The glorious voracity of Pablo Milanés

In the end, the Cuban Nueva Trova label turned out to be more of a drag than a synergy.

In the minds of a large part of the public from outside the Island, Pablo Milanés, who died this Tuesday in Madrid, and Silvio Rodríguez were a kind of de facto couple in the artistic sphere, with songs by one that were attributed to the other.

And no, although they did join forces in seminal projects such as Leo Brouwer's Sound Experimentation Group, which combined education and creation, overcoming unprecedented deficiencies: "We got to play with an electric bass, which, lacking strings, used telephone cables."

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Pablo Milanés, great voice of Ibero-American music, dies at 79

Today we know that the positions towards power of Pablo and Silvio did not coincide.

Not artistic aspirations.

With a torrential discography, Milanés alternated his work as a singer-songwriter —he even adapted Nicolás Guillén or José Martí— with tastings in forgotten areas of Cuban popular music, devoting numerous volumes to bolero, stylized

and old oriental trova.

He was rescuing retired teachers like Lorenzo Hierrezuelo, Luis Peña, Octavio Sánchez

and, yes, also Compay Segundo, whom he vindicated and relaunched in the face of the astonishment of the Cuban ruling party, which tended to regard that "pre-revolutionary music" with suspicion. .

This did not prevent him from working with young artists like Raúl Torres, Isaac Delgado or his daughter, Haydée Milanés.

Pablo Milanés, during a performance in November 1987. The singer-songwriter died this Tuesday morning in Madrid at the age of 79, after his state of health worsened due to an oncological disease.Bernardo Pérez

From the left, Caco Senante, Pablo Milanés and Joaquín Sabina, during the presentation of the album 'Igual que ayer' in Madrid in April 1995. Milanés is one of the great Cuban voices of all time, the creator of unforgettable love songs like 'Yolanda', 'Love me as I am' or 'El brief espacio en que no está', which are already hymns;

a musician admired and loved by his compatriots and also by important artists from all over who made his lyrics their own and called him, simply and affectionately, Pablo, or Pablito.

Milanés set to music at a very young age the verses of Nicolás Guillén and José Martí (nothing less) and was a prominent pillar and founder of the Cuban Nueva Trova movement, which dazzled the world in the seventies, and in which he did not like to be pigeonholed, because his sensitivity and his work went much further.

In the image, the artist, photographed in Madrid in April 1994. Santi Burgos

Performance by Pablo Milanés and Víctor Manuel in the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid, in September 1995. The singer-songwriter was also the brilliant cultivator of 'filin' (from 'feeling', feeling), bolero and traditional music Cuban, the one who first rescued old troubadours from oblivion, such as Compay Segundo, and served as a bridge in his country between generations and styles, recognized for his talent as one of the great singer-songwriters in the Spanish language.Santi Burgos

Milanés (Bayamo, 1943) had been receiving medical treatment in Spain for a few years, where he lived with his family.

The Cuban artist leaves a remarkable legacy of formidable songs and close to 60 albums that place him among the indispensable and most universal names in Ibero-American music.

In the image, a performance by Milanés in Malaga in July 1993. Julián Rojas

Joaquín Sabina and Pablo Milanés pose together in the Sala Caracol in Madrid in September 1997. The beauty of his privileged voice and his gift for interpretation, which allowed him to reach ranges where most did not reach, together with his poetic way of saying , of apparent simplicity, but charged with a deep sensitivity that touched the soul regardless of the reason that inspired it, marked generations of Cubans and Latin Americans.Santi Burgos

The singer-songwriter poses during an interview in Madrid, in July 2003. His music also had strong roots in Spain, where he was well known, and even in the most remote town where he performed, young people, mid-time and older people knew his lyrics.

Joan Manuel Serrat, Joaquín Sabina, Luis Eduardo Aute, Ana Belén or Víctor Manuel are some of the Spanish artists who recorded his songs and collaborated with him.

santi burgos

On his continent, figures like Chico Buarque, Gal Costa, Armando Manzanero, Mercedes Sosa, Fito Páez, or salseros like Andy Montañez or Gilberto Santa Rosa, among many others, were among his devotees and did the same.

In the image, the Cuban musician, photographed in a hotel in Madrid in July 2003. Santi Burgos

Pablo Milanés sings with his daughter, Suylen, during a concert at the National Theater of Cuba, on December 28, 2005, in Havana.

Milanés was awarded the 2005 Cuban National Music Award. Alejandro Ernesto (EFE)

The Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez (left), after giving Pablo Milanés the Haydee Santamaría medal, awarded by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, in March 2007, in Havana. Alejandro Ernesto (EFE)

Pablo Milanés, pictured in July 2008. In addition to being a musician, Pablo Milanés was above all 100 percent Cuban and a citizen, and his committed positions connected him even more with that public that adored him and that for him was his reason for being.Bernardo perez

The singer-songwriter, during a concert in Havana (Cuba) in August 2008. Claudia Daut (REUTERS)

When in the days before his illness worsened, Orthodox from here and there criticized him as a "counterrevolutionary", the Cubans came out in a rush to defend him: Pablo is Cuba, they said en masse.

In the image, Milanés, in July 2015. Carlos Rosillo

Milanés photographed at his home in December 2015. The singer-songwriter moved to Spain several years ago to receive medical treatment, although he never forgot his people and returned whenever he could to sing and see his friends.

He had a transplanted kidney, donated to him by his wife, Nancy Pérez Rey, Galician and mother of his last two children, Pablito and Rosa.Uly Martín

Víctor Manuel kisses Pablo Milanés, during the concert of the La Mar de Músicas Festival, in Cartagena (Murcia) in July 2017. Last summer, already very ill, he wanted to travel to the Island with his family to offer his audience a concert memorable that it was a declaration of love, and a farewell.

Marcial Guillén ((EPA) EFE)

At the beginning of the nineties, in the terrible Special Period, Milanés opted to energize the Cuban cultural scene.

One could not speak of “civil society”, but he set up the Pablo Milanés Foundation, which wanted to take advantage of the existing infrastructure to present new proposals.

Thus, he insisted on bringing foreign rock groups to the island: in 1995, he set up a tour with Los Ronaldos, with no commercial desire.

Visitors then discovered that the Castro apparatus was not monolithic: some officials were for the work and others practiced the art of tripping.

Finally, the Spanish were able to play in the immense Havana Karl Marx Theater, but it was impossible to move the

to provincial capitals, as planned.

An economic disaster that Milanés overcame with humor: "I wanted Cuban rockers to master the codes of international rock, but the one who had to learn the Cuban reality was me."

A reality that he criticized with the frustration that broken dreams produce.

But he later recalled that he was "a simple musician."

Of course, a voracious musician, who came to work hand in hand with

such as Chucho Valdés or Emiliano Salvador.

For the record, his latest record delivery, from 2019, was precisely titled

.

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