A Berkee student blazes a trail to his musical hero.

By Robert Julian '06
Berklee.edu Correspondent
February 25, 2005

Juan Luis Guerra performs for students during his Latin Culture Week clinic.
Photo by Nick Balkin

It was also because of Guerra that I first heard about Berklee. He had attended the college and always mentioned the school in interviews. I came here because of him.

I grew up spending summers in New York, and moved to the United States in 1990. I had started playing the guitar when I was 13, and I wanted to attend Berklee, but couldn't because my parents didn't have the money, and I felt very insecure about myself as a musician. I decided instead to attend film school at the City College of New York, where I earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in film.

After school I worked for a few years, but I still had the Berklee bug, so I applied and got in. I was older than the average Berklee student, but at age 30, I dropped everything, took a bunch of student loans, headed to Boston, and enrolled as a film scoring major at Berklee.

While classes keep me very busy, I have gotten involved in other activities, like Berklee's Latin Culture Week. During a planning meeting last semester, when we discussed ideas for possible visiting artists, a far-fetched idea came to me. I knew it was a long shot, but I figured maybe I'd be able to make a connection through friends of friends. Maybe I'd find a way to bring Juan Luis Guerra to Berklee.

One of the first people I talked to was my friend Carlos. I didn't know it at the time, but his mother was friends with Guerra's manager. It was my in, and in a matter of days I had the manager's number.

I was nervous, but I gathered my strength and called. When I reached his manager Amarilys German, Guerra was in the middle of a video shoot for one of the songs from his latest album. Despite the interruption, Amarilys was very sweet on telephone, and promised to get back to me. Not long after that, we found out that not only did Juan Luis want to do a clinic, but that he felt honored to be invited back to his alma mater.

Juan Luis Guerra performs with students during Latin Culture Week. Photo by Phil Farnsworth

Latin Culture Week finally came around last November, and it was almost a surreal experience to see my hero sitting right there in the David Friend Recital Hall and talking to us about his days at Berklee. The story that stood out for me was an explanation of how he discovered his musical identity.

Guerra had come to Berklee because he wanted to be a jazz guitarist, and when chances arrived to demonstrate what he could do, he didn't hold back. One night he was jamming at a friend's apartment, and when it was his turn to solo, he played everything that he had learned from listening to Wes Montgomery, along with riffs he used to play in the Dominican Republic that had impressed people who didn't know much about jazz music.

When he finished his solo the rest of the guitarists at the session were not impressed at all, so he decided to put the guitar down and just listen. Later, he found a guira, a Dominican percussion instrument played by moving a scraper along a metal cylinder. He started playing a merengue pattern over what the group was playing. This immediately caught the attention of the guitarists in the room.

"'What are you playing? How do you do that? Could you transcribe that for me?'" one of the guitarists said to Guerra. It was a revelation. "That was the moment when I realized that I had to work with my music, not someone else's music," Guerra said.

When asked for advice he could offer students early in their careers, Guerra said, "Listen to lots and lots of music." He said that he often spent mornings in the Berklee library, just listening to music, trying to absorb as much as he could.

At the end of the clinic he performed "La Bilirrubina" and "Ojala Que Llueva Café" for the students, a crowd who knew all the lyrics and even the arrangements of the horns. Halfway through the song he called out, "Here come the saxes!" and the students sang the saxophone part.

	Berklee student Robert Julian (left) with Juan Luis Guerra, backstage at the David Friend Recital Hall.

Later in the day, there was a tribute concert during which Guerra received the Berklee's Distinguished Alumni Award. To see a fellow Dominican receive such recognition from the college was a thrill. It reminded me of something he said at the clinic: "One day it will be one of you sitting here doing a clinic, and I hope I'm sitting here where you are, listening to you talk."

For the tribute concert, Bernardo Hernandez, an assistant professor in the Contemporary Writing and Production Department, assembled a group of students and professional musicians to play some of Guerra's songs. I practically begged him to let me play and he was kind enough to get me in the band. Playing guitar with the tribute band was a great honor.

Among the songs we played were "Visa Para un Sueño," a Guerra composition that has always had great personal importance to me. Performing "Woman del Callao," felt strange because I remember dancing to that song at school parties, and there we were playing it in front of him. Then he got on stage with us and sang it with the band. The best part was when he wanted to play "Ojala Que Llueva Café." I offered him my guitar, and he played the tune on my instrument.

When he was leaving I went up to him backstage and thanked him again for coming to Berklee, for inspiring me as a musician, and more importantly, as a Dominican musician. He said "Thank you for having me," and gave me a hug.

While so many students at Berklee will remember that Juan Luis Guerra came to Berklee, performed with students, and received a distinguished alumni award, perhaps what most of us will remember is how humble and down to earth he was, and how surprised he was at seeing students crying and thanking him because he is not only the reason they are at Berklee; he is the reason they became musicians.

Robert Julian is a film scoring major at Berklee who is scheduled to graduate in 2006.