Blues Review, Dec-Jan 2005

Harmonica player Felix Cabrera solidifies his place in the New York City
blues world with his fourth solo release. On For Green (Si records), he
teams with guitarist Arthur Neilson, Shemekia Copeland's bandleader. The
minor-key ballad "Cold, Cold" finds Neilson and Cabrera effectively
ornamenting the instrumental bed dominated by Melvin Davis's haunting
organ. In spite of its title, "Un Moco Loco" is a straight-ahead shuffle,
but elsewhere the Cuba native employs a strong Latin feel, most evident in
"She put him on a diet," "Self Argument in D minor," and the polyrhythmic
"Animalism." Covers of Dylan's "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window" (nice
"Rolling Stone"/"Queen Jane Approximately" guitar) and Leiber & Stoller's
"I Keep Forgettin'" expand Cabrera's stylistic sights.

Tom Hyslop

====

Felix Cabrera's Blues With a Cuban Feeling

By Tom Pryor, Global Rhythm magazine. December 2004

The two biggest musical powerhouses of the last century were, without a
doubt, Cuba and the United States. The popular music of the two countries
has had a lasting impact on the way music is heard and made allover the
world. The key to it all was African roots. In Cuba these roots are best
heard in the son, the venerable sound that paved the way for everything
from rumba to mambo to salsa. In the U.S., of course, we have the blues.
But it's not often that you find a musician throroughly versed in both
traditions. Enter Felix Cabrera.

Born in Havana's El Cerro neighborhood, Cabrera came to the States in 1961,
eventually settling down in Union City, NJ just in time to experience the
mid 60's blues revival taking place across the Hudson. "I've been a blues
fan since '66" he recalls. Citing artists such as Paul Butterfield and
James Cotton as inspirations. "I was hooked."

Cabrera taught himself the blues harp by playing along to the radio and
formed his first band by 1968. But he didn't abandon his Latin roots. "The
first time I blew a harp over Latin music was over (Eddie) Palmieri's
"Azucar," he recalls. "It's the same music. The same slaves that landed in
Cuba landed here too. So when it comes down to blowing a blues, I can do it
over a chan-chan just as easily.

Indeed, Cabrera has had the opportunity to blow with some of the greats of
Latin music over the years, and he's had years to perfect his craft,
singing and playing in numerous bands including Ray Barretto, Conjunto
Libre and Palmieri himself. But Cabrera's true love remains the blues, and
he's had years to perfect his craft.

He's released a series of albums over the years, beginning with Felix and
the Havana's 1989 disc NEXT, followed by '97's Cu-bops, Cu-blues with Jimmy
Vivino and the Black Italians, and 2001's Pressure Cooker. Cabrera's latest
release, For Green (2004, Si records), is a fresh blast of original blues
rock with a slight latin tinge.

Tracks like "Josephine" and the Leiber/Stoller-penned "I Keep Forgettin'"
offer chugging, roadhouse blues, while slow-burners lie "Cold, Cold" and
"For Green" showcase Cabrera's reflective lyrics. Best of all, though are
"Self Argument in D-minor," with its swinging Cuban melody line and the
fiddle-and ?conga driven "Animalism" which recalls the swinging Latin
psychedelic experimentalism of early 70's Ray Barretto or the Larry Harlow
Orchestra.

As for Cabrera, he takes the philosphical approach of the journeyman.
"There's really nothing else for me to do," he says with a laugh. "Playing
the blues is all I ever wanted to do."

Tom Pryor, Global Rhythm magazine, December 2004

===

Latin Beat Magazine www.latinbeatmagazine.com

September 2004

THE BLUES GET CUBAN
By Luis Tamargo

Born in Havana in 1949, the Cuban blues singer/songwriter/harmonicist Felix Cabrera came to the U.S. in the summer of 1961. He lived in Miami for three years, moved to New Jersey and was infected with the blues virus by the original Paul Butterfield band at a New York City club.

Since he organized the A-Train Blues Band, back in 1974, Cabrera has always refused to be categorized as only a blues musician. Cabrera’s Cuban heritage is an unmistakable part of his sound, as clearly documented on She Put Him On a Diet, the last track of his most recent recording (For Green, Si Records, 2004), Authored by Cabrera and his singing partner (Jimmy Young), the aforesaid composition must be regarded, according to my best knowledge and belief, as the most authentic fusion of U.S. blues and Cuban rumba ever recorded. This historical assessment motivated the following dialogue with our blues brother from another planet…

LUIS TAMARGO: What happened after you discovered the blues, back in the 1960’s?
FELIX CABRERA: I flipped out and bought a harmonica. I dabbled in various bands and went up into the mountains, around the Woodstock area in 1968, before they organized the famous festival, and nothing was really happening. In fact, we almost starved to death. We were panhandling; five of us bums. The only thing we had going for us was a beautiful ’56 red Thunderbird convertible, so we wound going up and down Route 28, looking for gigs where there were none.

LT: How did you hook up with the 1920’s blues sensation Victoria “The Queen” Spivey?
FC: After forming the A-Train Blues Band, we were barely surviving, playing straight-ahead Chicago blues in a couple of places in New York City, but then Victoria showed up at one of those gigs. She took a liking to us and invited us to her place. She said, “We’re gonna record you guys.” Her place was located at a housing project, across the street from King’s County Hospital in Brooklyn. She lived somewhere between the fifth and seventh floor. We dragged all our stuff up there, and there she was, laying on her bed facing us. We stood, facing her, and I remember she was drinking champagne, “Hi, baby, how are you?” she said. We tried to record, but two of the band members weren’t too hip to the situation; they didn’t dig the way that we were recording in a living room, with one mike hanging from the ceiling.

LT: Tell me about the harmonica players that influenced you the most (plus any assorted vocal references)
FC: Paul Butterfield and James Cotton were the first heavy-duty harmonica players that I saw in the 1960’s. Keep in mind, of course, that Butterfield was obviously influenced by Little Walter, who was dead by 1967 or 1968 but left a sort of musical lineage. The other guy was Big Walter, another Chicago monster, who played LA CUCARACHA in a small New York club, back in 1976 or 1977.
I also dug (not in any order) vocalists Eric Burdon, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Buddy Guy, Jack Bruce, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, George Jones, and Charlie Rich.

LT: It appears that you have also felt the influence of harmonicist Charlie Musselwhite.
FC: Yes. I heard a release by Charlie in 1969 called Chicago BlueAll Stars that included a version of Ben Tucker’s Coming Home Baby, and after they played the head, the piano player goes into this montuno thing in a blues pattern. A couple of years later, I was listening in my car to Eddie Palmieri’s Azucar, so I pulled out a couple of harmonicas and realized that I could vamp on that stuff. This is why I’ve been messing around with the harmonica in Caribbean-style bands (let’s not call it salsa anymore, please), by sitting in with Ray Barretto, Larry Harlow, Conjunto Libre, etc.

LT: In 1980, you co-led The Internationals, a group that mixed blues with classical overtones
FC: That’s when I joined forces with violinist Alan Carriero. I always liked classical music, and he had these ideas of mixing Debussy and Rachmaninoff with blues. We opened for Big Joe Turner and James Cotton.

LT: Four years later, you organized the group Felix and The Havanas
FC: The first gig we got was opening for James Brown at New York’s Lone Star Café. We also opened up for Wilson Pickett, Bobby Blue Bland, Dr. John, etc. The band lasted for five years before it suddenly broke up. IM sure it was my fault!

LT: What about the septet of guitarist Jimmy Vivino & The Black Italians? Are there any real “black Italians?”
FC: I played harmonica with them for five years, including every Thursday night at Downtime. Jimmy is of Sicilian descent, so that could make him eligible to be classified as a “black Italian”

LT: Are you the only Cuban-born harmonica-playing blues musician of our times?
FC: There is another Cuban guy, Carlos del Junco, who lives in Canada and also plays harmonica. I don’t really know much about what he does, but I don’t think he is a singer. Considering the fact that we were almost the fifty-first state (Cuba, that is), we always had that North American influence, and we’ve always known that good U.S. music always had that Latin/Caribbean/Cuban tinge….

 

REVIEW (AUGUST 2004) FROM ENGLAND AS WRITTEN IN "BLUES MATTERS!"

At Blues Matters Towers we’ve been getting used to a lot of very different blues from around the world. Here are three albums from a very inventive Cuban Bluesman. All very different but he has some soul we gotta tell ya’ll.

For Green

For Green is the latest of his releases and a fine start in Josephine. Even better continuing with Cold Cold, slow, kicking, pleading, pleading , tight guitar licks, wrenching vocal, swelling organ (you know what I mean-behave!) Some Latin rhythm invades Self Argument in D minor (some title that!). Great bass intro and bongos take us into Animalism and you cannot help but sway your hips to this one. I tell you, Latin for sure. (Slight touch of Kid Creole here, just close your eyes and see who’s in front of you). Uno Moco Loco stirs up some neat harp playing (that’s Felix!) throughout this instrumental. The title track For Green is a gentle, lilting sad song with organ running in background. The album closes with the wonderfully titled She Put Him On A Diet.

Pressure Cooker

Great swing intro to Lovin’ Cup, kind of Santana plays the Blues with good harp incisions and a rhythm that keeps you groovin man. There’s some neat twangy guitar and swelling harp and piano on Laundromat Blues. Another Latin Blues groove on Listen Here. If I Don’t Have You has some stinging guitar and that organ keeps popping up (behave now!) with an ample horn arrangement to compliment. Straight ‘swing’ Blues for I’m Just A Kid At Heart. She Told Me A Lie is 7.05 of pain, full horn section, tripping guitar and an emotional plea. Raskolnikov is a swinging instrumental where Jimmy Vivino gets to play some nice guitar, while the closing track Sweaters is opened by violin and piano waterfall-like sounds and a talking, pleading vocal….enjoyed this, different….yes!

Cu-Bobs, Cu-Blues

This is the earliest of the three CD’s we received from this Latin Blues sensation. A Latin fuelled Maggie’s Farm (9.05) has you helplessly reaching for your dancing shoes. Latin beats and rhythms with injections of Felix’s harp and chanted recalls are just great! Jimmy Vivino shows his guitar chops off very well. As The Years Go Passing By (8.20) has some mighty harp work and mean guitar work that really was the main course if you dig what I’m sayin’….Check out: www.felixcabrera.com for these and someone get him over here on a world stage where he can introduce more of us to his Latin Blues/jazz style…Caleb

~~~

Sweet Home Chicago, le rendez-vous des bluesmen du web chaque samedi de 13h à 15h !

Sweet Home Chicago   (to check out the French website review!!)

Dear Felix;

 

Here's what gives the Babel Altavista translation of my review of "Pressure Cooker":

 

Felix Cabrera for a long time left its native island, Cuba, for large apple. It knows Arthur Neilson and plays with him for a long time. Jimmy Vivino (Shemekia Copeland) also formed part of the distribution. This harmonicist/singer assimilated the bases of the Blues black-American well, but its work also reflects very strongly its Latin origins. A Blues exotic and ventilated, powerful and fresh, original and of excellent invoice. This CD shows us the multiple facets of its talent: slow blues, shuffle, but also blues-samba (yes that exists!), rates/rhythms latino... and its play of harmo unslung and free of any heavy influence. An excellent album, to listen stripped of very prejudged purist, for the pleasure of an alive music! This disc will be to gain on the site in June...

 

Does all that means anything? ;-)