Descarga, Innova, recorded by the author on July 3rd, 2004

In Vedado, a neighborhood in Havana, Cuba, there’s a Casa de la Cultura that hosts music lessons, concerts, plays, and other cultural activities. Local bands often rehearse there, as well.

That’s where I met the members of Innova, a son band like no other. Consisting of mostly middle-aged amateur musicians, Innova is not a band on the level of, say, Moneda Nacional or Cañambú. Their groove is occasionally wobbly, and the singers are not so hot.

But the amazing thing about Innova is that almost all of their instruments are built by their bandleader, mad-genius instrument inventor Armando Hernández, pictured here playing his first invention, the neck-tie bass. No kidding: when he’s done playing it, he hangs it vertically and it locks in place like a big heavy necktie with strings attached.

The rest of the instruments are equally zany. For one thing, he’s obsessed with piano keys (teclas in Spanish), and so he proudly showed me his guitarra a teclas, bajo a teclas, and even bongó a teclas (basically a bongó trapped in a wooden box, struck by two sticks controlled by oversized piano keys). The band also features a giant pair of scissors and an umbrella, both which have been souped up in various ways (literally with bells and whistles!) to serve as auxiliary percussion instruments. The trumpet player has become the real expert here, and he’s the one playing the strange percussion solo on this track here.

I’ve since lost touch with Alejandro, so if anyone has any news about this group, please let me know. They actually toured France and Canada, back in 2003, and the booking agency that set up the Canadian tour has a brief bio page about them. Nothing left to do but just enjoy this strange little piece of music, I guess.