A cool gig for the cooler evenings: Raul Midon and Alex Cuba

The weather’s getting more pleasant for long outdoor evenings, which means it’s time for The Arts Center at NYUAD to move some of its performance outside into the East Plaza. The first such al fresco event this season features two really quite exceptional singer-songwriters, genius guitarists who both write exceptional songs; they’ll be performing individually but also have a set playing together.

So what will we be getting? And why should we be there anyway?

The short answer is that this a rare opportunity to hear two supremely talented musicians who have honed their art to the point where it’s immensely accessible and yet sufficiently sophisticated to be genuinely interesting. It’s not esoteric, angular, internalised, or in a y way ‘difficult’; this is music for the people, crafted to perfection.

Raul Midón was born in New Mexico to an Argentinian father and an African-American mother. He’s been blind since infancy; but that hasn’t slowed down his love of music, which reportedly started at age four when his father introduced him to the drum and continued via guitar and other instruments at school.

He went to the University of Miami, which he selected for its jazz curriculum, and after graduating in 1990 he slipped into a career as a session singer for Latin recording artists. He worked with several big names, including Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Julio Iglesias, and Jose Feliciano, before he settled in New York City to pursue a solo career. Since then he’s released 11 albums, and there’s not a dud among them.

His ability to hook up with other artists is a feature of his career – his 2005 debut album State of Mind (2005) featured guest performances by Stevie Wonder and Jason Mraz, along with a song written in tribute to another of his idols, Donny Hathaway.

Since then he has collaborated with an eclectic mix of names – Bill Withers, Queen Latifah, Herbie Hancock, Christina Aguilera, Johnny Mathis, Al Jarreau, Elvis Costello, Laura Mvula, Snarky Puppy and Snoop Dogg; he has worked with Grammy Award-winning producer Larry Klein and top house producer Louie Vega; and he has had his songs featured in films like Spike Lee’s She Hate Me and the Nick Nolte vehicle The Peaceful Warrior. Two of his recordings have been nominated for Grammys in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category, and his most recent – 2021’s The Mirror – was up for a Libera Award for best jazz album.

Not that he’s easily characterised as a jazzman. His solo albums are filled with songs that draw from acoustic funk and 70s soul (like Marvin Gaye), soft jazz and yacht rock, and even art rock (you can hear a touch of Steely Dan sometimes). He has described himself as “a songwriter that does jazz. I don’t really fit neatly into any category …”

And none of that back story can really prepare you for a live Raul Midón performance. When he just walks on to the performance area with his guitar to sing his deceptively simple songs, you just know you’re in the presence of a very special talent. Yes, he has a beautiful tenor voice; yes, he can express anything from passion to pity; yes, he can play that acoustic guitar in fast or slow styles – accelerated arpeggios or a relaxed walking bass line, flamenco strumming or precise finger-picking; and yes, he has a trick or two – like his ‘vocal trumpet’ solos, imitating a bebop trumpet to add extra colour. No wonder the New York Times called him “a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus”.

But it’s not just technical virtuosity for its own sake; the guy writes truly great songs, and numbers like State of Mind, Sunshine I Can Fly and If You’re Gonna Leave already sound like standards.

What’s more, they come naturally. Midon admits he has his heroes – Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Bill Withers – and he does sometimes sound like Ray Charles, or maybe Nat King Cole. But the person he sounds most like is Raul Midón, a soulful, funky artist whose musicianship, songwriting and personality go way beyond mere imitation or influence.

Rather than the handicap it might have been, his blindness is possibly the key to his skill: “As someone who has never seen, I’ve always felt at a disadvantage in that lyric writing is usually very visual,” he says. “People really relate to images and I’ve never seen images. But what I realised early on is that you have to write from what you know, and I hear, touch and feel intensely – and those are sensations and experiences that everyone can relate to.”

Alex Cuba may be a long-time Canadian resident, but Cuba is his birthplace as well as his chosen stage name (he was actually born Alexis Puentes) – and Cuba’s musical traditions are in his blood. But he’s emphatically not tied to tradition; his musical vision is expansive, clearly reflecting Latin and African influences but overlaid with funk, pop and jazz.

He has won two Juno Awards for World Music Album of the Year; in 2010 he won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist, his 2015 album Healer earned him a Latin Grammy Award for Best Singer-Songwriter, and Mendó won the 2022 Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album (it was his fourth nomination for the award).

Alex Cuba’s father was a respected Cuban guitarist and teacher with a performing group of 24 guitarists, which Alex joined when he was old enough. He studied more instruments, toured and recorded, moved to British Columbia at the end of the century, and recorded an album there with his twin brother Adonis. His first two solo debuts earned him his two Juno awards (in 2006 and 2008).

More albums and more awards followed, including a couple of the prestigious Socan Hagood Hardy Awards for “outstanding achievement in jazz and world music”. It was his fifth studio album, Healer, which marked a notable change in scope – it’s an upbeat, acoustic soul album, recorded with a rhythm section to add horns to the guitars and vocal harmonies.

Like many musicians, Alex Cuba was particularly productive during lockdown. Asked about his motivation during this time he told one interviewer “music is something that’s so necessary in our lives. It’s so wonderful to remain creative and to remain optimistic. That has kept me focused. It made it easier”.

Elsewhere he was more explicit: “It has been super important to keep believing that a song can change the life of a human being. Looking at it from that point of view, I find a huge responsibility as an artist and that responsibility I believe keeps me going – it makes me feel that I can play a part to help maintain hope in this world”.

For his eighth album Mendó (it’s an afro Cuban word which he said loosely translates as “substance of the soul”) he added recording engineer to his credits as musician, singer-songwriter, and producer. This is his most wide ranging album to date, featuring a 13-piece horn band from Cuba and a roster of international collaborations – the album has Lila Downs, flamenco artist Antonio Carmona, Cimafunk, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Gian Marco … and Raul Midon.

It’s also a classic of Alex Cuba’s work, engaging tunes that are always accessible (some real toe-tappers here) but show a level of sophistication that keeps the music interesting. Alex likes to quote someone (maybe John Coltrane, though many have said similar): “Talent is the ability to make the complicated sound simple”.

His music is often described as sunny, inherently optimistic, and maybe that’s not too far from the truth. “Whenever I was say ‘My music is happy’ I thought that maybe people were going to think that I didn’t want to see the world, to see life, for what it is. It took me a little while to realise that that’s who I am … When I’m not at peace with myself, when I’m not happy or excited, when I’m angry or upset, in that moment, I really don’t like to sing … Now, if something happens [that makes me] happy, a song comes rushing from me. I don’t know why — that’s how I am.

“I can’t just write a sad song or an angry song just because I want to try. Nothing happens. It is what it is.”

That’s a good enough summary of how he works. He has another quote that summarises why he does it: “You have to aim for people who are not musicians. How are you going to reach their souls? By being honest, by being simple, by being essential. That’s what I’ve done with my music.”

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We’re enthusiastic about both artists, and together they should make for a magical performance. Don’t just believe us, try it for yourself: both have extensive YouTube catalogues. For starters, here’s Raul Midón with his breakthrough number State of Mind; he was very engaging doing a couple of numbers a few years ago at a TED Talks performance; and his live rendition of John Coltrane’s classic (and famously complicated) Giant Steps is frankly extraordinary.

And here’s a classic Alex Cuba track, Solo Mía, with Leonel García; try the flamenco-inflected Corazón Gitano, featuring Antonio Carmona; and here’s his Mendó track with Raul Midón, Camina y Ven.