It happened with Adalberto Álvarez, whose memory is jealously preserved by his people since he left us for good a year ago.
This privilege of attaining immortality, longed for by kings and emperors, has been granted to the Maestro by the quality of his work and by the unequivocal sensitivity of the Cuban nation. When we speak of his legacy, we exercise the right to make him ours and to give him a place among those who have contributed to the Cuban identity.
He is the owner of a proverbial ability to make us understand that the more effort we put into discovering the sound that will appear tomorrow, the more we will be moved by the existence of a glorious musical past that fills us with healthy pride however distant it may seem.
Through his laborious work, this indispensable figure of the Cuban cultural heritage confirms that our music, which we have divided it into periods, genres and styles for a better understanding, when it is truly loved, as a whole, such categories are not accepted. In any of Adalberto's albums we are delighted with that contemporary sound of Son that identifies him. At the same time, he never ceases to refer us to a creole flavor whose fragrance we inhale in the greened shoots of an Ignacio Piñeiro or an Arsenio Rodríguez. Perhapsthe best way to describe Adalberto’s adherence to the Cuban identity is the words of Cuban academic Don Fernando Ortiz: "When you hear the music of the homeland, the music of the people where you first saw the sunlight, you feel stronger, you feel deeper, you feel more sincerity, and that simple and sentimental music makes you gain more strength to fight and win in the struggle for life".
