Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez:THE CUBAN bassist Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, who has died aged 76 from complications following surgery for pancreatic cancer, gained international fame as the bassist with Buena Vista Social Club.
More importantly, Lopez’s fluid, supple playing accompanied six decades of exceptional Cuban music-making – jazz, classical, mambo, salsa and fusion.
He was born into a family of celebrated double bassists, with his father Orestes Lopez playing bass with the Havana Symphony Orchestra during the day, then playing in the city’s clubs at night.
His uncle, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, was an even more celebrated bass player who enjoyed considerable US fame after choosing exile in Miami. Orestes and Israel are credited with inventing the mambo and the danzon rhythms.
It was after his uncle that Orlando received the nickname “Cachaito” (“little Cachao”). As a child he practised bass fingerings on a cello until he grew large enough to handle a double bass.
Accompanying his father, uncle and aunt Coralia (also a band leader) to rehearsals and concerts from an early age, Lopez witnessed such legends of Cuban music as the blind tres player Arsenio Rodriguez and heard Havana’s dance orchestras develop a revolutionary blend of Afro-Latin music that would become hugely popular across the Americas.
Aged 12, Lopez began playing bass with Orquesta Riverside, a Havana dance band. He maintained his studies at Havana’s music conservatory, learning to sight-read and understand music theory. By his mid-teens, Lopez was a hugely capable, in-demand double bassist. He replaced his father as the bassist in Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional, played with Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna and the National Symphony Quintet.
In the 1960s he formed the pioneering Latin jazz trio Irakere with the pianist Chucho Valdes and the saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera. He played bass on hundreds of recording sessions, most notably those of the popular Cuban vocal group Los Zafiros.
Lopez liked to credit his understanding of classical theory with helping him play Cuba’s indigenous music.
“When I played with Orchestra Riverside I had to follow the style of the pianist,” he said. “Cuban music is very syncopated and he played wild, unexpected, dissonant chords which we call mona. In a sense, music-making is all listening and watching.
“As a bassist, I think of myself as a colchon – a pillow – always there supporting everything that is happening, always there for the soloists to fall back on.”
In 1996 the young Cuban musician Juan de Marcos Gonzalez hired Lopez as part of his Afro-Cuban All Stars. This large band was signed to the British label World Circuit.
When World Circuit boss Nick Gold turned up in Havana with the American guitarist Ry Cooder later that year, they initially hoped to record Cuban and Malian musicians playing together.
Visa problems sabotaged this project, so they employed Gonzalez to put together a band of veteran Cuban musicians. He brought Lopez in on bass and the resulting sessions were called Buena Vista Social Club.
World Circuit’s 1997 Buena Vista CD proved a phenomenal – and unexpected – hit, selling over eight million copies and setting almost all the album’s participants up with solo careers.
Lopez was the only musician from the original sessions to play on all the following albums by the Buena Vista alumni.
In 2001 Gold co-produced Lopez’s first solo album, Cachaito. For this, the producers recorded Lopez’s bass as the lead instrument, pairing him with musicians from across the globe and pushing his sound until it took on elements of dub reggae, ambient jazz and hip-hop. While the album was critically acclaimed, it proved too challenging to be a large seller.
Lopez toured internationally as band leader, memorably playing the Womad festival in 2001, where he and his band took over BBC DJ Charlie Gillett’s live broadcast with an endless jam session.
Lopez’s album won him a BBC Radio 3 World Music Award in 2002. He never followed it up, preferring to enjoy his good fortune in semi-retirement in Havana. Late last year World Circuit issued the CD of the Buena Vista Social Club’s 1998 Carnegie Hall concert to positive reviews and strong sales.
All those who knew Lopez described him not only as a brilliant musician, but a generous, honest and good-humoured man. He is survived by two daughters.
Orlando “Cachaito” Lopez: born February 2nd, 1933; died February 9th, 2009.