How much do the Cuban music and the poetry owe to this singular man?

This is not a rhetorical question, the answer is in his life fully dedicated to the arts, which has been distinguished by their own talents … and gifts, but also by two essential virtues: tenacity and generosity.

Carbonell is still alive, but very sick. We must honor his extraordinary art now, it is one of the sui generis artists has given the Caribbean. Truly original. Irreplaceable.

He learned to play the piano very young. The boy progressed implemented with keys and in 1938 went to work in local radio. In 1944 he had become an essential character in the CMKC de Santiago. Not only declaimed in a manner becoming better prepared, but conceived and directed programs. And besides, accompanied on the piano as singer went through the station. It was there that persuaded a shy boy named Pacho Alonso to sing boleros. He also had the opportunity to meet and accompany national stars visiting the eastern city. For example, Rita Montaner and Esther Borja.

However, at age 22 Luis Mariano realized the limits of progress in Santiago de Cuba are reached quickly. The was treading on the spot. He decided to emigrate to Havana. It was at that time a friend advised him to try his luck in New York, using his English. Carbonell went to the U.S.

At the 1946 New York, working at a jewelry store, the young immigrant was reunited with Esther Borja, who immediately assumed the role of protector generous, and presented it to Ernesto Lecuona. The composer, in turn, connected it to the Puerto Rican diva Diosa Costello. For a Latin artist in New York that meant the same thing then meet for a mobster Lucky Luciano. Goddess placed it in a casino, or in Hispanic Theatre on 116th Street & 5th Avenue, where Luis Mariano Carbonell very successfully downloaded your expressive poetry afroantillana while the ball was handled props Bronx. So well received presentation brought even a poetry program organized by the NBC to emulate the success of the CBS with “The Show of Eusebia Cosme.” The black Eusebia, also Santiago, was a pianist, actress, writer, broadcaster, and the only reciter of poetry internationally renowned afroantillana until that day. Actually it was more. He was the creator of the genre. Eusebia attended with NBC Carbonell, and to get out of there decided to concentrate on her marriage to Freddy, his American spouse, and leave the recitation. I would return to the stage in 1955, after the death of Freddy, but only as an actress. Luis Carbonell of NBC went to Carnegie Hall.

Again his great friend and fairy godmother Esther Borja took care of opening a window. He settled in his own house, and then took him to a tribute they did to René Cabel, the tenor of the Antilles. Cabel was a very dear, and all the celebrities, artists and patrons, came to the event in the Auditorium. Esther spoke to the presenter of the show, José Antonio Alonso, the host of “The Great Court of Art”, that slinks to Carbonell in the program. The audience, which had applauded quiet one piece from each artist, hailed Carbonell after each of the four numbers recited that morning.

Immediately began to like contracts. One of these led to the residence of billionaire Ernesto Sarrá, coinciding with the Argentine Pepe Biondi. The American had been on the honor recognized Cabel and Carbonell. Approached him and said, “Che, you do not recite, you you paint the poem, you do you do a watercolor of poetry.”

Shortly after Luis Mariano Carbonell-film debuted at the CMQ Warner Theatre, named after the intervention Radiocentro until communist Mestre properties Espinosa brought a rougher name: Yara. It was in CMQ where he definitely took his stage name Marian.

In January 1949 he inaugurated a new radio program sponsored by Bacardi. And although Goar Mestre, director of CMQ, Carbonell thought it was more of a cabaret artist, hired him on probation for one month. It was the 8 years that the very popular “Party with Bacardi” remained in the air. That was his final consecration as the Antillean poetry watercolorist.

In CMQ Luis Carbonell Stamp became fashionable. A kind of monologue-sketch of manners, where the artist could impersonate various characters buffs modulating up to 4 different voices of each sex. It was an invention of Felix B. Caignet, the father of Latin American soap opera and telenovela. This oriental other Carbonell wrote the first prints: cocktail are bongo and I’m going to flirt. Other authors such as Enrique Martinez, Rafael Sanabria, Jose Miguel Botardi or Enrique Núñez Rodríguez, is also embullaron. But was the comedian Las Villas Alvaro de Villa who made a picture that was all the rage: My Havana.

Then the composer Jorge González Allué de Camagüey, author of Amorosa Guajira, would give the most iconic picture: The 15 Florita and came behind “And your grandmother? A’onde eta?”

Carbonell in 1950 was also among the first artists to appear on Cuban television, integrating the initial show broadcast on Channel 4 Union Radio TV from the Alcazar Theatre. Also participated in the experimental transmissions CMQ TV Channel 6.

Inveterate perfectionist and creative ability in full blast, from 1956 until the stamp watercolorist developed a new genre: the Sole Theatre Criollo. For 8 months the Hubert de Blanck Theater was the setting for a true artistic waste: Luis Carbonell small parts merging narratives of Felix Pita Rodriguez, Onelio Jorge Cardoso and Virgilio Piñera with declamatory technique, reduced stage effects and minimal musical accompaniment. The plasticity of his voice, deployed on multiple characters, did the rest. Carbonell unfold reached in 17 different characters on a single piece of 4 hours. Unmatched.

His operatic repertoire included the best of black and mulatto poetry-much of which got reassessed by the watercolorist-interpretation of authors like Nicolas Guillén, Venezuelan Aquiles Nazoa, Arturo Liendo, Emilio Ballagas, Brazilian Jorge de Lima, José Zacarias Tallet, Regino Pedroso, Agustin Acosta, the Puerto Rican Luis Pales Matos, or Jose Antonio Alix.

Although more akin recited to Federico Garcia Lorca, also dominated at will to Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega. And in the most pure-blooded Spanish stale. Never wanted declamarlos in public.

After implementation of the Castro dictatorship Luis Carbonell did not leave the island. The yes disappeared was the creativity. He began to repeat. In any case, his career still continued long years in a niche so unique and personal art. Parallel began to devote to teaching singing and declamation. Also worked as accompanist and artistic adviser to various entities of Cuban music, such as The Cañas, Pablo Milanes, Facundo Rivero, Las D’Aida, King Quartet, Trio Antillean, Liuba María Hevia or Paulo FG Something I had done before with Pacho Alonso, Orlando de la Rosa, Esther Borja and Linda Mirabal.

Not many albums Luis Carbonell. The expansion was reached in full audiomediática Cuban socialism: rationing cultural planning very artistic, generous absolute scarcity of resources and lack of private initiative. Despite the abortion of an unknown Cuban socialism the artist Luis Mariano Carbonell always will be the unique “Aquarelista de la Poesia Antillana” (The Watercolorist of West Indian Poetry).

Sources: Wiki/LuisMarianoCarbonellStory/Various/
InternetPhotos/YouTube/TheCubanHistory.com
The Incomparable Luis Mariano Carbonell
The Cuban History, Arnoldo Varona, Editor

El Inigualable Luis Mariano Carbobell.

Luis Mariano Carbonell Pullés nació en Santiago de Cuba el día de Santa Ana, el 26 de julio de 1923.

¿Cuánto le deben la música y la poesía cubanas a este hombre singular?

Esta no es una pregunta retórica, su respuesta está en su vida extensamente dedicada a las artes, en las que se ha distinguido por sus propios talentos … y dones, pero también por dos virtudes esenciales: la tenacidad y la generosidad.

Tenaz, porque estudia con alto rigor los textos que ha de declamar, y otros que no declamará, pero que le sirven para comprender mejor al poeta a cuya obra dedica su esfuerzo; porque supo capear malos tiempos y sobrevivir para el arte cubano, para su pueblo, que nunca lo ha dejado al margen entre sus más queridos artistas; y porque ni la enfermedad o el silencio lo pudieron derrotar, emergiendo en él su cualidad de gran intérprete, de fina sensibilidad, siempre dado a lo popular, pero nunca a lo populachero. Generosidad, porque Luis Carbonell ha sido un maestro para la menos tres generaciones de cubanos, un consejero para numerosos artistas, nunca negado a ofrecer su valoración y apoyo.

En la poesía cubana, no cabe duda de que él llenó el siglo XX como el mejor intérprete de los registros de la llamada “poesía negra”, “afrocubana” o “mulata”, o para la estampa o la caricatura verbal, en la que sigue creciéndose y hace crecer incluso a algunos textos que, sin su voz de gran juglar, dormirían dentro de la tapa cerrada de libros poco frecuentados.

Su virtud es hallar la joya lírica y expresiva donde otros no la ven, y ponerla de relieve. Él es un artista del mestizaje creativo, propio no solo de la identidad cubana, sino de la convergencia identitaria caribeña.

Carbonell supo distinguir algunos de los elementos básicos de nuestra nación, y se convirtió él mismo en un artista de esa identidad. Sus dotes histriónicas, ejercitadas en espectáculos de teatro unipersonal, se manifiestan en su meticulosa interpretación de obras de numerosos poetas (Guillén, Tallet, Ballagas, Pedroso, Loynaz, Acosta, los españoles Camín y García Lorca, el puertorriqueño Palés Matos, el venezolano Aquiles Nazoa, el dominicano José Antonio Alix, y un largo etcétera), y lo sitúan como caso único dentro de nuestra tradición artística, no porque no haya habido otros declamadores, no porque no poseamos (y muy buenos) directores o asesores musicales, sino porque él en sí mismo es una singularidad del mejor relieve artístico.

Si en Rita Montaner tuvimos a “La Única”, Luis Carbonell es en verdad “El Único”, solo en su reinado de gracia personal. Realizó durante toda su vida una guerra a muerte contra la chabacanería, el choteo que rebaja, el populismo infame, y con sobrio gusto ha sabido descubrirnos cuándo los valores generados por los poetas y músicos populares o líricos, se han elevado desde la raíz nacional hacia una legítima universalidad.

El pueblo no necesita muchos datos para saber quién es, qué ha hecho, cuánto hay que agradecerle y cuánto nos ha ofrecido para disfrutar, pero al menos recuérdese rápidamente aquel disco memorable grabado en 1956 con la excepcional diva Esther Borja; sus numerosos espectáculos llenos de brillantez en la televisión cubana, su asesoría de grupos musicales como los de Orlando de la Rosa, las D’Aida, el Cuarteto del Rey, el Trío Antillano, Los Cañas, más de sesenta discos grabados, entre ellos el que Waldo González López calificó como “genuina joya poético-discográfica”: “La mulata, Ñáñigo al cielo y otros poemas”, en el que el maestro, a las puertas de sus 80 años, declama veintitrés textos durante casi una hora.

Su vida, útil y valiosa, nos enriquece aquí y ahora, con una firmeza digna de la nación de la que forma parte. Como honrar honra, Luis Carbonell está todos los días de su vida honrándonos, de modo que cualquiera es un buen día para expresar nuestro orgullo por él. “Espabílate, Mariana, que te me vas a quedar”, dice el verso de Rafael Sanabria, que él hizo realmente famoso, y llamándose él por segundo nombre Mariano, mucho se nos ha “espabilado” este gran santiaguero, porque “se nos va a quedar” ya para siempre como uno de los cubanos imprescindibles de todos los tiempos.