Search Results for: Cuban music

Habana Style. Dance Company “Where dancing is a pleasure”

North America / USA / Las Vegas

Habana Style

Founded by a professional dancer and choreographer, Yody Iznaga in 2001, to offer people who are passionate about latincaribbean and cuban music a place where they could learn such exotic dance styles and express themselves in dance body movements as its main objective. Habana Style Dance Company is one of the very few dance schools in LAS VEGAS which offer its public a complete portfolio with about 15 different latin-caribbean dance styles with an objective to enable the students to feel identified with what they are looking for in specific.

Yody Iznaga professional dancer and choreographer born in Cuba and educated through the authentic Cuban technique of modern dance created by the professor Eduardo Rivero Walker at a professional company Teatro de la Danza del Caribe (Theater of Caribbean Dance). Yody Iznaga knows to perfection about 15 different dance styles. He dances on TV channels and big and famous stages known in the world of salsa. Yody has choreographed and danced for artists like Marc Anthony, Victor Manuelle, La India, Maelo Ruiz, and others. https://habana.style

Habana Style - Social Photo 1 — Habana Style – Social Photo 1

Dance Classes at Habana Style Dance Company

Private lessons Private lessons represent the most accurate, effective and the fastest way to learn or master any dance style of your choice; since you can choose exactly what you would like to learn and the areas you need to improve. The dance studio is reserved only and exclusively for you and the instructor for the time of your scheduled session. This is also why you can fully enjoy and exploit the most out of the instructor’s time and attention which are completely yours during the private lesson.

Workshops Workshops are special dance classes taught by certified professionals with the main objective to develop and improve special dance abilities and to acquire original movements of a specific dance style. Members of Habana Style Dance Company learn through an authentic technique created by the dancer & choreographer Yody Iznaga. This authentic method focuses also on clean movements while it is easy to understand and acquire due to the high and professional level of teaching methodology typical for Habana Style.

Group Classes Group classes are designed for people who want to learn in an entertaining way how to dance and at the same time to meet people and to connect to people who have the same dance objective.

The classes are structured so that also people without a partner can participate in and enjoy the group classes. Students keep on rotating which allows them to improve their commands necessary for social dance. The group classes are designed to create a friendly environment and increase trust among participant; students are greatly encouraged to practice and demonstrate the knowledge acquired in the group classes on the dance floor at our social dance nights.

Habana Style - Social Photo 2 — Habana Style – Social Photo 2

Benefits of Dancing with Habana Style Dance Company

Habana Style Dance Company offers various benefits to its members while dancing Latin-Caribbean dances at the dance studio. Preparing and encouraging students to enjoy social dances anywhere in the world. On their way toward this goal, students have loads of fun, relieve stress, exercise, meet people with the same dance objective, and have constant participation in social events.

Members of Habana Style Dance School learn through an authentic technique created by the dancer & choreographer Yody Iznaga. This authentic method focuses also on clean movements while it is easy to understand and acquire due to the high and professional level of teaching methodology typical for Habana Style Dance Company.

Last but not least, Habana Style Dance School offers its members to join teams where they reach a very high level of dance including exotic movements within the social and professional dance through a long path of practices. What could be more beautiful and uniquely identifying than the exotic mixture of Salsa with Afro-Cuban rhythms and Cuban rumba within popular and social dances?

Dina y Los Rumberos makes Portland and its surroundings dance

We always find, and surely will find, examples of Cubans who have managed to get ahead despite the harsh circumstances surrounding them in their country of origin. One of many is Andy Martinez, current musical director of the group Dina Y Los Rumberos, with whom we have had the honor to share a few minutes to learn as much as we can about his orchestra and current career.

Andy and Paolo — Andy Martínez on percussion next to Venezuelan timbalero Paolo

Andy’s initial taste for music

Andy comes from a musical family with whom he had a lot of contact with music since he was very young, starting with his father himself, Don Raúl Matínez, who was the former musical director of Dina Y Los Rumberos and, for reasons of age, was unable to carry out his functions. However, he is still the head of the project and is part of all the important decisions in this regard.

On the other hand, Andy’s personal interest in music began when he was only five years old, which led his parents to enroll him in his first conservatory where he studied the elementary and middle level, but because of geographic issues and reasons of distance, he was not able to finish his degree. As a result, he chose to study to be a music teacher instead.

What most attracted his attention at that time was percussion, in fact, he ended up graduating as a percussionist and playing instruments such as the bongo, the timbales, the tumbadora and many more.

Dina Y Los Rumberos

The first thing Andy wanted to clarify about Dina y Los Rumberos is that the group was at first a family orchestra, starting with Dina, the lead singer, who is Andy’s older sister. On the other hand, his father Raul was the director, as we have said, and his uncle Ernesto Martinez was the bass player.

Dina Matínez — Lead singer of Dina Y Los Rumberos Dina Martínez

It all starts when, in 2001, Raul made the decision to formalize a band that included the family musicians, who had already been in other groups and had the necessary expertise to take up the challenge. Soon after, they got their first chance to tour outside Cuba, more specifically in Mexico, where they spent approximately 10 years. That time was more than enough to travel around the country and establish the band there, but unfortunately the situation of violence at that time made them move again.

Andy and the rest of the band preferred to move to Portland, Oregon, where they still live today.

Great challenges after their arrival in the United States

Although the plan was not to leave Cuba indefinitely, Andy also admitted that the idea of leaving the island was always hanging around his head due to the political and economic situation there. The artist also pointed out that in the music business, most of those who have the opportunity to leave never come back.

In the case of Andy and his bandmates, they specifically chose Portland, since they had many acquaintances in the area and it was a place very much like where they lived in Cuba with a lot of nature and tranquility.

One of the first challenges they faced along the way was Raul’s inability to remain at the forefront the orchestra due to his advanced age and health problems, so the best person to replace him was Andy, since he was the one who had more musical knowledge and was more qualified to lead a band in terms of scores, arrangements and that sort of thing.

Andy, Dina, and Raul — Andy Matínez, Dina Martínez and their father Raul Matínez playing the guitar

Another of the difficulties they had was the bad reputation Cubans had at that time, so many doors were closed to them because of all that was said of their country of origin. However, they have managed to get ahead despite the adversities and now defend Cuban music to the last on any stage where they play.

How Dina Y Los Rumberos is currently composed

At present, Dina Y Los Rumberos is made up as follows: Dina Martinez on vocals, Luis Perez also on vocals, Paolo on timbales, Diego Cruzado on piano, Moises Hernandez on piano and Mario Posada on piano, Thomas Pierce on trombone, Olaf on bass and Alexis also on bass.

Joshua Levine and his quartet have a lot of Guataca

Joshua Levine, artistically known as Josh Levine, is one of so many examples of Americans who, without having any type of Latin roots, fall under the charm of our beautiful music and do not hesitate to make it their way of life. That is why we wanted to talk to Josh, born in New York City, a little more about his career and what brought him to where he is today.

Josh posing with his double bass — Bandleader and bassist Josh Levine posing with his double bass

Josh’s beginnings in music

The first instrument that drew Josh’s attention as a child was the piano, as his babysitter was a piano teacher and offered him some lessons to satisfy his curiosity. The interesting thing is that his teaching was more focused on the ear than on reading music as such, showing that there are musicians perfectly capable of playing without needing a musical score.

However, like any child, he began to have other interests such as skating, to which he devoted much of his time back then. About 10 or 11 years later, his father, who was a great jazz fan, used to listen to this genre at home frequently, to the point that the young man once again felt that passion for what he had practiced so many years ago and began to listen a little more intently to the artists his father enjoyed.

Seeing his son’s growing taste for jazz, Josh’s father decided to take him to a concert featuring Cedar Walton’s piano trio with Ron Carter on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. He was so impressed by their performance that he decided to study bass that same day, as at the time it seemed to him the most understandable and easiest instrument to learn because of its few notes at once.

He got so good that he even became part of his high school band, a group from where great artists emerged including Carlos Henriquez, a great musical luminary who has worked with Celiz Cruz, Eddie Palmieri and Ruben Blades and is the current bass player for the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Interest in Latin music

For those same years, Josh also learned Spanish and clarified that he does not have any Latin ancestry, so this was not the motive behind his interest in this music. However, he grew up in a neighborhood in Manhattan where many Latino families lived, especially Caribbeans from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

Josh and Jainardo — Josh Levine next to Puerto Rican singer and percussionist Jainardo Batista

Meanwhile, he was also studying biology in college and a little jazz and classical music. Upon graduation, by pure chance, he met a young Venezuelan musician named Roberto Fuentes, who was the director of Alpargata Cantorum (a very famous Venezuelan musical comedy and theater group in the 70s), who wanted to form a band with him and a few other musicians. Fuentes showed Josh a lot of Venezuelan folkloric music, taught him to play cuatro and made him listen to several songs typical of Venezuelan music such as ”Barlovento”, ”El Alma Llanera”, ”La Vaca Mariposa”, ”Pajarillo Verde” and many more.

As for classic salsa, he made him listen to Ismael Rivera, Rubén Blades, Willie Colón and many others.

Other groups Josh was in

Having been in the group with Fuentes gave him what he needed to make contact with many other groups, including that of José Luis Martínez, who was very close to Juan Carlos Formell Sr. Thanks to Martinez he learned a great deal about Cuban music, the way Cuban son is played on the bass, the pronunciation of words in the Cuban dialect, among other things.

His big break came when he met Jainardo Batista, whom he was a big fan of when he was in his band Nu Guajiro (or Nu D’lux, as it would end up being called). It turns out that Josh went every Sunday to hear them play at the club where they were at the time and, after 10 years of following their music, they finally invited him to play with them.

After a while, the group disbanded, but Josh and Jainardo did not lose touch. And not only that, but they continued playing together and had the idea of forming something new.

Jainardo, Jeremy, Gabriel, and Josh — Percussionist Jainardo Batista, flautist Jeremy Bosch, Pianist Gabriel Chakarji, and bassist Josh Levine

Cuarteto Guataca

Cuarteto Guataca was born when Josh and Jainardo decided to form a new group after the breakup of Nu D’lux and counted with the participation of Dominican arranger, composer and tres player Román Lajara and Puerto Rican producer, composer and flutist Jeremy Bosch. He describes them both as musical prodigies, to the point of telling us that Lajara was the representative of the Cuban tres as an instrument at the 2024 National Jazz Day in Morocco.

Josh, Jainardo, Román and Jeremy were the members of the original quartet, but they did not play for a living because it was not enough, but as a sort of part-time job. For the same reason, the four of them also worked on other projects at the same time, as is usually the way with New York today.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, they started playing in city parks to earn some tips during the quarantine, leading their audiences to grow tremendously and many venues began to hire them to play in their open spaces. At a time when musicians were out of work, they had events at least six out of seven days to a week.

This led to them to be ready to get in a studio for the first time and record their first album, which was released in 2022 and is available on all digital platforms for all to enjoy. It should be noted that Román was not playing as often with Cuarteto Guataca, so he was replaced by Venezuelan producer, composer and pianist Gabriel Chakarji until he got back some time later.

Salsa, territory of joy.

Latin America / Venezuela / Caracas

Salsa, territory of joy, language of celebration, enjoyment of the towns and their people, was born from a confluence of facts, geniuses and rhythms. Confluence that happened in the faith of the same religion: Afro-Cuban music.

And that mixture, which Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz cleverly described as “similar to the tomato sauce that is put on hamburgers to give them flavor”, was summed up in the insightful sentence of the occasional witness, the journalist Phidias Escalona: “the music that you make is salsa. From now on we will call it sauce”.

The year was 1968 and although the new rhythm already existed, there had been no consensus on the name. And that consensus began to emerge -perhaps for the first time- on the album “Los Durisimos The Strong Ones, Salsa y Control”, by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. Later, Richie himself would add: “The word was born around us, (however,) if it weren’t for (Jerry) Masucci there would be no salsa, because he brought it to the world.”

In 1960s New York Harlem, black Americans had begun to like Latin music, despite not speaking Spanish.

Ama a tu musa como a ti mismo - Salsa — Ama a tu musa como a ti mismo – Salsa

The guajira dazzled them until they made them dance. Believing that the mixture of boogaloo, blues, mambo, guaguancó or son montuno, was a variant of the boogaloo invented by Chubby Checker, the new rhythm was founded, incorporating the concepts of the Latin spirit in their interpretations and that -technically- they would add to the baggage : percussion, piano, violins, trumpets, trombones and whatever instrument would serve to give it flavor and richness.

Cocola' Wears - Venezuela Salsa — Cocola’ Wears – Venezuela Salsa

Musically, for example, the so-called “blue notes” would be added (that is how the overtones of the acoustically weak E and B notes, last to be added to the scale, where they would be relocated between Lam and Lam) would be added to the new fusions. Then came the downloads and phrases that we know until now as characteristics of salsa.

Thus the sauce was born. And so it has been transformed, always within the circle that encloses joy, passion and enjoyment, history, experiences, fortune or misfortune, seen from different perspectives: urban, social, sensual or everyday.

Juan Karlos Jiménez talks about his orchestra Salsa Nueva Band and freelance career

Los Angeles is an inexhaustible source of Latin talent and this is proven every day with a large number of singers, musicians and groups that give all for all in each of their performances, with which they manage to earn a privileged place in the city and California’s music scene.

On this occasion, we talked with the great Mexican percussionist Juan Karlos Jimenez, with whom we had the privilege of making contact to learn more about his career and contributions to Latin music in US territory.

Juan Karlos’ beginnings in music

Juan Karlos was born in Veracruz, place he describes as ”one of the most salsa-loving cities in Mexico”. The first musical influence in the artist’s life has been his own father, who played a lot of Cuban music of the time when Juan Karlos was still a child, and among his favorite groups and artists were La Orquesta Aragón and Tito Puente.

Of his four brothers, he was the only one who devoted himself to music professionally and wanted to take salsa as a foundation, being something exceedingly rare for a Mexican, since most of the population does not usually see this genre as part of the typical music of the country. However, Juan Karlos also points out that, since Veracruz is located in the tropical part of the country, the city has a lot of Caribbean musical influence. This was one of the reasons that led the artist to become so passionate about salsa.

In addition to music, he also studied a degree in communication and graphic design at the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac, Guadalajara. As for the communication part, being a 13-year-old boy, he began working at a radio station, which would be the beginning of interest he would have in the not too distant future for locution in a much more formal way. This led him to work in very prestigious places in Mexico such as Televisa Radio, giving him the necessary experience to know how to handle himself as a musician in relation to the media when he would promote his orchestra years later.

While I was university studying, I worked in a music store and one day I had to serve to the Cuban Afro-jazz singer Rosalía de Cuba, who invited me to attend Cuban nights of which she was part of in restaurants and clubs in Guadalajara. One night, I was encouraged to go and started playing with one of the trios that performed that day and the leader of the group was so fascinated with my skills as a percussionist that he hired me permanently in exchange for 150 Mexican pesos per performance” said Juan Karlos about his time as a student.

He also pointed out that in order to reach such a good level, he took a few classes with the late Cuban arranger, composer and bongocero Adalberto Alvarez, leader of the group Son 14, thanks to whom he was able to play percussion so efficiently.

Today, he exercises his skills as a graphic designer with his orchestra Sangre Nueva Band, since he is the one who creates the album covers, flyers and artwork in general related to his musical project.

Juan Karlos posing — Juan Karlos Jiménez posing for camera

Moving to the United States

When Juan Karlos was just going to form his first band in Guadalajara, he met Maika Miller, who played for the Mexico’s Philharmonic orchestra and would be his partner for several years. Some time after they married, Milka was offered a master’s degree in Los Angeles and asked her husband to go with her, to which he gladly accepted because of the new opportunities he would have in his new home.

A few years later, he retried creating his group in her new city of residence after 15 years of hard work. And while Juan Karlos and Milka are no longer a couple, they continue to be part of the same musical project, which they have baptized Sangre Nueva Band.

However, in order to reach that point, he had to gain a lot of experience playing and perfecting his technique, but fortunately, many groups gave him the opportunity to make a living and be better every day at what he did, such as Conjunto Son 14, Carache, Santiago de Cuba, Rosalía de Cuba, Johnny Blas Y Afro Libre Orquesta, La Orquesta de Yari Moré, Tabaco y Ron, among others.

His first attempt at creating an orchestra was Jazz Son, which he founded with Maika in Mexico with the idea that his music would be based on the fusion of jazz and son, but his plans were postponed with their sudden move to the United States. Finally, in 2009, he managed to found the orchestra he has today, which he called Sangre Nueva Band.

Even so, he never stopped playing independently for other artists such as Gilberto Santa Rosa, Victor Manuelle, Ruben Blades, Cheo Feliciano and many more.

Juan Karlos playing — Juan Karlos Jiménez playing and recording in a studio

Salsa Nueva Band

One of the things that led Juan Karlos to create his own orchestra in Los Angeles was his desire to be the leader of his own project. He says he feels fortunate and grateful to be able to play with other orchestras, but in his own words ”it is better to be the head of mouse than the tail of a lion”. For the same reason, the idea of working in his own business without having to rely on other orchestras or singers was always in his head.

When he decided it was time, he had a chance encounter with an Armenian musician who, from the street, saw his congas in the back of his car, asked him if he was a musician and invited him to play at a nightclub next Saturday. By that time, he had managed to gather six musicians playing three congas, a trumpet and a bongo. On the same day, a music entrepreneur asked him to play at another venue, so he ventured to enlarge the group and was asked to name the band, which he called ”Sangre Nueva”.

Today, Juan Karlos is very happy with all the musicians who accompany him on this adventure and hopes that they will stay with him for a long time.