With the conviction that jazz is not North American, but universal, the renowned pianist Arturo O'Farril declared Cuba as the nation with one of the most beautiful mixes experienced today in his life.
In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina, the jazzman confessed that he has experienced since his beginnings in this event of the Jazz Plaza International Festival, how artists from all over the world congregate to download and feel each piano chord, or trumpet or saxophone.
Cuba is one of the most beautiful fusions of humanity I have ever seen, the musician said.
You see all these people here, you see their faces," he asked the reporter, "they are from all over the planet; that is the beauty behind this show and, at the same time, all these participants have so much to teach us," he enhanced.
That to me is the spirit of jazz and the meaning of the festival as the opening of encounters between friends and brothers, he added.
Son of another great Latin jazz master, Chico O'Farrill, this musician is also composer and director of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra.
I consider this genre as a world heritage that comes from Africa," he said.
Referring to some differences between Cuban and North American music, O'Farrill commented on that richness and mixture brought from other regions, arrived here in Cuba through the arrival of many cultures, such as Spanish, African, Chinese and, without forgetting, the strong influence of American rhythms.
Let's talk, for example, about Europe, from where many of the musicians came, also because of a problem of geographical position, because this island was always like a cultural bridge, he said.
So all that influx brought a strong training for the people here and that also reflects the good of that continent in terms of each melody arrived in Cuba, which was forming its idiosyncrasy, said the jazzman.
It includes the harmony of the Iberians, of the French, that's why the musicians here are among the finest and best trained in the world, he ratified.
The maestro was very emphatic in that license of the Africans, as something, he specified, that cannot be defined.
It is those stories of life, of the people, of the daily life, of the relationship between neighbors in the so-called "solares", all that comes from the Africans, he added when describing his experiences in the Caribbean country, which he has been visiting since the first edition of Jazz Plaza.
O'Farrill pointed out that in jazz, as in life itself, spontaneity and naturalness are necessary.
Every day you have to float, the universe sends you new things and the secret is to create, he reaffirmed.
To a last question from Prensa Latina about his visits to the island, the musician did not hesitate and was quick to answer with certainty that as long as he is invited he will continue to come.