Cuban Organ

The Granma region of Cuba ? a good day?s drive East of Havana ?is a region jokingly referred to by Habaneros as ?Palestina? due to its cultural distance. In the 1880s some hand-cranked mechanical organs were imported from Europe. Since then a folklore culture of 'organilieros'- makers, composers and artisans ? now in its fourth generation - has sprung up in this remote rural sugar-cane growing province. On weekends towns and villages come to life as three-to-five piece bands ? often siblings carrying on a family tradition ? set up and play street parties. It?s a region which could easily inhabit a Woody Guthrie song or a Steinbeck novel. Cuban Organ takes the listener along Granma?s dusty back-roads into the heart of organ country and sheds light on a remote corner of rural Cuban life through the sounds of the province, its colorful people and its music