One of the most beautiful events that has occurred in my life has been to personally meet the master Jorge González Allué, that excellent musician and composer who left behind unpublished works when he physically left us, because even when he was in bed he continued to compose. For this reason, regarding his birthday, this February 11th, I wanted to remember him once again, an issue that has been on my mind in my life, either because I hear his emblematic “Amorosa guajira”, a frequent theme on Camagüey radio, or because I visit the House of Cultural Diversity of Camagüey, – institution belonging to the Office of the Historian of the city-, with my students.
It is impossible not to approach one of the showcases, which are exhibited there, with a small sheet torn from a block where he wrote the song “Balada en él”, his work number 204, just when he was admitted to the intermediate care room at the Amalia Simoni Hospital, in 1999, place he visited several times suffering from some ailments.
I have already commented on other occasions how humorous his character was and how his night calls almost always made me break out of my daily routines and get involved in that pleasant chat that we had and from which I came out permeated with good vibes and smiled even alone remembering some story or tale that he had told me. Friend and colleague Oscar Viñas Ortiz, who was something like his biographer, who spent several years investigating the life and work of the composer, commented in his book “The Last of the Greats”: …we have not pretended that you have a biography of Jorge González Allué; It is about knowing many details of his life, told by himself, with the way he talks about him, the criteria, opinions, anecdotes, points of view and assessments of him.
More Camagüeyano than a waterpot
And of course, as its author warned us, when you read each paragraph of that text, whether or not you knew that great man, you imagine him, and it seems to you that he is telling the story of his long life, you see him playing the piano any of his many creations and undeniably the desire to reach the end invades him, because the carefree way of the one who said to himself: I am more Camagüeyano than a waterpot, this invite us at once to want to know such an interesting and fruitful existence.
And because, as Viñas also told us: he has rendered very valuable services to the culture of Camagüey (and to the Cuban culture, in addition), for which we still have a lot to thank him for…
Today I wanted to offer him this little tribute, to the one who one day, as it says in one of the verses of the song he dedicated to me, saw in me a …laughing like a bell…, something that I try whenever I can reflect on my face, because as that other great of the scene, Charles Chaplin, said: … A day without laughter is a day wasted.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
