El blog de Arsenio Rodríguez Quintana: A look at “BEBO”, premiering tomorrow at the Miami Film Festival/ Arsenio Rodríguez Quintana

The Cuban musician, pianist, and composer Bebo Valdés (Quivicán, Cuba, October 9, 1918 - March 22, 2013, Stockholm, Sweden) has a new portrait film documentary called “BEBO”, directed by Ricardo Bacallao, a Cuban-born film director who graduated from ISA (Instituto Superior de Arte in Cuba), with a master's degree in film from New York and Berlin where he currently resides, and with a filmography of over twenty documentaries.
There is no better tribute to an illustrious Cuban who died in exile than to talk about him, in this case not only well, but also to make him speak about what happened to his life in Sweden  1963, when he married Swedish Rose-Marie, and further, when he requested political asylum in 1965 after deciding he would never return to Cuba for numerous reasons. We must not forget he was thrown out of all the venues where he played because he did not want to join the communist party, and to top it off, when he wanted to return to see his dying mother, they did the same as to Celia Cruz, and denied him entry, a classic practice of the Cuban dictatorship.
Bebo Valdés, after his tenure in Cuba at the Mil Diez radio station as an arranger and composer since 1943, went to work at Tropicana for ten years, 1948 - 1958; and that last year he recorded, arranged and taught how to sing in Spanish to none other than Nat King Cole. In addition, it was Bebo’s "Sabor de Cuba" the first orchestra to accompany Benny Moré, a curriculum which is complemented by the voices of some of the best Cuban interpreters of the fifties starting with Celia Cruz.
The documentary is masterfully edited and directed in several parallel narrative discourses. First, Bebo speaks live with a Swedish journalist, Stina Dabrowski, in 2005 for the local television in Sweden, in an unprecedented interview for the world about the various jobs he held, and his personal tragedy of exile where he held other occupations to be able to pay his bills, although above all, he ended playing the piano with a stoicism typical of geniuses like him.

Until now we have met the master musician he was; now after this documentary we will meet the exiled man, the "Swedish Bebo" married for the first time, something he had not done before although he had several children; the father committed with taking care of his children to the point of abandoning tours abroad from his piano bar agency so he could at home with his family. We will meet Bebo the cook. In fact, one of his sons, the youngest one from Sweden, Rickard, mentions he now dislikes beans because his father kept cooking them almost every day; and we will hear his 28-year-old granddaughter reminisce how he bought her ice cream and spoiled her. We see an elder who has wisely managed to set aside three important words to be able to move on: hate, resentment, and revenge. For me, a brief master class on the exiled attitude that many of us must adopt to advance within ourselves. In that, the conduct of a long exile through the arts and music is one of the most important things this documentary teaches, that we finally learn that we must leave pain behind to move forward.

Then, there are the rehearsals for the recording of the album "El Arte del Sabor" (which I considered in my book of the same title, as one of the five best albums in the history of Cuban music) with Paquito D'Rivera, Cachao, Cándido Camero, and Bebo himself. These are really the film’s tastiest fragments for those who wish to see Bebo possessed by his music and his arrangements in a real rehearsal on camera.

Then, there is Bebo’s music in a tribute concert that his grandson Emilio did with a Big Band orchestra from New York and where Bebo's grandchildren and son participated, except Chucho Valdés. There are the statements of his friend Deacon Pancho Chin A Loi, who recounts: "how the dictatorship stole a suitcase full of music written by him at the Cuban airport before leaving for Mexico in 1961". Finally, there are the testimonies of his grandson Emilio from Cuba and his granddaughter and sons in Sweden, without forgetting friends like Paquito. Each thematic line of the documentary is very well traced in the narrative discourse where the interview with Paquito D’Rivera stands out, as it reveals how he brought Bebo back to life in 1994, leading him to record in Germany after 34 years without recording an album.

The closest there has been to building such an image of Bebo Valdés was in 2008 with Old Man Bebo; but at least for me, the plurality of voices in trying to explain who Bebo was, and not saying things by its name, that is, "that he did not share the politics of the revolution" and with a family that blames Bebo for choosing to exile, when he was the one being kicked out, made it lose the essence of who Bebo was, because at that moment Bebo had a voice, his voice, which was not given to him to speak widely and without restraint.  

Ricardo Bacallao gives us for the first time an exiled Bebo, calm and wise in his best creative stage when, we must not forget, he won nine Grammys while being an octogenarian, and positioned flamenco and Cuban music in the western sphere with the album "Lágrimas Negras”. Undoubtedly, making Bebo the man with Swedish nationality with the most music awards in existence to date.  

Paquito rightly says in this documentary: "The Swedes should give Bebo an exemplary Swedish award, and not for playing Swedish” (“por hacerse el sueco”, a colloquial Spanish expression which refers to ‘turning a deaf ear’).

It would be a joy to know that many Cubans in Miami tomorrow and for the next three days are going to see and learn from a genius whom the exile was not able to defeat him, not because he was great, which he was, but because he was constant and persistent in his purposes despite going through periods of harsh resistance as an expatriate.

Arsenio Rodríguez Quintana

March 6, 2023

Traslade  del español

Vivian María, desde Miami

WDNA RADIO..

WHERE: Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE 3rd Ave., Miami, Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave, Coral Gables, and Cosford Cinema, 5030 Brunson Dr, Coral Gables
COST: $13 for general admission; $12 for seniors; and $10 for Miami Film Society Members, students and veterans.
INFORMATION: 305-237-FILM (3456) or miamifilmfestival.com