Word: rivera
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...leave the country to find home, and he had to be careful to give no sign at all of his travel plans. Passing through Madrid on a band tour in the spring of 1980, Sax Player Paquito D'Rivera, Cuban born and Cuban bred, was at the airport, bag packed as usual for another gig. Inside his luggage, however, was a carefully weighted assortment of stones, an army boot and a piece of a baseball bat. By the time the bag was stashed on the plane, D'Rivera was on his way into Madrid, planning his route...
Paquito D'Rivera, 35, may sound like a propagandist's dream, but the bopped-up, romantic, salty and sensuous jazz that he makes recognizes no real political boundary. It has roots equally in the hothouse Latin rhythms of his homeland and in the high-flying horns of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Lee Konitz. Adapting them, molding them and memorably melding all these elements has got D'Rivera three solid Columbia albums, of which the most recent, Live at Keystone Korner, is selling nicely, thanks. He has also become a musician whose talents are much in demand...
...Cuba," says Paquito D'Rivera, "jazz is a four-letter word." So, at the age of 32, he came to New York. Jazz may be spelled the same way in America, may even be locked into a perpetual cultural rearguard action, but at least it does not carry all kinds of touchy political ramifications. "Jazz music isn't forbidden in Cuba," D'Rivera elaborates, "but if you do that kind of music, they will put an eye on you. You're going to be like pro-American or something, you know." He also recalls some advice...
...Rivera left a lot back in Cuba, including a wife, from whom he is now divorced, and their son Franco, 8, for whom his father still yearns. "I am suffering a lot because of my son," D'Rivera says, "but if they put me again in the airport of Madrid, I would do the same thing. I am in love with my country. But my country is part of my past life. I don't want to return...
...Rivera has been blowing his horn since the age of five, when his father gave him a custom-made soprano sax. He played with a Cuban symphony orchestra at the age of eleven and made his first trip to New York when he was twelve. By then, he had already plunged into the swift currents of bop by listening hard to Charlie Parker records his father had bought...