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El Tresero Moderno San Miguel Perez

Cuba is and will continue to be one of the main cradles of the best artists in Latin America and San Miguel Perez is one of those cases. The producer, composer and singer gave us an exclusive interview to talk about his musical beginnings, his history and what he is currently working on. Don’t miss it!

Tresero San Miguel — This is San Miguel Perez, ”El Tresero Moderno”

San Miguel, El Tresero Moderno

San Miguel is known in his country as ”El Tresero Moderno” (the modern tres player in English) due to the styles he uses when playing. He chose the Cuban tres as his main instrument because it is a very important icon in the music of his country and the one that most represents Cuba internationally,

His first contact with music occurred at the age of 10, when he began studying classical music, but adding the Cuban tres. He followed this same path throughout high school and university until he became part of some Cuban popular music groups such as Los Jóvenes Clásicos del Son and Adalberto Álvarez y Su Son.

Together with the latter group, he released the album ”Respeto Para Los Mayores”, which was very popular at the time. This success led them to collaborate with great orchestras such as Los Van Van, with whom they shared the stage sometimes.

On one occasion, one of the members of Los Van Van took the stage to jam with the guys of Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son, including San Miguel. Seeing the Cuban’s talent and style with the tres, he baptized him with the nickname ”El Tresero Moderno”. This nickname had to do with his playing and the influences that the artist brings to the instrument when making a solo.

San Miguel playing — San Miguel Perez playing the Cuban tres live

Cubadisco

San Miguel was twice awarded with the Cubadisco Award, one in 2011 in the category of Best Tresero and the other in 2013 in the category of Best Traditional Cuban Music. These recognitions were very important for the musician, as the award was the result of a previous contest, which was focused on the work of treseros, singers and pianists from all over Cuba.

The primary objective of this contest was to rescue Cuban music and give new talents a chance to make their art known. Adalberto Álvarez, Frank Fernández, and Mayito de Rivera were part of the contest’s presidency.

Given that San Miguel was one of the winning treseros, the Bis Music label released an album called ”Treseros de Cuba”, material in which the young man was included. This was the album which won the Cubadisco award in 2014.

After receiving both awards, Adalberto Álvarez met up with San Miguel to invite the Cubadisco winner to join his group. He took advantage of the departure of the former tresero in the group to invite him.

Los Angeles

San Miguel’s move to Los Angeles was due to a purely professional issue at first. He went to play with Adalberto Alvarez, Peruvian-American singer Cecilia Noël, her husband Colin Hay from Men At Work and other artists living in the United States. Due to this and other work proposals, he decided to stay in Tampa and, time later, to move to the city of Los Angeles and make it his permanent residence.

It should also be mentioned that many other artists have had to work other jobs outside of music in order to make ends meet, but fortunately this was not the case of San Miguel, who had the opportunity to work only in music and did not need to resort to other activities out of his passion. He has dedicated himself fully to playing, recording and producing music for the past 10 years.

San Miguel won the Cubadisco Award — San Miguel twice won the Cubadisco Award in his native country

Composition, production and singing

Regarding the areas of music in which he has specialized, San Miguel began by explaining that he made a good improvement in composition during the time he played with Los Jóvenes Clásicos del Son. He also learned to make arrangements based on traditional music, something in which the director of the group, Ernesto Reyes Palma, played a very important role.

Regarding production, the artist did not participate much in that area, but he eventually did in the United States. It is in this country that he officially started his career as a soloist, tresero and artist. Three years after arriving in Los Angeles, he produced a first album called ”Un Poquito de Amor” in collaboration with Cecilia Noël and Colin Hay in 2017, which was a great learning experience for him, as he was able to experiment and mix many seemingly disparate rhythms.

Other areas in which San Miguel would like to specialize are sound engineering and remastering, but he is working hard to do so.

Current projects

As for the current projects, he is currently promoting his single ”Besito Bon Bon”, which is the main song of his new album. In fact, San Miguel and his team are planning to give this same name to the whole album. On this occasion, he mixed electronic sounds with traditional Cuban music to give a much more modern rhythm to the traditional genres coming from the island. The album has nine songs, is produced by Jay Carona and contains some collaborations with Cecilia Noël.

”Alma Del Barrio” celebrates 50 years of operation

The United States has a great number of Latin music radio programs that always sought to promote the best of Latin talent through their frequencies and one of them is ”Alma Del Barrio” of the well-known radio station KXLU, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Against all odds, ”Alma Del Barrio” celebrates five decades on the air after all the effort of its hosts and the team involved in such a noble and necessary feat. We say ”against all odds” because it is not common that projects submitted by university students did not used to last long and ended up being replaced by programs of the same style.

In addition to the above, decades-long programs usually have a single host and comfortable time slots each week. However, ”Alma Del Barrio” was the exception to this rule and, today, continues to prove that limits can be overcome.

Founders of Alma Del Barrio — Founders of ”Alma Del Barrio” Steve Lopez, Enrique ”Kiki” Soto, Gustavo Aragon, Eddie Lopez, and Hector ”La Voz” Resendez

Beginnings of ”Alma Del Barrio”

After so long, ”Alma Del Barrio” has remained up to date and continues to keep people’s taste.

Its main founders were Enrique ”Kiki” Soto and the late Raúl Villa, who at the time were two young students with many ideas and eager to achieve interesting things. The program was aired for the first time in 1973. A few years later, Hector Resendez, a freshman in college, contacted Enrique and Raul in order to write an article about this new radio show, but it would not be long before he joined the main founders in the project they were developing.

Three years later, in 1976, student at Loyola Marymount University Eddie Lopez joined the program on the third anniversary of ”Alma Del Barrio”, show in which he would spend the next 46 years bringing the best Afro-Cuban music to the audience every Sunday between 2pm and 6pm.

On a number of occasions, Resendez said that ”Alma Del Barrio” was not created to be hosted by great famous personalities, but by dynamic young people who wanted to be part of a small team that was just starting operations.

At the beginning, the new hosts only had one hour of broadcast time to show what they were made of, but at the same time, they did their best to get more airtime and have more presenters in the program. They wanted to include a not very popular genre on the station at that time, which was salsa, something totally innovative for the station.

In those years, salsa was understood as that set of genres coming from Afro-Cuban music and the novice hosts thought it would be a fine attraction to the Latino communities of Los Angeles. That set of genres came from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. This is when record labels and music promoters renamed these rhythms as ”salsa” in order to make it easier for programs and hosts to identify the music.

Eddie Lopez in Alma Del Barrio — Eddie Lopez working on the radio station

‘’Alma Del Barrio”’ programming

The traditional programming of most of the stations consisted of jazz, rock and classical music, but then salsa was incorporated thanks to the increasing popularity that this genre was gaining.

One thing Resendez said is that one of the most famous rock groups was Santana, so the announcer and the rest of his cabinmates were surprised that the musicians of the band knew so much about Afro-Cuban music in terms of percussion. Let us remember that the popular song ”Oye Como Va” was written by ”El Rey De Los Timbales” Tito Puente a decade and a half before the band recorded it.

This union of rock and salsa was what gave the hosts the confidence to use trendy Anglo-Saxon genres as a means to promote Latin music.

On top of that, the guys were clear that jazz fans would be receptive to Latin jazz, since great jazz musicians like Dizzy Gallespie hired Cuban percussionists in their orchestras. If on other stations, this music was successful, ”Alma Del Barrio” was no exception. Fortunately, they were not wrong.

Current logo of ”Alma Del Barrio”

Last years of “Alma Del Barrio’’

During the last years of ”Alma Del Barrio”, the program team has made great efforts to join and create links with the community, whether it would be through sponsorships, advertisements, public services, donation campaigns, among other things.

Through all this community service they offered, they also made their own work known and many listeners began to enjoy this great team’s talent while listening to good music and varied programming.

The program has also been and is part of great annual and historical festivals such as the Salsa Fest. This day is always reserved for the audience to share with the new and old hosts of ”Alma Del Barrio” and many of the station staff, who always spread their enthusiasm to those present with their good energy.

”Alma Del Barrio” and its hosts have brought joy to their followers, but there have also been some sad moments. One of them was the death of DJ Eddie Lopez in January 2023, leaving a great void in the station and the hearts of those who faithfully followed his career through the KXLU circuits during the last decades.

Nestor Torres

North America / USA / New York

If a flute could talk and sing, it would certainly be in the voice of Nestor Torres

If a flute could talk and sing, it would certainly be in the voice of Nestor Torres, for he speaks through his instrument. Equally fluent in Jazz, Classical and Latin sounds, his fluid versatility sets him apart.

Nestor’s total command of his instrument allows him a freedom of expression that is at once captivating and liberating, powerful and genuine.

Born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Nestor Torres has played music all his life. His parents (His father, a gifted musician himself, and his mother, an educator and business woman) gave him a set of drums at age 5, and later took up the flute (at age twelve).

He moved to NYC with his family in his teenage years and went on to study at Mannes School of Music and later at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

At that time he was also able to learn to improvise in a style of Cuban Dance music called ‘Charanga’, which helped to shape and develop Nestor’s melodic and danceable sound.

In 1981, Nestor moved to Miami, where he continued to develop his unique sound – and a strong following. Since then he has – and continues to – tour all over the world.

He has also performed and recorded Ricky Martin, Tito Puente, Herbie Hancock, Gloria Estefan, and many more.

Nestor Torres has recorded 14 Cd’s to the date. His 5th & 7th records, Treasure of the Heart and My Latin Soul, were nominated for a Latin Grammy, and his production This Side Of Paradise won the Latin Grammy award in the Pop instrumental category on September 11, 2001.

“Of course it was a great honor and privilege to win the Grammy,” Torres reflects. “That being said, the fact that I was to receive it on 9/11 gave my work and my music a stronger sense of mission and purpose. Terrorism and violence come from ignorance, anger, and hopelessness.

Music inspires and empowers; it soothes the human heart and enlightens the spirit. I have made it my prime point to create music and live my life in a way that does just that.”

From that experience, together with a commission to compose and perform for the Dalai Lama, Nestor Torres produced Dances, Prayers & Meditations For Peace in 2005.

In his brand new CD, Nouveau Latino, Nestor Torres returns to his Latin roots with a fresh approach, impeccable musicianship, and irresistible improvisations. Featuring songs from stars like Celia Cruz and Ruben Blades, Torres’ interpretations of these great Latin hits appeal to those discovering the songs for the first time as much as those who remember them.

In addition to his achievements in the studio and on the stage, Torres is also recipient of two honorary doctorate degrees; one in 1994 from Barry University, and the other in 2000 from Carlos Albizu University, for his commitment to youth education and cultural exchanges.

NESTOR TORRES: Facts & Career Highlights

• Classical and Jazz flute studies at Mannes School of Music, and New England Conservatory of Music.

• Early improvisational ‘on the job training’ playing in Cuban and Latin Dance bands including Ray Barretto, Eddie Palmieri, Celia Cruz and Tito Puente.

• Regular featured guest at the ‘Salsa Meets Jazz At The Village Gate’ series in NYC.

• Has toured Japan repeatedly, including collaborations with Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter.

• Collaborations: with James Moody, Jon Faddis, Chris Botti, Larry Coryell, Hubert Laws, Arturo Sandoval, Michel Camilo, Paquito D’ Rivera, Danilo Perez, David Sanchez, Pablo Zigler, Makoto Ozone, Patrice Rushen, Bob James, George Duke, Wallace Roney, Peter Nero and Clare Fisher, among many, many others.

• Jazz Festivals: Capitol Jazz Festival, JVC Jazz Festivals; in Los Angeles and in NYC with Eddie Palmieri; Aspen Snowmass; Maui; Heineken in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic; Sedona; Atlanta…. Among many others.

• Symphonic: Has performed with the New World, Singapore, Springfield Missouri, Charleston, Signature (Tulsa, OK), Puerto Rico, and Stanford Symphonies; Philly Pops Orchestra; and the Naples, Florida; Malaysia, and Florida Philharmonics.

• Recordings to date (14): ‘Colombia En Charanga’, ‘Afro Charanga Volume 2’, ‘No Me Provoques, ‘Morning Ride’, ‘Dance of the Phoenix’, ‘Burning Whispers’, ‘Talk To Me’, ‘Treasures Of The Heart’, ‘Canciones Primeras’, ‘This Side Of Paradise’, ‘My Latin Soul’, ‘Sin Palabras’ (Without Words),‘Dances, Prayers & Meditations For Peace’, and ‘Nouveau Latino’.

• Grammys: His Latin-jazz composition “ Luna Latina” (from Treasures of the Heart) was nominated in 2000 for a Latin Grammy as well as his CD ‘My Latin Soul’ in 2002. In 2001, he won a Latin Grammy for his CD ‘This Side of Paradise’.

• Two Honorary Doctorate degrees from Miami-based Universities – one in 1994 from Barry University and the other in 2000 from Carlos Albizu University – for his commitment to youth education and cultural exchange as an Ambassador of Peace and Culture.

Current location

Miami, FL USA

General Manager

Ivette Delgado/ [email protected]

Influences

My Father, Hubert Laws, Miles Davis,Tito Puente, Richard Egues & Orchestra Aragon

Contacto de prensa

Wanda Jimenez/ [email protected]

Representative

The Jazz Agency
[email protected]
818-813-5299

https://www.facebook.com/NestorTorresMusic/

Felipe Pirela | The Bolero of America

North America / USA / New York

Felipe Pirela:

En mi barrio el empedrao
Parroquia Santa Lucia
Había una barbería
Que era muy populachera
Te lavaban en ponchera
La silla se reclinaba
Y Luis el perro pelaba
Al son de una periquera

This is the sound of the tasty gaita performed by the group Sabor Gaitero and Los Gaiteros de Pillopo. It refers to a barbershop in a picturesque neighbourhood of Maracaibo in the Venezuelan state of Zulia. It was in this popular neighbourhood of Maracaibo, El Empedrao, that Felipe Antonio Pirela Morón was born in 1941. It was probably in this popular barbershop that he got his first haircut, and it was certainly in some corner of the neighbourhood that he took his first steps as a singer, perhaps interpreting gaitas or some other popular genre. The young Felipe was far from imagining that he would become “El Bolerista de América” (The Bolero of America).

The son of a bricklayer, Felipe Pirela Monsalve, and a housewife – an artist at heart – Lucia Morón de Pirela, the boy began his musical career as a child, supported by his mother, in small radio singing competitions. Incredibly, at the age of 13, together with some boys from the neighbourhood and his two brothers, he founded the group Los Happy Boys, which performed in various venues in Maracaibo, without even imagining that he would later become the main star of Billo’s Caracas Boys, a group that, upon arriving in Venezuela, debuted under the same name, Billo’s Happy Boys, directed by the Dominican maestro Billo Frometa.

At the beginning of his singing career, Felipe specialized as a bolerista, performing songs by prominent singers such as the Chilean Lucho Gatica, the Cuban bolerista Olga Gillot and Venezuela’s favorite tenor Alfredo Sadel.

Radio Caracas Television had the honor of making Felipe’s image public for the first time in 1957, through an amateur program in which Felipe placed third. Unfortunately, there were no video recording systems in those days, so there is no record of this historic achievement. Later, the now defunct and legendary Venezuelan regional television station from Maracaibo, Ondas del Lago, served as a springboard for Felipe, who was one of its founding artists.

These performances allowed him to sign a contract with the station in 1958, after which he moved to Caracas, where he performed on Radio Caracas and in various nightclubs.

Shortly thereafter, he returned to Maracaibo to join the orchestra Los Peniques, with whom he recorded his first album in 1960 and began his professional career.

Like most of the artists, baseball players and boxers from Maracaibo, Felipe was a man of humble origins, pobre del pobre, with limited economic resources, who for a time missed opportunities to be noticed despite his immense talent.

Fortune smiled on him when Maestro Billo Frometa heard him sing, at a time when the arranger, director and musician from Quisqueyano was preparing to restructure his band, Billo’s Caracas Boys, and at the same time hired another singer from Maracaibo, the remarkable José “Cheo” García. This hiring gave an enormous boost to the already famous Billo’s Caracas Boys; the band acquired great international prestige, performing throughout America and Europe, popularizing the immortal mosaics that for many years enlivened the parties and were the favorites of the Venezuelan public.

Not for nothing, Billo’s Caracas Boys Orchestra has been called the most popular in Venezuela, the Caracas and Venezuelan clubs, Latin American countries and even the European continent (Tenerife, Spain) showed full houses during the band’s performances. In these performances, the acclaim for Felipe Pirela was total. Huge demonstrations of support, full houses and legions of fans followed the “crooner” on his tours.

When Venezuela’s favorite tenor, Alfredo Sadel, left the popular genre and his country to devote himself to opera, Pirela almost immediately replaced him in the favorite place of Venezuelans.

In 1961, “El Bolerista de América” recorded with a string orchestra conducted by Billo, the long playing Canciones de Ayer, including old songs and songs of that time, a recording that marked his resignation and departure to Mexico, where he also had memorable successes.

In 1964 he married Mariela Montiel, a marriage that resulted in the birth of a daughter, Lennys, and in which La Retirada was quickly marked by the fact that Amor se Escribe con Llanto (Love is Written with Crying) and that it probably does not last a lifetime.

Canada and Mexico witnessed his successes in ’67 and his return to Venezuela. Successful performances in Miami that same year motivated him to reside in the United States, where he tried to structure his own record company, a project that came to nothing and he was deeply disillusioned and returned to Venezuela, later residing in Puerto Rico, where he was taking La Última Copa when he was tragically assassinated in 1972.

For some, his career was marked by Sombras Nada Más, but for the vast majority, “El Bolerista de America” remains in the memory as one of the most unique stars of Latin American music of all time.

For Mario Cabrera Bello

Paquito D’Rivera supports the salsa museum

There have been many legends of whom we have spoken in this section of International Salsa Magazine and today it is the turn of the bandleader, composer, clarinetist, and saxophonist born in Havana, Cuba, Paquito D’Rivera.

Today, we want to dedicate the following lines to one of the main references in Cuban music and everything he has contributed to the Latin music scene, which is growing every day in the United States.

Paquito smiling — Paquito D’Rivera smiling for the camera

Paquito’s beginnings in music

Francisco de Jesús Rivera Figueras, who is artistically known as Paquito D’Rivera, was born in the city of Havana, Cuba and is the son of orchestra director and saxophonist Tito D’Rivera, from whom he inherited his great artistic vein and love for music.

At just five years old, Paquito began studying music formally and, two years later, he was already performing on stage in front of large audiences, which prepared him for what he would do as an adult. That same year, Selmer (a musical instrument company) hired him, which was a very important step in the boy’s path to becoming an artist.

A few years later, he performed at the National Theater of La Habana, which was a very important moment for the young man, who shortly after began studying at the Havana Conservatory, where he specialized in areas of music such as clarinet, composition and harmony.

His first media appearance was during his debut in the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, an event that was nationally televised so that the whole country could appreciate the talent of the young choir boys.

A year later, when he was only 18 years old, Paquito and Chucho Valdés founded the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, while working for the Orquesta Nacional and the Banda del Ejército Cubano.

Paquito playing — Paquito D’Rivera playing the saxophone

Some time later, he founded the Orquesta de Música Moderna with some of his colleagues at the time, and then created the group Irakere, which integrated jazz, traditional Cuban music, classical music and rock in ways never seen before. Together with Irakere, he toured Europe and the United States and earned several Grammy Award nominations.

Leaving Cuba

Like so many Cubans, Paquito became tired of the situation experienced by the island and knew he had to make a final decision on the subject. He took advantage of a stop in Spain and sought asylum at the American embassy in the European country. Once in the United States, his process of adaptation to his new country of residence was not easy, but there were artists who gave him a lot of support such as Mario Bauza, Dizzy Gallespie, David Amram, among others.

It did not take him too long before he earned the love and respect of many members of the jazz music community. His place in the Latin music scene was consolidated thanks to his first two solo albums called ”Paquito Blowin” and ”Mariel”. His popularity was also benefited from a Time magazine article that talked about his great work and his appearance on the famous ”Sunday Morning” show.

He also collaborated with artists such as Artur Sandoval, Michel Camilo, Bebo Valdés, Claudio Roditi, among others. He also participated in the founding of the United Nations Orchestra, Paquito D’Rivera Big Band, Paquito D’Rivera Quinquet and many other groups.

More recently, in 2027, he was in Europe with the Orquesta de Valencia at the Palau de La Música promoting ”The Elephant and The Clown” of his own.

Paquito and Johnny — President of the Spaha Harlem Salsa Museum Johnny Cruz and Paquito D’Rivera

Paquito and the Spaha Harlem Salsa Museum

In December 2023, Paquito visited the Spaha Harlem Salsa Museum to see the huge collection of personal items belonging to world-renowned Latin artists and, once there, he expressed his surprise at the large number of items that both stars and their families have donated to the famous museum.

In a post by Johnny Cruz, the museum’s president, on his Facebook account, Paquito said he was very impressed by all the items housed in the institution while supporting the work done by the museum’s staff and expressing his admiration for the effort devoted to the collection.