MisterBryans

Echalo Un Palo

thanks to Neil Watkinson for reminding me of this song by Junior & De Calle featuring Jota B

Los Aldeanos

Cuba, Vol. 1: Los Aldeanos for SPIN Earth from Alexandre Archimbaud on Vimeo.

The New Charanga Habanera CD

(Sophie Giraud's classic shot of David Calzado at Lula Lounge in the fall of 2005)

Melao has sound samples over on his TimbaStars site for the new Charanga Habanera CD 'La Caratula'. Go check it out. Sounds like there will be lots of fine songs to carry us all into the summer.

Once again, director David Calzado has managed the difficult task of replacing a lead singer and principal composer (Leonid Torres) this time by recycling Dantes “Ricky Ricon” Cardosa. (Who I actually met once at a rather bizarre business meeting I had in Vedado with his then girlfriend, singer Arleynis Rodriguez. Nice guy.)

For me, the Leonid Torres/Calzado relationship had dried up creatively by the last album, and it was clear - both on and off stage - from CH's appearance here in Toronto in 07 that Leoni was bored by the whole circus and wanted to get on with his own career. So depending on how you are counting, we are entering the 5th (or 6th?) incarnation of the group that began as an actual charanga band - flutes and violins - way back whenever.

Meanwhile, I've had this one new Charanga Habanera song for about 6 months listed as 'Lo Que Va A Partir La Habana' which I really liked a lot, although I haven't played it out much because it's a pre-release of dubious sound quality, which as many of you know, I hate playing over club sound systems. What's most interesting about the song is the integration of the generic reggaeton pulse with the piano tumbao and vocal sonorities of classic timba. The kind of musical fusion that Charanga Habanera are best at pulling off, imho. (I dont know if the song is on the new album)

I do have some final cuts from 'La Caratula', so I'll start playing it out tonight at Babaluu. Always love getting new music.

The 'Business' of Music

From Andrew Sullivan's Blog (Richard Florida guesting with a post called Why Music Matters)

The way I see it, that music is a "fruit-fly industry" - one that can tell us a lot about the nature of technology, new business models, and the economy in general. Music is a highly competitive business - a hyper-competitive market in miniature, where competition for sonic, technological, and talent advantage spurs rapid evolution and change. New recording and network technology means that barriers to entry are lower than ever. Music is often the first sector to experience the full force of disruptive technology. It was the first industry to face the file-sharing crisis, and other industries like film and publishing are now learning from its experience. Musicians are quintessential examples of free-agent workers, mixing income and seeking out affordable, creative places to do their work. And the concentration of musical talent and firms into clusters and scenes - in an industry which requires little in the way of capital infrastructure and fixed costs - can help us better understand geographic clustering across a wide variety of fields.

From the point of view of someone who has worked in music all his life, 'sacrificial lamb industry' feels like a more accurate term to describe what the music business has become in the 21st century, but I understand entirely what Richard Florida is getting at. Music's unique ability to be portable, universal yet infinitely divisible has made it the perfect leading indicator for how we will all live and work togther.

Ricardo Abreu R.I.P

The leader of Loss Papines died on Tuesday in Havana. Here is an article from Juventud Rebelde

Se ha ido Papín. Dueño de un estilo personal, que irradió pasión con sus toques llenos de folclor, y logró dibujar a Cuba, también desde esa zona de la melodía nacional.

Fue rumbero siempre y estuvo impregnado del don de caminar con soltura por esa manera de hacer música desde un instrumento de cuero.

Fue así desde su nacimiento, el 19 de diciembre de 1933. Y mantuvo su singular ritmo en los grupos musicales que integró, como en los conjuntos Modelo, Estrellas de Chocolate y el de Félix Chapotín.

El célebre Cabaret Tropicana lo tuvo en escena desde 1955, un trabajo que conjugó por aquella fecha con la agrupación Guaguancó Papín, la cual daría lugar a la creación de Los Papines, a inicios de la década de 1960.

Junto a sus hermanos Luis, Jesús y Alfredo (ya fallecido), Ricardo emprendió el mayor proyecto de su vida. Encauzó con éxito un conjunto donde las voces y la percusión se dieron la mano.

Con guaguancó, columbia, yambú y otras variantes de la rumba, y sin dejar de lado los boleros y los sones, Papín fue aplaudido con su grupo en escenarios nacionales y extranjeros.

Su visión de la solidaridad y el compromiso lo llevó a Angola, donde cumplió misión internacionalista. En la música fue reconocido su talento con la medalla Alejo Carpentier y mereció la condición de Vanguardia Nacional del Sindicato de los Trabajadores de la Cultura, entre otras distinciones.

Aunque la falla de su cerebro ocasionó este martes su deceso, la lucidez de sus notas musicales y la destreza de su toque se escuchan hoy en toda Cuba y en el mundo, donde Los Papines son un emblema. Los demás tambores callan hoy, para que el solo eterno de Papín se escuche.

Here is the link to Michelle White's post in Timba.com

Cubadisco News

Yumuri won the Cubadisco Award in the Música Popular Bailable category, beating out Pupy Pedroso.

Oh well. Music awards all over the world (the Junos, Grammys etc) often produce results that seem separated from the er, actual music. (And I like Yumuri)

Sting, Los Van Van and Omara Portuando all picked up awards as well.

Here's a category list.....

Más allá de todo (PM Récord y Bismusic), de Pablo Milanés y Chucho Valdés, se llevó el galardón en Feeling; SeñalesLa Evolución (Bismusic), de David Blanco, en Rock; Catalejo, del dúo Buena Fe, en Trova-Pop-Rock; y Cubano Cubano (Bismusic), de Yumurí y sus Hermanos, en Música Popular Bailable. (Egrem), de M Alfonso, en Fusión;

Manolin's FU To Miami

Last week everyone was buzzing about Manolin's new blog, especially the post entitled "Bienvenido al Infierno" where he denounced Emilio and Gloria Estefan and 'La Mafia de Miami'.

I wasn't quite sure how I felt about Manolin's rant until my friend Bee sent along this comment which sums ups my feelings precisely

a bit lengthy but it is SO worth a read. nothing (we) didn't know, but still, good to hear that someone is speaking out.

There are so many new realities emerging in the Latin music industry, in Cuban musi in Miami politics and Cuba/U.S. relations, the question that I would have about all that power that the Estefens wielded is - does that power even exist any more?

Waiting For Obama

Or maybe, it should be, waiting for Hillary at The State Department

Here's an article in Billboard (the music industry trade magazine) about some of the anticipated tours of Cuban artists in the United States

Encouraged by President Barack Obama's remarks in April that he's seeking a "new day" in relations with Cuba, U.S. promoters have quietly begun planning stateside concerts by Cuban artists for as early as June, pending their ability to secure permission from the U.S. Department of State to perform in this country. Washington, D.C., hasn't authorized such visits since 2003.

The acappella group Vocal Sampling, an international festival favorite, and the Grammy Award-nominated traditional son ensemble Septeto Nacional have applied for U.S. visas. Los Van Van, the pioneering Castro-era dance group often referred to as the island's Rolling Stones, hopes to launch an extensive summer tour in the States. International Music Network, the Gloucester, Mass., booking agency that handled the Buena Vista Social Club's U.S. tour in the late '90s, is exploring the possibility of booking fall tour dates for some of the group's surviving members.

It sounds like the strategy to get Cuban artists into the U.S. is to simply start applying for work visas  - and hope that one of them gets approved, thus setting a precedent.

Good luck to them.

Three Articles of Interest

Mona Malarsky sent me this review she wrote for Examiner.com of Tiempo Libre's new album 'Bach in Havana'

The new album ranges from carnival-style street music to spiritual reveries—all inspired, in one way or another, by Bach. In the infectious “Tu Conga” Gomez takes the theme from the “Fugue in C Minor” from the first book of  The Well-Tempered Clavier and bends it into a Möbius strip of non-stop percussion and vocals. “Air on a G String,” a bolero featuring guest artist Paquito D’Rivera on alto sax, uses Bach’s “Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major,” to weave a lyrical fantasy that seems to hover like a gull over a gently rippling sea.

Most audacious is the “Kyrie” which opens with Bach’s actual “Mass in B Minor,” then swivels into a jazzy meditation with piano, horns and percussion. Its backbone is a series of polyrhythms played on batá drums. The beautiful, two-headed batá is a sacred instrument in Santería ritual, used to call forth the religious spirit as just as Bach used the church choir. Yet in this “Kyrie,” Gomez seems less interested in prayer than fun.

Her's a preview of an interesting concert in Seattle with Hilario Duran. (Thanks Glenda!)

Now based in Toronto, Durán brings the inherited knowledge of more than a century of Cuban music to the bandstand whenever he performs. But it's rare that he gets the opportunity to explore his entire stylistic range, which is what makes tonight's concert at Town Hall Seattle such a rare and welcome event.

Produced with support from a grant by the Allied Arts Foundation of Seattle, the event features Durán in a kaleidoscopic array of settings, including solo, duo and an improvisational new music trio featuring violinist Irene Mitri and Andy Schloss on radiodrum, an electronic instrument that uses sensors rather than percussive contact to create sound.
.....

If the Durán/Schloss/Mitri trio offers a glimpse of future directions for Cuban-inflected music, the pianist's solo set provides a tour of state-of-the-art Cuban jazz. He'll also join the eight-piece Charanga Danzón, Mitri's ensemble dedicated to elegant Cuban dance styles dating to the late 19th century.

And finally, via Kevin at Timba.com, a review in the New York Times of the ex-Pupy singer Pepito Gomez

He worked hard, and charismatically. Grinning, hectoring the audience by yelling the beats of the clave rhythm between verses, he came to the lip of the stage to improvise one chorus after another. (In a version of Alejandro Sanz’s reproachful, love-sick “Aprendiz,” he improvised without words.) It wasn’t a show full of complicated arrangements, and Mr. Gómez carried a lot of it; in that equation, his klieg-light voice grew fatiguing. But there were just enough diversions — fluent, wise solos by the trumpeter Richie Viruet, the flutist Itai Kriss and the violinist Eddie Venegas, full of flow and tension — that when he resumed singing, you were ready to face the heat again.

Some Good News About CKLN?

This note came to me from Verlia Stephens re CKLN

Dear CKLN Community Members, Volunteers and Friends,

Some important events have taken place over the last few days in our efforts  to return CKLN to a place where we demonstrate commitment to our mission  through volunteers, students and community members.

We have learned that the group, led by Tony Barnes, that occupied CKLN for many months has dropped its lawsuit against the RSU. In addition, it appears that all members of this group have now resigned from their “board”.

We have spoken with RSU and continued dialogue with members of the board  consisting of Mike Harnett, Mercedes Otway, Peter Toh, and Mary Young . Both of those groups have committed to us an interest in developing plans that would lead to open, public elections for a new Board of Directors for CKLN.

We are happy to announce that Sunday June 14 has been set, tentatively, as the date for those elections. The location is to be determined. We will announce more about that meeting as soon as possible. Community, volunteer and former core staff elections will be held on that date.

All of you, in this community of volunteers, students and listeners, have done much work to get us to the point when a return to the station is within reach. We are now in the moments where we can start to rebuild this great community radio station. Some of this work will include energizing our friends, some of whom may have given up, resigned to the belief that the station could not be won back. Please help get the word out.

What CKLN now becomes will depend on the commitment of you in the communities to whom CKLN has given voice for 25 years. The hard work of winning the station back is now almost over. The hard work of reshaping this great community radio station is just beginning.

In Solidarity

Conrad Collaco
Heather Douglas
Geoff MacDonald
Arnold Minors
Ron Nelson

I'm hoping that what this means is that CKLN can reconstitute itself back into a functioning radio station that serves the local community and the university - like it used to.