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Life, Career, and death of Juan Carlos Formell
Juan Carlos Formell
Latin entertainment is in mourning the departure of one of its most talented figures, who leaves a very big void in all his followers and fans. We are talking about former composer, bassist, guitarist and member of Los Van Van Juan Carlos Formell, who sadly departed from this world on Friday, May 26th after a live performance in New York City.
In view of such an unfortunate loss for those of us who have spent years of experience promoting Latin music in all four corners of the world, we consider it appropriate to recall the most important moments in the life and career of this extraordinary artist and all that he contributed to the salsa movement during his lifetime.
Story of Juan Carlos Formell
Juan Carlos Formell was born in the city of Havana on February 18, 1964 and was the son of Juan Formell and Natalia Alfonso. He was the oldest of three brothers who would also dedicate themselves to music.
Contrary to what people might think, the fact of belonging to the fourth generation of a musical family and being the son of world famous bassist Juan Formell did not make things easier for him on the path with music. When he was barely three weeks old, he was sent to live with his grandparents in the outskirts of the Havana city.
They were through many financial needs and Juan Carlos himself would admit in an interview years later that other children used to make fun of him for having holes in his shoes, but that did not make him desist from his dreams, far from it. He became interested in music at a very young age, which led him to train professionally at the Alejandro García Cartula Conservatory and the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory.
In the 1990s, he concluded his studies at the National School of Arts in Cuba with almost three decades of life, so he made the decision to move to New York City to fully exercise his career as a musician. Before this, Juan Carlos had already accompanied several jazz orchestras on stage, but Cuban authorities banned him from traveling due to his regular yoga practice (considered subversive in his native country).
Since he could not leave Cuba directly, he had to use a tour with the Rumbavana orchestra in Mexico to cross the Rio Grande in Texas and later settle in New York. His process of adapting to this new country was not easy from any point of view, but it was all so worth it.
From then on, what came was success for the artist. During the course of his solo career, he recorded some five solo albums, one of which earned him a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Traditional Tropical Latin Performance in 2000.
Entry into Los Van Van
Los Van Van is one of the most important Cuban musical groups of recent times, which was founded by Cuban bassist Juan Formell, Juan Carlos Formell’s father. After having participated in several son and jazz groups, the musician decided it was time to innovate and change the style he was using until now.
It was then that he decided to incorporate new instruments and voices, which gave rise to a completely different concept baptized as Los Van Van and that gave much to talk about among critics of the time, and for the better.
After a very successful career in the group, Juan Formell died on May 1, 2014 at the age of 71 as a result of a heart attack during a concert in his hometown, Havana.
This unfortunate event is what led his son, Juan Carlos Formell, to join Los Van Van as a bassist. His brother Samuel was on the drum kit and his sister Vanessa was on backing vocals, so it can be said that this was a bit of a family business.
Since that moment, the intense activity that he had together with the rest of the group in performances, concerts and new songs earned him the recognition of the public in a very short time.
In spite of carrying the fame of his father on his shoulders, he did not let this stop him or be a limiting factor for him. On the contrary, he always left his family name and his father’s legacy high.
Unfortunately, 10 years passed before the artist left a huge void among those who respected and loved him.
Death
On May 26 of this year, Los Van Van was performing at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in New York. About 40 minutes after the start of the concert, Juan collapsed on stage in front of all the attendants.
Minutes later, he was aided by ambulances and a fire truck. He was then taken to the nearest health-care center, but unfortunately the doctors could do nothing for him. This is how his bandmates announced the sad news through their social networks.
At the end of the concert, Eduardo Livia himself confirmed the death when he walked off the stage and greatly regretted what happened. The cause of death was determined to be a heart attack and his life came to an end at the age of 59.
After this, the group continued with the rest of the tour they had planned and the performances they had outstanding were in honor of the great Juan Carlos Formell and all that he gave to music during his life.
Festivals in June 2023, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand
Spring in Europe
The next beginning of rest in summer, pleasant temperatures at night and heat during the day, the work of the year has its rewards in holidays and is traveling, knowing places and people, cultures and languages and all this leads us to have fun as a couple or alone and thus meet nice people with whom to share, and at this point we want to captivate you by enjoying tropical dances, commonly called Latin music, as it is Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba among other variables are sensual and exotic rhythms in many cases, that make us experience pleasant bodily and sensory, for this incredible experience we have festivals in the European continent and Asia with some ease of transport according to our budgets but if we want to go further let’s not forget the beautiful beaches and active life of New Zealand very few hours by plane
This month of June we have festivals in the following countries and do not forget that next month comes Tempo Latino, a festival like no other, about which I will be informing you.
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Germany Cologne Salsa Congress |
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| Spain
Estilos Unidos Dance Festival |
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| Latin Dance Festival & WTP European Meeting Summer Edition Jun 02 2023 – Jun 04 2023 Lloret de Mar, Spain https://www.facebook.com/LatinDanceFestivalWTP |
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| CROACIA
Summer Sensual Days Jun 05 2023 – Jun 12 2023 Rovinj, Croatia |
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Croatian Summer Salsa Festival 2023 Jun 12 2023 – Jun 19 2023 Rovinj, Croatia |
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| NEW ZEALAND
NZ Salsa Congress Jun 02 2023 – Jun 04 2023 Wellington , New Zealand |
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| FRANCE
Kizomba Gala Challenge Festival Jun 08 2023 – Jun 12 2023 Saint Herblain, France |
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PORTUGAL Estrutura Kizomba Summer Festival Jun 15 2023 – Jun 18 2023 Chaves, Portugal |
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Aquae Flaviae International Congress Jun 16 2023 – Jun 18 2023 Chaves, Portugal |
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| KOREA
Jeju Latin Culture Festival Jun 22 2023 – Jun 25 2023 Jeju-si, South Korea |
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| MALAYSIA
Afro Latin Fest Asia Jun 23 2023 – Jun 25 2023 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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| ROMANIA
Carpathian Latino Fest Jun 24 2023 – Jun 26 2023 Ramnicu Valcea, Romania |
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ISM Edition June 2023
International Salsa Magazine
Sony Music’s new talent, Luis Figueroa, is unstoppable…And, he is a salsa singer
The singer and songwriter of Puerto Rican descent, Luis Figueroa, is one of Sony Music’s most recent acquisitions. Most recently… La Luz is now available on all digital platforms. Listen to it HERE.
He is not new to the music scene. He brings experience from other sounds and has been nominated twice for a Latin Grammy. For Luis Figueroa, the recently signed Sony Music talent, success in the salsa sound is already assured.
Proof of this is that he has already performed on the most important salsa stage in the world, during the 39th edition of the National Salsa Day at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The salsa public is betting on him, and Sony Music seems to know it.
He says he has not come to the salsa scene to change anything. He claims “to have come to make a new chapter in what salsa is and to leave my essence within what inspired me and motivated me to be a salsa artist…Learning from the pioneers, who also had resistance in their time. In spite of that, salsa erotica and salsa romántica came to stay.”
He started early on and decided to combine his academic and artistic work. From his academic application, he approached music as a business, which is very encouraging for the tropical genres.
Luis confesses that it was always clear to him that he “was not going to be just another one of the horrendous stories that have been heard about the contractual environment”.
For the singer and composer it was “extremely important to know the business side of the music business, to know the contractual aspect and to protect my copyrights”.
Luis is an artist with his sights set high and his feet on the ground. He is a humanistic and transparent person, allowing the positive in every story to prevail. He has been very judicious in applying the advice that more experienced artists offer him in good faith.
He recalls that when he was barely eight or nine years old, Gilberto Santa Rosa told him, “you have to keep studying because we are tired of brute singers, you know?” Luis took that statement almost as an instruction. Eventually, he managed to get accepted into Berklee College of Music, from where he graduated with a concentration in Song Writing and Music Business.
As soon as he finished college, the invitations and requests from different producers began.
He came to Sony Music through Magnus with Marc Anthony’s endorsement, but he was polishing his songwriting skills with the band Magic. He says he was not fluent in Spanish at the time. However, his mother always instilled in him the obligation he owed to himself to keep his mother tongue, Spanish, alive.
Although he learned the structure and mechanics of songwriting in Los Angeles trying to keep the focus on both languages, he didn’t feel the confidence with Spanish that he had with English.
Nevertheless, his development as a songwriter flowed. Before signing with Sony Music, in 2018, he had the opportunity to position a single with Sebastian Yatra, spreading nothing more and nothing less than the urban pop hit, Por perro, which is from his audit.
Today he reflects and understands that Por perro opened doors for him as a composer in both the American and Latin markets. Por perro has accumulated over 654 million views on YouTube and reached #16 on Billboard’s Latin Pop Songs chart. In addition, RIAA® certified it 4X-Platinum. And, the video went on to be nominated for Video of the Year at the 2019 HTV Heat Awards. Luis presented this single during Romeo Santos’ Golden Tour in stadiums throughout Latin America to sold-out crowds.
Says the artist, “We came to Sony at a time when we were not signed as a salsa artist. We were still finding our style, we wanted to go more on the urban pop side. We did songs for Janis and Sebastián Yatra and Manuel Turizo. I think from sharing with different songwriters on the Latin side I was able to develop more with my ideas and now I have the ability to be able to compose songs completely my own. It took me about four or five years to be able to generate that confidence to compose and to have the audacity to expose my inspiration.”
For Luis it was surprising that his interpretation of Hasta el sol de hoy was so well received. For a moment he thought he was going to hear something like: “you’re crazy, like this is not what we want you to do”, but it was precisely that song one of the bases of the bridge that managed to unite the urban aspect to salsa.
With that hit, which is already a salsa classic, Luis Figueroa made the transition that turned him into a trend. With that song he continued to be known and received massive support. With that song he gained more confidence, not only in the compositions he was creating, but also strengthened his career within the salsa sound. Luis has nourished himself from other genres, refreshing and enriching salsa.
Salsa fans have long been calling for new injections of talent and suggesting new nuances. Luis seems to have picked up on those ideas, sharing new energy gained from his time in bachata, urban, romantic and pop.
I also find it fascinating that this recent salsa convert has made the long-awaited crossover from Spanish to English in reverse; that is, the innovative route from English to Spanish. That reverse crossover gave Luis a clear understanding of the artistic route he is passionate about and which seems to be one in a continual evolutionary process.
Maybe that is the key, what made him one of the fastest growing exponents of salsa, of the so-called new generation. He attributes this growth to the audacity to continue creating, which in turn has strengthened his roots in what he does: music. He reflects and affirms that: “seeing my friends take songs of mine, seeing them grow and seeing them be so successful gave me confidence in my pencil, as a composer on the Latin side, although it took me a while. Initially, I took the easy route; doing covers and interpretations of different songs, but I set out to focus on composing and I succeeded.
Before salsa it was bachata. The Caribbean rhythm was all around it. When he was working with Romeo Santos, his life was all bachata. “I was living, sleeping, singing and speaking in the language of bachata music that inspired me a lot. That’s where my compositions began to stand out, while I was doing backing vocals for Romeo Santos and Juan Luis Guerra on certain songs. It was in that environment that he came into contact with my interpretation.”
However, his greatest inspiration is Jerry Rivera and he considers himself fortunate to have many mentors and several godfathers in salsa, including Johnny Rivera, whom he thanks for lending him a hand and his collaboration in various projects.
Artists such as Tito Allen, Marc Anthony’s musical director Angel Fernandez, Johnny Rivera and Ray Sepulveda have all been supportive. Songs like the one catapulted by the eternal daddy of salsa, Frankie Ruiz, Esta cobardía, and Borinquen -from the pen of Johnny Ortiz- in voice of Yolanda Rivera managed to tattoo themselves in his musical formation.
Two of the aforementioned referents, Tito Allen and Yolanda Rivera were performing on the same stage of the 39th edition of the National Zalsa Day, which was given by Luis Figueroa. For his part, the famous Borinquen composer, Johnny Ortiz, witnessed the great concert accompanied by his most loyal fans in the front row.
Other composers who have influenced Luis are: “The composer of Hasta el sol de hoy – Gustavo Márquez – and Omar Alfano, with whom I had the opportunity to share the stage in Panama when I went to share the stage with great musicians, opening a Marc Anthony concert”.
Luis says he doesn’t mind having the same blueprint of all the others who came before him, and adds: “if you see all my songs, they have to be four or five pregones. The songs from the times before were six minutes, five interludes, they were eight minutes long.” He says he has taken the basic structure to merge it with the modern one on the urban side of salsa. He assures to have adapted because the times require agility in the processes. Having refreshed the salsa scene is one of his great achievements, and by leaps and bounds, hand in hand with Sony Music Luis Figueroa reached the National Salsa Day, the most important salsa stage in the world.
Luis made it to the finish line. Of course, he can’t afford to relax his spirits in this competitive environment. Nor can he afford to listen to criticism from detractors. His innovative spirit and the freshness of his pen make this salsa singer one of infinite possibilities and a forceful pace. From my corner, I will be supporting him, not only because of the clarity of what he is doing.
The public that follows salsa will support it because we all need salsa to do well. The coalition that we call salsa is now one of action and not complaints, because there is no Musical Productions, because there is no Fania, because everything has been changing, and now that the record companies have reduced their footprint, I affirm as a researcher, that there is nothing more true than the saying: “Nobody knows what he has until he loses it”.
I know that Luis is prepared for what is coming, and more. I know that he will continue to move forward like the snowball that continues to grow and as it moves, it becomes unstoppable. He has already reached the stage of the National Zalsa Day. He is no longer an emerging artist, nor a new artist. He arrived at the plaza by way of triumph. Luis Figueroa is a fully-fledged salsa artist. What remains is for him to continue.
What’s next… For those who continue his unstoppable rise, the question is: What’s next? Luis Figueroa arrives with the album, Voy a ti, which includes the single, Bandido. We’ll keep an eye out for the release of what is sure to be another hit.
Chronology of an evolving salsero:
Awarded at the 2016 Premios Juventud for his version of Flor Pálida, performing with Marc Anthony.
In mid-2017, after being discovered through several videos uploaded on his YouTube page, Luis signed with Magnus Media, Marc Anthony’s entertainment company. His performance of Flor Pálida won him a Premio Juventud for Best Video Cover.
Combining his musical and acting abilities, Luis had a featured role in Telemundo’s acclaimed television series Guerra de idols. Along with Pedro Capó and Christian Pagan, he performed the series’ theme song, Tequila pa’la razón, presenting it live at the Billboard Latin Music Awards, 2017.
In 2018, he accompanied Romeo Santos as a vocalist on three of his international tours, including the world tour, Golden.
In 2019, he released his first single for Sony Music Latin, La Especialista, which reached #27 on the Billboard Latin Pop Airplay chart, remaining for 8 weeks, and the pre-release single from his debut album, Te Deseo, reached #24 on the Latin Pop Airplay chart, remaining 11 weeks on Billboard. La Especialista, boldly combines acoustic guitars and melodies that complement her voice.
Pandora named Luis to its Latin Artists to Watch 2020 music discovery playlist. That same year, Luis made Billboard’s list that consolidated 17 male Latin artists to be discovered during the forties. He was also named one of Billboard’s fastest rising Latin artists.
In July 2021 Luis scored his first #1 on Billboard with Hasta El Sol De Hoy, a track that also reached the top of the Mediabase and LATIN monitor charts. His follow-up single Si Tú Me Dices Ven became his second Top 10 hit, while Billboard chose Luis as part of its Latin Artist on the Rise series. Also in 2021, he was nominated for Best Pop Artist at the HTV Heat Latin Music Awards.
In 2022, Luis released his first salsa album. The production generated three consecutive Top 10 hits on the Billboard Tropical Airplay chart and earned him his first Latin GRAMMY Award nominations for “Best Salsa Album” and “Best Tropical Song”.
The album – self-titled Luis Figueroa – solidified his status as one of the salsa genre’s leading voices and rising stars. Luis was nominated for his first Premios Lo Nuestro in 2022 for Tropical Artist of the Year and Tropical Song of the Year for Hasta El Sol De Hoy.
Luis Figueroa has had a good year in 2023. In January he topped the Media Base – Tropical chart with his Latin GRAMMY® nominated song Fiesta Contigo, and was also nominated for three Premios Lo Nuestro Awards in the Tropical – Artist of the Year, Tropical – Song of the Year and Tropical – Album of the Year categories.
By: Bella Martinez
Bella Martínez
Writer, Researcher in Afro-Caribbean music.