The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 4

i 1 1 1 11 'i t' i i i i' T' rri i Tir 1 1 'i "p1" 1 Tl i 1 1 i i-'i -t-t" 1 1 rm i i iARLY ED. MONTREAL, FRIDAY, JULY 8, 1988 DOWNTOWN INI CUV fT. I UOOtOUMCII U1MII Ul-OTJI ClOttOMCMOArl great jjj prices i i' WtV' (V" SUCTION Inside: LIVING i 1 I LJ PB fia TOGH Gonzalo Rubalcaba leads a Latin invasion 3 'V- Hi. ti 4' Bela Bartok laid to rest on hillside in Budapest BUDAPEST (AP) The mortal remains of Hungarian-born composer Bela Bartok were laid to final rest yesterday in the family tomb on a Budapest hillside, 43 years after he died of leukemia in New York. At least 5,000 Hungarians thronged the small Farkasret Cemetery for the reburial, including Foreign Minister Peter Varkonyi and pianist Annie Fischer.

Bartok, one of the leading composers of the 20th century, was born in 1881 in Transylvania. He left Hungary in 1940 in disgust over its close ties with Nazi Germany and emigrated to the United States, where he died five years later. "This is a welcome home and a last farewell rolled into one solemn ceremony," Jozsef Ujfalussy, former director of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, told the mourners. 'New world' "His music created a new world that extended mankind's artistic horizons and tends to universality." As part of a Unitarian burial ceremony, Bishop Joszef Ferencz delivered a funeral oration extolling Bar-tok's human qualities and moral standing. A monument of Swedish black granite, the work of sculptor Miklos Borsos, marked the burial place.

Borsos said it symbolizes "an apotheosis of music, the soul as a taking-off bird." Bartok was reburied next to his two wives, his mother and an aunt, and near his greatest friend and collaborator, Zoltan Kodaly. The remains were exhumed at New York's Ferncliff cemetery June 21. A brass plaque that marked Bar-tok's grave there was buried with him at Farkasret. Sang hymn Peter Bartok, 64, who lives in Ho-mosassa, and Bela Bartok 78, accompanied their father's remains from New York on the liner Queen Elizabeth II and then through France, West Germany and Austria. The elder son lives in Budapest and is president of Hungary's Unitarian Church.

A religious choir sang the hymn We Have Placed Our Faith in the Lord at the funeral service yesterday. Then Ferencz, spiritual leader of Hungary's 10,000 Unitarians, praised Bartok for adopting the faith in 1916. At least 10,000 Hungarians and hundreds of foreign visitors paid their last respects Wednesday to Bartok's remains at the Academy of Sciences building. Bartok's sons decided to move their father's body to Hungary last -year. "I felt it was the wish of the entire Hungarian nation that he should be there," said Peter Bartok.

Hank Williams, Jr. opens museum PARIS, Tenn. (AP) Fans of country music singer Hank Williams, will soon be able to wander through a museum highlighting his career. Williams plans to open the museum next month at his office complex. The museum will house 25 restored cars from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, plus personal items and career mementoes.

Williams, who lives in this northwestern Tennessee city, is the reigning Country Music Association entertainer of the year. -if HIMIIM he is a classically trained musician with a degree in composition from a conservatory in Havana. In addition to playing the piano since the age of 9, he has also studied percussion, which helps explain his sophisticated sense of rhythm. Rubalcaba's father is a professional pianist in a Cuban pop band and he recalls that there was "always music in my house." Exchange program He grew up listening to the The-lonious Monk and Count Basie records his father played at home. Later, he heard Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, played on Cuba's state radio station.

And he never missed the appearance of an American jazz band in Cuba on a cultural exchange program. Rubalcaba is part of a tremendously fertile jazz scene in Cuba, which has already given the world musicians such as famous bebop percussionist Chano Pozo and alto saxophone ace Paquito D'Rivera, who defected to the U.S. in 1980. How does he explain Cuba's fascination with jazz? "It's part of our tradition," Rubalcaba says. "The essential thing for us is the rhythm and the counterpoint of Cuban music.

After that, we enrich it with elements of harmony and chords from the United States, and other influences." It's a music that has seduced many listeners in Europe, where Rubalcaba has been appearing for the last five years. But the United States is where he dreams of playing, despite the political obstacles that still stand in his way. "That would be the most important thing that could happen to me," he says. More jazz festival news and reviews on Page C-2. 1 ispv'- a i fans outside Place des Arts.

"If Gazette photos, George Bird Pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba is one of the products of Cuba's fertile jazz scene. Feeling hot, hot, hot at the fest By PETER HADEKEL of The Gazette Sipping a soft drink in a hotel bar yesterday afternoon, Gonzalo Rubalcaba looked like your average 25-year-old visitor to Montreal: jeans, T-shirt, moccasins. But then he strolled by the grand piano and tossed off a few spicy Latin chords. Even in that brief musical moment, it was obvious why Rubalca-ba's appearance at the Montreal International Jazz Festival tonight (11:30 p.m. at the Spectrum) has generated so much anticipation.

The pianist comes from Havana, and he's making his first appearance in North America. "It's like a dream come true," he said through an interpreter. "As a child, I was always interested in geography and maps. Now I can visit these places." Rubalcaba is part of the growing Cuban invasion of the international jazz scene. Jazz musicians on the Caribbean island seem to be as plentiful as sugar cane.

In fact, organizers of the Montreal festival had planned to hold a "Cuban night" at the Spectrum tonight, with two bands from Havana. But travel problems may prevent pianist Emiliano Salvador and his group from making the gig-Free concert Festival organizers won't confirm it, but a member of the Cuban entourage said yesterday that Salvador isn't expected in Montreal until Saturday. He's scheduled to play a free show on Sunday night at 8:30 p.m. at the Chapiteau Tropiques-Jazz tent on St. Catherine St.

So it looks like Rubalcaba may have the Spectrum stage to himself tonight, which should give everyone in Montreal a chance to appreciate his ample talents. Rubalcaba's seven-piece band plays an irresistibly rhythmic brand of Latin jazz, full of punchy horn arrangements and the trademark Clave beat that makes Cuban jazz so exciting. Rubalcaba said yesterday that The heat goes on for jazz As far as If you want to score points the next time you bump into Leonard Cohen, make a point of casually asking him how his new album, I'm Your Man, is doing in Norway. Although the album piled up one rave review after another, it wasn't even released in the United States until it had sold more than 600,000 copies in Europe. Cohen, whose poetry and novels can frequently be found on the curricula of several European universities, has always been very popular on the continent, but in Norway, he is more than popular he is a veritable icon.

I'm Your Man topped the Norwegian record charts for months on end, doing bigger business for Oslo record shops than any other album, including Michael Jackson's Bad. i- I ri-iml ii rffT gevin of Montreal North, listening to Brazilian percussionist Vovo in the shade of a Labatt's umbrella in front of Place des Arts, said they tried venturing closer to the band on the grass but found the heat hard to take. "It's unendurable," said Cecile Langevin. The heat was particularly uncomfortable for children attending the play The Little History oi Jazz in an enclosed tent on St. Catherine St.

near St. Urbain. "With all those little kids moving around, temperatures went up to 110 degrees," said stage manager Alain Lortie. Lortie said the weather did not affect technical or electronic equipment, but it was hard on technicians: "We are all walking around with towels around our necks and drinking lots of water." Not everyone was unhappy with yesterday's heat, however. "I prefer to see this kind of weather than pouring rain," said jazz festival official Sylvain Menard, adding that indoor shows are air-conditioned.

Menard said there were no medical problems but that a St. John's ambulance crew was stationed in the parking lot in Place des Arts just in case. And festival organizers didn't expect the heat to affect attendance at outdoor events during the festival, which winds down this weekend. Brazilian musician Vovo said he found the heat "stimulating." "Where I come from, I'm used to temperatures going up to 50 (degrees Celsius)," he said. Fan Jeannine Paputsakis of Montreal said nothing would keep her home during the jazz festival not even a severe skin rash she gets from the heat.

"My doctor made me stay home the last three days because of the rash," she said. "But I can't miss this. I took 10 days off from work "to do it." The National Wrestling Alliance, said to be the oldest wrestling organization in North America, will offer its priceless advice to the producers of Learning the Ropes, a new Canadian half-hour situation comedy that will be broadcast next season on the CTV network. The new show will star Raiders defensive linebacker Lyle Alzado as a high school vice-principal and single parent who moonlights as a professional wrestler. Several National Wrestling Alliance stars, including the Road Warriors, Dusty Rhoades, Am Anderson, Tully Blanchard and Montreal's Ronnie Garvin will also be featured on the comedy series, which begins principal photography in Toronto July 23.

By INGRID ABRAMOVITCH of The Gazette Buster Poindexter, who performed at Theatre St. Denis last night, wasn't the only one feeling hot, hot, hot at the Montreal International Jazz Festival yesterday. With the temperature reaching 30 degrees in Dorval (and higher downtown) and humidity levels as high as 69 per cent performers, fans and jazz festival employees were all feeling the effects of the heat. "My mouthpiece was red hot," said tenor saxophonist Gigi Festa, drenched with sweat by the end of his set with the Lucianne E-vansClaude Foisy Quartet in front of Place des Arts. Festa said his sax was losing its pitch due to the heat and humidity.

"My reed got wet and soft, but I didn't have time to change it," he said. "I had to keep tuning with my lips while I was, playing." Sisters Cecile and Simone Lan- Forum tonight, is a big fight fan. That's why he was delighted when Winnipeg boxing star Donny La-londe dropped by to see him backstage after a recent concert in New York. Donny told Dylan that he listens to his music in his dressing-room before every fight, while the troubled troubador made Lalonde promise to set aside two ringside seats if and when Donny steps into the ring with Sugar Ray Leonard. Watch for "Golden Boy" Lalonde to achieve genuine jet-set status next month when he is profiled in Interview magazine.

Lalonde will be a guest on the CTV show Lifetime, hosted by Peter Feniak and Liz Grogan Aug. 1. And yes, it's another rerun the the Norwegians are concerned, Cohen's their man Early morning jazz: The members of the Texas School for the Blind Jazz Band, who are in town to check out Montreal's International Jazz Festival, will perform themselves this morning between 10:30 and 11:15 at the Montreal Association for the Blind (Layton Hall), next to Loyola College. The diet secrets of several Quebec stars including Dominique Michel and Emile Genest, among others, are revealed in the July issue of Vie de Star magazine. Joanna Pacula and Meredith Salenger are the stars of a movie called The Kiss, which will be released across North America in August.

Originally titled The Host, the thriller was shot on location in Montreal last year. interview with Lalonde originally aired Feb. 1. Although the members of Le Cirque du Soleil have accumulated enough accolades to fill umpteen scrapbooks, they knew they had really arrived when two of their number were chosen to appear on Wednesday's Late Night With David Letterman. They were asked to perform an acrobatic duet, which they did no less than four times much to the delight of the studio audience and much to the ersatz chagrin of Letterman, who kept saying, "Get 'em outta here.

They keep hopping around." The troupe returns to Montreal from its successful New York run Monday. Thomas Cliniirm9rhorli ft While we're on the topic, the CBC will be screening a rerun of The Song of Leonard Cohen Thursday, July 14, at 8 p.m. The 90-minute profile is one of the segments of the CBC series Rasky's Gallery: Poets, Painters, Singers and Saints. Bob Dylan, who will be entertaining thousands of yuppified Baby Boomers at the Montreal 4.