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Adiós to the Queen of Salsa
The Miami Herald ^ | Jul. 17, 2003 | LYDIA MARTIN

Posted on 07/17/2003 5:21:06 AM PDT by Luis Gonzalez

Celia Cruz, the grande dame of Cuban music, the woman whose unmistakable voice resonated of the rhythm-rich island itself, died Wednesday after a seven-month battle with brain cancer.

Cruz died at 5 p.m. at her home in Fort Lee, N.J. She was 77, her husband said -- or 78, according to most biographers.

To Cubans on this side of the Florida Straits, her death is much more than the silencing of one of their homeland's greatest musical figures. Celia was the very embodiment of a fabled, nostalgia-hued Cuba, an icon in nine-inch heels and sky-high wigs whose heart always beat to the sway of those long-lost palm trees.

Her death represents the shattered hopes of every abuelo and abuela who prayed they'd live long enough to see the end of Fidel Castro.

''Students often ask me what I think will happen when Castro dies,'' said Gustavo Pérez-Firmat, professor of literature at Columbia University and author of several books on Cuban-American culture. ``I say that whatever happens, it will have happened too late, thinking of my father and my grandfather and the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who have died in exile. Celia Cruz is part of that generation that you sometimes see the remnants of, walking like lost souls up and down Calle Ocho.''

Celia may have stood for those steadfast Cuban exiles who can't wrench the pain of a lost homeland from their heart, but she was much bigger than just Cuba.

She was one of the Latin world's truest living legends, an international star who demanded the spotlight's fickle attention for six decades, through changing epochs, vacillating musical trends -- even the reinvention of her beloved Cuban son, one of the oldest Cuban genres and the root of most Afro-Latin dance beats, including mambo and salsa.

A hitmaker to the end, she broke all the barriers of sex-kitten-obsessed Latin pop, making it onto Top Five radio playlists just last year with La negra tiene tumbao, a sizzling tune that blends traditional tropical with hip-hop.

To watch her move on stage -- arms pumping, hips swinging, shoulders shaking, doing that skippity-skippity-hop of hers -- was to fall under her spell. She transmitted the joy of conga-pounding Cuban music like nobody else. The grandparents who remembered her from way-back-when were just as stirred as the kids who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac and the Bee Gees.

''There can never be another Celia Cruz,'' said good friend Israel ''Cachao'' López, credited with creating the mambo. ``Nobody has her grace, her style, her voice. Like Beny Moré, she was born to be a legend.''

Cachao had known Celia since she first started going with her family to neighborhood dances featuring his orchestra at age 14. ``She was just a girl, with no thought of being a performer. But she loved the music. It was always in her.''

THE VOICE OF CUBA

Celia grew up poor, in the Havana neighborhood of Santos Suárez. She would sing her younger brothers and sisters to sleep, but when neighbors started coming around to listen to that powerful contralto, she'd shyly shut the door.

When she was a teenager, a cousin talked her into entering a radio contest. She won, and from that point on, began doing the radio circuit in Havana. But not because she was dreaming of stardom -- she was studying to be a schoolteacher.

''I really loved to sing,'' Celia told The Herald in 2000. ``But I also did it because if you won, you would get a cake, or a bag with chocolate, condensed milk, ham. We were very poor. And all of that came in very handy at home.''

As she was graduating, one of her teachers made her rethink her plan. ''You just keep singing. One day, you're going to make more money in a day than I do in a month,'' she told Celia.

In 1950, La Sonora Matancera, one of Cuba's hottest bands, lost lead singer Mirtha Silva, who unexpectedly quit to return to her native Puerto Rico. La Sonora gave Celia a shot. But for Silva fans, the young Celia was a hard sell.

''Nobody wanted me. They would scream at me to get me offstage,'' Celia said. ``My voice was very high in those days. Mirtha had this pasty voice, very different from mine. She would come out in Bohemia magazine wrapped in just a towel. I was very serious. But La Sonora took me all over Cuba and after some time people got used to me.''

Alfredo ''Chocolate'' Armenteros, who played trumpet with La Sonora in the early 1950s and appears on one of Celia's earliest recorded hits, Burundanga, calls that a major understatement.

''She went on to be the voice of Cuba,'' Armenteros, who was also musical director of his cousin Beny Moré's band, said from his home in New York. ``Cuba has given a lot of big musical talents. But for there to be another Celia, a lot of years will have to pass.''

When Celia left Cuba in 1960 with La Sonora, she was one of the island's leading voices and dearest stars. La Guarachera de Cuba, she was called for popularizing a downhome Afro-Cuban genre, guaracha, all over Latin America. But once outside her homeland, she was granted a bigger title: Queen of Salsa.

With the late Tito Puente, the Puerto Rican percussionist who ushered her into New York's Latin jazz world of the 1960s, she helped establish the modern Latin sound. Celia accepted the throne with grace even though she never saw salsa as anything but a tweaked version of the son.

''Tito always said that salsa was something that you ate with chips,'' Celia said. ``To me, it's Cuban music. Except maybe the arrangements were more modern, there were a few more electronic instruments. But it's the same music that has moved me from the beginning.''

After Puente, she worked with the other salsa greats, from Johnny Pacheco to Willie Colón.

''As a musician, she had a calculator in her head. Her timing, her rhythm, her phrasing were always impeccable,'' said Pacheco, a founder of the salsa label Fania. Their 1974 collaboration, Celia y Johnny, which featured Químbara, one of her biggest hits, quickly shot to gold.

''I remember when we were recording Eternos [1978], we had almost finished the record when an engineer stopped us and said we had to start again because the microphone was backwards,'' Pacheco said. ``But then we heard it and kept it. Even with the microphone pointing in the wrong direction, she sounded great.''

The Queen of Salsa title reflected her expanding kingdom. Puerto Ricans claimed her, Dominicans claimed her, Mexicans claimed her. Into her late 70s, she was packing houses all over Latin America and in places like Germany, Sweden, Japan, England and Morocco.

And she managed to keep her throne by sheer force of voice and an indefatigable passion for the stage. Until December, when she was forced to cancel dates to undergo surgery to remove a brain tumor, she was tirelessly touring, spending more than 11 months of the year on an airplane.

Husband Pedro Knight, a dapper, throwback gentleman who never goes anywhere without a suit coat, was always at her side. She and her cabecita de algodón, her little cottonhead, were so inseparable he even accompanied her to manicures when they were home in Fort Lee. They never had kids.

The two met when he played trumpet and she sang for La Sonora. On July 14, they celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary. Celia was the rare celebrity who didn't throw diva tantrums, didn't whine about the work and didn't trade on anything but her talent. Old School to the end, there was an unwavering dignity to the way she lived her private life. It remained just that -- private.

So much that recently, when talk-show star Cristina Saralegui hooked up with Whoopi Goldberg to plan a film project about Celia's life, some in the film industry scratched their heads. The collective question: How do you write a compelling screenplay about somebody whose life had no apparent Tina Turner tragedy, no Behind the Music crash and burn, no tabloid-worthy scandal?

''It's a story about a rags-to-riches talent that could not be denied,'' said Marcos Avila, Saralegui's husband and a co-producer, who has written a first draft. ``She wasn't necessarily beaten or raped, but it's an amazing story of a Latin woman, a black Latin woman, who achieved greatness through a lot of hardships that she always kept to herself.''

If Celia had down days, she never let on. Those who met her were treated to a warm, joyous magic that never seemed to falter. She was, after all, the woman who spread that trademark ''Azuuuca!'' -- sugar -- throughout the world.

She may have been called queen, but she was famous for her down-to-earth charm. If you met her two or three times, you likely wound up on her greeting card list. No matter how busy her schedule, Celia took the time to write a hello from Madrid, or a Feliz Navidad from Fort Lee. It was always in her own hand.

''We would ask her to appear in concerts featuring a constellation of Latin stars,'' said Eduardo González Rubio, a longtime Cuban radio personality on WQBA. 'She arguably was the biggest star, but she was always very simple. Everybody else would fight about the lineup, `Put me first, put me last.' But Celia always said, 'Put me wherever you want.' ''

Fidel Castro was the only topic that seemed to ruffle her gentle demeanor. On April 7, 1962, her mother died in Cuba. But Celia wasn't allowed to return for the burial. The government, which saw her as a traitor, did everything in its power to erase her from the collective memory. Celia Cruz records were considered contraband. They circulated anyway, and her freshest hits were beamed from Miami radio to the island's still-fervent fans. She made more than 76 records, won two Grammys and three Latin Grammys, appeared in several films (including The Mambo Kings and The Pérez Family), collected honorary degrees from Yale, the University of Miami and Florida International University, scored a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and was immortalized in wax.

But she was most proud of taking Cuban music to every corner of the world. Her biggest dream was to go back home, even if just for a last glimpse. But she refused to do it with Castro in power.

``If I wasn't allowed into Cuba to visit my mother's grave, why would I go now? I adore my country. I miss it terribly. But New Jersey is home now. It may not look like Santos Suárez, but then, Santos Suárez doesn't look like Santos Suárez. It's turned to dirt.''

The closest she ever came was a trip to the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in 1990, where she performed in a celebration that honored Cubans who worked on the base.

`SOMETHING EERIE'

''She was crying the whole time,'' said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who traveled with her. ``She walked over to the fence that separates the base from the rest of Cuba and reached through to take soil from the Cuban side. Then something eerie happened. She was performing on this very hot, still day. But all of a sudden, the Cuban flag starts to ripple. There was no wind, and the base's flag that was a few feet away didn't move. But the Cuban flag was waving. We were all astounded.''

Celia never lived in Miami, but she treated the city like a second hometown. She had requested that her body be flown to Miami after her death then returned to the Northeast for burial, her publicist said Wednesday. A memorial is being planned for Saturday at the downtown Freedom Tower.

For more than 20 years, she was the singing, pleading force behind th5e annual telethon put on by the La Liga Contra El Cáncer, which benefits local Hispanic cancer patients.

In the 1970s, as Cuban Miami surged, her voice echoed through el exilio. ''Yo llevo a Cuba la voz, desde esta playa lejana,'' [I send to Cuba my voice, from this distant beach] she sang in a catchy jingle for WQBA, then called La Cubanísima.

''I called her señora twice over,'' said Cándido Camero, a conga great who played with everybody from Arsenio Rodríguez and Machito's Afro-Cubans to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

''Because she was a señora on the stage and she was a señora in life,'' Camero, 82, said from his New York home.


TOPICS: Cuba; Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: celiacruz
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Cruz's voice gave those who heard her goosebumps.

One of my students is a newly arrived young Cuban who came here through Mexico. He heard about her death and started crying. And here is the strange inexplicable thing: all of us standing together cried for her passing.

Soon...

21 posted on 07/17/2003 5:01:53 PM PDT by eleni121
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Thanks for the article and the photos.

Bump!

22 posted on 07/17/2003 5:46:29 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul
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To: Luis Gonzalez
'She was my roots,' fan says
Salsa singer's death elicits feelings of loss

tfigueras@herald.com

Eddy Sanchez didn't care that his battered Ford pickup blocked traffic as he made a wide semicircle onto Eighth Street.

He didn't care that his fingers, muscled and worn from decades of hard labor, shook a bit as he swiped them across two tear-filled eyes.

''I'm crying, look at me,'' said Sanchez, 50, a painter and construction worker by trade, leaning out his truck window to stare at the cluster of pink carnations strewn across one of the sidewalk stars on Calle Ocho's Walk of Fame, partially obscuring the name inscribed: Celia Cruz.

''She was the soundtrack to my life,'' said Sanchez, who left Cuba with his family when he was 10 years old. ``I danced with my wife to Celia Cruz when we married.''

He paused, then laughed.

''In fact, every woman I have ever known, every one that I have ever danced with, I have danced with to Celia Cruz,'' said Sanchez, watching as another person added another carnation in honor of the salsa queen, who died Wednesday of brain cancer.

ACROSS THE GLOBE

The death of the iconic Cruz elicited statements from boldfaced names across the globe, commenting on a career that spanned five decades and pushed Cuban music past national borders and across generation gaps.

But on Calle Ocho, and other parts of the county, fans commented on her death in the bittersweet and familiar terms of sorrow and loss.

''She was my roots, when we had no roots to really connect to,'' said Maria Oliva, 48, whose family left Cuba in 1965. Oliva, then 10 years old, was too young to care about dance and music. It was only growing up in the United States that she learned to love the sound of her country.

''And that sound was Celia,'' Oliva said, leaning down to press her hand on Cruz's name embedded in her star of fame.

Cruz's sound touched more than just her fellow exiles: Lovers of Latin music across the world embraced her signature earth style and her love of the classic Cuban son, the foundation for many genres of Latin music.

Cindy Valentin, born in Puerto Rico, sat on a bench near the memorial to the Bay of Pigs on Southwest Eighth Street and 13th Avenue.

`OURS, TOO'

''She was ours, too,'' said Valentin, pointing at her heart. ``I know she was sick, but it's still a shock. I just came here to meditate a little. And I'll probably cry, too.''

At Sedano's supermarket at 9686 SW 24th St., two clerks made Cuban coffee for customers as they reminisced about ``Celia.''

''Everyone has been feeling this,'' said Rosa Vasquez.

''The only thing that hurts me is that she never got to return to Cuba,'' added fellow employee Georgina Mara, as she listened to Salsa 98.3 FM's radio tribute to Cruz.

At La Palma restaurant at 6091 SW Eighth St., the usual group gathered outside for their evening ritual of Cuban coffee and chit-chat.

But the usual conversation topic of Cuba in general shifted to Celia specifically. ''Celia died, but her music didn't,'' said Manuel Vasco, 70.

23 posted on 07/17/2003 7:21:25 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez (Cuba será libre...soon.)
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To: All

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24 posted on 07/17/2003 7:22:39 PM PDT by Bob J (Freerepublic.net...where it's always a happening....)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
THOUSANDS MOURN BELOVED SINGER CRUZ IN MIAMI

By BILL HOFFMANN



Email Archives
Print Reprint



July 20, 2003 -- The heartwarming celebration of Celia Cruz's life moved from New York to Florida yesterday - as thousands of fans lined the streets of Miami to pay their final respects to the beloved salsa superstar.
Latin singer Gloria Estefan and her music mogul husband, Emilio, were among the sea of mourners who openly wept as they filed past the open casket of Cruz, who died of brain cancer last week at the age of 77.

Many waved Cuban flags as they hugged and traded stories about the vibrant entertainer famous for such Latino smashes as "El Yerberito Moderno" and "Que le Den Candela."

In one poignant moment at the daylong memorial, the emotional crowd broke into the Cuban national anthem as they stood along Calle Ocho, the main street in Miami's biggest Cuban district.

Nila Alvarez, 68, who met Cruz years ago in Havana, said Cruz would be sorely missed. "She was always an idol, as a person and as an artist," Alvarez said.

"She was a symbol of Cuba," added mourner Jorge Luis Pelaez, 53.

The line of fans stretched for three blocks as doors opened for the viewing at the Freedom Tower, where 500,000 Cubans who fled Fidel Castro's government in the 1960s were processed by immigration officials.



Also in attendance were Cruz's husband, trumpeter Pedro Knight, singer Carlos Vives and talk-show host Cristina Saralegui.

Cruz's body will be returned to New York today for a private viewing by family and close friends.

25 posted on 07/22/2003 7:26:43 PM PDT by Dqban22
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To: Victoria Delsoul
Finale Fit for a Queen
Mourners set to honor Cruz




By Joshua Robin, Eli Reyes and Bryan Virasami
STAFF WRITERS; Staff writer Charles Enloe contributed to this story.

July 22, 2003

A horse-drawn carriage draped in Celia Cruz's favorite color - purple - will carry the Queen of Salsa down Fifth Avenue to St. Patrick's Cathedral today, leaving the funeral home where tens of thousands of fans said goodbye.

The world will then honor the Havana-born reina the same way she moved the world: with music.

Patti LaBelle will sing "Ave Maria." Salsa singer Victor Manuelle will also perform. And her fans - who stood 10 deep behind police barricades and marched into the chapel for 12 hours - will likely again wail "Celia! Celia!"

"She means everything to us," said Francesco Barone, 39, of Sunnyside.

Services for Cruz are expected to exceed Judy Garland's 1969 funeral, which drew about 22,000 people to Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home.

Cruz, 77, who won two Grammys and three Latin Grammys, died last Wednesday of a brain tumor in her Fort Lee, N.J., home.

After a weekend of memorials in Miami, Cruz's body returned to New York Sunday night. Yesterday it was the city's turn to mourn and crowds lined up from dawn onward at the funeral home on Madison Avenue and 81st Street. The mourners included Gov. George Pataki, Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller.

"She brought here our roots, our music, our culture, everything that we miss from our countries," said Floria Candela, 46, of Woodside, a fitting-room attendant at Macy's originally from Peru. "I feel a deep sadness, a big loss."

Inside the funeral home, Cruz's copper coffin was set before a Cuban flag. She wore a white sequined dress.

A sense of loss and sadness did not escape the hundreds outside, though some would break into impromptu versions of Cruz's hits and repeated that Cruz wanted to be remembered with happiness.

The crowd - many holding white, long-stemmed roses, worn LPs and dated photos - murmured about the concerts they shared, about her music and her legacy. One brought a bag of sugar - recalling that Cruz started her shows with the chant "Azucar!"

"I remember one time Celia was playing at the Manhattan Center and I was desperate to see her, so I went," Irene Huertas, a Puerto Rican native who lives in the Bronx, said as she held two Cruz LPs dating to the late 70s. "I lost a heel, but I kept dancing all night - until she finished. I loved her," she said.

Staff writer Charles Enloe contributed to this story.

Why They Loved Celia

Some mourners who paid their respects to salsa queen Celia Cruz yesterday offered theri thoughts about he singer and her music.

LIVE COVERAGE

Radio: WPAT-FM 93.1; WSKQ-FM 97.9

TV: NY1; NY! Noticias

QUOTES:

1) 'She was black, she was a woman, she was Cuban..I think she reaches people from all classes, all levels, all nationalities.'

Sheila Fernandez, 38, Hell's Kitchen, attorney

2) 'Not just Cuba, but the world lost something very good. She was the reina of the world.'

Jose Batista, 65, Stratford, Conn., retired airplane-engine factory worker

3) 'My mom's Cuban and I grew up listening to her music. It just feels like part of me..she means everything to us.'

Francesco Barone, 39, Sunnyside, Visual Mechandiser

4) 'She was an icon, plus she was a symbol of freedom... she brings joy to all thse people.'

Rebecca Sccott, 48, homeless

The Funeral

1) 81st and Madison

Led by white horses and festooned with flowers, a glass-sided carriage is to proceed down Fifth Avenue at 12:30 p.m. followed by limos carrying Cruz's family.

2) At 53rd

Gloria and Emilio Estefan will be among friends and celebrities joining the procession

3) St. Patrick's Cathedral

The funeral Mass is to be held at 2 p.m. The guest list is expected to include Ruben Blades, Jon Secada, Antonio Banderas, Victor Manuelle, Paquito D'Rivera, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Johnny Pacheco, and Patti LaBelle who is to sing "Ave Maria,"

The Mass is open to the public, but burial will be private.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
26 posted on 07/22/2003 7:39:25 PM PDT by Dqban22
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To: Dqban22
Thanks so much for the article. She was a great singer.
27 posted on 07/22/2003 7:43:03 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Final farewell to Celia Cruz
23/07/2003 08:30 - (SOUTH AFRICA)


New York - New York bid an emotional goodbye to Cuban-born "Queen of Salsa" Celia Cruz on Tuesday, as her coffin was carried on a white carriage through the city's streets to a funeral service at St Patrick's cathedral.

The carriage, bedecked with white flowers and Cuban flags and pulled by two white horses, was followed by fifteen limousines carrying her husband, Pedro Knight, members of her family and close friends.

Cruz, dressed in white, was laid on the carriage in a gold-coloured coffin accompanied by a crystal urn.

The singer died at her New Jersey home at the age of 77 last Wednesday of a brain tumor.

A white car drove slowly in front of the carriage flying the Cuban flag and carrying an image of Cuba's patron, the virgin of Caridad del Cobre.

"She is just beautiful in her casket, just like a saint," the salsa singer La India said.

Despite six days of mourning, in Miami and New York, her adoring fans turned out in their thousands in New York once again on Tuesday crowding the city's Fifth Avenue in a bid to gain a glimpse of the singer's funeral courtege.

The route was lined with the flags of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru and other Latin American nations.

"It's beautiful, beautiful," exclaimed Mildred, from New Jersey, adding "she deserves this and much more. God put her on this planet so she could give music to the people and be a good person, and she achieved that."

Jeanette Suarez, of Westchester, New York State, described Cruz as a "marvelous person" who gave so much to so many.

The cortege headed to the cathedral from a nearby chapel where fans were able to pay their last respects prior to Tuesday's funeral service. Organisers said some 75 000 people had paid their respects to Cruz at the chapel.

Her death has sparked such an outpouring of grief, that New York governor, George Pataki, has declared July 23 "Celia Cruz Day."

The auxiliary bishop of New York, Josu Irionodo, led the funeral service in Spanish at the catholic St Patrick's cathedral here for 1 500 mourners inside the building while loudspeakers broadcast the ceremony to those outside.

"She was born to be free," the bishop said adding "Celia rose high, very high, but she never distanced herself from the people. She didn't need stairs, an elevator or directions to reach the heights she achieved."

Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor, the actor Antonio Banderas, and musicians Johnny Pacheco, Ruben Blades, Gloria Estefan and Marc Anthony were just some of the well-known personalities to attend the ceremony.

American singer Patti LaBelle sang Ave Maria while the Puerto Rican singer Victor Manuelle gave a rendition of "Life is a carnival" as mourners left the cathedral.

Following the ceremony, Cruz's coffin was taken for burial to the Woodlawn cemetery - where Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday and Miles Davis are also buried - in the New York neighbourhood of the Bronx.

Her body will be laid a temporary mausoleum while a permanent one is finished for her over the next three months.

Cruz studied music in her hometown of Havana, where she was born October 21, 1925, sang on Cuban radio programs and, in 1950, became the lead singer of the legendary Cuban group Sonora Matancera. She wed the band's trumpeter Pedro Knight, by whom she is survived.

She and the band left Cuba in 1960 and eventually settled in the United States. Cruz was never allowed to return to her homeland.

Fidel "Castro never forgave me," she once said.

Tens of thousands of people paid an emotional tribute in heavily Cuban-American Miami Saturday to Cruz, who staunchly opposed communist Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Her endless string of hits helped bring Cuban music a wide international audience and ever-growing list of fans over a career that spanned six decades.

Oscar-winning US actress Whoopi Goldberg plans to play Cruz in a movie of her life story.

28 posted on 07/23/2003 10:07:45 AM PDT by Dqban22
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