La Jornada: AI can facilitate processes, “but it will never replace the act of creativity”

“No matter what tool we use – including artificial intelligence (AI) – music has to be sensitive to the human being and born from a deep need to express oneself,” says Puerto Rican Luis Marín, considered a relevant figure in jazz and Caribbean music.

“There are people who can take the easy way, and there is no problem with that. But there the person has to review themselves, because the particularity of a real musician has a lot to do with their need to express themselves,” he says in an interview with The Day.

In the midst of the rise of AI, Marín adds: “technology can facilitate the process, but it can never replace the act of creativity.”

Born in San José, Puerto Rico, in 1963, he began studying piano from the age of five. Later, convinced that music was his passion, he entered the Berklee College of Music in Boston, United States. During his career he has collaborated with Andy Montañez, Juan Luis Guerra and Eddie Santiago.

Throughout his career, Marín has combined his musical vocation with teaching – he is currently a professor at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, of which he was director – which has allowed him to maintain a reflective approach towards his artistic work, and in particular jazz.

“Jazz is an eternal path that does not end. It is an infinite path where the musician, from my perspective, is guided by his aesthetic ambition, where following excellence should be a north goal. That way, every day you can learn something and create. I don’t say it as a mandate, but as the result of the exercise.”

Marín will participate in the CAUZ Festival Uno, an independent meeting that seeks to generate a dialogue between jazz, son jarocho, urban music and author songs. The event, which will take place from today until May 2 in Xalapa, Veracruz, will feature the participation of artists such as Vivir Quintana, iLe, Faustino Díaz and Ehékatl Arizmendi.

“The musical exchange between Puerto Rico and Veracruz, between Veracruz son and Caribbean music, is historic. These meetings are an opportunity to renew that bond,” says the musician, who will offer a concert and lead a discussion.

In a separate interview, Jair Kai, director of CAUZ, states that the festival emerged as a commitment to strengthen independent circuits and generate meeting spaces beyond the stage: “It is designed as an articulating axis between music and the agents that have to do with it: managers, artists, audiences and scholars.”

He highlighted that, in addition to the concerts, the program includes reflection and training activities, such as the master class Jazz, salsa and swing: The art of the piano, by Marín, and a conference on Tuxteco violin given by Joel Cruz Castellanos.

Dialogue tables will also be held The voice as territory: Singing from what passes through us, with iLe and Vivir Quintana; the conversation It rings and hums: Archipelago of sound, encounter and tradition, and the book presentation Survive for music, with Vivir Quintana.

In this context, CAUZ Media will be presented, an initiative aimed at the documentation and dissemination of the collection generated from this space.

Kai emphasizes that the purpose is to impact the Xalapa microecosystem, and “generate an infrastructure for independent music, which together with the community and talents allows it to survive and generate spaces and forms of creation.”

In an environment of immediacy, where music circulates in an accelerated and fragmented way, Marín celebrates meetings like this, in person, where traditions not only coexist, but are heard, transformed and grow.