Good day dear blog readers, listeners and followers.

Today we shall go back 30 years, and familiarize ourselves with an orchestra of a legendary Cuban musician, which still performs today with great success – Pachito Alonso y su Kini Kini !

Longino Rey Alonso Castillo, mostly known as Pachito Alonso, was born January 6th 1955, and is the son of great Cuban musician Pacho Alonso, creator of the Pilon rhythm, among other achievements.

Pachito studied piano since an early age, and founded his first band at only 11 years of age.
By 18 he was already a member of his fathers band, and by 23 became the musical director.
Pachos band was the first Cuban ensemble to be signed up by a European recording label, during their 1979 tour in Spain.

3 years later, in 1982, Pacho passed away, and Pachito became the director, manager and band leader, with the band being renamed Pachito Alonso y su Kini Kini.
Their first album, Por eso estoy parao, came out in 1983, and since then 14 more have come out (the latest this year – 2018s “Llego mi Musica”), during over 35 years of making great Cuban music.

During this time the band has answered the call of Timba, and since the early 1990s great many talented and well known Timba musicians have passed through its doors, including Roberton, Lele, Lazarito Valdez, Tirso Duarte and Vania Borges.

Today’s wonderful composition is a one of my favorites, from the 2000 album Traigo te Traigo, and is called Manantial.

P.S:
A good friend of mine informed me that this is a cover;
The original version of this song came out 20 years before, in Venezuela… so I suppose that Pachito was familiar with it from the days of his early career.
So interesting! thank you Jozef!

So, here it is… ¡sigue disfrutando la musica Cubana!