Good evening dear readers, listeners, followers and all aficionados de la musica Cubana!

The blog posts for tonight and for next week will be kind of special;
The blog celebrates its 3rd birthday, today is Christmas day, and next Friday will be the 1st day of 2016!

So, for today we shall have a Christmas special, Cuban style!

Christmas is celebrated all over the world, and is quite the party when in comes to Cuba (as usual 🙂 ).
As always, Cuban holidays are known for great quantities of food & drink, music and dancing, all in a great gathering of friends and family.
In Cuba Christmas eve is called “la Noche Buena”, the good night.
Christmas day is a day of grand family gatherings and reunions, decorating, gift giving, and of course, a mutual many hour long cooking session!

In Cuba the main dish for “cena de navidad” is el puerco asado, or lechon asado (respectively, the roasted pig and the roasted suckling pig).
During the day before Christmas eve, a pig is selected, slaughtered, cleaned and placed in a special marinade for a day. It is roasted by many family members at the backyard the next day.
Other typical dishes at the table include moros y cristianos, which is a dish of seasoned black beans on a plate of white rice, mariquitas, fried platano slices in mojo sauce, mojito and cider to drink and pudin diplomatico (pudding) or rum cake for desert.

As mentioned, there’s no Cuban holiday without some great music!
So, tonight we can enjoy a few nice festive holiday songs of traditional Cuban musical genres such as Son, Bolero, Mambo and Son Montuno!

Feliz Navidad!

Good day dear readers, listeners and followers!

As you might have already guessed from my posts during the previous few weeks, NG La Banda is one of my favorite bands.

The band credited with the formalization (or even complete genesis, as some claim) of Timba as a musical genre has many facets, and its super talented members do other stuff as well, such as presenting their own interpretations of traditional classics or composing and executing sizzling jazz numbers.

The album “Bailemos”, from which this songs comes, and came out in 2007, is a good example of NG’s versatility;
The albums is interpreted by NG La Banda, but all songs are by Juan Almeida, Cuban vice president (up to his death in 2009) and one of the original commanders of the popular Revolution in 1959!
This prominent politician was also a wonderful song writer, and over the years composed over 300 songs!

The albums is pretty much traditional Cuban music, well flavoured by the unique style of virtuos playing and singing of La Banda Que Manda.

Disfruten!

Good evening dear readers, listeners and followers!

Any aficionado of any musical genre must have probably come across the following situation at least once:
You have so many records \ CDs \ music on your computer that with time you start forgetting the older stuff you have!

This is exactly what has been happening to me during the last week or so;
I have been listening to the discographies of several of the best Cuban bands since the days of the revolution, including NG La Banda, the band to which most experts attribute the definition of Timba as a musical genre (el Tosco, by the way, was the first one to use the name “Timba” for the wonderful musical genre we all love so much…) .

The song I gladly present you today is from the ingenious 1994 album “La Bruja”;
This album is full of eternal masterpieces and gems such as “te pongo mal”, “ya llego la hora”, “marinero soy”, “picadillo de soya” and the title track (“la bruja”).

The track we “un sueno terrible”, which I present you today, is a bit less known, but nevertheless a wonderful composition with a nice story told by the beautiful voice of Tony Cala, the 1st Timba singer (as it is customary in Cuban music);
It tells of a man dreaming of walking in the desert, and the adventures he has.
Personally, I rarely remember my dreams, but those who do will probably sympathize with one of the super catchy coros: “cuando estaba en la parte mejor, vino ella y me desperto!”.

So, here it is… Disfruten la musica Cubana!

Good evening dear readers and blog followers!

Did you know?
Today, December 4th, is dia del Chango – an important day of celebration is the Santeria religion in Cuba.
It’s also a Friday – the day of the week dedicated to the Orisha Chango.

Chango is the Santeria god of fire, thunder, lightening, war, drums, music and dancing.
He also possess the power of divination, knowing what the future holds.
As a deity of fire,  the character of this Orisha and his “children” (those born under his star) is proud, dignified, brave and intelligent and a fierce warrior.
Before becoming a deity, Chango was the king of the Yoruba land, and thus, for him it is very important to be recognized and respected as a leader.
On the other hand, Chango also represents the imperfections of humans;
He is at time violent, easily annoyed (responding with rage…), arrogant, domineering and a great, manipulative, sweet-talking and lying womanizer, as he also represents the power of male sexuality, virility and seduction.

As the Yoruba slaves in Cuba had to hide their religion behind catholic images enforced upon them by the Spaniards, Chango is syncretized with the catholic saint Santa Barbara.
The daughter of an evil pagan ruler, Barbara was sealed in a tower awaiting an arranged marriage, but during this time discovered the “true faith” (Christianity), and refused the marriage.
For that her father ordered her tortured, and after failing to make her renounce her faith, beheaded her.
Soon after, he was struck by lightening.
Chango is mixed with this saint due to the strong character and pride of holding to one’s faith above all, due to the use of lightening as a weapon to punish evildoers, and dressing in female clothing (one of the pattaki, holy stories of the Orishas, tells of Chango dressing up as the female Orisha Oya, one of his lovers, to escape undetected from his enemies).

Over the years many bands and orchestras wrote, composed and performed songs is honor of Chango (with the most famous being the classic “que viva chango“).
The song I’m glad to present you today is a fine Timba composition by NG La Banda, one of the most important bands of the genre, from the album “En directo del patio de mi casa”, which came out in 1995, and was recorded as a live concert in Habana!

Disfruten!

Good evening dear readers and followers!

Recently, I have re-watched the lovely “dance film” named Salsa y Amor, known by most simply as “Salsa (2000)” (distinguishing it from an 1988 movie of the same name).

The film is not simply a nice love story full of Cuban sabor and dancing, but it also features the wonderful music of Sierra Maestra.

Sierra Maestra is Cuban son band from La Habana, Cuba, and was formed in 1976 by none other than Juan de Marcoz Gonzales, who will later be the founder of the Buena Vista Social club.
But more than 20 years before the world fell in love with Cuban music through the gentlemen of Buena Vista, Sierra Maestra was gaining great popularity and respect reviving Son Cubano.

The group’s breakthrough happened in 1980, when they received a “silver record” and “best record of the year”, with the album “Sierra Maestra llegó con el Guanajo Relleno”, and got signed up by EGREM.
The national record company did quite well in spreading the group’s music world wide, and during the 1980’s and 1990’s Sierra Maestra toured the world, performing in Angola, Belgium, Bulgaria, Congo, Denmark, Finland, Japan, israel, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Puertorico, Singapore, Turkey, USA, Yugoslavia and many other countries.
The culmination of international fame came in 2000, with the release of the French-Spanish film “Salsa”, which features the band (as themselves) in an important role in the plot.
Over the years the group released several albums and nowadays keeps touring the world’s leading Jazz, Latin and world music festivals.
Look out! They might soon arrive to a city near you!

And now, for the most well known song of the move “Salsa”; Disfruten!

Good day dear readers and followers!

Today I gladly present you a new song by Tirso Duarte and Negroson Orquesta from Chile.

This wonderful, suave and romantic song is the fruit of a collaboration between the amazing Cuban singer Tirso Duarte and very nice Chilean salsa band named Negroson Orquesta.

The muchachos of Negroson have been performing since 2009, brought together by bassist and compositor Juan Rivadeneira.
Since then the band has performed all over Chile, Cali (Colombia), Peru, and other countries.
This song is their international breakthrough, and definitely is a very good beginning!

On a personal note, it’s not the first time that I cover Chilean bands, and they prove their worth time and time again.
It seems that together with Peru, Chile is currently taking a high place at the Timba scene outside Cuba.

Disfruten!

Good evening dear readers, listeners and followers!

Today I’m happy and honored to feature a special project by Jarryd Randolph, of the “Rueda in Tampa Parks” community event and SALSAventure dance school in Florida, USA.

In the recent few years, since 2012, Jarryd has been in a “discovery mode for Timba”, with the help of Cuban born Yoel Marrero.
During this time he has discovered a lot about Timba, Son, Danzon, Rumba, Cuban music and Cuban social dancing in general, information which is very much lacking among the people of his dance community and those around him.

So, it was decided that this situation cannot go on any longer, and that the musical ignorance should be banished!

In his own words:

“The idea came up because I could not find anything that would demonstrate the musical genre through time, earliest recordings to now. I’ve gone through many documentaries, read books on the subject, and even had conversations about the subject but a musical playlist was something that just wasn’t out there publicly. We all know how hard it can be to find those early recordings.
It’s amazing what’s out there that people haven’t heard or probably haven’t heard in many years. I made sure that this compilation took all listeners through time and through the many styles of Cuban groups. This list could have been a lot longer but I made sure that 30 songs was the cutoff.
I made sure to include key figures and groups such as Arsenio Rodriguez, Sonora Matancera, Orquesta Aragon, Los Van Van, Charanga Habanera, Manolin el medico de la salsa, etc. so to many new listeners and dancers this compilation will answer some questions and probably give them more about this dance genre. ”

So there you have it
A true fellow aficionado of Cuban music who has a message to share – Son is the past, the present and the future of popular Cuban music, especially the songs we all enjoy dancing to!

Great job on taking a stand against ignorance, and thank you for the efforts of searching and arranging all these masterpieces of modern Cuban music.

Here it is, disfruten!

Good evening dear readers!

Today I’m glad to present you a wonderful song from the latest album of Orquesta Reve, called “no debo explicarte nada”, also known as “todo lo que sube tiene que caer”.

The album came out in 2014, and included a CD of cover versions with several ex-reve members and other famous singers and musicians, and a CD of original, novel compositions.
IMHO, the cover versions are not as good as their Reve sr. and older Reve jr. originals, but the original work is as amazing as always.

I loved most of the disc, but this song is one of my favorites.

Disfruten!

Good day dear readers!

Today I’m glad to present a very nice and romantic salsa song by the wonderful Cuba Jam from Leningrad!

As veteran followers of the blog will surely remember, I posted one of their songs back in the day, and liked their CD very much.

The song presented today is a salsa romantica, but with lots of Cuban sabor, energy and rhythm.

Salsa romantica means a very simple thing – it’s a salsa song with romantic lyrics.
It means nothing about tempo, complexity or the presence (or absence) of this or that elements of Cuban music.
If an alleged salsa song lacks some of the rhythmic or structural elements of the genres composing “salsa” music (which are mainly Son Montuno, Mambo, Guaracha and Guaguanco-Son), it is not a “salsa” song at all, but something else, for better or worse.

Personally, I love the lyrics Boris Hecha writes very much, and can sympathize a lot with them.
Maybe it’s because both he and I are Russian, born and raised in the Russian culture, so possibly we somewhat think alike.
Regardless of the reasons, I’m quite fond of the coro of this song:
“El dia,
el dia entero junto a ti,
es como vivir la vida de nuevo,
las noches de locura”

Well, Disruten!
You can find the whole album on the band’s channel on youtube, or just follow the suggestions present on the page of this song…

Good day dear readers!

Today I’m glad to present a very nice Son composition by the group “Santa Palabra” from Trinidad, Cuba.

They are a very talented yet modest bunch from the central regions of Cuba, and mostly play traditional Cuban music, and quite beautifully!

The group released 1 album so far called “levantate con amor y sentimiento”, to which the fine composition I present you today belongs.

Disfreten!