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Music reviewer and photojournalist Ricky Ricardo describes his work from the last 35 years

Ricky Richardson, better known as Ricky Ricardo, is one of those important figures who should be taken notice of for his significant contribution to Latin music, even if it is often not quite appreciated by the public. The Tampa-born photographer, writer, and music reviewer has honoured us by talking about his career and experience covering events related to Latin culture and music, so we invite our readers in the beginning of the year to enjoy the revelations of our talented guest.

Ricky Richardson at the festival — Ricky Richardson at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival entrance

How Ricky got started in the coverage and review to Latin music and cultural events

First of all, Ricky thanked us for the interview and went on to tell us that he started as a photographer for a local newspaper called California Crusader News. Over time, his superiors asked him to start writing articles to accompany his photographic work, resulting in music reviews based on his attendance at numerous events and festivals throughout Los Angeles and beyond.

His work also included meetings with newspaper and magazine publishers who were always searching for content for their own publications, which led Ricky to send reviews and photos to all kinds of publications.

Major publications Ricky has worked with

Among the most important publications Ricky has collaborated with is Latin Beat, which was the main means of communication related to Afro-Cuban music. The photographer met Rudy and Yvette Mangual many times at various concerts and festivals. They met backstage at the Hollywood Bowl during the Blue Note Jazz Festival, an event he covered just like all the artists who performed there.

He also covered events in other parts of the United States, such as the New Orleans & Jazz Heritage Festival and the French Quarter Fest.

Kathy, Lázaro, and Nelson. Photo by Ricky — Kathy “La Rumbera” Diaz, Lázaro Galarraga and Nelson Rodriguez (Photo by Ricky Richardson)

In the case of Vidasalsera, Ricky first heard that name coming out of a musician’s mouth at a Puerto Rican festival in Long Beach, where he often ran into Cal Sakaniwa, the photographer and videographer for this media outlet. That is when he reached out to the webmistress of Vidasalsera.com Dena Burroughs and began providing photo galleries for her website, even though they have never met in person.

What made Ricky fall in love with Afro-Cuban music

During his childhood and youth in Tampa, Ricky was very exposed to Latin music due to the large Cuban population living in the Ybor City area, and he and several of his friends used to frequent many places and stores where this music was played.

When the young man heard Afro-Cuban music for the first time on radio stations KACE and KKGO (nowadays known as KJAZZ) was a point of no return for him. His love for this kind of music was greatly strengthened by radio programs such as Alma Del Barrio, Jazz on the Latin Side, Canto Tropical, Groove Time, and Canto Sin Fronteras. Not to mention that many international artists were constantly giving concerts at venues and festivals.

Events covered by Ricky to date

Throughout his career as a photographer, Ricky covered a huge number of events, including the Long Beach Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Central Avenue Jazz Festival, Los Angeles Street Scene, San Diego Street Scene, Simon Rodia Watts Towers Jazz Festival, Watts Towers Day of The Drum Festival, Cuban-American Festival, Puerto Rican Festival, and many others.

When we wanted to know more about his experiences at these events, he replied that he felt very honored to have been able to share with established and emerging artists over the past 35 years. He also feels very lucky to have been able to witness such wonderful performances by artists who always greet him and spend warm smiles at him whenever they meet him.

Dionne, Monica, and James. Photo by Ricky — Councilwoman Dionne Faulk, Monica Bracho, Mayor James T. Butts Jr., Councilwoman, and Brendt Stallings, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Investment Officer-Inglewood Park Cemetery (Photo by Ricky Richardson)

Alma Del Barrio Fest 2025

Ricky told us that he had the honor of attending the first and second iteration of the Alma Del Barrio Salsa Festival, which took place at different locations at Loyola Marymount University. Future attendees got really excited about the current venue chosen by the organization to host the event, which is Lawton Plaza with its amphitheater, seating arrangement, abundance of grass, and the dance floor.

“I love the fact that many people get to meet and greet some of Alma Del Barrio Program Hosts (DJ’s) in person. I like the fact that Alma Del Barrio Salsa Festival attracts several generations of salseros, that are diverse, multi-cultural, and from all walks of life.,” Ricky said on the subject.

Why Ricky retired last year

Last year, Ricky finally made the decision to retire from music critics and photography after covering the Latin music scene for so many years in order to allow new generations of talented journalists to take over and keep Afro-Cuban music alive.

He is currently looking for opportunities to work in public relations and marketing for sporting events that will be held in the next three years such as the NBA All-Star Weekend, the FIFA Worzld Cup, the Super Bowl, and the Olympic Games.

Eduardo Herrera. The Man Behind Every Song – The Story of His Music

Latin America / Puerto Rico / Puerto Rico

“There’s a wide variety of artists, singers, and famous orchestras in different parts of the world, but that doesn’t mean you can’t discover new artists who have the motivation and desire to boost their musical talent. Here, we have as our guest Eduardo Herrera, a salsa and ballad singer.

Eduardo is the son of Puerto Rican parents, raised in New York with a ‘boricua sazón’ (Puerto Rican flavor/style). From a very young age, he fell in love with music, and over time, he gained many musical experiences in different genres with Latin nuances and foreign fusions.

He mentions that when he was younger, he participated in youth choirs on stages and attended concerts of great artists, learning the lyrics of urban music. As time passed, he captivated the perfect school that shaped his unique style; it includes spiritual music, Latin rhythms, and the influence of American styles without abandoning his Puerto Rican roots. He also mentions that he had the opportunity to share and collaborate with very famous artists who influenced him with their exceptional style and talent, even to this day.

Eduardo Herrera comments that his music is a collection of life experiences that many people identify with. It has no age or time; it has ‘sazón,’ Caribbean rhythm, and soulfulness.

It simply identifies what no one else sees or knows in or about you. In fact, his songs tell stories; they tell your life, his, and mine. Each story on a bus or train in New York, each event in family life or with a stranger, the stories of the fans, among others.”

“Eduardo Herrera comments that his music is a collection of life experiences that many people identify with. It has no age or time; it has ‘sazón,’ Caribbean rhythm, and soulfulness.

When you hear the melody, you fall in love; when you pay attention to the lyrics, you are captivated; when you listen to it again, you turn it into something that identifies you, regardless of your age, race, condition, or gender. It simply identifies what no one else sees or knows in or about you. In fact, his songs tell stories; they tell your life, his, and mine. Each story on a bus or train in New York, each event in family life or with a stranger, the stories of the fans, among others.

Eduardo Herrera - El Amor — Eduardo Herrera – El Amor

In the course of his life, he mentions that it was a transition as he went through many positive and negative life experiences, which allowed him to gain different meanings for the emotions he felt, whether real or false. All these experiences helped him help others, such as in personal growth.

In ‘Salsa‘ and ‘Balada,’ he has found his perfect space to express what he carries in his life’s baggage. Hoping that many couples will have a happy life to the rhythm of his music. Eduardo told us, ‘To achieve that emotional catharsis that lifts you up from any tragedy, it is necessary to LOVE YOURSELF BEFORE LOVING SOMEONE.’ So remember that when you listen to Eduardo Herrera’s music: ‘LOVE YOURSELF BEFORE LOVING SOMEONE.’

Recognizing the value of an individual and appreciating their abilities while learning from mistakes, that is what defines every song you will hear from Eduardo. The message will arrive; it’s up to you for the outcome to be happy. Because you learn from the difficulties in the process, the final result depends on how you handle the ‘tests’ to qualify yourself in feelings for the life you choose to live.

If you wish to know more about him:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eduardoherrerasalsa
Instagram: eduardoherrerasalsa
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 787 399 5064

Cache Live Music puts Miami to dance to traditional Latin music

Roland Cache graced this edition with his presence to tell us about his beginnings, the subsequent creation of his band Cache Live Music, and his current career. The American of Cuban descent honors his roots with the music he and his collaborators play to delight their fans at any event they are hired, indicating the pride he feels in representing his parents’ country and how passionate he is about his craft.

Roland shared many interesting details about his musical life, and we are more than happy to share them with our readers in the following lines.

Roland Cache playing drums live at an event

Roland’s musical beginnings as a teenager

As a child, Roland lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where some high school friends convinced him to play drums with them. Their favorite genre was the rock of the day, which was the 1960s. A few years later, specifically in 1973, another friend took him to a salsa concert at Madison Square Garden, and he liked what he heard so much that he became more involved in Latin music and left American music aside.

Seeing great artists such as Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, and other artists of Puerto Rican descent, he learned to play timbales, tumbadora, and bongos, which allows him to play a combination of conga, timbales, and clave at the same time.

Orchestras prior to Cache Live Music

Before creating his own band, Roland was part of other projects that were training him for what was to come in his career later. One of them was a band from New Jersey, whose members formed La Charanga Casino, which became very popular in that city.

Some time later, Roland could not play for a while, so he has been throwing himself into selling cars and other area businesses. Then, in 1998, he returned to music and created an American band that played rock and jazz with a touch of Latin music.

Roland Cache and the rest of the band — Roland Cache and the rest of Cache Live Music

Creation of Cache Live Music

Eventually, he left the American band and founded a Latin band called Cache Live Music with a group of musicians, some of whom remain alongside Roland to this day. He met most of them through another musician friend who introduced them so he was knowing other artists who joined his project.

Cache Live Music was officially started in 1999, and according to its founder, the hardest thing about keeping a band like this together for so long was the search of opportunities in clubs and other kinds of places. However, Roland says that his experience as a salesman and negotiator has helped him a lot in winning contracts and the best conditions for him and his bandmates.

Current status of Cache Live Music

Today, the core of the band consists are three of its members: the guitarist, the bassist, and Roland, who is a multi-instrumentalist. More recently, Cache included a flutist, a trombonist, and sometimes a singer. This is how, depending on the requirements for a particular event, the group’s leader decides which members and instruments to include for every occasion in order to offer something different.

Cache at an Amazon event — Cache Live Music at an Amazon corporate event

Regarding the repertoire, they only perform covers, but they ensure that each and every song has their personal touch so that they resemble as little as possible to the original versions.

Anyone who wants to hire Cache Live Music can do so through its profile on The Bash by making a deposit and sending a contract to agree on the conditions of the event. However, it is important to note that they are already booked for December and January with corporate parties and weddings, for which we wish them every possible success because they already have the talent.

Former Mayor of Miami Tomas Pedro Regalado and Roland Cache

Spain is reborn in new Cuban music by Yalil Guerra

The immense Hispanic legacy is usually relegated to the background, while being a key part of our sound identity.

Reference Image about Spain — Reference Image

Yalil talking about Spain — Composer, bandleader, and Latin GRAMMY winner Yalil Guerra.
Image courtesy of RYCY Productions

By YALIL GUERRA

The birth of the Cuban nation, after gaining its independence from its former colonizer, Spain, marked a break that transcended political concerns and entered strongly in the cultural aspect. Cubans were “denaturalized” after the Treaty of Paris in 1898, leading to a profound metamorphosis of identity that was inevitably reflected in our music. Out of that process a fresh and powerful sound expression emerged: a vibrant fusion between European, African, and North American influences, something that had already begun in the 19th century but was driven by a growth music industry and the cultural magnet of its northern neighbor, the United States.

For years I have listened to, studied, and enjoyed Cuban popular music — both the old and contemporary— and what I notice is that most productions tend to highlight the folklore—especially the Afro-descendant roots and the imprint of jazz — while the immense Hispanic legacy is usually relegated to the background, while being a key part of our musical identity.

In Cuban music today, both on and off the island, the record business is committed to a modern and bold sound. Compositions explore contemporary harmonies, bitonality, and extended chords — resources that come from both classical music and jazz — entwined with surprising and refreshing harmonic cycles. In wind instruments, melodic lines and musical motifs reveal the virtuosity and creativity of a new generation of musicians and arrangers, who are raised in solid academic traditions but open to global influences. The percussion stands out for its polyrhythm and the number of sophisticated tutti that require a unique expertise, but the Spanish influence is quite absent or just present in the language.

In contrast, What caught my attention was the newest music of singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Alain Pérez on his new album Bingo, where Spain resonates powerfully and recognizably. I find this gesture very special, as it vindicates a Spanish legacy in Cuban music that is often forgotten or minimized. I also highlight the case of pianist and composer José (Pepe) Rivero and his new album Estampas y Raíces where he pays tribute to classical Spanish composers, mixing their works with his unique interpretive style, bringing it closer to the language of Cuban jazz that is so familiar to him.

What about the large mass of Cuban artists and musicians who do not pay homage to the mother country? It is that we lost our historical memory or has it been erased? Is the omission of certain elements of our Spanish traditions a symptom of what some call the “Spanish Black Legend,” a myth that has seeped into our musical history and present?

I remember when Juan Perón said:

“And through the figure and work of Cervantes, Argentina pays tribute to the mother country, fruitful, civilizing, eternal, and to all peoples who have emerged from its maternal womb.” “And through the figure and work of Cervantes, Argentina pays tribute to the mother country, fruitful, civilizing, eternal, and to all peoples who have emerged from her maternal womb.”

Cuba is no exception.

Over the years, in response to the previously exposed, I have tried to make Spain present in my work: incorporating harmonious colors, Andalusian cadences, and the Phrygian mode—so tied to the Iberian sound—creating compositions devoted specifically to Spanish culture, especially my new string quartet entitled “Noches de España”, following the line of our great composer Ernesto Lecuona, who knew how to bring to life both African and Spanish things. As for me, I seek to keep alive that heritage and project it onto 21st-century Cuban music, without forgetting our important African legacy.

Today, rescuing the Spanish heritage in Cuban music is not just an act of memory: it is also an opportunity to rediscover the richness of crossbreeding that continues to define who we are and how our history sounds. Contemporary Cuban music not only looks to the future: it sings to its African roots, but it also needs to reconnect with that other essential part of our identity. After all, we think, love, and communicate in Spanish. Every note, every guitar or lute that sounds, will evoke that heritage and bring us near to the fullness of what we are.

It does not matter the color our skin is, or whether our grandfather was from Asturias or the Congo: cultural fusion is what forged our identity and will remain the essence of Hispanic America. Mexican writer, philosopher, and politician José Vasconcelos said: “I am Hispanic, and nothing about Hispanic is alien to me.”

At this crucial time, Cuban music has the challenge—and the opportunity—to sing its entirety. And in doing so, it shows us that, beyond styles or labels, what unites us is the sound of a common history.

Charlie Sierra was a prominent Puerto Rican timbalero, recognized for his long musical career and virtuosity on the instrument

Carlos Manuel Sierra Sánchez, better known in the music world as “Charlie Sierra,” was born on October 10, 1956, in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico.

Charlie Sierra fue un destacado timbalero puertorriqueño

An excellent percussion musician from Barrio Sabana, Charlie Sierra recorded with important figures in music such as Don Mario Ortiz, Andy Montañez, Raphy Leavitt, Marc Anthony, Oscar D’León, Julito Alvarado, and many others. He even recorded the album Bravo by the Fania All-Stars in 1997.

To the worldwide community of salsa fans (salsómanos), he was a member, along with Chago Martínez, Tito De Gracia, Edgardo Morales, and Edwin Clemente, of the Gran Cumbre de Timbaleros (Great Summit of Timbaleros) that emerged in Puerto Rico’s rumbero (Afro-Cuban rhythm/rumba) scene during the penultimate decade of the 20th Century.

Charlie Sierra fue un destacado timbalero puertorriqueño reconocido por su larga trayectoria musical y su virtuosismo en el instrumento

Among these five virtuosos, the majority of the recording sessions in the Puerto Rican market were divided. The others were, practically, second choices for producers.

This fortunate circumstance allowed him to develop an impressive discography as a session musician, which includes the most stellar names in salsa. Likewise, he traveled across a large part of the globe as a member of the backing bands for many of those stars.

Our biographical subject was a child when he began, without a teacher, to learn the bongos and drums which he also played on recordings and on stage and the timbales, leading him to be identified as a fundamentally intuitive musician.

At the age of thirteen, he moved with his family to Bayamón, and it was during his time as a student at the Nuestra Señora del Rosario School that he began to show signs of his talent.

At fourteen, he enrolled in the Ernesto Ramos Antonini Free School of Music (Escuela Libre de Música), where he was a disciple of the Argentine master Samuel Lipchik.

During that time, he also advanced his knowledge of the flute, guitar, and piano, instruments he would never cultivate professionally, as percussion was always his great passion.

Papo Lucca, Charlie Sierra y Cheo Feliciano

However, his time at the Free School of Music was relatively brief (1972-1974). He soon began his professional career, gaining his first experiences with the Orquesta Rica and the Orquesta Tabú.

During this period, he received private lessons from the renowned professor Raúl Berríos Sánchez.

Fully immersed in the music scene, his name began to gain relevance in the salsa world following his tenure with the original Orquesta Mulenze, led by bassist Edwin Morales, during the 1976-1978 period.

At that time, this organization focused its work on providing accompaniment to solo singers affiliated with the genre, both national and foreign, who visited the island. He had the opportunity to travel with several of them: Santos Colón, Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano, Chivirico Dávila, Pellín Rodríguez, Yayo El Indio, etc.

From the Orquesta Mulenze, he moved to the lineup of Raphy Leavitt & La Selecta (1978-1979), with whom he had the opportunity to record hits like “La cosquillita,” vocalized by Tony Vega. He later worked with the orchestra led by pianist Tito Valentín, which featured Marvin Santiago as the vocalist.

He then joined trumpeter Mario Ortiz’s orchestra (1982-1984); he collaborated in the founding of the backing bands for the great sonero (Cuban son singer) Carlos «Cano» Estremera (1984) and the equally admired Tony Vega (1988).

In the interim, he worked independently and constantly recorded with other groups and a large number of soloists. He maintained this intense work routine until the present.

In 2009, Charlie Sierra organized his own orchestra, Paso Nivel, with which he recorded the album Ganas de bailar (Paso Nivel, CD-10692).

The album prominently features singer Efraín «Pichi» Gaetán, and included special guests such as Cheo Feliciano, Ismael Miranda, Andy Montañez, and Gilberto Santa Rosa, as well as Primi Cruz, Darvel García, and Héctor Luis «Pichie» Pérez.

Charlie Sierra was a distinguished Puerto Rican salsa timbalero, recognized for his long musical career and his virtuosity on the instrument.

He passed away on October 23, 2024, at the age of 67. Throughout his career, he collaborated with artists of the stature of Andy Montañez, Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano, and Bobby Cruz.

Musical Career: He began his career with the Orquesta Mulenze in 1970 and later joined Raphy Leavitt & La Selecta’s band.

Notable Collaborations:

He worked with Andy Montañez for over 25 years, being a key piece in his orchestra. He also collaborated with artists like Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Bobby Cruz (on the hit “Sonido Bestial”), Tito Valentín, among others.

Own Orchestra: In 2009, he founded his own orchestra called Paso Nivel, with which he recorded the album “Ganas de bailar” (Desire to Dance).

Collaborators:

L’Òstia Latin Jazz

Also Read: Orestes Vilato. Cuban multi-percussionist.