Cuban Airs to Sound On Colorado Range

Cuban Airs to Sound On Colorado Range?

The Rocky Mountain News (Daily), November 27, 1944

The plaintive if slightly monotonous tempos of the West Indian calypso may leave their mark on the lustier folk music of western North America as an indirect outgrowth of the war.

That opinion was voiced in Denver yesterday by Lt. Jorge Bolet, noted Cuban pianist and assistant military attache to the Cuban Embassy in Washington. Lieutenant Bolet is in Denver for an appearance with the Denver Symphony Orchestra next Friday under the baton of Franz Allers. Tall, handsome and with a rich voice in which there is not even a shadowy trace of accent, Lieutenant Bolet expressed the belief the current importation of Cuban, West Indian and Mexican agrarian workers will have a definite influence on Western music of the future.

Cuban Music Waning

“But turn about is fair play,” he added. “Hollywood writes a lot of primitive African stuff, puts it to Spanish tempo and calls it Cuban. It catches the fancy in Cuba. The result is that real Cuban music, the bolero, for instance, is on the wane in its own country.

“A Cuban peasant sings about anything — a political uprising, a strike or abdication of a ruler. He puts his story to verses, usually 10 lines, called decimas. Like the calypso songs, they don’t have much tune, but they have a sort of plaintive appeal. These are the kinds of songs that are invading particularly the Western United States.”

To illustrate his point, Lieutenant Bolet sat down at a piano in one of the KOA reception rooms and played a Cuban folk song. There was a striking similarity to some popular American songs of the range.

He will play Schumann’s Concerto and a group of Latin American compositions with the Denver ‘Symphony Orchestra at its third winter concert in City Auditorium Friday evening.