THE IMMIGRANT LIVES ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, INC.

       The Latin Rhythm and Syncopation

    Merengue-jaleo: "The Last Supper," in the middle movement, conveys my undeniable Latin influence, reminiscent of the "merengue-jaleo," or, the "tambora-tumbao," (a Dominican percussion instrument) which I conceal, albeit very subtly and teasingly, beneath the gently accentuated and nostalgic melody. You cannot fail to perceive a lingering yearning, a deep nostalgia for my homeland --and so many dreams left behind in D.R. Over time, I have become a "Latin from Manhattan," and in Just like a Dream, the inner man has finally become another creature sauntering in Times Square. Nevertheless, I am still very Latin, and our hectic music is VERY RICH in syncopation and more than 500 years of history; but even more fascinating, we all carry the motley concoction of so diverse a people, great wayfarers, whom, like the pilgrims in the Sublime America of The Hudson River School, were always seeking for new mauvish vistas and heroic landscapes in that hazy distance...

    The Transcendental in the Latin composer: With these broad-washed thoughts in the canvas of my inspiration --however befuddled with some musical madness and spryly ideas, I endeavored to re-create a new concept of the Latin genre, because the "transcendental," with the few exceptions of course, has been little explored by the Latin composers, quite often confining the sixteenth-note pianist to very repetitive motif, folk-tunes and some monotonous riffs.   Indeed, to play the Last Supper's Tempo Di Merengue, one is required to scoop up the melody-line loud to the surface of clarity, while the underlying accompaniment, however transcendental, is relegated to a mass of cast-shadows --like ghost-notes, haunting and hovering in the piano's board...Therefore, the piece is actually a Ghost-story --scary :)

    The Pedal and The Three-dimensional Sound --after Russian pianist Vladymir Horowitz! Thanks to the sustain petal (kudos to the Steinway piano), I could create the most deceptive impression of underlying human voices, some whimpering behind the melody, plaintive echoes and woes like The Passion of The Christ just before the Crucifixion (--fff chords), whose disheartening agony and agitation could be heard over and over just before reaching the very acme-climax of the cross...


    Time Signature: Why not 5/4, 7/4 amidst 4/4, 2/2 and turn me on...? I was neither mad, nor hopelessly infatuated with some capricious woman when I wrote like that... :-) These constant changes in time-signature, erratic dynamics and contrasts (oxymoronic devices withing a musical piece: plus and minor, question-and-answer and other sweet tellings in the melody-line), would allow the pianist to attack the melody and the chords in the most unexpected weak-strong beats; thus, with a careful manipulation of the sustain-pedal --of course one would need a good grand piano to create such baffling spectrum, I could create the impression of human voices bouncing off from the instrument!

P.S. This recording, rather too short and disappointingly messy, was just a foot-note, and could provide some ideas for some future project --but I needed to have a holding-pole on the abstract, indeed, mysterious realm of music. I will record the entire piece and put it in you-tube at a latter point.