El Van Van Mundele

by Edmundo Pina Machín - reviewed by Curtis Lanoue

This coming December, Los Van Van will celebrate their 57th anniversary. In its long history, four members have logged 40 or more years with the orchestra: Álvaro Collado, Julio Noroña, Juan Formell, and Edmundo Pina. If there were ever anyone qualified to write about its history, it would be one of them.

Edmundo has spent the past several years compiling his experiences, opinions, and memories of a stories career not just with Los Van Van, but in Cuban music in general. What started as a modest blog a couple years before COVID has turned into a 350 page book. While Edmundo narrates the story of his youth, the majority of those pages focus on Juan Formell and his creation. 

While Edmundo wasn't a member from the beginning, he spent enough time with the founders that he has ample stories of the early years of the orchestra. How did Los Van Van get their name? It wasn't from the sugar harvest slogan, but merely from a misspelling in a playbill. Edmundo goes into the reasons for Formell making instrumental and personnel changes and the effects they had on Van Van's popularity (it always increased). 

This leads to the one complaint I have about Edmundo's narrative. In the spirit of not speaking ill of anyone, he leaves out the slightest hint of impropriety (save for unnamed promoters). The struggles Formell had with his health, including substance abuse, are well documented. It wouldn't be speaking ill of him to mention the effects they had on the band or his decision making, but there aren't even intimations of it. Nor is there any mention of why certain band members left Los Van Van, even when those reasons were public knowledge. I understand Edmundo's desire to not talk out of class about anyone, but there sugarcoating is also not the answer. 

The biggest complaint I have about the book is outside or the author's control and rests squarely with the publisher, Unos Otros Ediciones. I'm unsure what exactly they did as there is zero proofing done of the text. Many musicians names and brands are misspelled (Pat Mancini for Metheny, Pivi for Peavey, etc). Then there's the title of the book itself: Edmundo Pina. With cover space being in such limited quantity, why on earth would you title the book the same as the author, whose name would appear appear anyway? Luckily, Edmundo talked them into at least adding the subtitle: El Van Van Mundele. 

At the end of the day, this is a great walk down memory lane for any fan of Los Van Van or Latin music in general. More than a biography of one of its musicians, it's a love story to one of the best bands of the 20th century.