| Perhaps it's because there's a close cultural connection | | | | Johnny Mathis, Michel Legrand and Frank Sinatra. His |
| between great music and smoky bars. Anyone who | | | | technically flawless playing has resulted in his being the |
| knows anything about jazz knows that its truly | | | | kind of musician whose work is often known by |
| legendary improvisers - Coltrane, Bird, Miles Davis, | | | | people who couldn't name him - he is brought in as a |
| Dizzy Gillespie - cut their teeth playing in bars so | | | | session musician by some of the world's finest and |
| smoky that it's a good thing everybody was too busy | | | | best-known (see above), and he often scores movie |
| improvising to need sheet music. | | | | soundtracks. As his work with the BBC Symphony |
| Or maybe it's because both cigars and music are | | | | Orchestra and the Leningrad Philharmonic prove, he's |
| contemplative pleasures. A casual smoker can get a | | | | even proved able to handle the rigors of classical |
| quick tobacco-fix from a cheap cigarette, just as a | | | | music as well as jazz - sometimes doing both in the |
| casual music listener can enjoy the background hum | | | | same concert. |
| of pop songs on the car radio. But to really enjoy a | | | | The cigar-music connection is especially strong in |
| great performance, or a good tobacco, sitting still and | | | | Cuba, known as one of the world's cigar capitals. Both |
| paying attention are necessary. | | | | cigars and music are staples of island life (the cigar |
| In any case, music and cigar smoking seem to belong | | | | remains one of the island's most prominent exports), |
| together, and some of the most famous musicians are | | | | and the strength of both in Cuban culture depends |
| (or were) cigar devotees - just as, it turns out, one of | | | | partly on the nimble and intelligent blending of elements |
| the most famous of cigar devotees is also a musician. | | | | from everywhere - wrappers and fillers from different |
| Avo Uvezian, the maker of Avo cigars, is also a | | | | parts of Latin America, rhythms and melodies from the |
| respected classical and jazz pianist, a Julliard graduate, | | | | African coast, South America, US pop, Western |
| and even the one-time official pianist of the Shah of | | | | European classical, etc. In other words, Cuban |
| Iran. After a successful musical career based first in | | | | cigarmaking and Cuban music have both survived, and |
| his native Middle East, and then in the contiguous | | | | flourished, by mixing and melding. |
| United States, Uvezian moved in the 1980s to Puerto | | | | For generations, cigar rollers were entertained by the |
| Rico, where he opened a restaurant and bar and | | | | sound of paid musicians or by music from the radio. |
| dabbled in cigarmaking. After customers at his Puerto | | | | (This tradition continues even now in the Dominican |
| Rico restaurant told him how much they enjoyed | | | | Republic, where workers at the Arturo Fuente factory, |
| some cigars he'd had rolled himself, from a blend of | | | | among other places, are treated to the work of |
| tobaccos he hand-picked, he opened his own | | | | performing musicians.) With this tradition in place, it's no |
| Dominican Republic-based cigar factory, working with | | | | wonder that some of Cuba's music legends got their |
| noted cigar maker Hendrik Kelner. Now his company | | | | start as cigar-factory entertainers; and since tobacco |
| makes three million cigars a year, and Uvezian himself | | | | smoking has been a part of Latin American life far |
| still makes music - his first CD, Legacy, was released | | | | longer than it has in some other places - Columbus's |
| in 2004. | | | | sailors noted it being smoked in what is now modern |
| For another example, consider the great trumpeter | | | | Cuba in the year 1493, so there's many more centuries |
| Arturo Sandoval, who smokes, by his own estimation, | | | | of lore to draw on its psychological and emotional |
| four or five cigars a day. Music allowed the | | | | associations are deeper and richer, providing better |
| Cuban-born Sandoval to rise to fame in his native | | | | material for songwriters to mine. Thus famous Cuban |
| Cuba - and to defect from that country in 1990, during | | | | songwriter Beny More, himself a former entertainer for |
| a long stint playing concerts in Europe (he now lives in | | | | the cigar-factory workers, touches on the song in a |
| Florida). Sandoval has played the horn for Lionel | | | | number of his classic compositions. |
| Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, Gloria Estefan and | | | | |