How many Cubans are there of Irish ancestry?
A few days ago, while listening to a CD of ‘Cuban Blues’ by Chico OFarrill, I remembered that in the New York of those stories of the mid-forties, Chico and my father had met at one of the Siboney Orchestras concerts at the Club Cuba in Manhattan, and saw each other again in Havana in the mid-fifties. The jam sessions on the terrace of Chicos house on D Street in Vedado, our neighbourhood, became so famous that even my father, not particularly fond of Afro-Cuban jazz, couldnt resist dropping in once in a while to that much-talked-about terrace. I listen to the ‘Rhumba Abierta’ of Chicos ‘Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite,’ and then I imagine Chico back in New York, doing arrangements for Count Basie and Ringo Starr, and I see myself turning into a Beatles fan during my teenage years in Havana. Haggadah [2] Hasta los nombres tienen su exilio (Even names / have their exile) Jos Isaacson, Cuaderno Spinoza. A polytonal history: Taking an Irish canoe currach to cross the sea Some years ago, I opened my
