Production begins on the important video documentary, "Mujeres Trovadoras de Puerto Rico" [The Women Troubadours of Puerto Rico]

At left: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, 17th century Mexican nun, among the greatest décima poets of her time, and at right: Luz Celenia Tirado, among the greatest décima poets of the present day.

The Cuatro Project is pleased to announce an important music documentary that focuses on a heretofore little known aspect of Puerto Rican and Latin American culture: the historic prominence of women in the creation and furthering of the ancient poetry and song form called décima espinela, long cherished on the Island and across Hispanic America. The work is an effort to counterbalance the general impression that the tradition has largely been the province of male troubadours. The documentation for this effort is currently in an extensive online repository (unfortunately available in Spanish only) of research documents, images and notes. The Cuatro Project urges our visitors to log on to the site and support this important project in any way they can.

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 US government awards a top
culture prize to master cuatrista
Edwin Colón Zayas

Colón Zayas receives national fellowship
     In May 2009 the National Foundation for the Arts in Washington, D.C. announced that that the master cuatrista Edwin Colón Zayas had been awarded the most prestigious prize given by the foundation to traditional artists. The prize, the NEA National Heritage Fellowship, is awarded once in a lifetime to honor individual traditional artists for their "contribution to our national cultural mosaic." The fellowship awards the title of National Living Treasure, and is modeled after the Japanese manner of honoring traditional artists. Other recipients of the prize this year, were a Kazak choreographer, a zydeco musician, a Yoruba singer, a cowboy poet, and a Cambodian dancer. In 2008, another Puerto Rican, the craft promoter Walter Murray Chiesa won the coveted prize, and in 2007 the prize was awarded to the Puerto Rican cuatrista and cuatro-maker Diomedes "Yomi" Matos who resides in the state of Florida.
     Edwin has been a friend and contributor to the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project for many years, and we have dedicated a page to him which can be found here.

 Passing of famed New York cuatrista
Edgardo Miranda


                                                     Photograph: Juan Sotomayor 

Memorial by Juan "Kacho" Montalvo
     Edgardo Miranda was one of the most important bastions of the cuatro in the United States. I believe he was the first to utilize the cuatro in a big band, playing both Latin jazz and bebop in a thoughtful and elegant way. This is said without intending to diminish the importance of the contributions of Nieves Quintero, Yomo Toro and Pedrito Guzmán. Edgardo both knew jazz thoroughly and was a great improviser. He also had the knowledge and skills to create orchestra arrangements as well as to work as an accompanist and participate in many recordings, since he was an expert reader of guitar and cuatro music. He availed himself of the experience of Latin jazz composers of the forties and fifties who adopted him and guided him in the orchestras of that period. Tito Puente, Mario Rivera, and many others who played in the New York jazz scene, took advantage of and admired the improvisatory art of Edgardito. Many jazz clubs gave him the opportunity to display his skills in trios, quartets and small Latin jazz and non-Latin groups since he was able to mix together many different jazz styles. In later years he worked with the folk group, Los Pleneros de la 21 with whom he traveled teaching about the bomba and the plena in different parts of the US and Latin America. The group also took their perfomance/workshops to Russia. Edgardo battled leukemia for several years before passing away.

Visit the Pleneros de la 21 page for more photos and information about Edgardo Miranda.

Visit the Latin Jazz Corner page for information about Edgardo Miranda's recordings and techniques.