Prelude and Overture
When Christopher Columbus became the first European to lay eyes on Cuba during his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, he likely had no idea of the consequences his arrival would have — not one year later, and not 500 years later. Within decades of his arrival, the vast majority of the indigenous population of Arawak, Taino and Caribe people had been wiped out — either from disease or death at the hands of the colonizers. To fulfill the later demand for labor on the sugar plantations, hundreds of thousands of Africans were imported in the form of slave labor. And while it was the presence of the slaves that concerned the Spanish, these trafficked human beings could not be separated from their languages, rhythms, arts, instruments, religions, melodies and songs.

In Centro Habana, the climate demands openness, and the pulsating rhythms, the cantos of singing participants and the footsteps of the dancing mass of bodies flood from the interior rooms and courtyards, through open windows and doors, into to the street

Thus for more than 500 years Cuba has been the site of forced cultural integration. Religious syncretism has led to the practice of Santería, in which African gods take the names and physical forms of Catholic saints. Linguistic mixing has created a distinct Cuban dialect that infuses African words into the dominant Spanish vocabulary. And the rhythms and melodies of diverse African cultures, ranging from present-day Senegal to the Congo River Basin, have fused with Iberian sounds and song-styles, resulting in a music that is exclusively Cuban, and a place that can be wholly described through its music. During more than a year in Havana studying music and the city, I was awestruck by the importance of music in neighborhoods, the differing pulses of localities, and the distinct sounds that characterize places.

Centro Habana
My first apartment in Havana was near the corner of Calle Belascoaín and Calle Virtudes, in the crumbling neighborhood of Centro Habana. The streets of this inner-city neighborhood are lined with once elegant Spanish row houses that were, in a different lifetime, the focal point of the Cuban bourgeoisie. Now it is among the most overcrowded and decrepit sections of the city. Multiple families subdivide these former Spanish mansions, and often a single room of the former manor is cut both horizontally and vertically (a false ceiling creates a second floor within the single room) and houses an entire family. In the first week I was staying there, one of the centuries-old mansions gave way to years of abuse, overpopulation and under-reparation, leaving a pile of debris some four meters tall, ten meters wide and 40 meters deep wedged between two buildings awaiting a similar fate.

While structures seem to collapse and disintegrate all around, a more vibrant place in the city would be hard to find. This ransacked neighborhood is the heart of the Afro-Cuban. Going west from my apartment and left at the first light, past the remains of the collapsed building — still there six months later — and past the warehouse on the corner that has become permanent temporary home for hundreds of displaced people, is Calle Neptuno, the main drag through the neighborhood. Walking this street it only takes moments to see a young person dressed completely in white as part of the initiation to Santería or a priest of the religion draped in colorful beads, each combination of colors representing a different santo. And at night this neighborhood is taken by Afro-Cuban celebrations, usually in honor of specific saints on their saint-day. Invariably, there are drums. Among them the wooden cajon, or box that the percussionist sits upon while playing between his legs; the guataca, usually made from a hoe blade, whose high-pitched metallic pulse becomes the guide for all other instruments; the chekeré, a hollowed gourd strung with beads and played as a shaker; and the clave, also known as the “key”, whose simple three-two or two-three pattern is the rhythmic basis all Afro-Cuban music. In Centro Habana, the climate demands openness, and the pulsating rhythms, the cantos of singing participants and the footsteps of the dancing mass of bodies flood from the interior rooms and courtyards, through open windows and doors, into to the street. In its sound, sight, and feel, Centro Habana is the cultural hearth of the Afro-Cuban.

La Habana Vieja
Going east toward the Havana Bay, Calle Neptuno eventually leads to La Habana Vieja, the original site of the Spanish city created almost 500 years ago. As Centro Habana fades into Old Havana the rhythm of the streets change as well. The architecture and style of the buildings are even older than Centro Habana, and Old Havana feels like an entirely different world. This historical part of the city has been the recipient of millions, or even billions of dollars of investment for its restoration. As buildings are marked for renovation, residents are moved out (they are told it is temporary) and the construction crews move in. Building after building is gutted and restored, and more common than the return of residents has been the arrival of hundreds of thousands of tourists annually. Buildings that formerly housed multiple families become hotels and restaurants and galleries to accommodate the newer breed of Old Havana residents — Canadians, Italians, Germans, and the occasional brave American.

As in Centro Habana, music is everywhere. But with its newly restored architecture and its quickly changing demographic, the streets of Old Havana flow over the landscape to a very different sound. The new sound of Old Havana was defined by the 1996 release of the Buena Vista Social Club, an album [falsely] identified as belonging to Ry Cooder, and hugely popular throughout the United States and Europe. This music, the traditional Cuban son, is rooted in the songs of European troubadours infused with the percussion and rhythm of Cuba’s African heritage, and reached its height of popularity among Cubans in the 1940s and 50s. But today, leaving behind Calle Neptuno, and moving through the restaurants, lounges, and open-air cafes of Old Havana’s Calle Obispo, or Bishop Street, the sound is distinctively son. Old Cuban men in short-sleeve guayabera shirts and smoking Cuban cigars form the quartets and quintets that fit the mojito-sipping tourist’s pre-conceived notion of what a Cuban neighborhood should look like, and what Cuban music should sound like. The sound of Old Havana is traditional Cuban culture commodified and made new, packaged for the international visitors whose dollars are the lifeblood of this quarter.

Marianao
Old Havana’s Bishop Street ends at the start of one of the city’s most famous landmarks: the Malecón. From here running westward, this eight-kilometer seawall protects the city from the high tides of the Straights of Florida and is the northern boundary of Old Havana and Centro Habana. It passes the famed US Interest Section and eventually leads to the Almendares River. At that point, two bridges span the river and two tunnels pass underneath. Passing through either of the tunnels under the river, roads that previously paralleled the coast start moving slightly inland and uphill as they continue west. They lead first through Miramar, the embassy zone of the city, and finally into Marianao, one of the city’s largest residential neighborhoods — a neighborhood too out of the way for most tourist traffic.

Timba blasts from the pieced-together stereo systems in ‘57 Chevies and ‘77 Ladas alike. And residents don’t walk down the street, they swagger and dance — to timba — en route from one place to another.

For almost a year, I made this journey deep into the heart of Havana to the home of my percussion teacher, Eliel Lazo. During these biweekly pilgrimages I was often stopped for quick conversations with curious local residents (my blond hair, blue eyes and funny accent kept me from being mistaken for a Cuban) wanting to know why I had strayed from the beaten tourist path (that is, between the beach and Old Havana… was I lost?). When I told them I studied percussion in the area, they immediately understood why I made the relatively long journey by crowded bus twice a week. Marianao is to popular Cuban music what Harlem was to bebop in the 1950s and 60s. In Centro Habana, it is Bembé and other forms of the Afro-Cuban that seep from the crumbling structures, and in Old Havana traditional son saturates the air. But in Mariano, timba — a Cuban form of salsa syncopated with complex rhythms representative of the economic and political hardships of the post-1990 Special Period — defines the neighborhood. Timba emerges from houses and apartments where groups are rehearsing. Timba blasts from the pieced-together stereo systems in ‘57 Chevies and ‘77 Ladas alike. And residents don’t walk down the street, they swagger and dance — to timba — en route from one place to another. This is the new Cuban sound, and its home is in the streets and houses and dancehalls of Marianao.

This is a scene that has resolved the political problems plaguing US-Cuba relationships for more than four decades. It is a scene that has gotten past socio-economic differences which, upon exiting the club, are omnipresent in the glaring disparity on the street.

Vedado
Leaving Marianao and going back in the direction of Old Havana and Centro Habana, this time crossing the 23rd Street Bridge, buses, shared taxis, and the occasional private car move in unison toward downtown Havana, the most international and cosmopolitan sector of the city. By day this area, known as Vedado to local residents, defies easy categorization. In addition to a large residential sector, the neighborhood is made up of urban high-rises, hotels, national and international businesses, banks, shopping centers, the national university, and many government installations. Developed more recently than many other parts of the city, wider streets allow for heavier traffic and ample sidewalks provide abundant space for the multitude of pedestrians negotiating their way through the city on a daily basis. The international feel that downtown Havana possesses is a result of much more than tourism: if Old Havana is international in the sense of foreigners in Hawaiian shirts and tropical drinks taking rides in horse-drawn buggies, Vedado is international in the sense of foreign businessmen and diplomats in dark suits moving around in oversized black sedans with tinted windows and foreign flags on the antennas. While the rest of the country may lag behind, this neighborhood is Cuba in the 21st century. This neighborhood is Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union flexing whatever international muscle it can muster.

And it is a scene that celebrates its Afro heritage instead of being mired in the racial problematic that continues to afflict the rest of the country, and the entire world.

For everything that sets downtown Havana apart from the rest of the city, this neighborhood, like every other place in Havana, has a sound. On almost the center point of Vedado — the corner of 23rd and O — there is what seems to be a bright red British phone booth on the street corner. Upon entering, instead of a phone, a stairwell descends into a tiny basement club and restaurant — Havana’s hottest spot for local and international jazz. This club, La Zorra y el Cuervo, is downtown Havana by night, a musical microcosm of the emerging internationalism visible on the streets during the day.

This club is closer to New York City than anywhere else on the island, and the sounds are not those of Cubans performing a commodity for mass tourist consumption. Rather, the sound is of Cubans performing as a part of an international scene, on stage with their international counterparts in open jam sessions that can last well into the morning. This is where, during the Havana International Jazz Festival, I have seen international and North American jazz icons on stage performing with Cuban exile musicians and any number of local Havana jazzers.

Downtown Havana’s jazz scene, as played out in La Zorra y el Cuervo, is the idealization of the neighborhood by day. This is a scene that has resolved the political problems plaguing US-Cuba relationships for more than four decades. It is a scene that has gotten past socio-economic differences which, upon exiting the club, are omnipresent in the glaring disparity on the street. And it is a scene that celebrates its Afro heritage instead of being mired in the racial problematic that continues to afflict the rest of the country, and the entire world.

Finale
Approached from the outside, Cuba’s shared history and culture unifies the island and gives it its Cubanía, or Cubanness. In the 21st century, Cuban describes a people, a language, a culture, an identity. Approached now from the inside, from within the anatomy of Havana’s urban jungle, the view is quite different. New perspectives emerge, exposing cultural characteristics that otherwise go unnoticed in the all-too-common synoptic overview. As subsections of the city, neighborhoods, and even city blocks become the unit of analysis, generalizations fall away and previously invisible distinctions emerge.

In Havana, these distinctions are most clearly seen, heard, and felt in the rhythms of the neighborhoods. Musical definitions of place are richest, most personal, and most telling on a sub-city scale where the soundtrack of a neighborhood carries with it the shared cultural history of the small cross-section of the population that it represents. On this level, the walls and structures carry the beat. From here, the streets have rhythm.

All photos by Johnny Finn