Crossing the Divide

Paquito D'Rivera urges Berklee faculty to disregard stylistic boundaries.

By Brenda Pike
Berklee.edu Correspondent
January 30, 2007

Paquito D'Rivera
Photo by Phil Farnsworth

Don't tell Paquito D'Rivera that he's a Latin musician. He's worked hard to correct that sort of stereotype by weaving into his songs all sorts of influences, from Chucho Valdés to Chopin. But even with his reputation, he still gets pigeonholed.

"I was playing a concert with the Assad brothers," said D'Rivera, on campus to deliver the keynote address for the 2007 Berklee Teachers on Teaching (BTOT) conference. "There was a woman in the middle of the theater going, 'Salsa!' What? You want me to play salsa with a clarinet and two classical guitar players?"

D'Rivera has straddled genres from the beginning. He launched his career as a member of the innovative group Irakere, whose style ranged from Latin jazz and bop to Cuban folk melodies and disco. Mixing in comical stories from his past with advice on what to teach future musicians, D'Rivera encouraged the faculty to foster in their students an appreciation for a variety of styles.

"Don't ignore other types of music," D'Rivera said. "Listen to all the spectrum of music that we have. If you don't, you are limiting yourself."

D'Rivera urged the faculty to encourage their students not only to listen to all sorts of music, but also to play multiple instruments. The result will be an improvement in general musicianship, as well as a greater range on their primary instruments.

"When you go to study medicine . . . in order to be a plastic surgeon or a specialist in anything, first you have to learn about the entire body. You have to learn the general knowledge. Why should music be different?"

D'Rivera himself plays the piano, as well as the saxophone and clarinet. His versatility began at an early age. At 5, he began learning the saxophone from his father, and at 12, the clarinet. "In those days it was important for a saxophone player to double on the clarinet, especially for doing the big band work," said D'Rivera. Later he became passionate about the piano. "I regret all my life not being able to be a great pianist. I have made a great living out of the clarinet and the saxophone, but what I would love to be is a pianist."

Later, the audience heard the piano's influence on his songwriting firsthand. His quartet, which includes three Berklee faculty members, performed a song inspired by Bach, but with a distinct Cuban flavor.

D'Rivera received an honorary doctorate from Berklee in 2003, but his association with the college goes back far longer than that, as he emotionally recounted to the assembled group of teachers.

"Thirty years ago, I received a call at home during a blackout. I managed to get the telephone, [but] I was not in a very good mood," said D'Rivera. "It was Chucho Valdés. He said, 'I want you to come to the Tropicana. . . . There is an American couple who wants to meet you.' I didn't have any gas for my motorcycle, so I had to walk there. There was an elderly couple who wanted to talk to me. . . . They were Alma and Lawrence Berk. They were offering a scholarship to a couple of Cuban musicians and one of them they wanted to be me. . . . I kept the friendship of those wonderful people through the last days of their lives."

D'Rivera was interviewed onstage by bandmate and Berklee faculty member Oscar Stagnaro, who asked if he considered Irakere a Latin band or a Cuban band. D'Rivera's response was immediate.

"No, it's a music band," he said, explaining, "In 1977 Jaco Pastorius was in Havana. He was playing something, and I asked him, 'Is that jazz, is that rock, which one is it?' He told me, 'I don't know. It's music. Just play it.'"

"When someone asks, 'What should I do to improve my trumpet playing?' you say, 'Buy a piano.'" Photo by Phil Farnsworth

Brenda Pike is content editor in Berklee's Office of Communications.