Cuban Keys

It was only his first semester at Berklee, and Dayramir González B.M. ’13 was already overwhelmed. The Cuban piano prodigy was rehearsing in an ensemble made up of the school’s top players, who were taking turns improvising over the jazz standard “All the Things You Are,” when the ensemble director threw them a curveball: Each time through the chord progression, the band had to shift the song’s key up a half-step.

“I was so stressed,” González said. “I kept thinking, ‘Man, after they get done playing, it’s coming for me.’ I remember the bass player doing all this advanced stuff and I was like, ‘Bro, just play the freaking roots!’” 

Despite arriving at Berklee at age 26 with a résumé that almost any jazz musician would envy, González, like many international students, struggled with the transition to a new culture and learning environment. “There was a language barrier,” he said. “I was an accomplished Cuban pianist, but I felt naked in terms of the American jazz vocabulary.” 

Born and raised in the working-class Havana neighborhood of El Cerro, González grew up during Cuba’s Special Period, an era marked by economic turmoil. There were times that his family didn’t have electricity, but music was never in short supply. His father, Fabian, was an Afro-Cuban jazz trumpeter, and musicians were constantly dropping by the house for impromptu jam sessions. 

He discovered the piano at age 7, excelled quickly, and was later accepted to Cuba’s renowned National Art School. In his first year there, he met Oscar Valdés, a musician from the Grammy-winning band Irakere, who recruited González for his then-new group, Diákara. That led to a six-year stint playing in Giraldo Piloto’s timba band, Klímax. In 2007, González released his first solo album, Dayramir & Habana Entrance, which won three Cubadisco Awards, the Cuban equivalent to a Grammy Award. In 2008, Chucho Valdés, the “dean of Latin jazz,” invited González to open the Havana Jazz Festival. 

A year later, just as his career was starting to take off, González flew to Mexico City to audition for Berklee. “I had a desire to express myself more freely,” he said. “I knew that I was talented but going to Berklee seemed so untouchable. So I said, ‘Let’s see what happens.’” A few weeks later, he received Berklee’s coveted Presidential Scholarship, becoming the first Cuban to do so. 

At Berklee, he broke out of his comfort zone, gaining structure as a composer and arranger while dramatically expanding his jazz vocabulary. “[I learned how] to target what kind of emotions—what kind of colors—I can use to impact the audience and make them feel the way I want them to feel,” he said. After graduating, González began channeling these skills into what would become The Grand Concourse, his triumphant 72-minute second album.

“I’d say 70 percent of that album was created at Berklee in a class that had a major impact on me called Advanced Modal Harmony,” he said. “I remember the teacher, Joseph Mulholland, saying, ‘Man, I’m loving these compositions so much that if you ever record an album with these songs, please send it to me.’ So I did.” 

González hasn’t slowed down since. His group, Dayramir González & Habana enTRANCé, tied for first place at the 2021 DCJazzPrix. His latest recording, A Tribute to Juan Formell and Los Van Van, was released last fall, and he has two more on the way: Vida, a quartet album in which the piano is the “main character,” and Mozart Meets Havana, which imagines what Mozart would sound like if he were Black, Cuban, and living in New York City. 

“It combines my Cubaness, my West African influences, my Berklee knowledge, and my European conservatory background,” said González. “That’s who I am.”

This article appeared in the fall/winter 2022 issue of Berklee Today.