Roberto Carcassés

Roberto " Robertico " Julio Carcassés Colón ( born May 19, 1972 in Havana ) is a Cuban jazz pianist and film composer. The head of the group Interactivo is one of the currently most prominent musicians and arrangers of Cuba. In September 2013 he received a comprehensive banned from performing in Cuba.

Life and work

Carcassés is the son of African jazz pioneer Bobby Carcassés. He played piano at a young and studied until 1991 percussion at the Escuela Nacional de Arte, where he took piano lessons as a basis for understanding the composition. From 1992 to 1995 he went as a pianist with Santiago Feliu in Latin America and Europe on tour. In 1994 he joined the first time at the festival founded by his father Havana Jazz Plaza. Between 1998 and 1999 he toured the United States with the Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble Columna B, with whom he recorded the album Twisted Noon. Then he returned to Cuba, where he started with " El Indio " and the saxophonist César López and Alfred Thompson of Irakere his album Invitation ( 2000). In the same year he served as producer and arranger on albums such as Air of Havana from Selma rice and Trampas Del Tiempo by Gema Y Pavel.

2001 gathered Carcassés talents of different styles as Telmary Díaz, Francis del Rio, Yusa and William Vivanco and played with them in his group Interactivo, later successfully toured with. The first album of the band, Goza Pepillo, won the award for best album at the Cubadisco Awards 2006. He entered at international festivals such as the Istanbul International Jazz Festival (2003), the Festival de Jazz de San Sebastián Jazz à Vienne or. He also worked with musicians such as Chucho Valdés, Changuito, Wynton Marsalis, George Benson Gonzalo Rubalcaba or. He can be heard on albums by Yosvany Terry & Columna B and Rebeca Vallejo.

In addition Carcassés wrote film music, as for the movie Violeta ( México ), but also songs for the films Cuarteto de La Habana (Spain ) and New Rose Hotel (USA).

In a Cuban- televised live concert with his band Interactivo he changed the lyrics of a song and sang, " Free access to information so that I can form my own opinion "; He also demanded to elect the president directly, but also an end to political blockade of Cuba. He immediately received a comprehensive performance ban. The dissident Havana Times, the acts of Nicaragua from the headline, " Cuban bandleader musical commits suicide." After numerous protests also tend to be more pro-government national and international artists such as Silvio Rodríguez or the songwriter of Puerto Rican hip hop band Calle 13, the government lifted the ban only a day later on again.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Jazz Timbero (1998, with his father, Bobby Carcassés )
• Matizar (2009)