César Pagano: "Optimism in the face of the abyss and salsa and culture to the grave"

The life of César Pagano is divided into two large chapters: before he became known as César Pagano, when he dressed in a suit of cloth and tie, and with a sociologist card on his back, he officiated behind a desk in the bureaucratic offices of the Ministry of National Education. Until that point he was called César Villegas.

The other part, after 1978, when the knots in his tie and throat were untied forever, he gave away the dresses and began to wear loose-fitting shirts from hot land, printed with palm trees and seas of seven colors from which barracudas jumped , like old Kat's paintings, the last brush on the Nadaist palette. It was there when César stopped being Villegas to become a Pagan.

One of his best friends, the poet Juan Manuel Roca, remembers him in his evocative cartography, regarding Pagano's recent 80th birthday on November 20, 2021.

"César was born, and so says his citizenship card, in the eleventh month of 1941, in a city (Medellín) that has been considered tango above all, but where, because it is a record recording center, we hear from childhood, as if it were the soundtrack of almost every neighborhood, to Sonora Matancera.

Footballers from La Floresta, master builders from Manrique, thugs from Cueva del Bosque, played tango, but also lashed tiles with Cuban airs that emerged in a wide and rich mix during the seventies in the babelic city of New York.

(...) Pagano says that he has conducted more than 1,500 interviews with people from all the arts and many other disciplines. I think that the dominant part of his journalistic and dissemination work has to do with music and journalism. with culture in general. With music and words", says the septuagenarian and laureate bard.

Pagan Brand

Based on the portrait of the poet Roca, I would venture to affirm that the 80 years of César Pagano, and his prolific work, are summarized in the cover art of his book, El imperio de salsa, crónicas paganas ( history, interviews and portraits of famous salseros), illustrated by the artist Víctor Sánchez, Unomás.

There appears his old Olympia typewriter, where César transcribed the 35 interviews of The Empire of Salsa. The roller holds the score of Anacona, lyrics by the legendary Puerto Rican composer Tite Curet Alonso, with music by the Fania All Stars, in the voice of Cheo Feliciano, a salsa bombshell that catapulted him to stardom, printed on Fania's debut album, with a show in I live at the Cheetah Club in New York.

To the left of the Olympia, there is a mint mojito, with no other garnishes in the glass than white rum (Havana Club, his favorite), generous with ice.

On the right, a ceramic ashtray with his seal, Pagano, where rests one of those cigars that the old innkeeper, for forty years, put on fire to light the rumba with which he and two happy compadres, Juan Guillermo Gaviria and Gustavo Bustamante, revolutionized the dull and tedious Bogotá night at the end of the seventies, when they burst into songs, proclamations, brass bands and downloads in a narrow place on Carrera 13 A, with Calle 24, corner, hot zone from the center of Bogotá, where the first Pagan Enjoyment sprouted from the cement, like a nocturnal flower.

It was December 1978, and behind the counter, as if illuminated by a candle between the penumbra and the thick smoke of Pielroja smokers, the taciturn face of a young man with curly hair, who already showed his talent as a storyteller, appeared . That boy who helped stock beers and wash glasses was Tomás González, today one of the renowned exponents of Colombian literature.

Memories of Jouissance

Bertha Quintero Medina, a lifelong friend of César's, committed to his cause, musical researcher and well-remembered conguera of the all-female Salsa Yemayá orchestra, quotes him in her long-winded frank chronicle, which she delivered at the Pagano anniversary , in Casa de Citas, by Carlos Adolfo González, with the rumba support of Los Cuatro de Belén and the Venezuelan sonero Édgar Dolor Quijada. From Bertha, we highlight the following aside:

"I met César Villegas in the 1970s. We were both part of a rare breed of rampaging bureaucrats who felt imprisoned without having committed a crime. We spent whole hours in small rooms flooded with documents that led to nothing.

I added and subtracted on grid sheets with red, blue, and green pencils in the Dane, and César dreamed of cows and hectares of land in a rural development project at the Ministry of National Education. He presented us with a specimen of them, Gustavo Bustamante, in the Acevedo Tejada neighborhood, near the National University.

His voice caught my attention: it seemed like something out of a radio soap opera, one of those that was broadcast in the country in the sixties by Radio Recuerdos, Emisora ​​1020 and Todelar: Kadir, the Arab, Renzo, the Gypsy, or The right to be born.

His letter of introduction as a rumbero had some problems: he didn't dance, or he did it very regularly, with his own style that made it difficult to keep up with him, but he had a beautiful and melodious tone of voice that was reminiscent of Vitín Avilés.

We started our friendship based on a shared love of listening to music, talking about musicians and attending concerts. His musical preferences included all kinds of genres, from classical, jazz, boleros, tangos, and, of course, salsa.

The bars began to be called salsotecas, the profile of the owners began to change, as was the case of the characters who founded Goce Pagano: César Villegas, Gustavo Bustamante, Juan Guillermo Gaviria.

This project began the transformation of Bogota nights. The place, with its pompous name, was practically a hole, located in a difficult area in the center of the city, quite uncomfortable, not much space, dimly lit, not enough air, with furniture that was torture to sit on and destroyed. women's clothing. A girls' bathroom without mirrors, a dance floor made of irregular cement, where you had to wait in line to get in and out, as well as to order a drink.

The rumba, in Goce, became an endless continuum, from Monday to Monday, delicious, inexhaustible, supported by the force of Salsa. With an overcrowd of more than 100 people, a Girardot-style climate, people danced until dawn, without schedules or time and volume restrictions.

Located in a small DJ booth, César deployed all his knowledge and sensitivity to organize the night's batches according to the taste of the attendees, with a special repertoire that night after night attracted more and more followers.

As if by magic, the hole became the most important reference point for salsa in Bogotá and the songs that played there were the personal hymns of the attendees. The concept of a bar that its owners were able to imprint on Goce promoted new forms of meeting, for relationships between men and women, between diverse populations and different social sectors, who, shocked by the salsa repertoire that César played, gathered to listen and dance this music

Caesar's metamorphosis began to become visible. He changed his last name to Pagano. His way of dressing remarkably renewed. She wore strange necklaces and an extravagant hat. And it doubled the number of cigars that were smoked.

El Goce brought together absolutely eclectic audiences between students, professionals, bureaucrats, intellectuals, artists, employees, police officers, workers, who were building a subculture of resistance and coexistence, creating bonds of solidarity that changed some macho attitudes.

The women, who did not go out at night, began to come en masse to Goce, they felt comfortable, without harassment, without pressure, and they lived the party and the night in a different way.

We became typical fans of every salsa band that came to the capital. We received them at airports or looked for them in hotels. We managed to manage the presentation of Fania in the Modelo prison in Bogotá, and that of Eddy Palmieri in the District prison.

César Pagano assumed himself as the toughest partygoer, the quintessential bohemian, the most enduring to stay up late, the most in love partygoer. There was no space that he opened that was not successful. All the places were filled to bursting, from the second Goce, of La Macarena, through the one on 74 with Caracas, to Salomé Pagana on 82, where she launched herself as a singer again with the wonderful "Escuadrón del Bolero".

Every occurrence of his was a milestone. This has been the pulse and life of César Pagano in the transit of the 50 years that I have known him as a friend, as one of the most recognized collectors in the country, musical researcher, chronicler, author of hundreds of articles and four books, lecturer , programmer, broadcaster, promoter, expert in Afro-Caribbean sound, versed in bolero; a character with wide national and international recognition. I only have to thank life for having found me on my way," Bertha Quintero finished off, and the round of applause resounded in the room.

Prolific cultor of music

Unforgettable evening of Pagano's birthday at Casa de Citas, in the historic sector of La Candelaria, worth the note touched with sarcasm, between chinchín de drinks and jokes: celebrate 80 years at Casa de Citas, with rums, sones and boleros, and in lively camaraderie with the gang of a lifetime, until dawn, was an unparalleled feat in these times shaken by infected storms and threatening aftershocks of never ending.

Author of books of chronicles and interviews related to Afro-Caribbean musical heritage such as "Here the one who dances wins", "Juan Formell y los Van Van" (with a prologue by the renowned Cuban writer Rafael 'El Chino' Lam) and "El Imperio de la Salsa" (Icono Editores), César Pagano announced that he was advancing in the writing of a memory of Salsa in Cali, according to him, a critical vision that demystifies the downturn of the salsa movement, "when in Cali and its surroundings around 300 rumbeaderos in force, 200 salsa academies with more than 1,500 instructors and an average of 20,000 professional dancers, a fruitful and uninterrupted generational harvest that dates back to the 70s, in addition to the notorious rise of new orchestras, and an iconic fair with its meeting of music lovers and collectors that is a world reference".

"Salsa and culture to the grave"

As a bartender, and after half a century of hectic and long nights out with friends and musicians from different backgrounds, Pagano did not make a monetary fortune, because enjoyment was always high above finances and accounting books, but alluded to his great musical capital represented in no less than 20,000 vinyls, 2,000 cartridges in audio and video format with nearly 3,000 interviews, powerful material that in his career as a chronicler, radio broadcaster, cultural manager and lecturer, inspired emblematic radio spots such as " Conversation in bolero time", "Sóngoro Cosongo" (onomatopoeia of the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén), and "Motivos del son"; in addition to a hundred books on Latin American and Caribbean popular music that filled the reception room and the rooms of an apartment for rent in the La Esmeralda neighborhood of Bogotá.

With 80 years recently celebrated under the shelter of the old brotherhood of musicians, poets, bolero singers and friends of bohemia; Four children, four grandchildren, Pagano was dedicated in recent times to the trade of his acetates. He longed for his collection, cultivated over fifty years, like the recordings with his interviews, and his books, to reach a prestigious cultural institution, or the Luis Ángel Arango Library.

A marvelous conversationalist, an adorer of Cuba, which he visited two or three times a year, César Pagano identified himself as a "red-bones rebel." He criticized Rubén Blades for flaunting his international law credentials at Harvard, and for his films at the service of "the multinational consumerist of the gringos." From the stick that he gave to Blades, he went on to magnify Gabriel García Márquez, of whom he repeated, in the heat of his rums, the anecdote when Enrique Santos Calderón celebrated with all irons a birthday of his brother Felipe in Goce Pagano, with 200 cronies, including the Nobel Prize winner from Aracataca:

"El Goce seemed like it was going to collapse with the crowd," said César, "due to a telluric discharge from Dámaso Pérez Prado. There was El Pantera (García), Janeth Riveros (Madame Charanga), Luis Pacheco, Nafer Durán, and Gabo and tells me with the acid mamagallism that characterized him: 'Listen, César, if I had had a bar like yours, I would have named it El Goce Pagano, and if I had had another, Sendero Luminoso.' guffaws".

Three days after his 80th birthday, I called César with the purpose of visiting him in his apartment, and in passing to see some records that he could buy. He told me to leave it for the following week, because he had a trip to Medellín where they would pay homage to him. This was the last interview with César Pagano, baron of the rumba, who has made his life a perpetual joy under his mentioned motto that will last forever: "Optimism before the abyss and Salsa and culture until the grave."

How pagan is César Pagano?

I think it's more what has been speculated than what I would like to be.

Which has been the best of all the bohemias?

Where there is a greater convergence of artists, talent, improvisation and genius.

Iconoclast?

All my life I have been rebellious, critical and even unbearable. Fortunately I have had the autonomy to discern and criticize around music.

What do you hear when you're not in your element?

In my apartment I listen to jazz, ethnic or classical music. When I had taverns, I concentrated on the fundamental pillars of Caribbean music: son, classical salsa and the great Cuban heritage in all its aspects.

What does La Bodeguita del Medio, in Havana, smell like?

It smells of mojito, tobacco, rum, roast pig, and all the essences and typical dishes of Cuban gastronomy.

How does Chucho Valdés feel at the piano?

The most complete and contrasting harmonies, the result of a delicate, refined and always renewing execution, until unleashing hurricanes on the keyboard. He is my favorite pianist.

What do you like most about Benny Moré?

His vocation and genius to collect, from the ancestral of Cuban country music, through mambo, jazz, bolero, and everything that made him a legend. Benny Moré is one of the greatest testimonies of Cuban musical culture in its history.

How many versions of Guantanamera do you know?

More than a hundred.

Which is your favourite?

"An improvisation on the piano by a great disciple of Chucho Valdés. His name is Tony Pérez and it lasts eighteen minutes."

To relax, Woody Allen plays the clarinet in a Manhattan bar. Does César Pagano do it with the bongo?

I defend myself with bells, maracas and singing. That is, the holy trinity.

Do you agree when they say that salsa is the most sexual rhythm that exists?

Yes, because it is very focused on the enjoyment of the body, which is the African legacy, with its syncretism and sensuality. All this marinated with rum, tobacco and cane, produces powerful erotic effects.

Will he still be a rebel?

I hope I die like this. Always demanding more quality in music and more justice and equity for this unbalanced society.

He has left several times spear at the ready against Rubén Blades. He doesn't think he has gone too far?

Precisely because he excited us with his social songs, with his poetry, but it didn't take him long to enlarge his ego by giving himself up to Hollywood, to Harvard, and he didn't even make an appearance during the invasion of Panama. I can't stand people who don't act as they think, or as they say they think.

On one occasion he also called García Márquez a "careerist"...

It's true, because it seemed strange to me that a man like him, who had a global dimension due to his talent and work, would become absorbed in wallowing in power, in wanting to surround himself with the ruling class of this country.

At what point do you not drink one more rum?

When someone annoying damages the bohemia with something grotesque, vulgar or aggressive.

What's the most amazing download you've ever heard?

There are several, but I remember one called Unforgettable Night: the Palmieri brothers and Washington and their Latinos were there. They all ended up dumping with a retirement fraternity. It happened in 1980.

The most sensual bolero?

Longina, by Manuel Corona, on the voice of Carlos Embale, with the National Septet.

How devoted are you to fish?

I love it, plus it's a very healthy meal. At this age you have to take care of yourself.

And how do you channel all that phosphorus?

With music, love and work.

By the way, how is your love for Sonora Matancera?

It is an old and unrepeatable love that is marked by figures such as Daniel Santos, Celia Cruz, Bienvenido Granda, Laíto Sureda, among many others.

What verse or stanza from the bolero or salsa do you hold with special affection in your memory?

One of the bolero Delirio, by the immortal César Portillo de la Luz: 'You are always with me in my sadness,/ you are in my joy and in my suffering,/ because all my happiness is contained in you'.

What have you become skeptical about?

For promising speeches by politicians. That is why people no longer believe in anything or anyone.

Do you still eat breakfast at noon?

Only when I get up at ten in the morning?

What is your formula for staying so well?

They will say out there that I have preserved myself in the best alcohols, but I assume that it is the joy and faith that I have imposed on life, despite the hustle and bustle of the years, the ailments, the problems and the misadventures. Music is the most recommended of therapies. I wish they would apply it in the national health system.

What does the body look like?

I like to put my body in more than take it out.

What is its natural state?

Living without worries.

And the color that brings you luck?

Cinnamon skin.

What would you like to be put on before embarking on the eternal journey?

Sones from Cuba and cumbias from Colombia.

What would be his epitaph?

Optimism before the abyss and Salsa and culture to the grave.