SALSA IN WASHINGTON DC - CD review by ERICB

Joe Cuba Sextet - Estamos Haciendo Algo Bien! We Must Be Doing Something Right!

Joe Cuba was born April 22, 1931 as "Gilberto Miguel Calderón" in New York City.

His parents moved from Puerto Rico to New York City in the late 1920s and settled in Spanish Harlem, the Latino community located in the north-eastern part of the borough of Manhattan (also known as El Barrio and East Harlem).

Gilberto was raised in an apartment building where his father had become the owner of a candy store that was located on the ground floor.

As Stickball was the main sport for young boys of the neighborhood, his father had organized a stickball club called the Devils and son Gilberto was a fanatic stickball player.

However, after Gilberto broke a leg playing stoop ball, he took up playing the conga, which he practiced in the house and on the block.

In 1950, at age 19 years Gilberto played in a group called La Alfarona X, where he replaced had Sabu Martinez, who had left to play with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra.

Gilberto also played with the Joe Panama Quintet, where Jimmy Sabater was the timbales player.

After recruiting vibraphonist Tommy Berrios, Gilberto and the band had a falling out with Panama and formed the Cha Cha Boys with Gilberto as the bandleader.

At one point Gilberto had his promoter, Catalino Rolón try to get them a gig in the Stardust Ballroom.

The band was booked indeed, but when the owner heard name Calderón, as leader of the band, he said “no one is going to want to come hear a band with a name like that”, and so his agent came up with the stage name "Joe Cuba" (I'll refer to Gilberto as Joe Cuba from this point on).

After the newly named Joe Cuba Sextet made their debut at the Stardust Ballroom, the unusual instrumentation featuring vibraphones that replaced the traditional brass sound, caught on and the Joe Cuba Sextet would frequently play in everything from the the ballrooms in El Barrio, in upscale Manhattan clubs and the upstate dance halls in the Catskills, where they would alternate stages with bands like Eddie Palmieri's La Perfecta.

Eddie's brother Charlie was musical director of the Joe Cuba Sextet before his untimely 1988 death from a heart attack.

The big break for Joe Cuba came in 1962 when the Sextet recorded "To be with You" on the Seeco Records Label.

For many people in the 60's, the merging American R&B styles of Motown with Afro-Cuban instrumentation with bilingual lyrics were the first musical introduction to Latin rhythms.

Because of the mixture of Spanish and English lyrics used Joe Cuba’s Sextet became especially popular in Latino communities all over the USA and particularly helped in shaping Nuyorican identity in New York City, where the children of Puerto Rican emigrants began to take music, culture, arts and politics into their own hands.

Along with fellow Nuyorican artists such as Ray Barretto and Richie Ray, Joe Cuba was one of the key architects behind the merging Latin Boogaloo sound, a mix of Afro-Caribbean genres blended with urban rhythm & blues which became a popular and influential Latin style in the United States from 1966-69.

Boogalu (aka bugalú or shing-a-ling) resonated particularly with African American audiences, and in fact was inspired by the interaction between African American dancers and Latin musicians, who developed this style of music in an effort to appeal to African American dancers who were not responding to their traditional Mambos and Cha Cha Cha’s.

"Estamos Haciendo Algo Bien! We Must Be Doing Something Right!", a classic Album from that 1965, has just been reissued

This was the fourth album on the Tico Record label for the band, the three previous ones being; "Vagabundeando/Hangin’ Out", "Alma del Barrio/The Soul of Spanish Harlem", and "Bailadores".

The Joe Cuba Sextet got their first crossover hit with the Latin and soul fusion of "El Pito (I Never Go Back To Georgia)", that appeared on "Estamos Haciendo Algo Bien! We Must Be Doing Something Right!" (The title of the album itself btw came from a popular ad jingle for Rheingold Beer).

The "Never Go Back To Georgia" chant on the track "El Pito" was taken from Dizzy Gillespie's (co-written by his Cuban collaborator, Chano Pozo) intro to the seminal Afro-Cuban tune, "Manteca", which was Gillespie’s declaration of refusing to return to Georgia due to the state’s infamous segregationist policies.

While Jimmy Sabater sang the lyrics over the recurring piano vamp, Joe Cuba had instructed his fellow band members to repeatedly yell the band’s sign off musical phrase (Así Se Goza) and to laugh, talk, clap and create a party atmosphere, the sound of whistles was later added.

When a DJ at WBLS radio in New York played "El Pito", it became an immediate hit.

During live performances, Joe would whip his audiences into frenzy by throwing whistles out to the crowd so that they could join in the fun.

Ironically, none of the band members had ever been in Georgia, but when the state of Georgia’s legislature complained about the song and called Joe Cuba demanding why he would record a song whose chorus negatively derided the still segregated Southern town, Joe Cuba replied, “Georgia is the name of my girl.”

"Estamos Haciendo Algo Bien! We Must Be Doing Something Right!" is a great sampler of what Latin music was like in the 60's, as the albums covers quite a few different styles of music including Pachanga, Mambo, Guaguancó and some boleros/baladas like "Incomparable" , "My Wonderful you (Baby when I'm down)” with it's english lyrics, and "Si te dicen", (made famous in the 1950s by Cuban singer Vicentico Valdés) on which Sabater and Feliciano shared a duet on record for the first time.

The tracks on this album also shows that this band's rhythm section was one of the tightest around at the time; "Pruebalo", "Y tu abuela donde Esta" and "Arecibo" are all what I personally refer to as signature Joe Cuba tunes, they start of in a nice tempo and suddenly turn into some wicked up-tempo tunes.

Another great upbeat track, a Mozambique, in which Joe Cuba gets to show off his conga skills, is the Hector Rivera composition "Ya no aguanto mas".

Although Hector Rivera is mentioned in the liner notes on the original album jacket back cover, Rivera unfortunately never got very much credit, while in reality he was an important arranger of Joe Cuba's sound and a major driving force behind the band.

The instrumental Tito Puente composition "Clave Mambo, which after all this time is still a big hit with the On2 dancers/aficionados, and the Guaguancó track "Bochinchosa" are two of my personal all time favorite tracks.... I've got just one word for it; Bangin'!... these tracks are worth the price of the entire Album by itself.

This is truly great Classic material, so snatch up a copy of this remastered CD while they last!

Joe Cuba had been inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in April 1999 and in 2004, he was named Grand Marshall of the Puerto Rican Day Parade celebrated in Yonkers, New York and was also the director of the Museum of La Salsa, located in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan, New York.

Joe Cuba died on February 15, 2009 in New York City, removed from life support after being hospitalized for a persistent bacterial infection.

Timbalive - From Miami a la Habana

Tracks:

Timba is an amazing, explosive, lively musical genre that draws heavily from international influences such as Jazz, Rock, Disco, Funk, Hip Hop and Cuban Rumba, Guaguancó and the sacred songs of santeria.

Although Timba is considered to be a form of popular music, the technical mastery of Timba is only possible through highly trained musicians, who have solid theoretical backgrounds in classical music, jazz and other international genres, as well as traditional Cuban folkloric music.

Timba has been very popular for quite some time in the Netherlands where I'm from, as well as in other parts of Europe, especially France and Spain both have vibrant Timba Salsa scenes.

Outside of Miami and a few other spots, Timba music is not overly popular in the USA in general (many salsa dancers consider it difficult to dance to and strong to their ears), but is beginning find a niche among a growing number of dancers.

Until quite recently many recordings by American Timba bands didn't really measure up to the Timba music that is being made in Cuba.

The last few years, however, a few new bands on the Miami latin scene, like N’taya, El Pikete, Sabor Habanero and Michel Calvo y Su Miami Power Band, began making waves.

A band with the name Timbalive burst onto Miami's music scene in august 2008.

Timbalive was created by Leo Garcia (drummer & director) and in a short period of time it became one of the hottest bands to light up Miami ’s night life and due to their spectacular live show it became favorite on the Latin music scene.

Timbalive's members are well trained musicians from different Cuban music schools, and some of them have played with some of the most well known artists like Issac Delgado, Manolin "El medico de la Salsa", Willy Chirino, Albita Rodriguez, Carlos Manuel, Luis Enrique, Paulo FG, to name just a few.

In May 2009, Timbalive hit the recording studio and the result, a CD entitled "From Miami a la Habana", was released in October 2009.

The Album was recorded in Miami with sophisticated production techniques and amazing arrangements under the musical production of trombonist/arranger Byron Ramos and the executive production of drummer/timbalero Leo Garcia.

For the recording the Timbalive members called upon the talents of many guest musicians from both Miami and Cuba, including four time Grammy Award Winner Gonzalito Rubalcaba, Amaury Gutiérrez, Issac Delgado, Manolin " El Medico de la Salsa ",

Br@ily, Ivan "Melon" Lewis, Robertico ‘Kiki”Garcia and Norberto Rodriguez, rapper "El Mola" and some of the heaviest hitters on the Timba scene like Mayito Rivera, Pedrito Calvo and Alex Abreu.

The tracks on "From Miami a la Habana" consist of 11 Timba tracks by composers like Juan Formell and Amaury Gutierrez, as well as some tracks of the own inspiration of Bayron Ramos, who also arranged some of the tracks.

This is the real Timba right here, the musicians are amazing and it’s It is musically excellent with the rhythm breaks and tempo changes, powerful coros, blazing horns and banging percussion.

From the very few beats of the opening track “Dame un Pin” you just know that this is going to be right, eso si tiene Tumbao!....I can almost visualize the Casineros in the Rueda circles go crazy with this kind of stuff, this is the kind of music that truly is made for dancing and that DJ's can use to keep the dance floor hopping.

The title track “De Miami a la Havana ” is a Soneros paradise; Issac Delgado, Manolin "El Medico de la Salsa ", Mayito Rivera, Pedrito Calvo, Br@ily and Alex Abreu all takes turns with their improvisations, backed by a great Coro “Lo que te traigo se llama musica Cubana, un poquito de Miami y otro poquito de la Havana” (what I bring you is called Cuban music, a little bit from Miami and a little bit more from Havana), Alex Abreau tops it off with a great Trumpet solo.

On “Un poquito pa despues” female vocalist Yezi Gonzalez gets to prove her skills as lead sonero and she lays down the works while rapper “El Mola” spits his lyrics over the beat before Robertico ‘Kiki’Garcia finishes the song with a nice Flugelhorn solo.

“Enredado en tu pelo” is a composition by Latin Grammy nominee Amauly Gutiérrez, who also is the guest singer for this track, which doesn’t really classify as Timba in my opinion, it’s more of a nice uptempo Salsa track.

(“Enredado en tu pelo” and "From Miami a la Habana" are also offered as bonus tracks versions by the Timbalive band members themselves).

“Ave Maria que Color” kicks of with a great Rumba, before it breaks into some high octane Timba and the Juan Formell composition “Chirrin Chirran” is given a make over as a homage the to Maestro Formell himself and it’s a worthy one that closes out with a wild solo by Norberto Rodriguez on electric Guitar, something you don’t hear often in salsa music.

Altough all tracks are really great, I personally really dig "El Dinero", “Zorra” and “Timba pa la Humanidad” the most.

I love the way tracks like "Zorra" and "Timba pa la libertad" take of with a banging monuno on piano after wich thethe percussion and horns blend in, a pumping bass, a powerful coro and the soneros piercing through it with their inspirations ... the changes in rhythm, and of course the breaks.... Cintura Mami, Cintura!!!

This is essential Musica Cubana baby!.... go get it...Ahi na ma!

Musicians:

Leo Garcia, Drums & Timbal

Bayron Ramos, Trombones & Teclados

Edward Magdariaga, Bass

Javier Concepcion, Piano

Boris Monterecy, Voz & Coros

Carlos Parra, Voz & Coros

Yesi Gonzalez, Voz & Coros

William Paredes, Trombones

Andres Padron, Conga

Conrado " Coky" Garcia, Congas, Bongo, Batas, D'jembe

Cajones & Quinto

Special guests:

Amaury Gutierrez, Voz (track 5)

Gonzalo Rubalcaba, (Keyboard solo track 2)

Isaac Delgado, Voz (track 2)

Manolin "El Medico de la Salsa", Voz (track 2)

Mayito Rivera, Voz (track 2)

Pedrito Calvo, Voz (track 2)

Br@ily, Voz (track 2)

Alex Abreu, Voz & Trumpet solo (track 2)

"El Mola" , Voz (track 4)

Ivan "Melon" Lewis, piano (track 2)

Roberto "K

DJ Chino is a well known international Salsa DJ who supports young talented Salsa bands from all over the planet
In 2007 DJ El Chino released a compilation CD, entitled DJ El Chino's Solar Latin Club, Vol. 1 with 15 salsa, funk, son, Latin jazz and timba tracks, including some previously unreleased tracks by some lesser known bands.

The latest compilation from DJ El Chino, entitled Los Dinosaurios - Salsa & Mambo Underground, Volumen 1 is a collection of 14 rare Old School Salsa, Son Montuno, Mambo and Guaguancó tracks, remastered by DJ Michael El Rumbero from Berlin.

The CD opens with the nice cooker 'Guaguancó Del Solar' from Bush Y Su Nuevo Sonido, taken from the B side of a 45 on the Epoca record label.
Hailing from Panama, Francisco “Bush” Buckley, and his bands (Nuevo Sonido and Los Magnificios) are considered to be one of the finest salsa bands to come out of Panama.
Bush conquered salsa dancers and music aficionados with a sound a hard-edged danceable big band funky salsa sound.
Very few artists from Panama became famous outside of Panama; the only ones were those that relocated to the US like Meñique, Azuquita and Ruben Blades.
Bush was an exception and became highly popular amongst salseros in New York City during the 1990s.
Ruben Blades, who also briefly sung with Bush (y sus Magnificos) in the late 60’s recorded a nice, more up-tempo, version of this song with Los Salvajes del Ritmo

Trumpet player Rafael Labasta was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to Panama where he became one of the leaders in the Salsa Dura music scene.
Labasta also recorded with artists like Willie Rosario, Tommy Olivencia, Oscar de León, Mario Ortiz, La Playa Sextet and Ricardo Ray, to name just a few.
“La Toalla” by Rafael Labasta y Su Orquesta is Labasta's version of a classic Tito Rodriguez track, which first appeared on one of Tito’s biggest albums ‘Tito Tito Tito’ which was released in 1964 and became an instant hit with the dancers.
Labasta’s version of “La Toalla” was taken from the album “Labasta llego!”, which is a highly sought after collector’s items (as are all Labasta’s albums)

Another artist from Panama that is represented here is the great Pianist Christopher "Toby" Muñoz, with the up-tempo track “Animate” that originally appeared on a 1976 album by Toby Muñoz y Su Orquesta with cantantes Daniel Bulgin and "Papa" Espinosa.
The youth in Venezuela in the 60’s and 70’s grew up listening to Mexican Rancheras, Cuban music, Boleros, traditional Merengue, and Colombian Vallenato.
The middle class and the rich people used to listen to rock, classical music, of jazz and looked down on Salsa music, to which they referred as fringe music from the outlying slums.
When the Fania Sound captured all the attention in the mid-1970s, however, Salsa music reached maximum popularity and ended these social separations.
From that point on Salsa was playing almost everywhere: in TV shows, parties & barbecues, in buses and on almost every street corner.
In fact Venezuela became one of the largest consumers of Salsa music per capita.
A few of the Venezuelan bands from that era are represented here on this compilation; Orquesta La Ampliacion with the track “Estas En Algo” from the self-titled album and the track “Son en Ambiente“ by Orquesta La Renovacion is taken of the album “Hacia un nuevo horizonte” .
The band La Combinacion 77 is featured here with the track “Babaila”.
“Babaila”, with its lyrics denouncing slavery, was written by Tite Curet Alonso, who developed a unique style of his own which is known as "salsa with a conscience".
Throughout his life Alonso composed over two thousand songs, often about social and romantic themes which told about the poor blacks and the hardships that they faced.
Another one of Alonso’s songs “Las Caras Linda (De Mi Gente Negra) “recorded by Ismael Rivera, is considered by many as a classic.
“Babaila” became very popular when it first appeared on the 1974 “El Conde”, which was the debut album as leader for Pete "El Conde" Rodriguez
Another really nice version of this song is to be found on the 2003 CD “Siguiendo la tradición” by Los Soneros del Barrio with my favorite sonero Frankie Vazquez.

David Cedeño is better known as “New Jersey's Pride” & “the Kid from Jersey”.
David and his band are mainly know for the concept of taking mainstream pop hit songs and re-arranging and recording them as salsa romantica dance tunes, such as “Live Without You”, “Sealed With A Kiss”, “Lady In Red”, to name just a few.
The track “Salsa Na' Ma”, however, is just straight up slammin’ Salsa Dura.
A remake of this track, with arrangements by Pablo "Chino" Nunez, appeared on David Cedeño’s CD "A new Return/Un Nuevo Regreso” that was released in 2007.

“Me Duele El Corazon” is one of the greatest Guaguancó’s ever by Nelson Feliciano y su Orquesta con Kito Velez, which features sonero Jose Padilla “Joe P”.
Trumpet player/Arranger Rogelio "Kito" Vélez had worked with Rafael Cortijo's Combo and El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico before forming his own band Kito Vélez Y Sus Estrellas.
After two recordings, Kito Vélez Y Sus Estrellas and Kito Vélez Y Sus Estrellas Vol. 2, Vélez teamed up with trumpet player Nelson Feliciano and together these bone players became know as the “Guanica Brass”.
Vélez wrote all the arrangements on the album “Nelson Feliciano/Canta: Junior Cordova” and arranged and played on “Nelson Feliciano Orch./Kito Vélez/Canta: Joe P.” from which the track “Me duele el Corazon” was taken.
Both these albums, as well as the Kito Vélez Y Sus Estrellas ones, are highly sought after collector’s items.

Washington y Sus Latinos hail from Bogota, Colombia; this band was extremely popular in the 80’s
The track “El Rey del Guaguanco”, with a really nice solo on electric organ and some great Timbale work, appeared on the album ‘Se Fueron Los Bravos”. 
The instrumental track “El Diablito” by Contemporary jazz great Jack “Mr. Bongo” Costanzo, was taken from the album “Mr. Bongo has Brass”.
Jack Costanzo was the first bongo drummer to join a jazz orchestra when he became part of the Stan Kenton organization in 1947 and he is the one of who’s the most responsible for the growth of the bongo craze in Jazz.

Conguera Sonia López, the youngest daughter of the legendary Candelario López Salas "Papá Candito", was at one point married to arranger, trumpeter and pianist Bobby "El Duro" Quesada, who released a few really great classic Salsa Dura albums himself and who also worked as an arranger for the Fania All Stars.
After Sonia and Bobby split up, she went on to lead, by the way, her own popular group for several decades in Puerto Rico.
“Aprendelo Como Yo” was taken from the great album by Sonia Lopez y Su Tremendo Combo with Sonia as leader; it also features Bobby Quesada and has Siso Marrero on vocals.
A few other tracks from this album “La Llave de la Ciudad / La Rosa Oriental / Los Siete Refranes / Arrimate pa ca” are also to be found on the Bobby Quesada CD "Vuelve el Mafia del Guaguancó”, that was released in 2007 on the MaryLou label.

“Tremenda Bronca”, another great Guaguancó track was taken of the album by Danny Gonzalez y Su Orquesta Sensacional with Cantantes Papo (Guango) Lebron & Junior Diaz.
This album is, in my personal opinion, one of the greatest Salsa Dura albums ever.
Two other slammin’ tracks from this same album were also featured on the compilation CD’s “Lost Classics of Salsa” (“El Vago” on Vol. 1 and “Guardia” on Vol. 2).

I am personally a really big fan of the Salsa Dura sound that came from Peru.
The Peruvian musicians fearlessly combined and brilliantly executed outside influences and gave it their own twist with a local flavor, creating a sound that is quite a bit different than 60s and 70’s Latin on Fania, Inca or Tico.
A perfect example is given here with the track “Mi Salsa Llego” by Tito Chicoma, Salsa music aficionados will certainly be able to recognize "El Verdadero Son" by the great Javier Vazquez in this tune.
Another really nice little banger that comes form Peru is “Prende El Fogon” by Carlos Miranda y Su Latin Combo that appeared on the album “!La Salsa La Traigo YO!”.

For all you Salsa Dura Aficionados, Hard Core Dancers and DJ’s out there…. This is definitely the one to get while they last!

Julito – P’al Bailador

(CD Cover)

Track list:

01. Maribel

02. El Nazareno Y Yo

03. Cristal

04. Pa'l Bailador

05. Nuestro Ayer

06. Pa' Los Muchachos

07. Pensando En Ella

08. Por Ella

09. Traigo Salsa

10. Pa'l Bailador (Bonus Track)

According to Julito Fernandez Antillano himself, it all began an afternoon in 1979 at the house of his grandparents in los Frailes de Catia , Caracas, Venezuela.

His uncle Fidel had just bought Bongos and when Julito saw and heard his uncle play this instrument something magical happened

Although his uncle had just bought the instruments and could only play the basic martillo bongo patern, but Julito was fasinated and that very moment would mark him for live.

Sometime later Julito’s grandfather gave uncle Fidel a small piano as a present and Fidel began to practice with Sonera Poncena songs.

At the same time a few kids from the neighborhood formed a band called Grupo Fororo” and they invited Fidel to practice with them.

Grupo Fororo began to practice in grandfather’s house and Julito was blown away by what he witnessed, it was almost like a revelation to him why God had put him on this very earth.

Julito’s brothers, Kikín and Dennys also developed an interesting music, Dennys began to play bongo and timbales, and when uncle Fidel received yet another bigger Piano from his father the smaller piano winded up in the hands of Kikín, (this would also mark a mayor point in his live, today Kikín is a professional Pianist.)

Meanwhile uncle Fidel sensed Julito’s “fever” for music and interest in the bass guitar and taught him how to play some faster bass lines, so Julito would be able to play Salsa.

Julito would never look back, at age seventeen he already played profesionaly with Naty y su Orquesta and at age 19 he played in the band of Porfi Jimenez (Porfi gave Julito his baby Ampeg ’62 bass as a present, with this bass which Porfi made his debut back in the day), and Julito now calls it “the father of my children”).

Since then Julito has recorded with Oscar D`Leon, Magia Caribeña, Andy Montañez, Willie Gonzalez, Dimension Latina, Naty y su orq, Cano Estremera, Pedro Arroyo, Federico y su Combo, to name a just a few.

He also has performed with Eddie Santiago, Willie Gonzalez, Nino Segarra, Combo Antillano, Pedro Arroyo, Oscar D`Leon, Ismael Miranda, Cheo Feliciano, Junior Gonzalez, Van Lester, Roberto Blades, Jose Alberto El Canario and since 1996 he is the bass player with Los Adolescentes Orquesta de Porfi Baloa.

At the end of 2009 Julito released his debut as band leader, with the CD, entitled “Pa'l Bailador”, released on the Salsaneo label

On this project Julito called upon some his friends, trombonist David Gonzalez Jr., sax player Oswaldo Lezama, and the amazing pianist/bandleader Joel Uriola.

Uriola is one of the Venezuelan artists who has played for Oscar D'Leon, Orlando Poleo, Changuito, and Naty y Su Orquesta and now chooses to independently record and produce himself in order to put his music out at home and abroad and he was the one that encouraged Julito to do release this project.

There’s a little bit of everything to be found on “Pa'l Bailador”, Romantic salsa tracks like “Nuestro Ayer” with guest vocalist Rosa Monasterios, as well as latin music redone with Salsa arrangements like “Por Ella” , a Salsa cover of a romantic pop song by Andy & Lucas, (a popular Spanish Flamenco-inspired pop duo originally from the province of Cádiz in Spain), and the track “Christal” with guest musicians Richard Montilla on Mandolin, Jorge Glen on Cuatro and Oscar Arriaga as vocalist.

“Christal” is an homage to Simón Díaz, a multi-talented cultural Venezuelan figurehead, who’s adored by aficionados around the world, and is to Venezuelan Folklore what Celia Cruz is for the salsa world (relatively few people outside of South America are aware that the Gipsy Kings' hit Bamboleo was actually composed by Díaz).

The up tempo “Pa' Los Muchachos” with guest vocalist Rey Armas starts off with a reggeaton intro with a Rap by Angel Degado

The tracks that stand out on this CD are the Salsa Dura tracks “Maribel” , a (renamed) cover of “La Niche”, that appeared on the 1971 debut album, entitled ‘La Conspiración, by Ernie Agosto y La Conspiración, “El Nazareno Y Yo” with Angel Flores as vocalist, “Traigo Salsa” and the cover track "Pa'l Bailador", which is offered in two versions.

The Bonus Track version of "Pa'l Bailador" is a real Salsa club banger with nice breaks and great timbale work by Yomar “Caballo”Méndez.

With lyrics “Baila con orgullo, como se baila en Venezuela” (Dance with pride, like they dance in Venezuela), this one might just turn into a National Salsa Anthem.

The musicians that Julito brought together on this project turn it all into well oiled machine; the bouncing sound of Julito’s bass, is complemented by the montunos of the piano and the tight percussion section.

I personally really like the Sax work by Oswaldo Lezama that gives the sharp sounds of the brass section a nice deep swing and that reminds me of the signature sound of Willie "Mr. Afinque" Rosario

The singers are backed by a great coro made up by Rodrigo Mendoza, Wilmer Lozano and Cesar "Albondiga" Monges, making it all swinging contemporary Salsa.

Venezuela is definitely “En la Casa” with this one!

Musicians :

Julio Fernandez Antillano, Bass

Fidel Antillano, Piano

Joel Uriola, Piano

Jesús "Menudo" Moreno, Piano

Rafael Rey, Trompet

David González Jr., Trombone

Oswaldo Lezama, Tenor & Baritone Sax

Arnaldo "Patatin" Guacarán, Timbales, Congas

Elther "Kiko" González, Timbales

Yomar "Caballo" Mendez, Timbales

Romi Eliexer Dabuy, Congas

Luis Sulbaran, Congas

Everson Hernández, Maracas

Jorge Glen, Cuatro

Richard Montilla, Mandolin

Druber Salsazar, Vocals

Glen Vásquez, Vocals

Angel Flores, Oscar Arriaga, Rey Armas, Angel Degado, invited singers

Rodrigo Mendoza, Wilmer Lozano, Cesar "Albondiga" Monges, Coro