Richard Egües

Flute player Richard Egües' three decades of work with Orquesta Aragón established him as one of the best (perhaps the best) practitioners of his instrument in the history of Cuban music. Aragón was a charanga -- an orchestra consisting mostly of strings and a rhythm section, with flute and violin as the lead voices; charangas originally played refined ballroom dances but later took a crucial role in creating the livelier cha cha. Egües arrived on the scene not long after improvisation had become a requirement for charanga musicians, and though he hadn't originally set out to become a flute player, his inventive performances with Aragón from 1954 all the way through 1984 set the highest possible standards of musicianship for flute players in the charanga format. Richard Egües was born in the town of Cruces, in the Cuban province of Las Villas; he was brought up alternately in the towns of Sancti-Espíritu (where he attended school) and Santa Clara (where his family resided). Egües' father landed a job leading the municipal orchestra of Manicaragua, and young Egües accompanied him there; his father allowed him his first performance experience playing cymbals. Egües began learning piano and clarinet, and soon branched out into saxophone as well. Around 1940, Egües' father founded his own orchestra, Monterey; Egües performed in it and also married around the same time. In 1943, he returned to Santa Clara hoping to prepare for a move to Havana by soaking up all the performance experience he could in the Santa Clara cabarets. Egües began playing both sax and piano with many different groups around Santa Clara. In the late '40s, he decided to pick up the flute as well, partly because flute players got to take more breaks during performances, and partly because the municipal...