The Puerto Rican Cuatro Project's 1993
Interview with Roque Navarro
by Juan Sotomayor
transcribed, translated and edited by William Cumpiano
| [I was born in] Adjuntas on August 16, 1913. I am a descendant of the Navarros and the Jiménez’ who used to deal with cuatros and that kind of thing. And it was from there that I acquired the inspiration to get involved with instruments... | My full name is Roque Navarro Jiménez. |
I
began with the cuatro more or less when I was ten years old.
|
[I began with the cuatro] more or less when I was ten years old. My grandfather would go to work on a little field he had and my uncles would go too, and I would swipe a guitar they’d keep in a sack and I’d go off to another field to practice on the guitar. When I returned the guitar would be missing a string or two, or three, a kid’s carelessness, see? And they’d give me a whipping. But the next day I’d go and do it again. A I was so insistent, until they realized, and the allowed me…the saw my enthusiasm. As a kind I really liked music. I began to make cuatros alter I married. I was about twenty-four or twenty-five. I started to make them in Adjuntas. But I played them first and then I got the notion to make them. |
| I was born in a place they
called Portillo [escape hatch], not to say, “hole.” [laughs] Well it was the
same place where [the great Puerto Rican cuatrista] Neri Orta was born. At about eight,
well, my father and mother moved to the village of Adjuntas. From the country, we moved
into town. Yauco [nearby city] in those years was famous for its great cuatristas. There
was Heriberto Torres, who was phenomenal, and there was another one they called El Cholo.
And there was another man who later lost the fingers of one hand, who was called Norberto
Cales. That old man was a close friend of mine. The fingers of his left hand, because he
was a carpenter, he lost with a small hatchet, his index and middle fingers, and only had
these two left. I’d see him playing danzas with those two fingers, like this. He look
like a chicken, jumping like this...but he was an old man by then. |
"Yauco in those years was famous for its great cuatristas ...Neri Orta, Heriberto Torres, Norberto Cales ..." |
"That little cuatro had four strings. It was squareish."
It was a whole day and a whole night, right there playing, and celebrating the coffee (harvest) fiestas and whatever... |
I had a little
cuatro, a tiny little thing. I was a kid. That little cuatro had four strings. It was
squareish. My father had made it; I think it was from Avocado
wood. It had the…here, where the fingerboard is, it looks like it was left in the sun
and it kind of twisted up…It got bent up, my little cuatrito, kinda bent up. I was
about fourteen or fifteen, ‘cause by then I could play my little plenas and things.
And once Norberto Cales came to play in the barrio where I lived. Well at that time I had
my little cuatro all nicely strung up, see?... a kid’s pride and joy. And he
came...and the strings that I used were made of rawhide...before, they were two hide
strings and two wound strings. He played so much his strings broke...because they were
parties that lasted for hours and hours—not just for a little while, like today. It
was a whole day and a whole night, right there playing, and celebrating the coffee
(harvest) fiestas and whatever...well…his strings broke. And I don’t know who in
blazes told him I had a little cuatro. The only one in the entire barrio. So that señor
played all night long on that little cuatro, and with that cuatro he fulfilled his
obligation. I helped him, I’ll always remember that. And from then on that man was my
friend. To the day he died. A beautiful person. Yes, the whole family are beautiful
people, and the sons I believe are musicians… |
When I was
young, things were pretty dead. I used to get a buck fifty. A buck fifty, a dollar and a
half to play at a party, for me and the other musicians. But that was a lot of money. For
three or four musicians: you’d give a quarter to the güiro, half a buck to the
guitar... my father earned fifty cents, working from six in the morning to six in the
afternoon. In those days they didn’t pay in cash. They’d give him a scrap of paper, like that, called "vale" [scrip], a vale, so
he could use it to buy in...not a store, but a little thing like…with four cans of
sausages and stuff like that. And he’d go there to exchange it for riche, beans,
salt, sugar... that was in 1930 or so, more or less. Between '28 to '30. That was... that
was the año de los tomates [old days]. I was sixteen, seventeen years old. There
wasn’t any money, there wasn’t anything. That was in Adjuntas, there was nothing
happening, everything was pretty boring. Because it was a little farm town. There were no
factories...all they had were little family parties...and stuff like that.. Once we went
to play… the mayor of the town hired us to play at a farm, to carry a serenata
to a girl friend that he had there. So we hiked over there…began to play the
serenade, when the woman’s husband appears, with a big dog, dark red from snout to
tail. And you can imagine us running through the brambles, the mayor too, everybody. If
they had caught us… nos fríen verdes [they’d fry us like green bananas]. |
... my father earned fifty cents, working from six in the morning to six in the afternoon. In those days they didn’t pay in cash. They’d give him a scrap of paper, like that, called "vale" [scrip],
...If they had caught us… nos fríen verdes [they’d fry us like green bananas]. |
|
"..Those decorations appeared to me in a
dream, the decoration on that cuatro. Those tiny little inlays. Well, when I was asleep
and dreaming, I asked God to give me the skills to do all these things…" |
I was always a
worker, from birth, because we were very poor. If we didn’t work, we didn’t eat.
And we’d work the soil, make charcoal, make rum; make stills; moonshine; truck
loader, whatever ordinary work there is in this world to do, I did it. Until I became a
carpenter, I entered as an apprentice, then I graduated as a carpenter, because we had a
very good teacher. And after that, after I left carpentry work.
That was when I dedicated myself to making instruments. [Showing
us a fabulously ornate cuatro he had made] And let me tell you something. I’ll say
this…well, it’s a spiritual thing. What I’m going to tell you is very
serious and will strike you seriously as well. No one taught me how to make instruments. I
learned that all by myself. Of course, they say that watching and listen one learns
everything, true? Those decorations appeared to me in a dream,
the decoration on that cuatro. Those tiny little inlays. Well, when I was asleep and
dreaming, I asked God to give me the skills to do all theses things…this is a
tremendous thing. All this is done by hand, see? Yes, I do this by hand in wood. And that
is a tremendous effort…it is a luthier’s work. Then I,
in my dreams…God, that is to say the Great One, the One who is always with me, He
taught me to do this. He showed me the workshops, I´d go and watch people working on
these things. I´d watch how they placed the wood, and there is where I learned to make
all the adornments. |
| The one who inspired me the
most was a man who died about twenty years ago, from my town. That man played a Cuatro
that was fifty years ahead of his time. That man was something out of this world, playing
the Cuatro. And Norberto [Cales] knew him. He was called Fife, named Rafael Medina. He was
a showmaker. I went to hear him and watch how he moved his fingers. That’s how I
learned by my self, watching him. That man served me as a spiritual teacher. I learned
songs also from coin operated players. They weren’t like jukeboxes, they were like
wind up victolas, but bigger. And there were large stores, dry goods stores in front of
the plaza that played those records that I loved. And I would go and listen to them from
the morning to the afternoon, and I’d carry them back with me, stuck in my mind two
or three of those tunes. And then I would practice them at home. |
...And there were large stores, dry goods stores in front of the plaza that played those records that I loved. And I would go and listen to them from the morning to the afternoon, and I’d carry them back with me, stuck in my mind two or three of those tunes. And then I would practice them at home. |
| ...there
was a man here named Francisco López Cruz. They called him Paquito. A wonderful music
teacher. A wonderful friend and guitarist, who played the guitar solo. And accompanied
others. Well, then he rescued me. You could say, from the street. Not that I was a kid
from the street, indeed, I was a working man with kids and a wife. I had to maintain them.
But he saw me…how do I say…they took me to him and one day he said, “you
have an astounding facility with those fingers. Anyone would say you know music.
Don’t you know how to read music?” I replied, “no sir, I don’t know
how to read music. I would like to know how. He said, “find your way up here, because
I’ll give you some hints.” And then, well, I began to
play in this group of his. Somewhere around here there are some records that I recorded
with him. That’s where I was polished. Because he kept correcting, correcting,
correcting me. I owe it to him. |
|
| I’ve got this project
to record ten or twelve Christmas songs which are beautiful, which I have recorded on
tape, and I’m planning to put them on a record before I die. I don’t have big
aspirations, because I’m approaching seventy nine years of age, kid. I am a little
old man now. My taste for music has stayed the same, the same energy. I haven’t lost
the energy. |
|
| [The ten string cuatros] was
invented by a guy oh, around 1800 or so around the Aguadilla coast. I can talk to you
about the three-stringed requintos. I have a little requinto, a little bigger than your
recorder. I little thing like this. Like one Maso uses at times. There’s another
instrument that they call the vihuela, one with five strings. That’s the real
five-string tiple. I doesn’t look like a guitar. It was more or less…it looked
like small cuatro. It looked like one of those early cuatros that were squarish here,
round as a ball down below. I’ll tell you how my grandfathers used it, and those
musicians of the olden days that played "Que se matan dos, que se matan dos, que se
matan dos," and that’s how they would fulfill the promesas [promise to God].
Well the little three-string requinto, which was tuned like this [he plays three notes on
his cuatro]... it sounds like a tres... but it was a small tres. The tres nowadays is
bigger than a guitar. But that’s the tuning of that little tiple, like in C Major. It
played lead in the songs, the aguinaldos and the seises, because there weren’t any
other kinds of music, it was just... something they called "una y una" which was
for singing. And those jibaro aguinaldos. Nothing more than the "una y una" and
aguinaldos jíbaros. They used them to sing to the three kings, to the Virgin, to Chirst,
and they’d fulfill their promesas. And when they did, the tiple played the guitar
part, the five-string tiple. It played the...[he plays a rhythmic accompanimient], and the
other played the lead. It was twice as large as the little tiple. They called it
vihuela... and they called it. The vihuela was a kind of tiple, like the smaller one, but
larger. Meaning that it looked like this cuatro, and it also looked like the little tiple.
It had a little round belly here and another smaller one up here, but round too, with a
little waist..like the bordonúa lwhich is long and has a little waist like that. Well,
that is the five-string tiple. They used those two tiples plus a guiro. The three string
tiple requinto played the melody, be it a seis or be it an aguinaldo, which was what was
played in the old days; then the five-string tiple accompanied it, playing the guitar
foundation. Then the guiro, also, filled in. To all of them they called tiple doliente
[mournful tiple], according to the melody that was sung, whether happy or when mournful.
With that music they play what they called the baquinés: The songs they play to children
when they died. You didn’t pray to the children, instead you’d sing songs.
They’d use that music…in some places. I can’t think of any of them because
they are songs that those people make up, like, “the little child, the little child
die..ee..ed,” I don’t know, “the little child died because…he
existe..e..ed”, I don’t know, things they made up on the spot. Over behind there
there’s a housing project, and I’ve heard them singing that kind of thing. But
I’ve heard them without the instruments. But they used to use that little tiple, they
used it for that. |
|
| A good cuatro has to
have…what this one has. Well selected wood that never gets termites. Wood that lasts
forever. Because if one has a pretty cuatro worth a thousand dollars and it gets termites,
well, its not worth a cent. This one will never get termites, nor that one. Wood that
doesn’t get termites is wood that’s cut during a waning moon, halfway through
the waning period, and its put to dry standing upright. So the moisture will drop out of
it. It’ll dry gradually. Any tree that is felled and left lying on its side you can
say it will get termites. The water [sap] that is sucks up will cause it to get termites. |
|
I prefer a carved-out cuatro [cuatro enterizo] because the note is more solid, the sound is more solid...the cuatro is stronger, stronger. It stands up better, I mean, if its well made. There are people that make cuatros around here that fold up, six months after they’re made they fold up and they’ve lost their pitch accuracy. If it bends from here, it loses its pitch accuracy. If the top sinks, it does too. The top needs a fan [braces in a fan pattern] of no more than three little legs. Well placed, well smoothed, and without glue residue left incide or anything. That’s all it needs to hold the top from sinking. Without that it will sound weak. The necessary qualities are as follows: first, the wood. It has to be selected wood, guaranteed not to get termites. Second: tuning accuracy. And that is the most important of all. That is, the fingerboard. Those frets have to be measured according to a mathematical formula. Very few who make instruments know about it, but those frets have to be placed according to a mathematical formula. You measure the distance of the vibrating string, in millimeters, divide it by eighteen, to a base of eighteen: always by eighteen. You place the first fret according to the result. Then the second fret, you can’t measure from the nut, you have to measure from the first fret to the saddle. Then you measure the third, the fourh, until you get up to here. In that way you can’t go wrong. |
|
| In Puerto Rico never, never
in its life has the cuatro been given the merit it deserves, even with it being part of
our family. Because saying “cuatro” and saying “Puerto Rican jibaro”
is to say the same thing. |
|
| As long as you don’t
change the [traditional music’s] melody, you can make whatever arrangements you like.
But yes, I consider myself a purist. I like to do things like they should be done. The
danza, the way it is, the way the composer wrote it. The mazurca just like the composer
wrote it. I don’t like changing the melody. The other things, no, because today I
might be accompanied by a bass and tomorrow by a guiro and a guitar. It depends. But the
melody should remain untouched. Ome should become polished in one’s own, in those
things of one’s country, first…before setting foot in some other place.
It’s not bad to me, because each one of us is called upon to improve, yes. Because
there’s this fellow who plays, whose group is called "Jíbaro Jazz", who I
don’t criticize, because I like it also, I like how he plays a lot. But I can also
play like he plays, for example, I can play a melody and take that same melody and play
pirouettes around it. Which is what he does. |
|
| To be a jíbaro is the most
divine thing that God has invented. Because to be a jibaro is to be honest, integral. And
the word honest includes everything. An honest man has it all. All. And even if you have
it all, you still may not be honorable. Because that’s really the thing: that is the
key word. Honorable. Not even being the President of the United States. Nothing. Like me, and like others like me. Not because being jíbaro is
better that being someone else. No. I am the say as you, as any other, as a black man, as
a white man, as a bembú [man with thick lips], or as a man that doesn’t have a bemba
[thick lips]. I am the equal of everyone else. But here in the heart there is a being
called God. And God says, “love one another. As we love God,” if it is true that
we love God. Because if we don’t love God, who can we love? |
|
| I am a practical Christian.
I am Catholic. But I am a man who does God’s will. I used to smoke, and I stopped.
This was not good for me. Well, I left cigarettes. I’ve never smoked for thirty
years. I used to give myself a shot of brandy, or a cuba libre in parties. I stopped doing
that too. No one had to tell me, “stop it.” Nobody. This being that lives inside
of me, who is called the Holy Ghost, like it lives in you, like it lives everybody. That
was who told me, “don’t do that.” I don’t smoke, or drink, or fight,
or say anything bad about anybody, or bear false witness against anybody. I do God’s
will. To the best that I can. And if I fall short, well God helps me, he forgives me if I
don’t. But it’s good to live this way. I live peaceably. And I’ve been
carrying on this way for ten years. |
|
| Since I arrived here from my
home town, I had my own musical group. I’ve never like being dependent of others,
part of someone else’s group. Not because they did anything bad, or I did anything
bad either. Rather because I always liked doing things my own way. So then I found good
musicians here. There’s a good guitarist called Apolo Ocasio, who doesn’t play
with me now, he’s playing with Sarraíl Archilla, but he is my compadre, and
we’ve played many times together. There was another, Manolín Robet, who died two
years ago [1990] and played the violin and we had a trio made up of Polo’s guitar, my
cuatro and his violin. And we’d play till dawn giving serenades. We made a lot of
money. But this serenade thing isn’t done much anymore--it can’t be done. Nooo.
It can’t be done anymore. |
|
