Good morning dear readers!

Today I present you a great song with a strong message.

During his early career, before forming his own band, the wonderful singer Paulito FG was the lead singer of the great Dan Den .

This rhythmic and interesting song is all about the dangers of smoking – the coro goes like this “no te llenes de humo, que se te va la vida”; Don’t fill yourself with smoke, because it makes life go away.

Quite true !

This song reflects a trend in Cuban healthcare which dates back to 1986, when Fidel himself publicly quit smoking and became a role model for this.
At that time Cuba launched a big anti smoking campaign, which was renewed in 1990.

So remember – smoking kills!
Quit while you can…

The only version I found of this song available online is a live version from a concert.
Like most live versions, it’s amazing and quite varied, filled with lots of improvisation, including a part where Paulito goes to the crowd, looks for smokers and tells them to leave that cigar alone!

Disfruten!

Good day dear readers and listeners!

Today I present you a very nice new composition by Manolito y Su Trabuco.

It’s quite interesting, with great vocals and playing together with a nice variety of various musical elements.

I liked it, and hope you will like it as well.

Disfruten !

Good day dear readers!

Today I wish to present you a song by Maykel Blanco that is a personal favorite of mine from the 2012 album “A Toda Maquina” – El Bembe.

This song is a favorite because it combines lots of Rumba Guaguanco within its Timba framework.
It’s not the first song to do so, but IMO we don’t hear enough such songs in general.
Also, it does so more than once during the song, and not only in the intro.

So, I hope you will like it as much as I did;
Disfruten !

Good evening folks.

Today I have the pleasure to present you with yet another work of art by the immensely talented Alexander Abreu .

This time it’s a beautiful and romantic composition about a love which is now not there.
Quite sad, but as usual, very poetic and deep, yet still a great dance tune.

Disfruten!

Good afternoon dear blog readers!

Today I wish to present you with yet another near genius creation of the renaissance man of modern Cuban music, Alexander Abreu (the driving force behind the wonderful Havana De Primera band, which definitely lives up to its name…) .

This wonderful composition is called “Rosa La Peligrosa”; Through an interesting development over its course, with many fine passages, bridges, guias, solos, intricate melodic lines and a powerful rhythm section, the song transmits an emotionally charged and captivating story, full of social criticism and drama.

The song is very well made, and has been a hit on dance floors worldwide for quite a while now.

P.S:
On youtube and some other websites exist several versions of this beautiful song, some of which are ~30% truncated, spanning only a little over 4 minutes, while the song is nearly 6 minutes long.
I have even heard several DJs playing the cut version in clubs, a was deeply disappointed;
If any DJs are reading this – do your dancers and listeners a big favor, and get your hands on the full, 05:58 minute long, version, and do not play the truncated one, as many things are missing there!

And now, for the songs itself…
Disfruten!

Good day everybody!

Sorry for not posting the previous Friday – I was in the amazing 5th Festival Internacional De Guaguanco in Lloret De Mar, Spain.

The festival was wonderful; 4 days of very interesting workshops, great parties with Timba, Son and Rumba music, concerts 3 out of 4 nights, and plenty of very nice people from Europe and other countries which by majority are amazing dancers.

Having no workshops on Monday morning, I decided to stay ’till the end of the closing party on Sunday night (at other nights I went to sleep around 4 AM, to wake up on time for breakfast and workshops…) .

Around 05:30 AM, the last song was played;
It was a wonderful modern Son composition called “Vente Negra” by La Nova Tradicional .

It was a great pleasure to end this terrific festival dancing Son with a talented & beautiful Polish dancer named Katarzyna, and I will definitely be recalling my host of great experiences from the festival whenever I’ll hear this song.

Disfruten !

Hello everybody!

Today I wish to present a very nice song by Grupo Danson (you can read about them in the article I made for Havana De Primera a while ago…) .

Grupo Danzon was founded by ex Paulito FG trombonist Carlos Perez, bassist Yasser Morejon and Trombonist Mia Engsager in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2001.
(Funny fact – the name doesn’t only hint the importance of Danzon as a musical basis for all modern Cuban music, but is also an acronym of sorts for “Danish” and “Son”).

The band is famous for a variety of very fruitful collaborations with various Cuban musicians, such as (and by far the most famous and historically influential one being with) Alexander Abreu (2005), Mayito Rivera (2009) and Alain Perez & Mandy Cantero (2014).

Since wining “best world music track” in 2005, the band has been in the forefront of Timba, with great CD “Mi Musica”, the band also produced another wonderful album, named Mezclando Culturas, in 2014, which if full of solid Timba tracks.

Of course, the band has not abandoned its roots in traditional Cuban music.
The Song presentd today is quite Suavecito and contain elements of Son Montuno, Cha Cha, Charanga, and other wonderful traditional Afro Cuban rhythms.

I enjoy much listening to it, and hope you will, too… Disfruten!

Good day my friends!

Today I am glad to present you yet another song by the amazingly talented Orquesta Reve, a song which I have recently “re-discovered” in my collection.

The song is quite energetic, on the one hand, but on the other is what you call “suavecito” in Cuba; it makes you move, but you don’t feel like you’re chasing the music.
You keep having that relaxed, layed back feeling all over the song.

I personally think that the gear at 02:22 just amazing…

So, here it is…
Disfruten!

P.S:
It is a live recording from the casa de la musica en centro Habana, so the sound is a bit rough here and there.

Good afternoon!

Today I would like to present you a nice Conga from the latest album of Pupy y Los Que Son Son, called “Sin Limite”.

The song is called “Conga Pelotera”, and is about Cuban boy who wants to grow up and become a baseball player, but his mother wants him to become a singer.

Conga is a genre of Carnaval music from Santiago de Cuba, the country’s 2nd largest city, located at the Oriente region.
Santiago de Cuba is also the birthplace of Son.

Do forgive me for the “dj interferences” that occur a few times during the song; that’s the only version currently available on youtube…

Like the rest of the album, I find this song to be quite interesting; Notice the tempo changes taking place during the later part of the song.

Disfruten!

Buenos dias a los todos!

Today I would like to present you a song by Maykel Blanco, that I have “rediscovered” lately, after it was laying dormant in my archive for a while 🙂

There exists a stereotype – if it’s a the song is romantic, it must be slow, very very melodic and have no energy or a strong rhythmic component.
This is mostly true of commercial western music, but untrue for Salsa music, especially coming from Cuba.

Some of the beauty of Timba is its complexity, its polyrhythmics, it having many layers on top of one another.
This is exactly the case for this song, from the album “Anda y Pegate”, but also for a large part of the more romantic Timba tunes.

This wonderful song is about love, or more accurately, about how one should express love, and do for their beloved one; “lo que ella quiera, havcelo!” or “si te pide ciello, hacelo! ” say it all, one the one hand, but on the other, the song is very rhythmic and has ever increasing energy is it advances from cuerpo to montuno, with mambos and gears.

Disfruten!