BY GABRIEL MOLINA / PHOTO: RAUL LÓPEZ

BENNY Moré had an overwhelmingly striking and charismatic personality. Though he never received musical training, he was a wonderful singer and composer, perhaps the most well rounded artist in a country known for producing outstanding musicians.

Forty years after his death, he is loved "Hoy como ayer" (Today like yesterday). He had a unique style of singing rumba, boleros, guaracha, mambo and guaguancó. This is why he could say to Rolando Laserie: "Elige tú, que canto yo" (You choose, I’m singing), an original musical challenge.

José Artemio Castañeda Echeverría, better known as Maracaibo, as Benny himself nicknamed him in 1958-59, tells how that phrase came out of a television program. At the time Rolando Laserie was very popular with the Rio Manzanares guaracha, but when Maracaibo’s Oriental went out on the air, "Lasserie’s ratings dropped and that was the end of the story."

Mauro Gómez Suárez, a saxophonist who played with Benny Moré for many years in the famous Banda Gigante, said: " ‘You choose, I’m singing’ emerged from competition between him and Laserie, but it was not a rivalry, as they were friends. Laserie played the drums when the band was first formed, but they both knew that Benny was the star."

Researching this 100%-Cuban phenomenon was an emotional and professional pleasure. I took advantage of this anniversary to supplement the first-hand information I still needed by speaking with those who knew him personally, those from the Ali Bar.

This is the case of Gómez Suárez, who has now returned to the band, reinstated at the historic Dolores Avenue venue in Arroyo Naranjo, in an attempt to relive with a mixture of nostalgia and joy, from Thursday through Saturday, the unforgettable nights when Moré was among us.

Nobody but Benny Moré could step off the stage dancing without losing the rhythm or tone, move through the entire room singing "Guantánamo, here goes my son" and improvise messages for audience members sitting at their tables.

"Improvising was one of Benny’s most notable qualities," Mauro Gómez Suárez noted when I referred to this incredible skill. "I believe it comes from the tradition of campesino music worshippers, son montuno, guaguancó and improvisers. The Radio Progresso recording of a fabled controversy between him and Joseito Fernández —author of the classic ‘Guajira Guantanamera’—still exists."

He was also an artist at mimicry, he transmitted sensations recreated by the band with his eyes, mouth, hands, legs and entire body. It was his style of acting and directing the band. It is said that people liked to dance with him, but I don’t remember his admirers dancing, they preferred to see, hear and enjoy him. He alone was the show.

Juan Morell González joined the Banda Gigante at Mauro’s instigation in 1961. What most impressed him was how Moré treated and defended the musicians, and the way he related to people, so naturally. He attended to everyone, even if he was in a hurry."

In fact, love and consideration for his peers made up his very impressive human condition. "He paid the most," Mauro stated. "It was 22 or 23 pesos back then, for one afternoon show in La Tropical, double or triple that of the six to 10 pesos others paid back then. Some band directors considered it foolish to pay so much, but he responded: "We should distribute the earnings equitably with the musicians."

It was evident that Benny was not attached to material wealth, as he confessed in Cienfuegos... "my favorite city...A woman from Cienfuegos once said to me on a May afternoon in Pasacaballos, ‘Moré, let’s go to Rancho Luna;’ she gave me a fortune of love, and I stayed in Cienfuegos I stayed, as you can see..."

His witty remarks were unforgettable. Morell recalls that when cirrhosis brought about by hepatitis meant he could no longer drink, he would say: " ‘Well, I’m going to have a drink,’ and he’d pick up the bottle of rum. We’d all get very nervous but he poured some into his hand, smelled it and added, ‘I already did.’"

Mauro met Benny a half-century ago, in the year 1951 or ‘52 in Santiago de Cuba in the band headed by Mariano Mercerón, who went to Santa Isabel de las Lajas to look for Benny, who had returned from Mexico where he had worked with Pérez Prado and the Matamoros, and with Mercerón himself.

"I had never herd a singer like him. It was out of this world. We sang songs like ‘Yimboró,’ ‘Bonito y Sabroso’ and others; we played at the CMKW, the Oriental Radio Station and later in other provinces. Since there wasn’t much work there at the time, he came to Havana in 1953. Then I also came and I worked with him until his death. We got along very well. He wasn’t a director, he was a friend. He helped get the Aragón band on its feet in Mexico. He once stated: If Aragón doesn’t play, neither do I."

"And what did you least like about him?"

"We would have preferred him not to drink. We knew it was bad for him, even though he was funny and happy, very happy when he drank and you had to laugh at the things he did. For example, he would take his hat off suddenly and throw it, which would stop the band. Or the things he would do with his cane."

Raul López recalls how he once stood up on top of a table to direct the band during a performance in Camagüey.

"At the end of his career, when he could no longer drink, he wasn’t as joyful; he realized he was affected by illness but he never stopped being agreeable and friendly with the public or with us. However, if he wanted to harm you he was fierce. Once in Venezuela, when an abusive businessman said he was not going to pay him, Benny attacked him, nearly killing him. They took him to jail and Bola de Nieve had to call his friend, the president of that country."

Mauro once saw him singing a duo with himself in a bar in Central Havana. He thought it was an unusual way to please his friends and admirers. His friend José Maracaibo Castañeda also enjoyed it and recalls that in the Marianela bar, he called for the metal doors to be closed and everyone to stay, saying that the tab was on him. "He marked about 10 of his numbers in the juke-box and duetted with his own recording. It was unbeatable!"

Maracaibo met Benny in Santiago de Cuba at the Oriental Radio station, where he worked with Maravillas de Beltrán and sang with Caridad Hierrezuelo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Gerónimo Ibarra and others. The station contracted Benny for 100 pesos per day.

"One night at a dance in Jutinicú in a very rural area, there was a guajiro who was on his own, somewhat drunk, and he said to me ‘mulatto, play Maracaibo.’ We sang the songs made popular by Celia Cruz, Arsenio Rodríguez, the Sonora Matancera and the Conjunto Casino in order to be in with the fashion, we couldn’t abandon that repertoire in spite of the campesino. In addition to being a Venezuelan city, Maracaibo is a musical rhythm from the Sierra Maestra, known as changüí in Guantánamo.

"The guajiro’s drunkenness gave me the idea of composing "Maracaibo Oriental" and I took it to Benny in Santiago. He said to me: ‘Not now. Save it for when I have my band in Havana because I like the idea.’ When I came to the capital I had the song in my head and I went to see Chepín who had been successful with "El Platanal de Bartolo" (Bartolo’s Banana Plantation), sung by Ibrahim Ferrer. I visited him in the Boston Hotel and Columbié, who played with Benny Moré, told me how to get to his house in the La Cumbre neighborhood.

"Benny was happy to see me and asked me about the song. When I signaled that I had it up here (in my head) he said: ‘no, not like that. Bring it to me on paper, however you can and come tomorrow with Columbié, because I still need a couple of songs before I start recording my album.’

"Before I left he brought out a bottle of Peralta rum; the boxer, he used to say, and we set in until it was finished. When he drank he was funnier than ever. Often times he began singing and dancing.

"The following day I brought him the song more or less written and then he gave it to Generoso to adapt, but the day it was scheduled to be recorded, Generoso said that he’d forgotten it. Benny surprised him with: ‘Then remember it,’ and he started humming it as if it were one of his own compositions: ‘ton, titín, ton, titín.’ Piano and base. ‘For you to dance, my maracaibo son’ Saxophones! paparí with pa and the trumpet said ‘inspiration’ How fabulous!

"When Benny was asked about the author of that song, he would respond: ‘José Maracaibo.’ That’s why people started to call me Maracaibo. At first it humiliated me and I went to see him at home to complain that the entire band was calling me that. He responded with ‘forget about it. It isn’t a nickname, it’s the artistic name I gave you.’"

Sometimes, after several drinks, Benny would arrive late to a commitment, his old friends recall. But there were also some managers who announced Benny Moré in their advertising in order to attract a larger audience when in reality he wasn’t expected to perform. It was a fraud, but people thought he hadn’t followed through. Although he wasn’t always punctual, he always showed up. Mauro Gómez Suárez recalls expecting him at 9:00 p.m. and not seeing him until midnight, but he played until dawn at the request of the audience.

That is the origin of the chorus: "They thought I wasn’t coming/ but here you see me now/ Benny Moré, what a band you have," while alternating and improvising.

Everyone agrees that it was Benny who brought the Alí bar its popularity, because he felt good there and Alipio, the owner, was a friend of his. Sometimes he would get tired and tell Alipio, but if the latter and the audience insisted, he would amuse them.

In fact, Benny didn’t like playing in large cabarets; sometimes they played in Tropicana, but generally, Mauro noted, those places wanted on his own and he didn’t like that. He played a lot on Radio Progreso and on television, for example, on some Jupiña programs, where, fortunately, some copies have been preserved.

The Alí bar was rescued and re-inaugurated four months ago as a tourist attraction with the name of "Benny’s Corner" by the Rumbos chain.

The group’s president, Manuel Vilasosa and its vice president, Dizzy Echeverría, attended the special event on February 21, on the anniversary of Benny’s death, along with Ernesto López, president of the Radio and Television Institute.

The show’s current artistic director is Oscar Gómez Galbán, who assisted Benny at the age of 17 during his final performances, including "Papel y Tinta" (Paper and Ink), a huge festival organized by the newspaper Revolución.

Gómez presented a project to Rumbos, "a sort of synopsis of Benny’s entire life and an approach to the reality of the 1950s, blending stories and anecdotes about his life, a kind of well-merited cult around the King of Rhythm. The artists played his music and other compositions made popular by Benny.

Inspired by Leo Valdés, Raúl Iglesias, Raciel Cuevas, Hilda Gorría and a body of dancers headed by a skilled soloist, the anniversary show was enriched by performances from Lino Borges, Aurora Basnuevo, Mario Limonta and others.

The show’s main star was Benny Santos, with a body very different in size and mobility from Moré’s, but similar dress, gestures and soothing voice.

"In Puerto Padre people thought I was his son," he admits "they guyed me up by calling me ‘Benny’s son.’ Everyone thought so because there are similarities and they began calling me Benny. One day at the La Campana cabaret, when I dared to join the band¼ My name is Rafael Santos and he called me Benny Santos."

"I’ve never wanted to imitate Benny Moré. I like his music, and I had a similar voice timbre and since I sing the same songs, well, there’s a similarity, but it will never be the same. I’ve even recorded other songs that are not from his repertoire and it still sounds similar. It seems I’ve gotten used to the middle- and high-pitched ranges.

"My entire family and I are fans of Benny Moré. I was able to meet him through a friend of my father’s nicknamed the Black Count during a festival hosted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), in 1961 or ’62, where he lent us one of his numbers. After that I began singing and was a member of several bands until I joined Benny Moré’s. Fernando Alvarez, Rolo Martínez and Pio Leiva had already passed through there. I arrived, I fitted in and I stayed.

"Since then, some 40 years ago, I’ve been working with his band; he was a maestro and a guide for me, the finest in popular Cuban music. Even after his death we are still learning from him. But I am just that, a look-alike. Benny is unique.

"I believe this is a wonderful homage," concluded saxophonist Mauro Gómez Suárez. "I hope it will always be this way, not only on this 40th anniversary. In Mexico there’s a statue of Benny Moré, we should have one in Havana."

It’s true that he deserves one. The King not only sang wonderfully, he also savored the music. He did not let it dominate him. Like true musicians, he dominated it. While dancing, he sometimes danced forward rhythmically, with short steps. He gave the impression that he was dragging his feet and balancing his body. Many years later a similar Michael Jackson move reminded me of it.

Benny was not a vassal of the stage. He was the king of rhythm.

(Granma) March 11, 2003