CANADADIRECTORY OF NIGHTCLUBS |
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UNITED STATESDIRECTORY OF NIGHTCLUBS |
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| CALIFORNIA | FLORIDA | ILLINOIS |
| MICHIGAN | NEW JERSEY | NEW YORK |
| OHIO | PENNSYLVANIA | TEXAS |
| VIRGINIA | WASHINGTON | |
| APRIL 2024 FESTIVALS | ||
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Colorado State Dance ChampionshipApr 20 / 21, 2024 7000 Church Ranch Blvd, Denver, CO, United States,80021 |
Peru continues to give us something to talk about thanks to all the salsa talent coming out that country in recent years and today we had the opportunity to talk with one of them, which is the producer, composer and singer Julio Vilchez.
After we communicated with Vilchez via email and WhatsApp to schedule an interview, we have managed to have a great conversation in which we knew a little more about the artist’s beginnings in this fascinating world that is music.
It is not surprising that Vilchez took that parth of life considering that his father, Juan José Vilchez Sanchez, was a talented actor, comedian and professional dancer who carried music in the blood and ran some of the most famous salsa clubs in the city of Lima, which served as a stage for important national and international groups and singers of all genres.
Having referred with admiration to his father because of all that he achieved in life thanks to music, he assured that music definitely ran through the veins of his family and had always been a very important part of his childhood and youth.
Seeing all this, the years were not many when Vilchez became interested in musical instruments such as maracas, the bongo bell and the güiro, which led him to participate in groups such as Raíces, La Fragua and Soy Calidad.
A large majority of Peruvian artists whom we had the honor to interview have typically ventured in Peruvian Creole music before getting involved in salsa, but not Vilchez. In fact, he pointed out to us that his country was heavily influenced by Cuba musically speaking and there used to be a time when groups from the island visited Peru such as La Sonora Matancera and Los Compadres. Peru also received influence from Colombia, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, although to a lesser extent.
The artist also remembers that, at home, he and his family always used to listen to Venezuelan singers and orchestras such as La Dimensión Latina, Oscar D’ León, Luisito Quintero, Nati Y Su Orquesta, among others. In the case of Puerto Rico, of course Vilchez and his family used to listen to La Fania All Stars.
In the neighborhood Vilchez and his family lived in, the singer made friends with other local boys and met up with them to sing in a completely amateur way. In addition to that, he liked to participate in school talent shows, in which he delighted the crowd performing songs from Oscar D’León, Rubén Blades and Willie Colón.
After attaining the age of 17, he began working alongside his father in the business of running clubs, which gave him the opportunity to spend time with the members of the orchestra La Progresiva del Callao, who performed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in one of those places.
Since Vilchez loved to dance and the orchestra focused a lot on its choreographies, the young man identified himself a lot with the group and began to learn the steps the singers performed on stage. One day, the boys saw him dancing and invited him to sing with them in one of their shows, in which he danced very well, but he did not sing in the best way. For this reason, he got the opportunity to stay permanently in the orchestra, but only as a dancer for the moment.
Over time, he was grabbing experience on stage and getting over stage fright until he managed to keep up with the rest of his orchestra fellows with the passing of days.
Vilchez made friends with a group of Venezuelan musicians who accompanied Oscar D’ León in one of his concerts and invited him to travel with them to Venezuela because they wanted him to be part of the sextet they were going to create, which was meant to perform at a tavern in Caracas.
Seeing that things were going well in Venezuela at that time, Vílchez decided to accept the invitation and immigrate to the South American country to try his luck. Once there, he spent a lot of time alone because the boys from the sextet traveled a lot, something which took advantage to get to know other groups, one of them being La Selecta de Cúa. One day, Vilchez was walking down the street and heard this orchestra rehearsing, but it needed a singer. That is when Vilchez proposed himself as an option, was admitted and worked for about two years in this orchestra.
Although he did well in Venezuela, he ended up returning to his native country because he missed his homeland and his father could not get used to having him away, so he packed suitcases and decided to return.
One of the songs he released in 1995 led him to make a video clip, which started to become very popular on music channels and shows, giving him the recognition Vilchez aimed for so long.
Since things were not going as he expected on his solo career, he joined the Orquesta La Novel to continue working on music for the next two years. Although his name was not as well known as Vilchez needed it to be, his song was still sounding loud internationally for quite some time, which led him to receive a proposal to perform eight shows with his orchestra in the United States in 2000.
When Vilchez and the rest of the musicians traveled to Miami, about nine members of the orchestra received proposals to stay in the country and decided to accept. It was there where the artist gathered his courage and says to himself ”I’m staying too”. That was over 24 years ago now.
At that point, the Peruvian had to look for other musicians to replace the others in order to finish the concert tour they had scheduled. It was then when he contacted José Alberto ”El Canario” through a Peruvian colleague of his to use his band for the remainder of the tour and so he did. Vilchez did two or three shows with this band and stayed in Miami from 2001 to 2004.
Given the lack of musical proposals, he spent a few years in New York, but returned to Miami some time later to work both with music and with a business sector linked to gastronomy, since living only from music is complicated. In addition to that, his children live in Miami and he wanted to spend more time with them, so this was also a powerful reason to return.
Read also: Argentine-American composer and guitarrist Alejandro Meola kindly talked to us
Europe / Reino Unido/ Londres
With her powerful, compelling voice, to kick off 2019 Nolita Golding launches her new single “There Must Be An Angel” This single release is a step-change up in her career, cementing her reputation as a world class vocalist who can seamlessly weave between Soul and Latin in both English and Spanish.
The 80’s hit “There Must Be An Angel” (penned by Annie Lennox & David A. Stewart) has been deliciously arranged by Alex Wilson into a Soulful Latin version full of Caribbean flavour and laced with Gospel. Driven by Nolita’s power vocals and personality, she sets the scene for a definite hit in 2019! Soulful Latin… the new wave to hit the dance floors!
At present there is a musical trend focussed on the wonderful cultural revolution of the 60s in New York, when Latin America’s sounds were fused with jazz, soul and rock. This gave birth to fresh new styles such as boogaloo, spearheaded by luminaries such as Pete Rodriguez, Ricardo Ray, Joe Bataan and Joe Cuba.
Nolita Golding carries the soul of those pioneers and her unmistakable style proves it. In her constant search for excellence, Nolita completed this new single at Wincraft Music Studios, owned by Steve Winwood. The production was masterminded by award-winning producer Alex Wilson and features special guest and Latin Grammy-nominated Tony Succar on timbales. In addition, Venezuelan percussion master Edwin Sanz and Cuban rock guitar powerhouse, Dany Labana, have added their magic … this band is simply smoking!
The creative process has been a unique and magical experience, resulting in a track fully loaded with rhythm, positive energy, Caribbean flavor and mucho sabor!
As ever, the impressive power of Nolita Golding’s voice combined with her bilingual skills has her in continuing high demand as the session vocalist who consistently delivers the goods!
We invite you to enjoy this new single, which comes out at the beginning of this month…
It was created just for you and we guaranteed you will fall in love with it!
Don’t miss the opportunity to experience Nolita Golding Soulful Latin live concerts during her Europe Tour 2019.
There are many legendary orchestras in Puerto Rico that may not be widely known to many, but La Puertorriqueña is one of those names that cannot be excluded from the musical history of Puerto Rico and Latin America in general. Today, we were fortunate to interview Don Perignon, leader of the group, so that he could tell us about himself and the orchestra he founded.
Pedro Luis Morales Cortijos, better known as Don Perignon, is a bandleader and timbalero with whom we had the pleasure to talk about his musical background and the Orquesta La Puertorriqueña, which has given him the recognition he has nowadays. Then, these are the most important topics covered in the pleasant conversation we had with the veteran musician.
When asked about why he is known as Don Perignon, he laughs and says that this is the most frequently asked question he has answered in the past three decades.
It all started because his familly called him ”Perin”. Then, one day, a musician from Andy Montañez orchestra in Miami asked him why he was called that, to which he replied that he has always been called ”Perin” in Puerto Rico. Later, the same gentleman arrived with a bottle of Dom Perignon (a well-known vintage champagne brand) and said that, for him, this young man was a grown man because of how he conducted himself, so from now on he was going to call him Don Perignon.
After that, Andy Montañez took it as a joke and began referring to the musician as Don Perignon, which other fellow musicians began to do, so it ended up being his official stage name.
How did Don Perignon fall in love with music?
Don Perignon told us that the first instruments he liked were the bongo and the conga, but that changed immediately as he knew the timbal, which he felt was more in line with the personality that he projected.
This curiosity for music led him and other teens his age to create an improvised group, while being at the school and studying at the Puerto Rico school of music. It was not a long time that he was in the institution, but it was enough to learn everything he would need in the future. In addition, the style he has nowadays when performing and leading an orchestra was acquired by watching Barry White, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, among other celebrities of the day.
Something that Don Perignon wanted to clarify with regards to La Puertorriqueña is that the project did not start in 1975 as we thought, but that the group started with other names until 1987, which is when the artist and his colleagues finally decided to name it that way.
In the early 1970s, both Don Perignon and the rest of his colleagues, in his own words, were ”kids playing at being musicians” who were only interested in playing. However, over time, they started taking things a lot more seriously and decided it was time to pass the baton to someone, so they all took a vote and chose the young man as their bandleader because he was the tallest, had more physical presence and more character.
That responsibility he was given was a training-school for Don Perignon and acquired most of the knowledge he has today about music. Although the group eventually broke up, the artist is proud that his former orchestra fellows have achieved success and obtain prestige in the projects they undertook, which shows that those seeds they sowed at the time have borne fruit. According to him, ”they all achieved their dream thanks to discipline”.
Over time, other musicians joined the orchestra and also did their bit to make La Puertorriqueña what it is today.
Don Peringnon has said that one of the most important features of La Puertorriqueña is to always pay homage to the dancers and of course their latest album ”Demostrando a Tiempo” could not be the exception. Orchestras and Latin artists in general can interpret music in their own way, but a common denominator between all of them is that they will always include the characteristic spice of the dance and that is what we aim for in each of our productions,” said the musician.
It is for this that the artist says that ”Demostrando a Tiempo” is not very different from the rest of the work made by the orchestra, since they have always paid homage to dancers and they will never deviate from that path. What has changed is that the group experienced with much more romantic lyrics than ever and included them in special rhythms for dancers. This makes the production have the perfect fusion of rhythms for those who dance or simply listen.
Another important detail is that ”Demostrando a Tiempo” can also be defined as a mix between tradition and modernity. In this regard, the bandleader points out that, in the early days of salsa, most musicians were self-taught, until conservatories and music schools welcomed salsa, so musicians were better academically trained and new ways of performing and doing things in general emerged. Therefore, Don Perignon and his musicians, who are from the old guard, have had to adapt to the new times, but without leaving aside the essence with which they started their project.
Some of its main songs are a new version of the classic ”Soy Tu Ley”, ”A Quien Iré”, ”Sácala A Bailar”, ”Sin Rumbo”, among many others that La Puertorriqueña fans will find in this album.
After a few weeks of its release, critical reception to the album was very positive and Don Perignon trusts that the impact will be greater as days go by.
Read also: Career and interesting facts about Venezuelan singer and musician Omar Ledezma Jr.
