Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Elio Villafranca. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Elio, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes from my upbringing and the different crossroads situations I faced in my country of origin, and in this one, to become the artist that I’m today. I was born in a tobacco area in Cuba, in a town called San Luis, in Pinar del Rio. My family’s house, located on the town’s main street, Juana Romero, was similar to the others on both sides of the road. A well-built portal with a decorated masonry ceiling and a floor with red and black tiles, two entrance steps, four harmoniously arranged columns, two doors, and two white-painted wooden windows masked our poverty. Whoever saw the house from the front would think we be- longed to the San Luis middle class. But inside, my house had a dirt floor. That floor extended all the way to the patio, where my older brother Juan Enrique and I spent most of our time playing or climbing trees barefoot. We were poor. I never wore shoes as a toddler. I have memories of being barefoot for most of my early childhood, tasting the dirt and mud with my feet. I remember running up the stream, racing improvised floating fleets made out of broken branches and bottle caps on a rainy day, or running on hot pavement, looking for a shady place to cool the soles of my feet. Our house was in the center of town, right behind the courtyard of the Casa de la Cultura [House of Culture, community center], so I had access to all sorts of musical activities that were happening there at the time. An old wall, dressed in green algae over time, separated my family’s patio from the courtyard of La Casa de la Cultura (the House of Culture). A wire fence separated the right side of our patio from the one belonging to the family of my friend José.
As a child, I entertained myself by listening to and watching everything that happened in the courtyards, but my most thrilling moments were the times I listened to the music that I heard across the wall that separated my home’s patio from the Casa de Cultura’s courtyard. Balancing myself on a thick, rain-rusted nail, I leaned with my arms against the wall to prevent the nail from piercing my bare foot. I often watched the rehearsals of the Tambor Yuka folkloric group: three drums made of hollowed-out avocado tree trunks in the shape of yucca, three players on the skin of the drums, another playing with two sticks on the body of one of the drums, four singers, and a dozen dancers.
When I was in elementary school, I enrolled in after-school art programs at the Casa de la Cultura. First, I did painting for a year, then I switched to playing the guitar. Our teacher at the center was a graduate of the Music Conservatory in Havana, and he taught classical guitar pieces. I fell in love with those pieces and decided to go to music school to learn to play the guitar well. So that was my first serious introduction to music. The other type of music I encountered in San Luis was the one played by the workers at the tobacco farms. They were not musicians by profession or by official training, but they played a lot of music on a type of drum called the tambor yuka, which is a drum of Congolese origin. That music was played on the streets and also in the backyard of the Casa de la Cultura as part of the cultural programs, but it was not taught in any classes. When the farm workers played music in the yard or prepared the drums from the avocado tree trunks, I loved to peek over the fence and watch them work… I loved watching the flames and hearing the rhythms.… African drumming has a religious aspect to it, yes, but the tambor yuka is in fact, not a religious instrument. It is a drum that was used for communal gatherings. The tambor yuka is also believed to be the first drum played on the island.
Going back to my formal education… when I was 11 or 12 years old, I got separated from my family when I enrolled in the [regional] music school for children in Pinar del Rio, the province’s capital. I wanted to play the guitar, but they had no more available spaces for guitar students, so I settled on percussion, which I had imagined to be like the drums I knew from San Luis. But the music education in the school was strictly classical, so their percussion program had nothing to do with the drums I had known before. I was disappointed … Those were tough years, especially in the beginning, living in a boarding school, far away from my family. It took me a while to get used to that. Because I had grown up in the small town of San Luis, moving to Habana in the late 1980s to continue my music education was a big deal. Unlike my hometown, the streets of Habana were always full of people, live music performed everywhere, mixed with the noise from cars honking at everything, and windows in every home wide open to let the humid, warm air circulate across the narrow hallways. In Habana, everything—from religion to music, revolution, fashion, protests, and racism to love—collided in a stimulating and shocking way. Therefore, those first years in Habana were not just about learning how to play music, but also how to survive. It was that strong determination to become a musician that helped me to endure all challenges, especially family separation.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m a pianist and composer, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient; a two-time Grammy nominee; a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik Nomination; a 2019 Downbeat Critic’s Poll Rising Stars Pianist; winner of the 2018 Downbeat Critic’s Poll Rising Stars Keyboard; first Cuban born recipient of the Sunshine Award (2017), founded to recognize excellence in the performing arts, education, science, and sports of the various Caribbean countries, South America, Centro America, and Africa; and a recipient of the first Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) Millennium Swing Award in 2014. Currently living in NYC, Villafranca is a jazz faculty member at The Juilliard School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Princeton University, and Temple University in Philadelphia.
Although I enjoy teaching at those prestigious institutions, performing with my band and others and sharing my roots with a wider audience is what excites me the most. I see myself as a Cultural Activist. I always use my music as a way to bring awareness of cultural diversity, the presence and importance of the Afro-Diaspora in the Americas, and the rich musical contribution of the Caribbean cultures in jazz. I have released then albums as a leader with my original music and produced numerous others emphasizing this matter, performing with jazz and Latin jazz luminaries such as Wynton Marsalis, Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Lewis Nash, Pat Martino, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, Johnny Pacheco, among others. I’m also a movie soundtrack composer. While living in Philadelphia, I was commissioned by Philadelphia’s own WHYY-TV to compose the music for their documentary 2021 series, “Murals.” This work was released by PBS. Later I was commissioned to write the music for a new documentary, “Mirror Dance,” featured by Independent Lens in one of their Television Series.
Currently, I’m working on finishing the recording of a new suite called Don’t Change My Name. Don’t Change My Name Is a new opera-like piece written for a large ensemble (piano, bass, drums, Batá and Arará percussion, five horns, electric guitar) and a 40-member choir that honors the rich yet often unheralded Arará tradition in Matanzas, Cuba. This compelling work draws inspiration from the life of Florentina Zulueta, who later became a champion for the Arará community in Cuba. Born in 1828 in Dahomey (now Benin), both her life and her name were never her own. As a little girl, she was first given the name “Tolo-Ño” while living in the Lucumí region (now Nigeria). While in Dahomey, she was forced into slavery and her name was once again changed to “Na-Tegué.” At 15, she was brought to Cuba, captured, and sold to Julián de Zulueta y Amondo, a notorious slave owner in Perico, who branded her with a hot metal iron as his property and forever changed her name to Florentina Zulueta. Divided into three acts (“Tolo-Ño,” “Na-Tegué,” and “Florentina”), each one charts the plight of her capture and enslavement. The Arará tradition grew out of this unspeakable plight, combining the sorrow of an entire displaced people from their West African homelands with an inevitable release through music and dance in their newly adopted home of Cuba.
Next year I will embark on a new journey. I will be producing a concert and recording my first album for a big band. This project, called Tres Aguas, is a large-scale, contemporary piece inspired by four different forms of dance and the rhythms created on the floor by the feet of the dancers. This piece merges various musical genres from the greater Americas and Spain and continues the conversation about the relevance of and reliance on the Afro-Diaspora in the Americas.
Tres Aguas is a four-movement suite that highlights the cultural ties and rhythmic cells that are shared among these musical genres and their influences on jazz. The pieces will showcase the different musical instruments and dances representative of each culture. From New Orleans, the banjo guitar, washboard, and tap dancing; from Peru, the Afro-Peruvian cajon, the cajita instrument, and a form of dance known as Zapateo; from Spain, the flamenco guitar, cantaor flamenco, and three forms of dance known as Solea, Rumba Flamenca, and Bulerias; and from Cuba, the Eastern style of Conga from the Cuban Comparsas, Afro-Cuban bata drumming from the Yoruban tradition known as Santeria, and Baile de Chancleta.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
If I were to mention three skills or qualities that were most impactful in my journey and that I always carry with me are… be patient, focused, and open. By “being patient,” you are not rushing into rash decisions. By “being focused,” you are clear on your goals and all the things you need to do to accomplish them. And finally, “being open” is a very important skill and mindset to have as a jazz musician. Listen, observe, and allow for things to happen. Accept and adapt to new things and embrace the changes in your path or creation.
For those who are early in their journey, I will advise them to adopt these important skills while emphasizing the importance of the consciousness of roots. Understanding and knowing where you came from is essential, in order to know where you are planning to go in your journey. Having a strong root is the key to balance and growth. Without this foundation, everything you construct, create, and develop would be weak and hollow.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
I was born in a tobacco area in Cuba, in a town called San Luis, in Pinar del Rio.
As I mentioned earlier, when I was old enough, at elementary school, I enrolled in an after-school art programs at the Casa de la Cultura to study visual arts and later switched to playing the guitar. I really wanted to follow his path and go to music school to learn how to play the guitar well. But, sadly, and differently from my friends, I didn’t own a guitar. They were too expensive for my parents to buy, as their two salaries combine were not sufficient to pay for it. As a result, I depended solely on the guitar I was given during lessons, but couldn’t take home to practice on my own time, therefore my learning process was slower than my friends, whose parents bought them a guitar early on. One day, returning from my school, rushing to go to my guitar lesson, I found a brand new Spanish guitar lying on my bed. My eyes couldn’t believe it! Not knowing, my parents had been saving money for a long time so they could afford to surprise me with a guitar. This was the single most impactful thing my parents did for me, and I’m the musician I’m today because of it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.eliovillafranca.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eliovillafranca/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eliojazz/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElioVillafranca
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ElioVillafranca
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/elio-villafranca
- Other: https://linktr.ee/eliovillafrancamusic
Image Credits
Photo 1, 2, 6, by Kasia Idzkowska Photo 3 by Berta Jottar Photo 4 by Frank Stewart Photo 5 by San Jose Jazz Festival
