An afternoon with Bobby Carcassés
Bobby Carcassés in the midst of demonstrating a pantomime, one of his evergreen hits that he remises even today.
© Ayash Basu, 2020
Who is Bobby Carcassés?
In some corners of the world, the question lands. In Cuba—especially anywhere near jazz—it’s like asking who Sinatra is in the United States. I asked anyway. I was promptly schooled. “Trumpeter, pianist, conguero, painter, composer, singer, educator—and the greatest showman in Cuba,” a Havana Jazz Festival producer said as I caught the tail end of this year’s edition.
Carcassés co-founded Jazz Plaza in 1979 with Chucho Valdés, Paquito D’Rivera, and a few fellow visionaries. That modest gathering became today’s Havana International Jazz Festival. Post-revolution, as jazz and other “suspect” imports faced headwinds, Valdés and D’Rivera left for the United States, gathering global acclaim (and, yes, armfuls of Grammys—six and fourteen respectively). Bobby stayed. He built a singular voice in Cuban jazz—bold, theatrical, unmistakably local—and kept at it for more than 60 years. His legacy is the music and the musicians: Dafnis Prieto, Manuel Valera, Yosvany Terry, Yunior Terry—names now ringing loud on New York stages.
Bobby recalls his earlier days on stage. He’s done it all from Opera, Zarzeula, Theater, Radio, to Orchestra, Cabaret, Jazz, and Cinema.
© Ayash Basu, 2020
From Kingston to Havana, Always Cuban.
I first met him mid-honor—routine for him by now. He shook my hand, spoke softly, and invited me to visit. As usual, he’d opened the festival this year, warming the stage for The Soul Rebels, Trombone Shorty, and Cimafunk. Three days later I was in his living room, caffeinated on Cuban espresso and bracing for a master class on the evolution of Cuban jazz. Bobby is soft-spoken, precise with his gestures, and unfailingly gracious.
I asked about his name. “Bobby” isn’t exactly common in Havana. He smiled and rewound: born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1938, where his grandfather served as a diplomat; back to Cuba at four; “Roberto” anglicized to “Bobby,” and he simply ran with it. He’s “Bobby” in New York, London, Vienna, Berlin, Paris—yet insists he is 100% Cuban. The island—where his grandfather fought for independence in 1895—is, and will remain, home.
He credits talent, luck, and an unblinking talent for adaptation. “It’s the Cuban way—adapting to any situation,” he says, the smile never leaving. His uncles started him on rumba, tapping rhythms into household furniture. “The rhythm was there, and every chair, desk, and table was my instrument.” He rapped out a conga pattern on his chair’s armrest, then pivoted to the Indian tabla, explaining arm, wrist, palm, and finger positions. I answered with my own quick tabla taps. At 81, his energy is contagious.
Bobby Carcassés showing a glimpse of his numerous art pieces created over the decades. Much of it is a reflection of the jazz world from one of its most versatile masters.
© Ayash Basu, 2020
India kept threading the conversation.
Bobby lives by Sri Aurobindo’s teachings. His walls hold sketches, photos, and postcards of Aurobindo, Paramhansa Yogananda, Swami Vivekananda, and Mahatma Gandhi. He’s deeply read on Aurobindian ideas—“integral yoga” and the “supermind”—both new territory for me. His son, named “Aurobindo,” handed me a late-19th-century book with manuscripts and photographs from Calcutta (where I was born) and Pondicherry (where I long to go), tracing a young Sri Aurobindo. Though he’s never visited India, Bobby knows the nationalist movement, its leaders, and how those ideas traveled west to shape heroes like Martin Luther King. His days begin with two hours of yoga and meditation.
Bobby Carcassés draws up a miniature of one his paintings in real time and offers it to me, a generous gift that I shall cherish forever.
© Ayash Basu, 2020
In the Studio with Bobby…
Cecilia, his wife, brought more espresso while Bobby sketched a miniature as a gift, his hands moving with the same ease they do over a keyboard or conga. We moved to his studio, where he greeted instruments one by one—trumpet, flugelhorn, conga, piano—as if checking in on old friends who had waited patiently for him. The walls themselves are a living library of Cuban music, covered in photographs, sketches, and stories. Each time Bobby passed one, it felt like he was saluting the memory of those who had played before him, as though in constant dialogue with his musical ancestors.
He set down the flugelhorn, turned to his drawing desk, and there—alongside images of Sri Aurobindo and Gandhi—was Lord Krishna. Without ceremony, he lifted a flute and played a brief devotional phrase, at once familiar, elusive, and hauntingly beautiful. For a moment, the entire room seemed to vibrate with reverence.
Bobby has performed across the United States, the Soviet Union, Paris, the UK, Panama, Mexico, and parts of Africa. Still, his roots remain firmly in Havana. He has spent a lifetime balancing Afro-Cuban, Latin, and jazz vocabularies with just the right measure of showmanship—an elegant, joyful harmony that belongs uniquely to him. Our afternoon ended with a handshake, a warm embrace, and a promise to meet again. Soon.
Bobby Carcassés instinctively plays a tune at his small studio just big enough to host his instruments and drawing desk. Imprints of Aurobindo, Yogananda, and Gandhi are hard to miss.
© Ayash Basu, 2020
© Bobby Carcassés. One of Bobby’s many paintings that fill up his studio and apartment - a rendition of a scene that he knows better than most.