Cuasquías Room

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Historic sites

Cuasquías was an important name within the recent musical history of the capital. Under this name, a venue was baptised that would become a meeting point for much of the new generations of musicians from the island of Gran Canaria and those who came to it from abroad, either as occasional visitors or as immigrants seeking new horizons or experiences. The pub had already undergone two locations and was now experiencing a second stage of splendour. The first had taken place in the second half of the eighties, when it was located near San Telmo park, in the city centre, and practically constituted the only urban nightlife offer outside the port area, an area where the most important number of bars, pubs and nightclubs in the entire archipelago were concentrated. The house that housed it, old and very dilapidated, had two floors; the pub itself, which occupied the first floor, had previously been a restaurant that, after undergoing a brief and unprofitable experience as a wine cellar, was finally converted into a concert hall. Of small dimensions, its floor plan was rectangular and elongated, with a huge bar arranged to the right upon entering. The tables were wooden barrels and the stage was located to the left, opposite the bar, a small platform that gradually grew, adapting to the needs of the increasingly complex groups that passed through there. [...]

The pub's first clientele were mainly liberal professionals and intellectuals, but when its fame began to spread, people of all kinds appeared there. [...] Saying music was saying Cuasquías, and this was also understood by the top figures who stopped in the capital and came to the pub to have a few drinks and, in most cases, join the jam sessions that were usually improvised almost every night. Jazz was the king of Cuasquías. Alongside it, salsa and popular music also held places of honour. Other styles, such as rock, blues, melodic song or pop, also had a place; but the acoustic heritage of the hardy and daring blacks of New Orleans took the prize.

[...] The venue closed its doors and for years nothing was heard about it. [...] The new Cuasquías emerged almost by surprise at Christmas 1994 and was installed in a large house in the Triana area [...] The building offered numerous possibilities. From the outside, two entrances could be seen. One, on the right, led to a kind of small independent bar where tapas were occasionally served and at whose level, on the pavement, a terrace had been installed for those who preferred a quiet drink outdoors to the bustle inside; and another, which gave access to the entrance hallway, the main access channel to the facilities and from which one could also enter the bar or the L-shaped room located to the left, where there were two loopholes, a secondary bar and the toilets. In front, the authentic Cuasquías, a central courtyard with a square floor plan topped by a huge and beautiful dome which, however, made the acoustics difficult [...]

The offer of the new venue was basically the same as the one that closed years before and had been expanded with the occasional hiring of national musicians: Luis Pastor, Hilario Camacho, Javier Krahe; as well as becoming one of the official venues of the International Jazz Festival. [...]

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