Pedrito Calvo Jr. - CUBANEO

CUBANEO - Pedrito Calvo Jr.

Pedrito Calvo Jr. is about to releases his second full-length CD, "CUBANEO". It contains ten tracks which range from salsa to timba to timbaton and even one mambo-son, appropriately titled "Mamboson". The album was recorded in Havana and Italy, and mixed and mastered in Italy. We took the opportunity to ask PC about the new project.

Well CUBANEO comes at a necessary for me, after almost 3 years spent between composition, arrangement, recording in Cuba and Italy, and time mixing and mastering. It's CD designed for various audiences where I enjoy moving from salsa to timba, and also what is called timbaton plus as son with mambo where I have in mind a performance dancing.

You collaborated a lot with Juan Kemell on the CD. In addition to arranging five of the songs and singing coro, he was co-musical producer together with you and Azaris Pijuan. How did the working relationship function?

Look, with Kemell there has been a chemistry since the last record, because his arrangements reflect each note or chord in my mind and he always manages to capture it with his expertise. Kemell also followed much of the recording and mixing process with great professionalism. Azeris Pijuan, bassist and musical director of the orchestra, was involved in Italy with all the putting together of arrangements and the other parts of the recording process. It has been a very good combination that has resulted in the album that I dreamed of.

The single that you have released to DJs is called “Ready Pa’ Mí” and is a timbatón that you recorded with Super Joe El Mayoral. What was it like collaborating on a sing with himl?

The song READY PA 'MI was co-written by Joel Gonzales "EL MAYORAL" and myself. Joelito has a million fresh ideas for good songs and one day commenting on how everything moves around an artist, we started writing the chorus and that's how the whole song arose, then the arrangement and midi+demo was made by Oldrich thinking only about reggaeton. Joe and I proposed to do timba version which is what remained.

Do you notice any differences between the musical preferences of the dancers in Cuba and in various cities in Europe?

Surely everyone has various answers, but from what I have seen, the musical preferences do exist but are reduced more each day, and it may be a small thing, but new technologies (if we think 80-90 years) have helped greatly to further promote our music. The European audiences follow more and more the work of all the artists, and as a consequence, the musical patterns of the fans change more easily. I marvel at how people dance in several European countries, they know the Cuban bands, it is really impressive to see how it is promoted and how they have that unbridled passion.

The official release date may be announced as soon as next week, so stay tuned!

Track list:
Burundanga
Se Acabó
Con Fe
Cuba Mía
Ready Pa'mí
Felicidad
Chica Mala
Salsa Salsita
Mamboson
Ya Llegué

Arrangment	Track
Juan Kemell	1-3-4-6-10
José Ramón Núñez	2-9
Oldrich González	5
Juan Carlos Ávila	7-8

General Direction: Pedro José Calvo

Musical Production: Juan Kemell, Azaris Pijuan, Pedro José Calvo
Executive Production: Christian Madera

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Saturday, 15 February 2014, 07:19 AM

Mayito Rivera @ SF Salsa Rueda Festival courtesy of Mayito @ Facebook

Mayito Rivera and Timbalive perform tonight at the San Francisco Salsa Rueda Festival. They will play two sets: 10:30-11:30 and 12:00-01:00. The concert will be preceeded by dance performances and DJ Walt Digz will be spinning in between. Click here for the full festival schedule.

Mayito will continue to perform in the US with concerts in New York and again in San Francsico.

February 15, 2014 - San Francisco, CA. - San Francisco Salsa Rueda Festival
February 22, 2014 - Rego Park, NY. - Rumba night club
February 23, 2014 - New York, NY. - Gonzalez y Gonzalez
March 1, 2014 - San Francisco, CA. - Teatro Brava

Click here for the current list of Mayito's concerts in the US and Europe. More updates will be forthcoming so stay tuned.

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Sunday, 09 February 2014, 05:18 AM

Israel Rojas - director and lead vocalist of Buena Fe

I believe it is safe to say that Israel Rojas is one of the busiest men in Havana, and I want to thank him for inviting me to the show "Motivos Martianos", which took place at Teatro Mella on January 21, 2014 and for taking time from his schedule to talk to Timba.com. The interview is in video format and in Spanish. I haven't had time to subtitle or to transcribe and translate. Hopefully I will be able to get around to that soon, but for now I have so much video from my recent trip to Cuba, that it is keeping me quite occupied. Meanwhile, for those who don't speak Spanish let me just mention a few key points.

Israel mentioned that in the first quarter of 2014, the band will launch it's new official homepage buenafe.cu. Up to now, the various homepages the band has had have been in domains outside of Cuba. The band has not always had access to the sites, on ocassion they have been hacked and the domains have been stolen, but above all, Cubans have not had access due to the rquirements for broadband. The new page will be a simpler design, but will now be accessible to all their fans, including Cubans with access to an internet connection.

At the beginning of March, probably in conjunction with the band's 15th anniversay, Galician singer/songwriter Andrés Suárez will perform with Buena Fe at Teatro Karl Marx where he will present his CD "Moraima" (highly recommended!). As for tours, the band plans to tour the US in April and Venezuela in May. They are also trying to arramge a major tour of Latin America for the second half of 2014. This is still in the development stage and we'll update you with more information as son as we have it.

For the rest of the interview we talked about the "Motivos Martianos" project and show, about what it was that caused Israel to become such a devoted follower of José Martí (part of which he attributes to the Cuban special period) and how he views the art of songwriting.

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Tuesday, 04 February 2014, 01:48 AM

Maykel Blanco & Maykel Fonts @ Don Cangrejo Maykel x 2: Blanco & Fonts @ Don Cangrejo

Maykel Blanco and Maykel Fonts are two of the most internationally recognized names of the younger generation of Cuban artists, both excelling in their genre. Maykel Blanco & Su Salsa Mayor exploded on the international timba scene in 2006 with the release of their first CD “Recoge y vete”. Known to fans as “La Maquina de Cuba”, they have since released three more studio CDs and a live album. Their last release “A toda máquina” has been the band’s most successful CD to date, outselling other albums in a matter of months. With a vibrant live show, including audio-visual accompaniment, Maykel Blanco & Su Salsa Mayor are currently one of Havana’s most popular acts and in great demand on the international tour circuit.

Coming from humble beginnings in a solar in Old Havana, Maykel Fonts has become one of the most sought after Cuban dancers worldwide. At the age of 22 he graduated from the Tropicana dance school and shortly thereafter moved to Milan, Italy. Over the years he has worked as an instructor, choreographer and dancer in commercials and television programs, and he recently choreographed and danced in the award-winning video for Havana D’Primera’s hit “Al final de la vida”. In addition to Cuban dances, Maykel has studied flamenco, hip hop, jazz, classic dance as well as other international salsa dance styles, making him a versatile dancer. But without question the genre closest to his essence is Afro-Cuban rumba.

A few months ago these two young powerhouses of Cuban music and dance united to record “Dale lo que lleva”, available on Planet Records compilation "Latino 56 - Salsa Bachata Merengue Reggaeton". Musically the song is designed to be easily accessible to dancers, the coro Izquierda y derecha (Left and right) falling on the one and the five to match the dancers’ steps. The lyrics refer to the similarities in the development of the two Maykels in their different genres.

On January 18th 2014 Maykel Fonts and Maykel Blanco performed “Dale lo que lleva” for the first time live at Casa de la Música Habana. I was not able to attend the concert, but I did find them both at Don Cangrejo on January 16th, and I took the opportunity to ask them a few questions. The video interview is in Spanish. One of my favourite quotes from the interview came from Maykel Fonts when he talked about how with Cuban music and dance "…there are no barriers. When it comes to Cuba, it’s about enjoying yourself" (…no hay barrera. Cuando se trata de Cuba, se trata de gozadera ). I hope you enjoy the interview and the video for “Dale lo que leva” below.

Entrevista a Maykel x 2

Official Video "Dale lo que lleva"