz actually reminded me of a Cuban Aretha Franklin. Her music was so full of energy. How could I not know about her? Well now I do!

Celia was born in October of 1924 in Havana. In 1950, Cruz made her first major breakthrough, after the lead singer of the Sonora Matancera, a renowned Cuban orchestra, left the group and Cruz was called to fill in. Cruz was hired permanently by the orchestra, but she wasn't well accepted by the public at first. However, the orchestra stood by their decision, and soon Cruz became famous throughout Cuba.

With Fidel Castro assuming control of Cuba in 1959, Cruz and her husband, Pedro Knight, performing in the United States at the time, refused to return to their homeland and became citizens of the United States.

In 1966, Cruz and Tito Puente began an association that would lead to eight albums for Tico Records. The albums were not as successful as expected. However, Puente and Cruz later joined the Vaya Records label. There, she joined accomplished pianist Larry Harlow and was soon headlining a concert at New York's Carnegie Hall.

By the mid-seventies Cruz had become an international star within the Latin community.During the 1980s, Cruz made many tours in Latin America and Europe, doing multiple concerts and television shows wherever she went, and singing both with younger stars and stars of her own era. She began a crossover of sorts, when she participated in the 1988 Hollywood production of Salsa, alongside Robby Draco Rosa.

In 1990, Cruz won a Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Performance - Ray Barretto & Celia Cruz - Ritmo en el Corazon. She later recorded an anniversary album with la Sonora Matancera. In 1992, she starred with Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas in the film The Mambo Kings. In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded Cruz the National Medal of Arts. In 2001, she recorded a new album, on which Johnny Pacheco was one of the producers.

On July 16, 2002, Cruz performed to a full house at the free outdoor performing arts festival Central Park SummerStage in New York City. During the performance she sang, "Bemba Colora." , the you tube version will give you a good feel for her energy, even as a women in her seventies: :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JtzanIsFAQ .

On July 16, 2003, Cruz died of a cancerous brain tumor at her home in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She was survived by her husband Pedro Knight, who died February 3, 2007.

After her death in New Jersey, her body was taken to Miami to lie in state in downtown Miami's Freedom Tower, where more than 200,000 of her South Florida fans paid their final respects.

I have ordered some of her music. Celia will accompany me on my hikes. i expect my pace will improve!

The Tiger. A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vailiant

Since a trip to far Eastern Russia is not on my agenda anytime soon nor on my bucket list, I took a journey there via John Vailiant's written word. I listened to Mr. Vailiant interviewed about his book on NPR and found the story so fascinating I had to go out and buy the book immediately.

As most of my friends and readers know, I am a big fan of non-fiction. Good non-fiction requires great writing simply by the fact that the story alone simply cannot hold the reader's interest for more than a few dozen pages. We all remember the booooring history books that were required in high school or the intro history courses in college. Only after I was out of school did I discover writers like Steven Ambrose, David McCullough, Doris Goodwin,Edwin Morris, Simon Winchester and John Krakauer to name but a few. These are writers who brought history to life as much with their prose as with their detailed research.

Valiant begins the book "Hanging in the trees, as if caught there, is a sickle of a moon. It's wan light scatters shadows on the snow below, only obscuring further the forest that this man negotiates now as much by feel as by sight."

Starting with such a vivid description I am immediately taken into the desolation of Siberia and the local lives of desperation and survival where the hunters have become the hunted. The story takes place in a forgotten part of the "New Russia" which has been abandoned with none of the wealth and modernity of cities West of the Urals. But in spite of all this, the people here are at one with their natural surroundings and have to survive like any other animal in this magnificent, raw wilderness. It is the Tiger who connects all in this story. He is the most admirable character in Vailiant's narrative. He is the one most closely connected to this region and a life and culture that is trying hard to survive, yet is loosing the battle.

The original story, which takes place in 1996 probably was probably buried in the back pages of Western newspapers, or not reported at all. A story about a Tiger eating people in Siberia might make its way to the National Enquirer, but not the New York Times.

What makes the book more interesting is how Valiant places the story of the tiger and the locals inside a historical perspective. When I turned the final page, it was if I was at one with the Tiger and his hunter, but I also closed the book with a knowledge of a part of the world I previously knew nothing about.

The imagery of post Perestroika Russia is as much a part of the story as the complexity of the characters.

I recall as a child a visit to the circus with my Dad and seeing the tigers in the center ring on their perches being "tamed" by a very masculine guy with leather boots and a whip. (No comments about the boots and whip please). I will never forget those beautiful, regal-like animals. This story brought back those vivid memories. I hoped for the tiger to prevail. Today, there are but a few Siberian Tigers surviving in the wilderness and it is likely that before too long the only ones remaining will be bred in captivity. Sadly, tigers raised in captivity cannot survive in the wilderness.

The book will make a great movie if done right. But don't wait for the movie, read the book. You will not be disappointed. And most of all, you will have a new appreciation for these beautiful, special animals.