Orlando "Cachaíto" López, bassist for Buena Vista Social Club, passes away

[IndianaGreen]

Source: El Nacional

Fallece Orlando "Cachaíto" López, bajista del Buena Vista Social Club

El contrabajista cubano Orlando "Cachaíto" López, integrante del Buena Vista Social Club, falleció este lunes en La Habana a los 76 años de edad, informó una fuente familiar.

"Él estaba enfermo desde hacía más de mes y medio. Primero fue operado de una hernia y luego de la próstata, pero se complicó, se le presentó una insuficiencia renal y murió", dijo su cuñada, Rosa García Máden.

El funeral aún no tiene fecha porque la familia espera la llegada de sus hijas, que viven en Barcelona (España) y están haciendo los trámites para viajar a La Habana.


Read more: El Nacional

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Orlando "Cachaíto" López, bassist for Buena Vista Social Club, passes away

Cuban counter-bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" López, member of the Buena Vista Social Club, passed away on Monday in Havana at age 76, according to a family source.

"He has been sick for over a month and a half. First he had a hernia operation, and then a prostrate, but there were complications and he experience renal failure and died," said his sister-in-law, Rosa García Máden.

No date has been set (for the funeral) because his family expect that his daughters, that live in Barcelona, Spain, are making arrangements to travel to Havana.
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RIP Cachaíto! :-(



Orlando “Cachaito” López is a Cuban bassist, who has gained international attention especially since his involvement in the Buena Vista Social Club recordings.
He was nicknamed Cachaito (“little Cachao”) after his uncle, the famous bassist and innovator of mambo music Israel “Cachao” López.

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1933, Orlando “Cachaito” López first got actively involved in music when he was only nine years old. By the age of eleven he was involved with an orchestra with his aunt. His early desire was to play the violin, but his Grandfather Pedro insisted he to took up the double bass, as there had been a long tradition of bassists in the López family - legend has it that there are over 30 bassists in its lineage; a trend that they did not want stopped. He started learning the double bass on a cello, quickly moving onto a double bass when he was large enough. His musical career is said to have started when he was twelve, and at the age of 13, Cachaíto composed his first piece, a danzón called Isora Infantil. By the time he was 17 he replaced his uncle as the bassist with Arcana y sus Maravillas, a band that had been around since before Cachaito was born. He made such an impression on the group that he was asked to stay.

In the 1950s, he helped create the descarga style of music that is a mix between jazz-styled improvisation with Afro-Cuban rhythms, and by 1957 he was playing with the hugely popular Havana dance band, Orquesta Riverside.

http://www.last.fm/music/Orlando+%22Cachaito%22+L%C3%B3pez

[xchrom]

1. oh no, no, no -- may Pease be with his family. nt

[dhill926]

2. a glass shall be raised....

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. am thankful Ry Cooder went over and made the albums and movie.

My wife and I were lucky enough to see Compay Segudo in concert at the art museum in Raleigh a few years before he died. Musical treasures one and all.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Lifting the embargo and normalizing relations will be good for both countries

Our policies toward Cuba are irrational and psychotic!

[IndianaGreen]

5. Obituary from Britain's The Independent

Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez: Bass player who achieved belated fame with the Buena Vista Social Club

Wednesday, 11 February 2009


A powerful tone and a talent for improvisation: Lopez in 2000

Better late than never, perhaps, but recognition and fame for the various members of the Buena Vista Social Club was, nevertheless, more than a little tardy. It was the American guitarist Ry Cooder who brought some of these fabled Cuban musicians out of retirement for a famed collaboration in 1996, and a subsequent 1997 album, Buena Vista Social Club. Such key members as Compay Segundo (vocals, guitar), Ruben Gonzalez (piano), Ibrahim Ferrer (vocals) and now Orlando Lopez (bass) have since died. Lopez, at the age of 63, was a comparative youngster in the band.


Because of the strained political relationship between America and Cuba since the revolution in 1959, Cuban musicians were not allowed into the U S, and as a result, their talents had been overlooked. In 1996, Cooder and the owner of World Circuit Records, Nick Gold, visited Cuba with the intention of making an album with local musicians. Cooder selected his musicians carefully and the results achieved global acclaim. The musicians, Lopez included, toured the world and appeared in Wim Wenders's documentary film of the same name.

Orlando Lopez was born into a family of musicians in Havana in February 1933. They played in symphony orchestras, jazz groups and dance bands around Cuba, and Orlandohimself was to play many forms of music. His grandfather, Pedro, had passed his talent for bass-playing to his father, Orestes, and his uncle, Israel, who was known as Cachao (hence "Cachaito", "little Cachao"). In the late 1930s, the two brothers added some African rhythms to the local music and effectively laid the foundations for mambo music.

As a child, Orlando would watch his father and his associates at work and although he initially wanted to play the violin, his aunt Coralia encouraged him to follow in the family tradition. The first composition he learnt was "Isora", written by his aunt for the Isora Society Club, which she ran. Lopez's first composition was named "Isora Infantil". He worked for various jazz groups and then, in the 1950s, became a bass player with the National Symphony Orchestra and took classes with the Czech bassist Karel Kopriva.

He began teaching bass at the Guillermo Tomas Conservatory in the Sixties and continued to do so for over 30 years. "In a sense, music making is all listening and watching," said Lopez. "As a bassist, I think of myself as a pillow, always supporting everything that is happening and always there for the soloists to fall back on."

Cooder was impressed with Lopez's powerful tone and talent for improvisation. He became an integral part of the Buena Vista Social Club project and the title tune for the album was a slinky instrumental written by Orestes. With 7m copies sold, the album is the biggest-selling world music album to date.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/orlando-cachaito-lopez-bass-player-who-achieved-belated-fame-with-the-buena-vista-social-club-1606280.html