Photo: Raúl Machado

There is a group from Netherlands that plays, among other things, Cuban music. Itsname is "SON ASí" and I’m delighted to interview them for Cuba Nuestra. The musical director is the tresero Anurakt Scheepers.

Raúl: Why the name SON ASí?

Anurakt: Son Así was the first song I heared from the Cuban band Sierra Maestra, andstill one of my favourites, and the instruments we use are of a typical cuban son-band:spanish guitar, cuban tres, bass and percussion. And it's a name easy to remember!

Raúl:How many constitute the group?

Anurakt: There are six of us and we all have various musical backgrounds.
Leadsinger is Alja Weerts. She grew up listening to Anglo-American pop-music, but
during a stay at the Dutch Antilles she fell in love with cuban and dominican music,
which are very popular there. She speaks Spanish quite fluently due to language
courses she followed in Spain, Mexico and Cuba. She's a natural singer: she never hadany singing-lessons. I saw her singing with a amateur salsa band, and was caught byher voice and presence.
Jochen Hachgenei plays the congas, bongos and footbell. He's from Munich, and
came to Holland to study at the Rotterdam Conservatory. The percussion-departmentthere is also known as "Afro-German Percussion for there is such a lot of Germanstudents! He teaches percussion in Amsterdam and leads salsa workshops.
Our small percussion-player and first coro-singer is Jaap de Kwaasteniet. A busdriverby profession, he was one of the first Dutchmen who learned to play cuban maracasand guïro, and dominican guïra. He has been active in the dutch salsa-scene for more than 25 years. He's also performing with his cuban street-organ.
ErikJan Hertogs plays the spanish guitar. After he'd been playing flamenco guitar for15 years, he was asked to play in a dutch son-band and taught himself to play the"rallao", the rhytm that's typically played by the guitar in the cuban son. He's an
excellent salsa- and son dancer as well.
The only member of Son Así with direct connections to the Caribbean is bass-playerMinco Coenraad, as his mother was born and raised at the Dutch Antilles. He grew up with opera, though. He plays as a percussionist in another band as well.
As for me, I studied classical guitar at the Amsterdam Conservatorium. After I got mydegree, I became a plumber, for the music I knew then wasn't inspiring enough to me.
Twelve years later, by accident I run into a Latin music-workshop, and was struck
right away. I became a bass player and played in various salsa bands. I’m playing theCuban TRES in the band.

Raúl: How the group started?

Anurakt: We knew each other from different Latin bands, and we had in common theidea to form a small Latin band. Partly for musical reasons; we all wanted to create atransparent sound, and it's easier to reach a higher musical level, partly because as aprofessional musician it's easier to earn some kind of living with a small band.
From the start, the idea was not only to play son cubano, but other Caribbean music aswell, to add a lot a variation in our repertory. Each year we have about a 50 gigs.
Most of them are wedding- and company parties. On these occasions, most of the
audience doesn't know the music nor understand language, nevertheless we the peopleenjoy and dance; I think this is because of the wonderful power of the Latin music.
Sometimes we play at salsa-parties as well, for the number of salsa-dancing schools isreally booming the last years.

Raúl: Why the Tres Cubano?

Anurakt: Before, I played the bass in one of the few Dutch son-bands for a while,
that's where I first heard and saw a Cuban tres and, more and more, I became enviouswith the tres player.... what a great, almost esoteric sound, and what a hypnotizing rhytms! So six years ago I travelled to Santiago de Cuba and bought a tres. Looking for a teacher, I ended up in a Santiago kitchen and had a very inspiring, and at the same time confusing lesson by 3 different tres players; all of them happened to play indifferent tunings! Back home, I started studying the tres by listening cassettes and trying to copy. My first example were the tres players of the Familia Valera Miranda; hard to copy, though! Later, I discovered many, many more treseros (or tresistas!) fantastic musicians with their own styles, from old-time Isaac Oviedo to present treseros (tresístas!) like Pancho Amat.
Raúl: Félix Enrique "Quique" Valera Alarcón is considered as one of the best Cuban
treseros ever, although he also plays the Cuban CUATRO (the Cuban tres with
another double string). I see you know the correct Spanish word of treseros(laughs).

How come the idea of making the CD?

Anurakt: As a band, I think it's important to set new goals from time to time, to find a new challenge. One of ours was to record a CD. It's a really low budget production....recorded in our rehearse room, and at home. Still, we're very proud of it. We had some nice reviews in newspapers and magazines, and sold a thousand until now, during concerts and via our website. What's special about it, it's a collection of own compositions and lyrics, and there's a lot of variation in it: son, merengue, chachacha, bolero and even a guaguanco.

Album from the group SON ASí. Photo: Raúl Machado

Raul: So did you record the entire CD in your rehearse room, and at your home?!

You did a great job!!. The reader is encouraged to hear and see the album to have an idea of how well the music has been recorded. Now you cannot leave this subject without tell those interested more about the equipment you used (laughs).
What kind of microphones and software did you use? How did you mix it?.
Anurakt: For those interested, here's how we did it. First, for each song we made a
midi-guide track. Then, one by one, we played and sung along, sometimes in a
rehearse room, but mostly at home. At some moment, if you have a good headphone, and good ears, you can even hear my washing machine centrifuge! The equipment we used: A Korg 16-track hard disk recorder and two Behringer B1 Microphone. The hard part was the mixing, though. It took me many nights to put it all together, listening to the tracks on my Sennheiser headphone, staring at the display of the Korg.
Raúl: You went to the Festival de la Trova en Oriente. How did the people of
Santiago de Cuba welcome your group?
Anurakt: After we sent the CD, titled "La Bicicleta", to the organizing committee of
the Festival de la Trova we were invited to come over and participate in the festival.
We played along with famous bands like Eliades Ochoa's Grupo Patria, Sones de
Oriente, La Familia Valera Miranda and many others. At first, it wasn't that easy for
us, playing among these heavies, but thanks to the great reception of the audience, and the appreciation, the interest and openness of our fellow musicians we're looking back at a number of succesfull appearances.
The most wonderfull experience though was a appearance at a so-called Restaurante Estatal (State-run restaurant). This time, being apart from the 'official' festivities, we met an audience of Cubans occasionally passing by, and it turned out to be a big "fiesta"! We only got one complaint from the manager, señor Bartolo, there wasn't any beer left for the next four days! It was a surprise to us to find out the cuban audience rather liked the non-cuban songs: the merengues, bachatas and cumbias we played.
Our trip was filmed, and soon a documentary about our adventures will be released.

SON ASí in Santiago de Cuba. Foto: Peter Hemmes.

Raúl: What are you future plans?

Anurakt: We have a Cuban agent now who's planning a 2-week tour next year. We'll travel from Holguin to Santiago, particularly playing at non-tourist places, asking local musicians to play along, while everything will be recorded in order to compile a live-cd. But for now, we're working on 2 cd's at the time: one with covers of old and new Cuban sones, one with, again, original compositions. Also, we found some great people to help us work on both musical level and presentation. We hope the documentary about our Cuban trip will help us getting access to festivals in Europe as well. Until now, programmers seem to be hesitant to book us; -some Dutch whities playing Caribbean music, are you kidding!-