Singer Willy Chirino celebrated 40 years in music at the American Airlines Arena Saturday night in a concert that was as much a salute to Miami's exile community (and, by virtue of its many guests, the Cuban music community outside the island) and its passions as it was to his own career.

The two are inextricably linked, after all. Chirino songs like Nuestro Día Ya Viene Llegando (Our Day is Coming) and La Jinetera are anthems that crystallize exile pain, rage and hope of return, while pop-salsa songs like Oxigeno and Mr. Don't Touch the Banana capture Cuban Miami's exuberance and sentimentality.

For the approximately 6,500 adoring people in the arena Saturday night, from white-haired couples still swinging ample hips to middle-aged parents who brought their young children to 20-something Cuban Americans, Chirino is a hero. If appealing to them has also kept Chirino primarily a Miami artist, that is something he has accepted.

''I have paid for that in some aspects and gained in others,'' Chirino said after the show of his significance to Cuban Miami. ``Being identified as the musical spokesperson for Cuban exiles has kept me from being played in certain other markets. But if this is the price to pay I'm happy to do it. Through your music you have to know your feelings. My music reflects exactly that.''

Chirino's latest album, 2008's Pa'lante (Forward), has had some impact on radio outside Miami, and will take him on a tour of the United States, Israel and Canadathat is more extensive than any he has done in years. But Saturday night's show was all about his home base. And as with recent Prince and Coldplay concerts, people attending Chirino's show got a free copy of Pa'lante.

Chirino also included many other musicians of widely varying ages, styles and degrees of distance from Cuba.

The opening act was Habana Abierta, a rock-funk-son fusion group that has lived in Spain since 1994 (or at least four singer-composers from Habana Abierta's original eight members: Ihosvani ''Vanito'' Caballero, Alejandro Gutiérrez, Luis Alberto Barbaría and José Luis Medina, backed by 10 excellent Miami musicians).

Chirino opened strutting down a Vegas-esque set of metal stairs, wearing a sleek black suit, backed by a crack 13-piece band (including a six-piece horn section) of mostly young musicians.

''I want you to dance, to have a good time, and to yell so they hear it in Havana,'' he called to the screaming crowd. Impossible, obviously, but Chirino makes them feel as if they could.

Chirino mixed medleys of his early pop-salsa hits like Oxigeno, Un Artista Famoso and Zarabanda, whose terrifically catchy (if often similar-sounding) melodies and upbeat sense of swing, as much Caribbean as Cuban, embody an appealing and buoyant Miami spirit. His song Lo Que Esta Pa' Ti -- from the Cuban saying ''What belongs to you, nobody can take away'' -- transmutes fatalism to optimism, with a singable chorus that totally sticks in your head, in a way that has made the song emblematic.

He brought his five musician daughters and his 12-year-old granddaughter Elisa to sing and help papi with a touch-up and change of jacket. The crowd ate it up.

But Chirino mixed his lighter material equally with stronger stuff.

''We are happiness, but if you look into the eyes of any Cuban you'll see a sadness caused by 50 years of dictatorship and the separation of families which is our great tragedy,'' he said as he introduced 13 de Julio, a song from Pa'lante, about the 1994 incident in which 32 people drowned on a tugboat sunk by Cuban ships as it tried to escape from the island. It was accompanied by a simple but moving video of the victims' names and photographs.

For La Jinetera, about the Cuban prostitutes so prevalent during the island's hard times in the early 1990s, he showed the controversial video that conflated sexy, struggling women dressed in and wrapped with the Cuban flag, while the video for Nuestro Día had footage of different generations of Cuban exiles, from the Pedro Pan children (of whom Chirino was one) to the Mariel boatlift to the '94 rafter exodus.

He also shared the stage with different generations of Cuban exile musicians (plus the Nicaraguan singer Luis Enrique, whose powerful voice was a reminder of why he was such a big salsa star in the late '80s and early '90s).

Chirino's chronicle on Saturday climaxed with Que se vaya! (Let him go!), a carnival-conga song that saw him parading through the ecstatic audience, backed by his horn section, in a raucous challenge to Fidel Castro. It was the perfect example of the exile musical populism and politics that is Willy Chirino.

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@