• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 08 / 25 / 2010

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Benny Moré, also known as the Bárbaro del Ritmo, would have celebrated 91 years of age on August 24, 2010, and although 47 years of his death separate him from us, his voice, personality and aura continue being felt in Cuban musical entertainment.

One of the least publicized aspects of the singer, born in central Cuban town of Santa Isabel de las Lajas, is his passage through film, in which only a few reflections of his utter brilliance are conserved live that his contemporaries can enjoy.

His first contacts with the seventh art began with his participation in the music band of Miguel Matamoros when he travelled to Mexico in June 1945. There, in the nation of ancient Aztecs, he became acquainted with the great figures of the world of music, entertainment and film.

According to information from specialist José Galiño, Benny’s footprint in the dark room was reflected in six movies: Carita de cielo (1946), Novia a la medida (1949), Ventarrón (1949), En cada puerto un amor (1949), Cuando el alba llegue o Fuego en la carne (1949), Quinto patio (1950). Back in Cuba, he took part in only one film, No me olvides (1956), the last in which he acted.

All appearances were brief, without his being included in the list of credits. Unfortunately he doesn’t appear in any of the movies by Dámaso Pérez Prado.

With the renowned King of Mambo he recorded 30 numbers between 1948 and 1950, and there is a movie, Al son del mambo (1950), in which the Cuban singer Yeyo Estrada doubles as the voice of Benny, because by that date he had left the Pérez Prado band.

José Galiño says that “none of these movies exist in our country’s vaults. Only a series of kinescopes remain from Cuban television.”

Two movies have been produced dedicated to Benny: Hoy como ayer (Constante Diego “Rapy”) and Benny (Jorge Luis Sánchez)

In films he appeared as the Bárbaro del Ritmo, although it is a minimum reflection of his richness, figure and attractive personality. He was dressed as a “pachuco” (flashily-dressed Chicano, or chuchero in Cuba), with very wide pants, suspenders, a long coat with wide shoulders, necktie, two-toned shoes with small holes or sandals without socks, a broad-brimmed hat with a long feather (sometimes a beret), earrings and a large-linked chain like a key ring from the waist to the ankles.

He had excellent command of the scene, which he complemented with amazing improvisations and his startups in African rhythm were unsurpassable.

Indisputably, already in the movies of the decade of the ‘40s, he showed himself as a completely accomplished artist, with a special artistic maturity.

The potential of his voice was beyond question and inexhaustible. In the meantime, vocal resources of diverse moods sprang forth, with unprecedented tones and nuances and inflections and interjections appropriate to each phrase, to each musical and textural idea.

Various films can be made about Benny because of the number of myths and legends, adorned with his human qualities and anecdotes, in which his sensitivity for the disadvantaged stands out.

The singer from las Lajas struggled in his earlier times against poverty, but some time afterwards, when he got out of this, he realized that money wasn’t everything. He greatly needed health, peace and the rest he never had.

They are human elements that require study to know how much there is of the human being in the great singer from Santa Isabel de las Lajas. We can never say: “This is Benny!” One will always have to talk, analyze and reflect about who was Benny Moré, “the greatest thing of all of life,” as troubadour Kelvis Ochoa says.

By: Rafael Lam

Source: CUBANOW
*Translated by Susana Hurlich