“It’s a naturally happy place, and people are generally joyous there,” Havana-born Víctor Alvarez, Savor’s bandleader, says. “The island is such a paradise, with the sea, the flowers. Music in Cuba is in the streets.”Hearing Savor play is like being handed a gift. This is traditional Cuban music, straight from Havana’s fabled streets.
Alvarez’ mother taught him much of what he knows about music, but he was also educated by his childhood neighborhood. It helped that he lived two doors down from the legendary La Bodeguita del Medio, where well-known musicians were known to mingle with the likes of a guy named Ernest Hemingway. Inevitably, the musicians would pick up their instruments.
“They’d sit and play and I’d go down there and listen from the outside, memorizing the songs and ripping off their licks,” Alvarez says. “A lot of the licks I play today are from those days, from listening to those musicians.” Continue
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