Pedro Luis Ferrer

Legendary musician, composer, and singer Pedro Luis Ferrer makes his first appearance at Joe’s Pub after 25 years!

Pedro Luis Ferrer occupies a unique place in Cuban music and social culture. He started his career in 1969, and has written songs that have endured in the minds of several generations. He plays a variety of Cuban music styles, like Son Montuno, Punto Guajiro, Trova Traditional, Nengon, etc. But his main style is Guaracha, a vibrant genre originating in 18th century musical theatre, contributing greatly to a national consciousness during the time of Spanish colonialism. His lyrics are charged with humor, social commentaries, and obsessive references to food, which is something that’s present in the music of some of his predecessors (“soneros” like Los Compadres, Trio Matamoros, Barbaroito Diez, etc). But it is the pointing social commentaries that distinguish his lyrics from the more trivial ones of his contemporaries. His witty, sardonic social commentary so irked the Castro regime that in the late 90s the government banned his music from the state-run media (which in Cuba means all media). In an interview published on Mother Jones, Pedro Luis Ferrer explained: “My music was broadcast in the official media in the 1970’s and 1980’s. I made music for television and I recorded some songs that quickly took root in the popular consciousness, like “Inseminación Artificial”, a song about a cow’s sexually charged lament on the industrialization of Cuba’s agriculture. This song became wildly popular in Cuba. But at the same time that those successful public favorites were being broadcast, songs of mine that the bureaucracy deemed offensive or strange were silenced. There were many controversies and arguments with TV producers who refused to broadcast the most critical songs of my repertoire. Then one day, they took all of them out of circulation, even the ones that I composed in obvious support of the Revolution”.

Pedro Luis Ferrer plays Spanish guitar and Cuban Tres (a guitar-like instrument), and will be accompanied by his daughter Lena Ferrer, who's also a composer. Lena started accompanying her father when she was fourteen, almost thirty years ago. Lena also plays marimbula (also known as “bajo de flejes”, a Cuban percussion instrument derived from the African Mbira), clave, maracas and guiro. Their voices complement each other to produce a harmonic and contrapuntal unity where tradition and contemporaneity are combined.

Pedro Luis has performed in over a dozen countries, from Croatia to Finland, from Peru to Spain, from Poland to Belgium, among others.

Pedro Ferrer creates strikingly beautiful and uplifting music. He is considered a living heritage of Cuban culture and during his long career his songs have been recorded by such artists as Celia Cruz, Omara Portuondo (Buena Vista Social Club), Gilberto Santa Rosa, Danny Rivera and Papo Luca.

Website

Photo credit: Miguel Prieto

Venue Joe's Pub

Runtime 75 minutes