To Guayaquil-born Cecilia Villar Eljuri – better known as just Eljuri – music is as integral to her life as water.
Her mother was a pianist and composer so Eljuri was exposed to boleros, tango and flamenco when she was five. When she was 12, she says she became addicted to guitar and rock. She started playing her own music at 17 in clubs in New York City, where she still resides.
“I write from the heart, but it’s mostly from experiences and people I meet when traveling – about empowerment and fighting for change and rights and everything else,” says the eclectic musician often called “Carlita” for her resemblance to classic rock guitarist, Carlos Santana.
After playing an active role trying to get Latinas to vote in the last U.S. presidential election, via Voto Latino, the latest change Eljuri is fighting for is clean water in her native Ecuador. A luxury not all citizens of the world have.
“I met the president of Water Ecuador at an Ecuadorian festival in Washington DC in 2008 – I was performing and he had a booth,” says Eljuri who had also just released her first solo CD.
“He wanted to help treat people as a med student and found a lot of people had stomach issues and it came from the water being infected. Instead of curing people after they get sick, he thought, ‘let me prevent it.’”
Over the years, they stayed in touch, and chose Isla Puna – a small island four hours from Guayaquil, with little access to the mainland and extremely contaminated drinking water, for their next clean water project. It will begin construction on January 6.
“We provide them education and then connect with communities to teach them how to maintain a water center – we make it self-sustainable,” says the singer, who had a benefit concert this past October. “We raised tons of money, and we did a hot-a-thon releasing a single for the concert to raise more money…The money goes right to the project.”
She explains that Water Ecuador is mostly run by volunteers.
“There were 20 last summer – many were students from Harvard and Yale,” says Eljuri.
While Eljuri continues to raise money for clean water, she is also working on a music video for one of her latest songs, “Ya es hora,” and an educational guitar series for beginning and accomplished guitarists to find their “voice.” This year, she plans on touring the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
TKA performing at the soldout New Jersey Performing Arts Center on November 23, 2013. (Courtesy Kay Seven TKA Facebook)
Freestyle – the dance-pop electronic genre with an added heap of emotion and romance, was at the height of its popularity in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The genre, created by Latinos in New York City, continues to be followed by loyal fans today as they flocked to freestyle concerts across the U.S. this year.
After performing in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall last winter, as well as a summer tour on the West Coast last Saturday, more than 10 freestyle performers, including including Cynthia, Johnny O., and Stevie B, sang to a packed house in New Jersey’s Performing Arts Center. Louis “Kayel” Sharpe Figueroa, the lead singer of TKA, as well as George Lamond were also there, and NBC Latino got to catch up with these two kings of freestyle to find out a little about the beginning of the genre, as well as what they’re up to now.
“Kayel,” also known as “K7,” was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico and moved to Spanish Harlem in New York City when he was four. He is the writer and lead singer of the popular freestyle trio, TKA.
NBC Latino: What are you up to currently?
Kayel: Today I have studio time. I write songs and produce tracks that I submit for different artists. I got into this business to be a musician, so I still crave it and have the hunger for it as when I first got into it. I’m still searching for that next hit, and I’m still in that search, and I haven’t given up on it yet.
We [TKA] perform weekly. The resurgence and popularity of freestyle music has resurfaced. It is feel-good music, and it has some angst. It’s inspiring a new generation to find themselves in music. Today’s music is good, but it’s more macho bravado. TKA, and freestyle music as a whole, still has that bravado, but it is still able to relate to feelings and truth across the board.
I also perform as a solo artist. K7 is more hip-hop based; the energy of both combined together feels very modern. I have new songs coming out with TKA – still freestyle, but I’m the creature of the times, so when I go in to record new music, I’m not there to record what I’ve already done – I’m looking upwards and forwards. Fans like to come to the freestyle shows, but I’ve noticed that in our community when a new artist comes out in freestyle – there’s not many people that rush to buy it, because radio doesn’t rush to play it anymore. Freestyle went the way of jazz. It’s very rare that you hear Miles Davis on the radio. It’s not as prominent as it was in the late 80’s and late 90’s.
NBC Latino: What makes freestyle so special in your eyes?
Kayel: Latinos didn’t have a voice in hip-hop early on. We were part of founding it. There were Latin groups like Rock Steady – a group of break dancers – but the mainstream wasn’t about to accept us in the market yet. We had to find a way in which we could find our niche in this music…We were dancing to the hip-hop and club music, and we found ourselves starting to write these love songs – then we started to rap over the intro, and sing melodies over it after we sped the record up…Our own community started liking it. They could find their pain in urban living and in falling in love. That’s how it grew. Originally freestyle wasn’t called “freestyle,” the real term for this music was called, “Latin hip-hop,” then it was called “heartthrob,” but it wasn’t name that was cool enough. So when people danced to it, they would say “I’m gonna freestyle.” If I could be frank, we embrace it, but we always wished another name would resurface, because it limits us to a box.
NBC Latino: What’s you favorite TKA song?
Kayel: “Tears May Fall” changed the direction of where our music was at the time, and I also wrote “Maria” and “Louder Than Love.” “Maria” was a combination of two girlfriends I had. They both had similar looks…I was describing one that stayed in my head and haunted my mind. When I sing about the projects, it was about another one…In the song, I had to have a villain, so I chose a drug dealer. When I originally wrote the song, I was arguing and asking, “Why are you dating the bad side of me?” I made myself the drug dealer mentally. One guy who didn’t care and did all this wrong to her. The nice side of me was against the bad side of me. The same thing with “Louder Than Love” – it’s based on a relationship between two of my female friends. They really loved each other but couldn’t be in the same room. One of them is Elizabeth Rodriguez – she’s on Broadway now and “Orange is the New Black” – she was the basis of it.
NBC Latino: What’s one thing people who know you, don’t know about you?
Kayel: I’m the biggest nerd. I’m kind of proud of that. I’m a big TV buff, and a movie guy. I can tell you what’s going to be cancelled before they cancel it. I’m a human Neilsen box.
George Lamond, now 46, started singing when he was 9, growing up in the Bronx, NY.
NBC Latino: What is your favorite freestyle moment?
George: There was a lot of them, but I guess my favorite one is performing in front of 10,000 in Madison Square Garden. There is nothing like performing in your hometown.
George Lamond in 1992. (Courtesy George Lamond)
NBC Latino: Why do you think freestyle was a genre so dominated by Latinos?
George: Because it came from the Bronx where the majority of Puerto Ricans lived. Our parents landed in the Bronx for better jobs. Freestyle, for me, is the sister of disco. That’s the best way to put it. I was a huge disco fan when I was young, and a lot of the songs were played at clubs. I saw TKA perform, and that’s how I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do music at a young age – when I went to see Menudo in Radio City Music Hall, and they started singing in Spanish and English.
NBC Latino: What do you think happened to the genre?
George: It ended because the majority of the performers didn’t graduate to bigger and better things…It just got monotonous and died out like everything else, but freestyle is still living as well, because it’s a part of our culture and lifestyle…We have hip-hop, freestyle, and salsa.
I see a resurgence in salsa now – a new singer, David Kada, has new record that is doing very, very well. Record producer Sergio George, has a lot of new kids. When it comes to salsa, it’s not going to go anywhere.
NBC Latino: What do you think made your salsa version of Juan Gabriel’s “Que Te Vas” such a chart-breaking hit in the 90’s?
George: I felt a connection to it, because at the time I was going through a really bad relationship with my ex-wife and that song was helping me out. It was a therapeutic moment. I didn’t know the effect I was having on the audience, but they still tell me.
NBC Latino: What are you up to currently?
George: I’m constantly recording and touring a lot. I’m also a dad to a 17, 14, and 7- year-old. I never remarried again. Maybe somebody will want to deal with me one day (says laughing), but I’m looking to put a salsa single together. I’m also releasing a new single called “Brining My Love Down” on Thanksgiving day – this song is another sound of George Lamond – R and B that I’ve been dying to do for my crowd – the people that used to listen to me and now have kids and families – I want to slow it down a little bit. I’ve been doing music for 25 years – it’s my full-time job.
NBC Latino: What is your favorite song to sing?
George: “Without You” – you can hear a pin drop when I sing that song. The title speaks for itself. Have you ever loved someone so passionately and intimately you never want to lose that moment? How do you live without them?
NBC Latino: What’s one thing people who know you, don’t know about you?
George: I’m a great cook. I can make a really good lasagna, and a really good shrimp bisque. I invested in a restaurant once, but I thought it would keep me away from my kids. I grew up without a father so I promised I would never leave my kids alone.
Anoushka Medina and Xavier Morales, protagonists in “For Love in the Caserío.” (Courtesy Cine-Coop)
Antonio Morales was born in the second largest housing projects in the U.S. – the Residencial Luis Llorens Torres in San Juan, Puerto Rico – also known as el Caserío. His dad was a drug lord in their intimate, yet violent world consisting of 140 buildings and about 2,600 units, and his mom was one of its drug addicts.
As a boy, Morales would find guns in the closet and drugs under the mattresses, but at 15, he found the arts. Morales had passed a competitive audition to attend the Jose Julian Acosta Theatre Arts Middle and High School in Old San Juan, and that was his one-way ticket out of his violent past.
“I knew I didn’t want to end up like my father,” says Morales. “I found my passion in the arts, and I was convinced that the arts was going to be the most effective tool to get kids off the streets. Once the federal agents arrested my dad, I started Viviendo el Arte – in the housing project…I started to teach theater to other kids in the neighborhood as a way to help them.”
While studying theater at the University of Puerto Rico, Morales says he got the urge to write a play for the kids in el caserío to act out. It was inspired by Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet’s” family feud. He wrote his own theatrical love story set in the housing project.
Instead of the Montagues and Capulets, the friction was between feuding gangs – Los Caliente and Trebol. In the play Cristal and Angelo meet and fall in love, but their families belong to the feuding gangs. The successful play, “For Love in the Caserío” then became a feature film, and it has had so much success in 16 movie theaters on the island it just started a three-day tour in New York this week through November 14.
“I found so many similarities to our reality,” says Morales about when he first read “Romeo and Juliet” in high school “I found it so amazing that I could include all our social problems in Shakespeare’s plot line…I used all my reality and joined it with a prohibited love story, and it was a success.”
But the success he is most proud is how his art has helped change many lives in a housing project known primarily for its drugs and violence.
“First it transformed the kids, and then it went on to transform the parents, and then the community,” says Morales. “Before I knew it, everyone wanted to come see the play. They knew it was about their lives. They felt I was exposing them, but I also offered different tools to better themselves.”
Since Antonio first wrote the play 12 years ago, it has been presented more than 500 times all over the island, and it has flourished with the involvement of members of el caserío – from lighting to set design.
“For Love in the Caserío” writer and producer Antonio Morales. (Courtesy Cine-Coop)
He explains that after each show he and the director, Luis Enrique Rodriguez, talk to the audience.
“People in the audience sometimes would confess the bad things they were doing, and with tears in their eyes, say they wanted to be rescued,” says Morales.
Now 31, Morales remembers back when he was 15, and the kids he recruited for his project were around 12.
“I had to be the most outstanding student, because I had the responsibility with other kids in the community,” he says. “I had to understand everything so I could have the answers.”
He happily mentions that many are still active and teaching the next generation involved with Viviendo el Arte, or have careers in the arts themselves. Now in their late 20’s and early 30’s, they are also the actors he used in “For Love in the Caserío.”
“I was very convinced that it had to be done with our kids,” says Morales. His 25-year-old brother Xavier, who started acting in the play at age eight, plays the lead in the movie. “They lived it, it’s their reality.”
When officials at the San Juan office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) saw the play, they got involved, and continue to meet regularly to provide support to the project. The New York Times reports that, so far, housing officials in Puerto Rico have given $2.8 million for a tour of the play and the production of the film.
After HUD Secretary Maurice Jones saw the play, he received a letter from Morales, which was posted in the HUD web site.
“In the late 1990′s, we learned an increase in prison sentencing and armed police officer presence made little difference in controlling drug crime in Puerto Rico,” wrote Morales. “Moreover, we learned punishment does not drive behavior. However, what has been proven successful and what drives public housing youth to modify behavior has been peer modeling. This is why I created the theater group which includes a group of talented individuals from the largest public housing project in Puerto Rico, Llorens Torres, to star in my play, ‘Por Amor en el Caserío.’”
Morales tells NBC Latino, “Now we’re in New York, and we want to continue to work hard and spread our message. What are the chances to succeed when nobody cares?”
Today, Morales lives with his brother Xavier in an apartment in Guaynabo, near San Juan and works full time in film production and with his theater group, San Juan Drama Company, which is volunteer run and involves more than 100 youth.
Xavier Morales says he had two older brothers to look up to, one was a drug dealer like his dad – both of whom ended up in federal prison – and his brother Antonio.
“Antonio inspires me,” Xavier told an audience after the film screening in John Jay College on Monday. “He changed my life.”
The film’s producers say crime has significantly decreased in the housing project and the drug gangs support Morales’ work after seeing the positive effect it’s had on the youth.
“We want people to see our work because of the social transformation effect it causes,” says Morales. “It’s not just a movie.”
“The audience comes out different than when they entered – that’s how you know your art is working.”
Elizabeth Perez Halperin while serving in the U.S. Navy. (Courtesy Elizabeth Perez Halperin)
After being in charge of refueling aircraft in the U.S. Navy for eight years, Elizabeth “Liz” Perez-Halperin says she got interested in reducing the nation’s dependency on oil as well as its energy consumption. In 2010, the Wounded Warrior veteran founded GC Green Incorporated — a company providing job training to veterans in the renewable energy industry, teaching them entrepreneurship skills, and providing clean technology industry job placement assistance.
On Tuesday, Perez-Halperin was one of 12 national heroes honored at The White House as “Champions of Change.” The event celebrated veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who are doing extraordinary work to advance clean energy and increase climate resilience and preparedness in their communities. The U.S. Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz, thanked the honorees for their service — past and present.
“I got a call in September from a gentlemen from The White House letting me know I was selected. It was just that ‘wow’ feeling,” she says, upon hearing of the award. “It’s a time of reflection for me for my time of service and to my dad’s time in the military – all of my hard work and my dad coming to the States for a better life – it’s all happening right now.”
Perez-Halperin explains that her dad, who passed away in 1995, joined the military as a young man after immigrating from Mexico to seek a better life for his family.
“My dad is a huge influence in my life — he taught me not to complain — instead to find a solution,” she explains. “Even in the government today you see a lot of complaining, but I want to find solutions and find people to collaborate.”
The 34-year-old says – her voice shaky with emotion – that losing a close friend was one of the inspirations for building a training facility to support veterans on their own clean technology ventures. Her friend Nicole Palmer died during an attack on a Navy vessel in 2000.
“I’d like to name it after her,” says Perez-Halperin about the new center, which is located in San Diego, California, 20 minutes from Camp Pendleton. The facility will help keep veterans employed with salaries starting at $25 to 50 per hour.
“That’s our goal…I’d like to continue working on projects that will protect our nation.”
Perez-Halperin says clean energy is important to her, because people don’t realize is there is national security at stake as well, as groups and countries will increasingly fight for their share of scarce resources.
“Water conservation is huge,” says Perez-Halperin, who has been teaching about this topic at San Diego State University for the past three years.
“I strongly feel there’s evidence that our sources for water are depleting. It’s going to be our next oil. Once our water’s polluted, it’s gone.”
Perez-Halperin says she’d like to continue to grow GC Green by collaborating with the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs on specialized programs.
“I’d like to open a holistic center for veterans returning from war,” says Perez-Halperin, who is also a fan of meditation as opposed to medication. “I’m also a wounded warrior, and it’s something that I do personally — it keeps me grounded.”
Perez-Halperin has accomplished much on the battlefield and now on the home front, but she says her biggest accomplishment is being able to bring her 12-year-old daughter to The White House.
“Now she has the opportunity to see why I am working so hard. That means a lot to me — to be an example for her, like my dad was for me,” says Perez. “I want to be that example too for other veteran women.”
“Outside of the uniform, there’s so much more work we can do.”
Lemon Andersen (Courtesy Miami International Film Festival)
Lemon Andersen is an accomplished spoken word artist, but he’s also a champion at hurdling obstacles. He went from growing up in a Brooklyn gang and being a thrice convicted felon, to a Tony-Award winner for “Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.”
On March 3, he’s having his story be told in a documentary, “Lemon,” at the Miami International Film Festival.Laura Brownson saw Andersen perform for the first time a little more than three years ago. She was so moved by how he conveyed his painful past through his poetry, that she and her partner, Beth Levison, decided to follow him around with cameras to document his personal and professional life for the next three years.
“He won a Tony Award and then at the heels of that had a hard fall living with 13 people in the projects, and he said to me, ‘I’m going to write my life story and get out of here. I’m going to get out of here for good,’” says Brownson, the filmmaker of “Lemon.”
And he did.
The half-Puerto Rican, half-Norwegian Andersen, says he now lives in artist neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., with his wife and three kids. He enjoys spending his days getting up early to do research on his newest play, reading “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and writing in his neighborhood cafe.
Andersen, whose birth name is really Andrew, got his nickname “Lemon,” because he was the whitest kid in his Sunset Park neighborhood. He grew up with drug-addicted parents who died by the time he reached 15 from AIDS. The only way he knew how to support himself was by stealing and selling drugs.
“I’ve come a long way. Today I feel, I am a working artist,” he says.
It all started when he got out of jail for the last time at 19. He says his life sucked as it was hard to get a job with a criminal record, and one day at barber shop someone handed him a flier about a poetry reading.
“I didn’t even have a poem,” says Andersen. “I wrote it right on the spot, and I got on stage. They asked me if I would be part of the theater troupe, and I said, ‘Yeah, I need a job. And I never stopped.”
Hungry to become better, Andersen started taking continuing education classes at New York University funded through AmeriCorps.
“I wanted to learn all styles,” he says. “I ended up in ‘Def Poetry Jam’.”
Andersen was featured as a regular on HBO’s “Def Poetry” presented by Russell Simmons and then was an original cast member and writer of Russell Simmons’ Tony Award winning “Def Poetry Jam on Broadway”.
“I was imprisoned four years before I was on Broadway,” says Andersen. “I was pinching myself every morning.”
He says he would tell people that he would go to Broadway before it happened.
“I had a dream I’d perform my poetry on big stage, he says. “I know the smell still. I relive it in my play ‘County of Kings’.”
Andersen tells his own story through his solo spoken word play “County of Kings,” which is produced by Spike Lee. He has been performing it in many New York theaters since 2010.
“It’s like outer space, because I’m really out of my space,” Andersen says, and adds that his own family has never seen him perform, even on Broadway.
“It wasn’t easy for people to take it when I was on the cover of TheNew York Times,” he says about the people from his childhood neighborhood. “It’s like putting a mirror on them. But hey, sometimes you gotta be ‘F… that’. Piri Thomas from ‘Down These Mean Streets’ taught me that.”
He hasn’t even seen “Lemon,” the documentary about him.
“I don’t think I will ever see it,” says Andersen. “This film is not my film, it’s about me. I’m a different kind of story teller, but I’m really rooting for them.”
Cliff Martinez, one of the veteran drummers for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and an award-winning film composer, started off 2012 with a bang. He was a judge in last month’s Sundance Film Festival, and in April he will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his formative three year stint with the Chili Peppers from 1983-86.
“I’m just worried about what I am going to wear,” says Martinez about as casually, but as humbly, as if he were a friendly, unimposing neighbor asking for advice. “My role is quite small in the span of 27 years. I’m honored that they made the decision to include me.”
Although Martinez calls himself an introvert, it’s not hard to knock down any walls he may have up. He rather welcomes you warmly into his world of hidden surprises – such as did you know that his first composing job was for Pee Wee’s Playhouse? And, can you believe he does not know how to compose music on staff paper?
“I never had training,” says Martinez. “I really learned as I went. I’m almost completely self-taught. In my film career, I tried to fill in some of the gaps in my background. But mostly I’m a musical Neanderthal.”
His grandfather immigrated from a small village in Spain to the U.S., but Martinez was raised in an English-speaking household in Ohio. After more than three decades of living in Los Angeles, Martinez, 58, now considers the City of Angels his home.
He says his favorite part of drumming for the Chili Peppers’ first two albums were making the records.
“I went through the lifestyle of smoke-filled vans and traveling,” says Martinez. “I didn’t enjoy that much, but I did enjoy the recording process and making music.”
He says he also learned during that time, while collaborating with George Clinton, that unintended accidents in music can result in unexpected gems.
“When we were overdubbing guitar parts, there was a mistake and George said play that back,” says Martinez. “It was definitely a mistake, and George says, ‘No that’s the funk, let’s cut it up and fly it around elsewhere in the track.”
Martinez says that although he enjoyed his time with the band, he felt he never fully fit in.
“For me it was a tough thing to fit into socially,” says Martinez. “We could never come to an agreement on our look…basic issues of band image.”
As he grew out of the band, Martinez says he became fascinated with music technology in the 1980’s.
“Music technology got me started,” says Martinez. “Pop music always felt very narrow to me. Film felt much broader. My taste in music was always left of center.”
He says his favorite album is “Trought Mask Replica” by Captain Beefheart, which he had the honor of working with as well. Now, instead of traveling the country in smokey vans, Martinez happily spends a lot of his time waiting on his couch for inspiration.
“I usually lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling for a few weeks just thinking what general approach I would take,” says Martinez about what he does when a director approaches him to compose a score for a film. “I don’t know where the inspiration comes from, sometimes it comes in front of a keyboard, but sometimes washing the dishes or driving a car.”
He says the process for creating a score ranges from about one to three months, and the director is usually hands on as well. He is currently working on “Only God Forgives,” set in Thailand, with director Nicolas Winding Refn.
(Photo/Cliff Martinez)
“I think the favorite spot I’ve ever composed in was in a hotel room in Thailand,” says Martinez. “I placed Singha beer cans to prop up my 15-inch laptop and miniature keyboard.”
He says nowadays you don’t really need a big studio to compose film scores.
“You don’t need a lot of equipment anymore,” says Martinez. “I met Nicholas Refn for dinner, and he said ‘I hate L.A. I’m going to Copenhagen,’ and so we spoke via Skype. In 2009-10, I did two French films, and I didn’t even meet the director. We just communicated telepathically.”
Martinez says the work he’s most proud of is the score for “Solaris” (2002), because it was the first time he used a 90-piece orchestra, and it is the only one he can still listen to and it still feels new and fresh.
“I’d like to think of myself as versatile, but I might fall on my face if I tried to do Broadway or a cereal commercial,” he says.
For now, he’s concentrating on speaking at SXSW (South by Southwest) in March – 10 days of conferences and festivals where filmmakers and musicians unite to discuss the most influential cultural happenings of the year. He says it seems most people want to know about the soundtrack he did for “Drive” (2011).
“Public speaking is one of my phobias, but I’ll make sure I dress for the occasion,” says Martinez.
Fabian Bedne knocking on doors before being elected Nashville’s first Latino councilman. (Photo/Andrew Wilson)
Fabian Bedne never thought he’d be Nashville’s first Latino councilman. In fact, he says rather bashfully that it makes him feel self-conscious when people bring it to his attention, because he just wanted to serve his community. For Bedne, each day is about providing a service and listening.
“I had ideas on how to make the community better,” says Bedne on what made him run for office.
Bedne says his father raised him to help out whenever he could, so it comes as easily as breathing for him. He first came to the U.S. from Buenos Aires, Argentina, as part of an architect exchange program that aimed to bring social change to low-income communities.
“I worked in Columbus, Ohio in low-income neighborhood to fix crack houses,” says Bedne. “I was in charge of training ex-convicts in construction. We didn’t mind their background; we just wanted to give people a chance.”
He remembers having a blast, because he was doing what he loved — architecture, while also stabilizing the neighborhood. He was only planning on staying in the U.S. for the one-year program, but love kept him here. He met his wife while working in Ohio, and ended up moving to Nashville in 1996 to move closer to his wife’s family.
“In the beginning I was a little bit lost,” says Bedne. “And then I had this fire in my house, and the people were so nice. They brought me new clothes to wear to work. I realized it was a very welcoming place.”
As usual, his mind started wondering about ways he could give back. Back then the Nashville Latino community was small, today today is about 10 percent according to the 2010 Census.
“I was always interested in the political process,” says Bedne. “It’s important that Latinos get involved politically because they can create a sense of ownership. You can then start making decisions about the future.”
Bedne first ran for councilman of Nashville four years ago, and he thought he’d only get 100 votes, but he ended up getting 33 percent of the vote. It was then that he realized that Nashville was ready for someone like him, and it only pushed him to knock on my doors for nine months until he did get elected this year.
“It takes time and work to get people to trust you,” says Bedne. “Sometimes I would sit on someone’s porch and talk about the history of the place. People are interested in that. They want to connect.”
Bedne says he also ran for councilman because he loved the community.
“My district is not majority Latino,” he says. “I just happened to be Latino, and I was very excited that I got elected and that people didn’t care what my accent was. They liked the idea that I could serve them and make the district better.”
He says that the residents of Nashville are aware of the importance of people outside coming in.
“It became a city that grew dramatically,” says Bedne of how the city has changed since he first arrived. “We have many minorities that make Nashville home. I would say that probably 50 percent of Nashville wasn’t born there.”
He takes pride in the Hispanic entrepreneurial presence in Nashville, although it is a small 3 percent from the city’s latest count in 2007. He says Nolensville Road used to be in decay years ago, and now it resembles a little Mexico, lined with grocery stores, and restaurants.
His current mission he says is to make it even easier for residents to open their own business, as it is an extremely important part of their economy.
“For years, through personal initiatives, he’s been able to be a resource and helpful neighbor in the community, says Yuri Cunza, president and CEO of the Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “He is a great example of what a good neighbor means. For those that are new or second-generation Hispanics, that is great to have – a friend in our own Hispanic community.”
Bedne says what most satisfies him is getting solutions to people’s problems by going from meeting to meeting and being a part of his city’s synergy.
“My wife says that I’m enjoying it too much, because I still have a business,” he says regarding his architecture company, Organicus, LLC, which he also runs. “Each family is different, and I like to listen to what they really need. That makes my day.”
Last week was Bedne’s first meeting as the only Latino at the Metro Council’s Black Caucus. The group of 10 recently changed its name to Minority Council to include him, and he says he’s hoping this will encourage more people to participate. He also is the first councilman in his district to send out a monthly newsletter via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook to further promote unity.
“My dad, he passed away recently,” Bedne says. He believed in making things happen when other people didn’t believe. That showed me that you shouldn’t take no for an answer. You just need to do it. I hope that I get to earn that reputation as well.”
You might have missed his name in the film credits, but soft-spoken, Alberto Iglesias, is no stranger to Oscar nominations. He has been nominated for Best Original Score in the film currently in theaters, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” and previously for “The Constant Gardener” (2005) and “The Kite Runner” (2006).
The Spanish award-winning musician is widely known in Spain for his award-winning work in several Spanish films, mostly from Pedro Almodóvar such as, “Broken Embraces,” “Talk to Her,” and “Volver,” among many others.
With his quiet demeanor, he says in Spanish that all he needs to create his powerfully suspenseful melodies is a window.
“A quiet room with a window would be ideal,” says Iglesias as if that would be his favorite gift in the world. “A room has to have a window. I love to look at a view. I’m seeing Los Angeles now. The hills from here give me the impression that it is very tranquil.”
He says that the genre he chooses depends on the film.
“The film asks for the genre,” says Iglesias. “Sometimes it starts with one and ends with another. I don’t have a favorite genre. I like sounds and colors that remind me of jazz.”
His nominated score for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” sounds like a jazzy thriller. He says his personal favorite score is the one in the first scene of “Psycho,” which he says made him vibrate.
He had always had dreams of being a musician and writing music, but the process happened slowly and unfolded as if it were his destiny. He first learned to play the guitar and then the piano, which is what he now uses for most of composing.
He studied classical music composition in his hometown, San Sebastian, and later Paris, as well as electronic music in Barcelona. However, he didn’t start his career writing for films until someone asked for his help.
“I didn’t look for it,” says Iglesias. “My first films were for my brother who is a movie director.”
He slowly began getting more work in film, and finally with Spanish director and filmmaker, Pedro Almodóvar, whom he says is a demanding artist who made him develop as a musician immensely.
“That was an intense experience,” says Iglesias. “He is a director who is in his own universe. The director influences my work a lot, because it is the work of a team.”
As in his work for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” he says the process involves a close connection to the director.
“The director explains the movie to me,” says Iglesias. “Then he asks for the music with an idea, but not an exact one. After discussing the ideas with the director, I begin to write.”
He says the director of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” Tomas Alfredson, chose to work with him. It then took Iglesias two months to write the score, which he did hastily in order to make it to the Venice International Film Festival this past September. He says it is a very complex story that inspired him a lot.
“The director is extraordinary,” says Iglesias. “He is very special, and the music is very important for the movie. It moved me. I began to write immediately.”
For Iglesias it’s a greatly satisfying to see the final product finished.
“I liked it a lot,” he says. “It called attention to the director’s style. I liked his personal style a lot.”
Steven Bauer at Veselka in NYC in April 2011. (Photo/Kristina Puga)
At 54-years-old, Steven Bauer is as tall and good-looking as he was when he played “Manolo” in “Scarface” almost 30 years ago, but broader with a few added extra pounds, and his honey complexion slightly weathered. With his involuntary exuberant charm, and warm smile, the need melts away for any apology for being late to our brunch at Veselka in NYC.
“I was playing music last night with my son till really late in the Bowery,” he says.
Making sure to say “hi” to the two little kids at the adjacent table first, he then turns his attention to me. Although not currently married, he makes it known immediately that he is a family man, as something innately reminds him to make a quick, but heartfelt call in perfect Spanish to his father in Miami.
“Feliz cumpleaňos Papi!,” he says with his huge smile again, as he affectionately chit chats with his newly turned 80-year-old father.
Bauer has been in New York for the past week shooting the independent film, ‘Knuckleheads’, produced and directed by David Karges and written by Jaime Zevallos, set to release to film festivals this fall. In between filming, he also makes time to visit his two sons – the eldest (his son with first wife Melanie Griffith) a musician, and the younger a musical theater actor.
In two days, he’s off to Albuquerque to film some scenes for the cable series “Breaking Bad” on AMC, before he’s back to his home base in Hollywood, Calif.
According to the 2010 Census data, there are 12 million Hispanics between the ages of 20-24 today, and there will be an expected 30 million by 2050. What was it like starting out as a Latino actor in the U.S. in the 1970’s, and how do you think it has changed today?
When I was starting out as an actor, it was a very small restricted area for anyone with foreign names. Hollywood was famous for having people change their identities. When I started, Latinos were not counted. There were a lot of Latino art organizations that created theater and art programs, but for themselves.
The bilingual PBS sitcom, ‘¿Qué Pasa, USA?’, became popular because of the need in Miami. There were a lot of Latino kids in the public school district. I was 19, going to the University of Miami – I used to get lots of fan mail for it. One of the creators was my professor, Manny Mendoza. He wrote the grant to produce it. It was aimed as a language tool for bilingual education for kids and adults – kids who are Americanized, parents starting over, and grandparents living in the house too, but it’s too late for them to learn English. The show took off because it related to anyone who grew up in a three generation household – in New Jersey, California, Texas – anywhere there were Latinos.
In the 1960’s, my generation came to the U.S. I was so desperate to be an American that I didn’t hang with Cubans. I don’t dance salsa. When I was 13 and 14, I was playing Beatles, Stones, Bob Dylan and Sinatra…classical music, too, which made me a nerd to a lot of my friends.
The new generation can embrace both cultures. We weren’t allowed to. Nowadays, they can meet other Latinos, but that can be a fault because they never have to learn English.
You have to learn English – you have to make an effort. You can retain your culture, but learn the language of the land. Any ethnocentricity is wrong.
Today, there are more Latino roles, and they have gone way beyond the gang member or janitors of the piece. Now there are military heroes, mayors, and politicians.
Named Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson at birth, you used to be credited as Rocky Echevarría when you first started acting. What made you change your name to Steven Bauer?
Rocky was a gimmicky name. When I became an adult, it didn’t feel real, and no one could pronounce Echevarría. Thirty years later, people can attempt it, but it’s not Garcia or Perez. It was my father’s idea to use my mom’s German side, which is Bauer. In the early days, it also eliminated the problem of “he’s Latino”.
What do you love about acting?
It lets me experience life that I might otherwise not experience. By taking on a character, you are already taking on a behavior that is not your own. I like to play characters that I haven’t experienced so that I can experience life that I don’t know. That’s fun. For me, it’s very therapeutic.
What was your favorite role and why?
My favorite role so far…’Scarface’ was very fun. EXHILARATING actually – working with Al Pacino. I also enjoyed the role of the young Israeli I played in ‘Sword of Gideon’ (1986), and more recently in ‘Session’ that’s coming out this year with Bar Refaeli.
My role as Manny in ‘Knuckleheads’ is one of my favorite roles I’ve ever played because it’s emotionally satisfying. I play a man trying to get on with his life when he feels there is nothing worth living for. My work in this film is as good as I’ve ever done. It has given me an opportunity to show my many colors.
Jaime Zevallos, the writer of the film, also co-stars with me. He told me that when he wrote the script, he had me in mind to play the role. I think it’s going to speak to a lot of hurting people. It’s not a Latino movie – it goes beyond any ethnic identity. It’s about hurt and healing – with a sense of humor.
Favorite place?
Miami. So many great memories there and the climate; my parents and my culture is there. I love Cuban culture. Even though I was only three-years-old when I came to the U.S., I retain a love and loyalty for where I came from.
As we leave, he makes sure to tell me to follow him on Twitter. I’m “thestevenbauer,” he says.
Kristina Puga 