#2 Shipping Instruments on the JD Mitchell

#2 January 1999 – Shipping instruments on the JD Mitchell

This was the year I really got to know Cuba. I received a Nova Scotia Arts Council grant to travel within Cuba visiting music schools to research their method for teaching music. Silvio Pupo and I rented a car in Holguin in December of 1998 and drove from Holguin to Santiago and then straight through the middle of Cuba, all the way to Havana. We stopped at many music schools along the way, spent 3 days traveling, and arrived in Havana in time for the Jazz Festival.

All-Female Band in Holguin

Salsa Concert at the Holguin Conservatory

Jeff and Silvo visiting music school in Santiago de Cuba - Seen here with Carlos Miyares (tenor sax) David Virelles(piano). They are both now very famous in the Latin Jazz world. 
 

Thanks to Keith and Mary Costello from the Two Gulls and a few jazz fans, we were able to get a few instruments stowed away aboard the J.D. Mitchell which was delivering heavy equipment and ambulances from Nova Scotia to Cuba. ICAP helped us with the paperwork to import the instruments and we went right to the shipyards in Marianao to receive them.

Among the things that we sent were a set of drums for OliverValdes Rey, a piano for Tony Rodriguez, and several amplifiers, which were immediately put to use during the Jazz Festival in Havana. 

However, Silvio and I missed the first performance at the Jazz Festival by the Los Primos students because a bicycle fell into our rental car. In Cuba when you rent a car, if you have an accident you must have a police report or you have to pay for the damages. After much persuasion, the police officer accepted our story that there was a bicycle rider (long gone) driving slowly downhill towards our parked car. As he approached, he started to wobble and we watched as he smashed his bicycle into the driver’s side of our parked rental car. It was absurd, to say the least. We had traveled 1100 km in Cuba on small roads filled with buses, ox carts, 18 wheelers, and horses with a few close calls but no incidents. Then when we finally arrived in Havana, a bicycle plowed into our parked car!

Anyway, it was time to leave for the Jazz Festival but we had to go to the police station to make the accident report. This took about 3 hours and we arrived at the festival long after our friends had finished playing on the instruments that we had brought them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With more than 800 instruments delivered, we are now anxious to get the 100+ instruments we have in our attic repaired and delivered to Cuba. We also have 20 computers in the garage all ready to go. Please be a part of this project by contributing through our online 50/50 Raffle at https://rafflebox.ca/raffle/losprimos Proceeds from the June 3rd draw at the Cottage Café in Dartmouth will go towards the Los Primos Instrument Campaign. www.losprimos.ca