Meet Dayramir González Vicet | Cuban Pianist, composer, arranger and educator.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dayramir González Vicet and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dayramir, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?

Being in control of my career has always being a goal to me. Since I started playing piano at the age of 7 years in Havana, Cuba I realized that in order to be leader in the school, in order to really separate myself from the rest of my peers was through my compositions, arranging and band leader skills.

At the the age of 12, I formed my first band called Salsa Blue with students of my elementary music school, and it was such a fun platform to put in motion all the knowledge I was gaining from my dad. He is a professional trumpet player who toured and performed with established salsa Cuban bands such as Caribe Expreso, Conjunto Rumbavana and Laito y Su Sonora. These bands used to rehearse, horn and rhythm sections in my house, and I was absorbing from first hand how my dad was leading the sessions, dealing with egos, how to organize the charts musically, and how to be a band leader. I wanted to exercise all of these tips and knowledge with my own band.

That led to booking my own gigs with the help of my dad, planning the best weekends to do so, securing the transportation to pick up the instruments, setting up rehearsals for the performances, handwriting all charts for the band, creating guest lists for friends and families, making posters to promote the events, etc.

So I guess, my thought about starting my own business started with having control of my performing career first. Then, I added the educational part of it by the age of 20 when I realized many students from Europe, Canada and Cuba wanted to take private and group lessons to emulate my sound, and I needed to create a system to schedule all these classes and keep track of payment of each of the students.

I have been exercising these principles since the age of 12. Same approach, passion, and commitment.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

“Who are you?  What makes you different? How can I help you? Son, these questions are the key to find your identity,” said by my dad when I was 16; and, these words of wisdom have stayed with me forever.

The need of finding my space in the world, the need to find my sound, to find my story to tell was always a conscious exercise I wanted to achieve. I found that voice through my compositions.

One day, I was sitting at the piano experimenting for new sounds, just messing around, and I realized that I was hearing different bass notes to any given note that I was playing on the melody. For example: If I played A in the melody, I was hearing A major in the left hand or D major, or G major, Cmajor, Eb Maj #11, Emin7Sus4, etc. At that time, I fully didn’t know all harmonic nomenclatures, but I was indeed aware that when I was changing those bass notes and harmonies against that melody, it had a sonic and emotional impact in my ear. I used to call it colors “I’m hearing colors”.  A pallet of colors that sounded bright or pale, sad or happy, angry or unpleasant.

Telling my story through my compositions started to set me apart from the rest. I had an immense desire to succeed which made me strong to overcome all the hardships of life. The divorce of my parents and the marks that left on me and my brother, the economical situation we were going through in the 90s. All of that gave me character and made me a resilient towards life.

Professionally, at 16 years of age, I began with the great Oscar Valdes, ex member of Irakere band. He was very strict with arriving on time to rehearsals, coming well prepared to the gigs with the music memorized. That was an amazing learning atmosphere.

By the end of high school, I started touring with Giraldo Piloto and Klimax, a progressive Cuban Timba band that had a good impact to my career because it created a bigger platform to musically arrange, tour and experience other cultures.

While performing with Klimax, I won a jazz contest in Havana called JoJazz (2004) which opened the doors of recording and releasing my first album Dayramir & Habana enTRANCé (Colibrí, 2008). This album established my name as a band leader, arranger and composer in Cuba, and allowed me to perform in all major festivals and jazz clubs in Havana with my contemporary friends.

In 2010, my life changed 360. I won Berklee College of Music’s presidential scholarship, becoming the first Cuban national to attend Berklee. That changed the whole game. Until this time I was composing, arranging, playing jazz mainly based on my intuition and experienced gained through doing it day after day, trial and error. Now, I was gaining the actual knowledge and techniques to help me put in words what I was hearing and playing.  I was perfecting my command of my sound. I could reach to that specific sound/emotion without rambling around the piano. I learned the techniques to faster and more effectively arrange for 5-6 horns, string quartet, symphony orchestras, big bands.  Now I was ready!  Attending Berklee was a much needed instructional period to allow me to more freely express my creativity and share my story.

In 2013, I moved to New York and I faced many other challenges, such as creating a quality life, focusing upon a profession musical career. The challenge of understanding “Who I was” in keeping with the amazing musicians that where also competing to realize the same dream.   I asked myself, “What made me different from those musicians: socially and culturally.  Lastly, what help I needed in order to make my plans a reality. Essentially, I was coming back to my principles and to that conversation my dad had with me at the age of 16.

I’m black, I’m Cuban, I’m west African. I’m Yoruba. I studied European classical music. I’m bilingual. I’m a composer, an arranger, an orchestrator. I am a music educator and curriculum owner. I’m a socio-cultural ambassador of Cuba. Yamaha artist. I’m a father. A human being in love with love and the beauty of life.  Also, I’m a man who has dedicated himself to his art, and who is passionate about connecting his music with his audience.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

If my friend was visiting New York on a given Monday, I would first bring him to eat lunch at Guantanamera Cuban restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. Then going salsa dancing at Taj with Los Hacheros.

On Tuesday, we would take a walk at Central Park near  5th Ave. Then take a walk up 5th ave to 55 St. to visit the studios of Yamaha. The building is fantastic and the story inside amazing. Then we will come down the West Village to visit Ideal Glass Studios to meet my dear friend Willard Morgan.

Wednesday is time to go up to the Bronx to visit the Yankees Stadium and check the game of Yankees against LA Dodgers! Coming down we would stop at Mis Casa, Tu Casa 150th street and Grand Concourse to pay a visit to Blanca and Julio Pavon, Latino Sports!

Wednesday night is Rumba night at Mis Salsa Kitchen in Lower East Side with Roman Diaz, then knock the night out with a one dollar pizza at Rivingston Street.

Thursday night we would visit Dizzy’s Coca Cola, Jazz at Lincoln Center to hear Mr. Kenny Barron on piano.

Friday we would go to Village Vanguard to hear Joe Lovano at 9pm and right after hurry to catch the last set of Robert Glasper with Esperanza Spalding at Blue Bote!

Saturday is the Latin night at Gonzalez y Gonzalez; and Sunday is late brunch at Society Cafe in Tribeca, enjoying the magnificent rooftop view of New York.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

My story is created and growth thanks to different elements that marked my path to success. Firstly, the love and support received by my parents. Their vision to stay true to the talent they saw in me from an early age, supporting it with exposing me to listen to different types of music, buying my first piano, and all the sacrifices made to put me in a position to be educated with values to be a good man. Their names are: mama Magloiris Vicet, papa Fabian Gonzalez and step dad Raul Vives.

That effort by my parents, sustained with the social and musical opportunity I was given when they enrolled me in a music conservatory to have access to a high level of music education since the age of 8. Through that musical discipline, allowed me to build tremendous pillars in my future career. A career that was shaped by my music piano classical teachers: Rosalia Capote, Ana Teresa Pedroso, Amado Tousa and Huberal Herrera. Along with my composition professor Juan Piñera, my jazz piano teachers at Berklee College Danilo Perez, Joanne Brackeen and Ray Santisi, my dear friend Kimberly Dree Hudson, and my former-wife Tatiana Ferrer. Tatiana played a major role in my career as a leader and business owner since I arrived in the US in 2010.

I will forever be grateful to them.

Website: dayramirgonzalez.com

Instagram: dayramirgonzalez_piano

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Image Credits
Rick Swig