Good day dear readers and blog followers!

Today I present you something a bit different, compared to the usual line I follow in this blog, which mostly includes Son, Songo and Timba.
Today we shall be enjoying another beautiful side of Cuban culture, the so called “Afro-Cuban” side, which sends a long line back to the roots of Cuban culture in Africa…

Today we shall be enjoying a composition by a talented group of youths right from the streets of La Habana, that will play a mix of Rumba and other Afro Cuban music… these are Adonis y Osain del Monte.

This group is named after the Orisha (Yoruba deity) Osain, saint \ spirit \ “god” of herbs and natural medicine, who knows all of nature’s secrets, and with his small ear can hear everything, even a leaf falling from a tree…

The group was founded on July 19th, 2013 in La Habana by a group of highly talented young musicians playing in some of the top Afro Cuban ensembles in Habana, such as Yoruba Andabo, Clave y Guaguanco and Conjunto Folklorico Nacional, and is lead by vocalist, dancer, percussionist and director Adonis Andres Panter Calderon.
One of the most interesting and wonderful things in this group, at least for me, which makes my eyes as happy as my ears, is the fact that the group’s members are as good of dancers as they are musicians; as you will see in their beautiful clips, there definitely is as much beautiful dancing in the clips as there is beautiful music!

The group has recently released a disc named “La Negra”, which contains much Afro Cuban music and interesting fusions with other styles of Cuban music such as Son, Bolero and Timba; the title track is a good example.

Recently the group has been appearing more and more with top artists from the primera linea such as Klimax, Alexander Abreu and El Nino y La Verdad, adding lots of Sabor to these marvelous compositions (such as here).

So, for today we have a very nice composition called “Cachita”, released in 2014.
I advise watching as much as listening for full enjoyment… Disfruten!

Good day dear readers and blog followers!

Today I present you a relatively new song by Bamboleo, presented in concerts during summer 2015, but still not a part of any official album.

Unlike their earlier work, this group has been a big disappointment in recent years, at least in my eyes and most of the time… the quality of both their compositions and personnel has gone (or at times, bluntly plummeted) down, and the result was mostly better left unmentioned.

But this time around it seems that they have finally somewhat returned to the proper groove, and definitely can still deliver in concerts… although personally I am not a fan of their current lead singer, which seems to be doing more shouting than singing…. oh, well, guess you can’t always have it all 😉

Disfruten!

íHola a los todos!

When thinking of ideas for today’s blog post, my dearest readers and followers, I was facing a dilemma…

At the start of the week, a friend of mine, who’s a great DJ and aficionado of Cuban music, DJ Gil Cubanito, introduced me to a wonderful album of traditional Cuban music by El Piqueton de Felix Rondon, a band of marvelous musician from all over the oriente province of Cuba, led by Tres player and violinist Felix Rondon.

So I thought, earlier this week, “here’s a wonderful album to share on my blog!”, and it definitely is!
As inserting the whole album into a post is not realistic, I’ll leave this section of today’s review with one of my favorites, Yemaya

So, that would be it… normally!
But as the week went on, new and exiting videos came up.

The 2nd piece of news I would like to share is an extension of sorts to a previously reviewed song, which is also a favorite of mine, but this time in the vein of Timba – Havana de Primera’s wonderful Siempre Si !

What’s new here, you might be asking yourselves… the song now has a beautiful video clip!
Making great video clips for great songs seems to be all the heat in La Habana these days…

Lat but not least, the official youtube channel of Orquesta Reve has been quite active lately, with a good deal of recordings from live concert of their recent tour getting uploaded.
The one that caught my eye the most is a clip from their concert together with Yoruba Andabo (which will be on tour in Europe in November, BTW) – I was lucky to be present in a similar event on a different occasion back in 2013, and I can sure tell you that it’s amazing!

Definitely worth watching!

That’s “all” I got for today… íDisfruten!

Good day dear readers and blog followers!

We had some Reve last week, had some Reve in July, and some more Reve over the years… and that is for a reason!
There’s plenty of logic nicknaming Orquesta Reve “la aplanadora de la musica Cubana” (pun intended 🙂 ), as you definitely know that the orchestra is over 60 years old, and many of Cuba’s top musicians have passed through it over these decades… so it has been a school of sorts for many of the greats of contemporary Cuban and Latin music .

Today I gladly present a cover version… yes, a cover version!
In general, I’m not that fund of such, and stick to the rule that “if it ain’t as good or better than the original, it shouldn’t exist”… and there aren’t many covers that abide by that rule…
But this is a rare case when it does!

This song is a cover of the wonderful “Espero Que te Pasa el Tiempo” (unfortunately, this is the only recording available on youtube… BTW, kids, do you know what this apparatus in the clip is? 😉 ) from 1987’s “la Explosion del Momento”, one of the best Cuban music albums of all times, and one of the 3 who brought the Orchestra back into the front of the primera linea during the 1980’s.

This more modern interpretation also features the wonderful singer HaIla Mompie, formerly Bamboleo’s lead singer, who’s been including much cooperation work with various groups as a part of her solo career in recent yeras.

The result is spectacular, and even differs enough from the original to (sort of…) be classified as a whole different composition, a brand new song, that even some of the people familiar with the original did not recognize right away…

So, here is this great song.
Disfruten!

Good day dear readers and blog followers!

Today we can get an auditory glimpse of the new (albeit yet unofficial) Orquesta Reve CD.

As most of you surely know, 2016 is the 60th anniversary year of Orquesta Reve, and for this occasion the orchestra has been releasing fine singles, one of which I reviewed before.

So, today we get not one song but a madly, a canvas of several songs from the new album.
From what I’ve heard, the disc is gonna be great, and I can’t wait to get my hand on it…

Here it is, take a listen!
Disfruten!