Search Results for: guaguancó

Hernan Olivera the sonero of the 21st century

Latin America / Puerto Rico / Puerto Rico

Hernan Olivera, this excellent Salsa singer named Hermenegildo Olivera was born on January 30, 1959 in Newark, New Jersey.

Hernan Olivera is the son of Puerto Rican parents and from an early age he felt a great affinity for Latin music since his father listened to the groups of the moment such as Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Machito, Ismael Rivera with Cortijo y su Combo, Alegre All Stars, Tito Rodríguez, Santitos Colon, etc.

Then, in the 70s, in the midst of the Salsa Boom, Herman began his love of singing listening to the performances of Chamaco Ramírez, Héctor Lavo’e, Cheo Feliciano and Marvin Santiago, among others. These vocalists were mainly his source of inspiration; That school of soneros served as an apprenticeship for him and that is when he made the decision to sing professionally.

Hernan Olivera - photo — Hernan Olivera – photo

When he was just 15 years old, Herman began his career as a Salsa performer with an orchestra called “La Justicia”, after this he was part of the band “La Sónica” where he met his friend and trombonist Jimmy Bosch, after this He spent time with the “Caramelo” orchestra and later made the most important leap in his career by joining the “Con Conjunto Libre” in 1978, where he left his voice for the first time on the LP “Increíble” from 1981 under the direction by percussionist Manolo Oquendo and Bassist Andy González where he stands out with the song “Decide”.

Then in 1983 he would record with the Conjunto Libre in the production “Rhythm, sound and style” the song “Que Humanity” that would become a success. In 1988 Herman left the group “Libre” and became part of a project by Mr. Fernando Pastrana and under the musical direction of trumpeter Miguel Santiago whose album was called “La Exclusiva” which shared the vocal part with Roberto Mier, in this album stands out interpreting the songs “Xiomara” and “Te vi pasa”.

After this, in 1990 he was invited to record on the album “Salsa Sudada”, for the Valdesa Records label of Víctor Raúl Sánchez “Patillas” and with the musical direction of Isidro Infante, sharing vocals with Mario Muñoz “Papaíto”, Adalberto Santiago, Eladio Peguero “Yayo El Indio” and Pablo Villanueva Branda “Melcochita”; in this work he interprets the themes “La needle” and a tribute to the city of Cali called “Valle plata de salsa”.

He continued with his career as a performer and in 1993 he was once again invited to record the production “Now” with the Free Ensemble, where his great conditions and resources as a singer are undoubtedly reflected, there the song “You belong to me” became a hit in addition to other songs such as “Obsesión” and “El Son” stand out on this album.

Subsequently, he launched an independent project called Herman Olivera and La Exclusiva “Chequea La Mercancía” produced by Fernando Pestana, where the song “Me Extra Spider” is one of the most outstanding. In 1996 he reunited with the Conjunto Libre and made the live album entitled “On The Movie”.

Caratula Alta resolucin sin letras of Hernan Olivera

In 1997 he participated in the CD of the band Rikoson All Stars called “Evoluciones Del Son” where he stands out very well in the romantic theme “Aquella Noche”.

Photo - Hernan Olivera in concert — Photo – Hernan Olivera in concert

In 1998 he was requested by the piano teacher Eddie Palmieri and together with the vocalist Wichy Camacho they recorded the album “El Rumbero Del Piano” in which he stood out as a singer in the songs “Malagueña salerosa” and “Oiga mi guaguancó” that same year. he is invited to the recording studios by the trombonist Jimmy Bosch and they release the album titled “Soneando Trombón” which contains the hit “Otra opportunity” that he performs as a duet with Frankie Vázquez, on this CD the song “Descargarana” is also inserted. ”.

That same duo Olivera and Bosch meet the following year (1999) and make the production “Salsa Dura” where Herman shines interpreting the full “Impact we will have” this album also has the participation of the singers Frankie “Nene” Morales and Frankie Vázquez parallel to this album, the RMM label launches a live CD and DVD entitled “Eddie Palmieri & Friend’s” where Herman looks excellent in the number “Palo Pa’ Rumba”.

Salsa y Punto Dance Company! 2001 – 2017

Europe / España

Salsa y Punto Dance Company. Proud to carry their flag around the world

Salsa y Punto has more than 15 years of experience teaching Caribbean rhythms. We cordially invite you to meet them so you can experience the heat and the guaguancó.

Here you will find teachers with great international experience who will teach you and help you improve your dance style. Starting in September, they will be launching new facilities: 2 open-plan rooms with air conditioning, showers and toilets, as well as free parking.

Just 8 minutes from the center of Valencia, in the Alfafar Business Center, surrounded by restaurants and entertainment areas and enjoy between the MN4 Shopping Center and Carrefour.

Without a doubt, it will be your best choice!

Salsa y Punto was born in Caracas Venezuela in 2001, directed by the musician and dancer Jhonny Sánchez and the dancer and choreographer Carmen González.

They are the first dancers to present the Salsa L.A Dance (online) with acrobatics in Venezuela, since at that time the existing dance groups ventured into other dance styles.

Starting in 2001, Jhonny & Carmen show their first Choreographies as a couple to the Venezuelan Salsero public. In previous years they had the opportunity to work in Venezuela and visit Puerto Rico with the Latin Image Group in 2000 and 2001.

Jhonny and Carmen are the pioneers in this style of dance and this is demonstrated by the significant number of presentations and videos for more than 15 years, in which they have managed to forge their own original style over time, “Salsa A3” (3 dancers), since 2003.

They have walked through the best stages in Venezuela, in addition to participating in the most important concerts in Caracas.

They toured their country of origin with the Orquesta Dimensión Latina “2001-2002” and participated in television programs such as: Sabado Sensacional, the Carolina Gómez Show, De Todo Un Poco and De Par en Par.

They were the exclusive couple to represent Venezuela at the World Salsa Congress in Puerto Rico 2002, and in turn managed to be finalists among the best 8 couples in the world at the 1st World Dance Championship “Salsa Open”, Puerto Rico 2002.

In 2003 they visited Spain, as guests at the World Salsa Congress in Valencia, where they were “a revelation as a dance company.”

Due to the great success, and the number of presentations offered by promoters from different festivals, they decided to stay in Valencia, the city that received them for the first time in Europe.

Currently, they direct the Salsa y Punto academy, through which a large number of students from the Valencian Community have passed, and have trained dancers who today work as dancers and teachers.

Since 2002, they have performed at the most important dance festivals in the world and have been the forerunners of Kizomba in Valencia since 2011. In 2013 they managed to be World Runners-up in the Kizomba Open, and Kizomba Champions in Switzerland 2015.

They were finalists of the television program “Tú si que vales 2011”.

To date, they run their dance companies Salsaypunto Dance Company, Salsaypunto Amateur, Kizombaypunto and Bachataypunto.

Proud to carry the flag of Venezuela and Spain around the world.

Nanette Hernández promotes the bomba and plena in New Jersey

We know that the most of our Latin countries have historically become known for genres such as salsa, merengue, bachata and more recently reggaeton and trap. However, the popularity of the aforementioned genres made us leave aside other more local rhythms that also deserve exposure.

On this occasion, we wanted to talk about the bomba and plena, so we resolved to interview Nanette Hernandez, who is one of its main proponents here in the United States, more specifically in New Jersey.

This is Nanette Hernández, who is a great promoter of the bomba and plena

How Nanette became interested in the bomba and the plena

Nanette began by telling us that her interest in music was born thanks to her parents, who are Puerto Rican and moved to the United States, Pennsylvania, during the 1950s to continue their life in this new country. However, his home was built based on Puerto Rican culture and, of course, that included language and music. Her father had an ensemble that played jibaro music and Nanette grew up watching this, so this musical environment was always very familiar to her.

As she grew up, Nanette also became very interested in dancing and discovered that she really liked salsa when she was just a teenager. She remembers listening to Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, El Combo de Puerto Rico and many of the most popular groups and musicians of the time, who also inspired her to keep dancing. She felt that she was encouraged just by dancing, so she continued to do so over the years, but not professionally.

After marrying Juan Cartagena and seeing that she and her husband shared a taste for Latin music, they began to frequent places where Puerto Rican music groups performed. That is how they were in a show of the dance and drum ensemble ”Los Pleneros de la 21”. They were so fascinated by what they saw and heard that both Nanette and Juan began to study the plena and bomba because they wanted to know everything about these rhythms. Their interest was such that they were even in contact and consistently et with the Cepeda family, which is a cultural institution with many years of experience in everything to do with the bomba and plena.

She also mentions that Roberto Cepeda, part of the aforementioned family, was very important in her decision to devote herself to promoting the bomba and plena and feels that he saw something in her that even herself was not able to see, so she decided to search for expert teachers in these genres to become more professional in the dancing and instrumental part in order to be able to teach them to others.

Differences between the bomba and plena

When we asked Nanette about the differences between the bomba and plena, she made it very clear that people often think that they are almost the same, but they are not. They are extremely different and have many differences from each other.

In the case of the bomba, it has re than 400 years of existence and originated in Africa. The genre arrived in America along with the slaves who were brought to the New Continent and the new inhabitants of these lands brought their improvised instruments with them such as the so-called ”barrels”, which have a great resemblance to drums. They are often accompanied by maracas.

In the case of the plena, this rhythm uses the pandero, the güiro and other smaller hand instruments with which they make a completely different sound from the bomba. To complement what Nanette told us, we can also say that the plena is believed to originate in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and its lyrics are very focused on comedy, activism and denunciation. In addition, it is also seen as a very peculiar mix between African and European music.

Another difference between the bomba and plena is that, in the bomba, it is the dancer who leads and guides the musicians, while in plena the opposite happens. These genres are very different from each other, but that does not change the fact that both complement each other perfectly well in any show or class.

Nanette next to her husband Juan Cartagena, Segunda Quimbamba's founder — Nanette next to her husband Juan Cartagena, Segunda Quimbamba’s founder

How Segunda Quimbamba came about

Segunda Quimbamba is a project initiated in 1989 by Juan Cartagena, Nanette’s husband, which was born as a result of the couple’s interest in promoting two of the most important ancestral rhythms from Puerto Rico and preserving the most important musical traditions on the Island of Enchantent, such as the ”parrandas”. A few years later, they began introducing the bomba and plena until they became the center of the project.

In 1997, Nanette and Juan founded the Segunda Quimbamba Folkloric Center, which is a non-profit arts organization that seeks to promote the bomba and plena in New Jersey and the rest of the United States so that those interested can learn more about Puerto Rican music and culture in general. The organization also seeks to offer music and dance workshops at solidarity prices and even for free at times.

Nanette and Juan have been invited to participate in numerous events and have been recognized for the role they have played in promoting Latin music, especially that of Puerto Rico. For example, in 2023, The New Jersey State Council of The Arts recognized the couple with the New Jersey Heritage Fellowship Award in honor of what they have accomplished with this wonderful and ambitious musical project.

The Dudamel | Father and son

Latin America / Venezuela / Caracas

Oscar Dudamel, the father of Gustavo Dudamel, director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Simón Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela, has been a musician for many years. Every Friday and Saturday, he receives applause from the public in the place where he plays the trombone since a small stage with “La Otra Banda de Dudamel” the Agraz ensemble, a salsa group whose main course is the songs of the duo made famous by Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón.

Dudamel Padre e Hijo — Dudamel Father and Son

On Sundays, Oscar Dudamel has to be on the other shore and applaud standing up, as parents do, swollen with pride at the talent of their son who, with baton in hand, conducts a world-renowned Symphony Orchestra and if he think about it, his musical vein germinated from the brass bands of charanga, salsa and guaguancó.

After 10 at night it is difficult to find a place in “The Temple of Salsa”, the tickets are not sold out, but the tables and the best stalls of this place located on 7th Street that crosses Bolivar Avenue in Maracay, there fanatics and amateur dancers meet. of salsa and logically admirers of Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón

Oscar Dudamel on the trombone is accompanied by Charly Guzmán, a talented young man who, at just 18 years old, shows the gifts of his voice; Oswaldo Agraz (musical director, piano and backing vocals), Gerardo Vargas (bass), Vicente Guzmán (timbale), Júnior Narváez (bongo), Diego Camus (conga and backing vocals), Ventura Prieto (trombone) and Johan Figueroa (alternate trombone). It is about the same format, instruments and identical distribution (the trombones next to the vocalist) of the orchestra that captivated him.

And it is that music often also enters through the eyes, as Oscar Dudamel says, who knew he wanted to be a trombonist when he saw Willie Colón at La Feria de la Alegría holding his instrument while puffing out his cheeks, in that In this way, it is known that the first approach of the today brilliant, young and valued Orchestra Director Gustavo Dudamel to music, was not appreciating the Tchaikovsky that he likes to conduct so much, on the contrary, it was appreciating the music that came out of the trombone of his beloved dad.

The previous June, Oscar paid homage to Hector Lavoe as usual, for commemorating years of his death. “Héctor Lavoe died on Monday, June 29, 1993 at 11:45 in the morning”, an event that he remembers with the accuracy that sad events mark, but despite the pain, with satisfaction and pride, he mentions that his son Gustavo de Only 29 years old, before entering the stage he repeats a special ritual: “Before entering New York to direct, someone asked Gustavo: ‘“Master, what are you listening to? Tchaikovsky? and Gustavo replied: ‘No, Tito Rodríguez because he gives me swing'”.

If someone were to say that Gustavo Dudamel owes a debt to Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe for his vocation as a musician, he would not be wrong, or acknowledge his father, who has often referred that his son’s versatility is due to the fact that he always listened to popular and classical music. . “I listened to more salsa than Beethoven, that’s why it has so much rhythm,” he says with a laugh.

“I am his number one fan. He fulfilled the goals that I, due to various circumstances, could not fulfill, he made the dream that I wanted come true. He has reached where I would have liked”, reveals the father, who sees in his son an extension of his, “ .

In a life marked by music, a soundtrack for falling in love could not be missing. It was during the visit of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico to Barquisimeto in the late 1970s that Oscar noticed Solange Ramírez, his wife and Gustavo’s mother; Today, 30 years later, when Falsaria sounds in Maracay, the song leads him to remember that indelible moment.

Gustavo Adolfo, as his mother calls him, began playing the güiro before he was four years old; later he would build his own battery out of biscuit tins and safety helmets.

Dudamel Padre e Hijo photo — Dudamel Father and Son photo

Gustavo received his first knowledge of music from his father, who was then a trombonist with the Lara Symphony, who had plenty of passion to play and lacked patience to teach. He wanted to be a trombonist, like his father, but his small arm could not reach the instrument.

“I imagined that Gustavo was going to be a musician,” he says. “I told him: ‘You have to be the best or among the best and never lose your principles or forget where we come from.'”

At the age of seven Gustavo played the timpani with La Banda Actual and at the age of nine he arranged for this salsa orchestra in which Oscar played for 16 years and with which he met again after many years.

Gustavo decided on the violin, an instrument that adjusted to his size, and at home, father and son had the habit of studying while walking. There were times when one would bend down for the other to pass, so that the slide of the trombone and the bow of the violin would not trip over each other. However, popular music and academic music finally made their own meeting.

Oscar does not shake his hair, but he inflates his lungs with force and from that mouth-to-mouth breathing with his instrument, he manages to get the best out of it…. The father speaks of his salsa orchestra with the same pride that the son (Gustavo) does of his classical musicians.

La Candela Salsa Orchestra has a new album titled “On Time”

Europe / Peru

After the worldwide success of their previous work on the best dance floors, the Candela Salsa Orchestra makes a new foray into the sound of legendary sextets like Joe Cuba’s, seasoned with the characteristic sound of the vibraphone. The DJs at conferences and salsa parties, who support Candela’s work worldwide, have had a lot to do with this success, such as:

Members of the new musical theme On Time - Candela Salsa Orchestra — Members of the new musical theme On Time – Candela Salsa Orchestra

DJ Pablo Bat (Spain), DJ Hugo Leite (Portugal), DJ Chino (Colombia), DJ Momo (Japan), DJ Lasse (Norway), DJ Antonio La Conga (NYC), DJ Mauri (Holland), DJ David Muñoz ( Germany), DJ Toni (Switzerland) or DJ Andrea Martini (Italy) among many others.

With this new work, La Candela promises not to leave lovers of a pure and authentic sound focused on the dancer, where there is no shortage of montuno, mambo, guaguancó, pachanga, boogaloo and danceable Latin jazz.

On Time - Candela Salsa Orchestra Members — On Time – Candela Salsa Orchestra Members

The album, which is produced by Batlei Productions and with the collaboration of Canarian musicians, such as Manuel Ángel Lorenzo “Mangüi” and the “Original Big Band”, makes a nod and at the same time a tribute to the great dance bands of the 50s, the golden age of the prestigious Palladium in New York.

After the success achieved in the last edition of the Benidorm Salsa Congress, the most important congress held in Spain, this year they repeated the visit once again last Thursday, July 13, where they officially presented this new album, which has been recorded at Arena Digital under the direction of sound engineer Juan Carlos Hernández.

Presentation "On Time" Benidorm (Photo by Alfil Photography) — Presentation “On Time” Benidorm (Photo by Alfil Photography)

In a very short time and leaving from the Canary Islands, La Candela has been able to carve out a niche for itself within the salsa scene worldwide. Their music can be heard from Australia to California, passing through such exotic places as Taiwan, Malaysia, India, etc. With the new album, they intend to establish themselves in this market and make different presentations that are already closing both in Spain and in the rest of Europe and America.

La Candela is made up of: Rafael “Richie” Rodríguez, voice; Fonsi Rodríguez, piano: Alejandro Fuentes, bass: Jordi Arocha, vibraphone; Fran Martín, congas; Alberto Martín, timpani; José Brito, bongo and bell. A band that mixes experience with youth, which provides a fresh and different sound for the dancer. Without a doubt La Candela is here to stay “On Time”.

The album is now available on the digital music platform CDBaby.com and soon on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, etc. It will also be available very soon in CD and vinyl format at www.cucumpa.com

More information on Facebook: lacandelasalsa

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