COWELL THEATRE, SAN FRANCISCO - OCTOBER 29, 2011
TOM EHRLICH reporting from San Francisco - view the full story & gallery here 
** Notice to the politically paranoid - this article contains this author's honest attempt
 at accurately reporting the background information and context for the story of the theater performance, any political biases or interpretations are your own. **

La Colmenita, a group of extremely talented actors/musicians (ages 5 to 15 years old) from Cuba performed in New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco Bay Area.  I was fortunate to catch their last show in San Francisco.  La Colmenita is a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador.  Unicef is a branch of the United Nations which specializes in issues related to children.  While in New York, La Colmenita presented a special performance at the United Nations.

During their U.S. tour, they performed various plays which included Abracadabra, which was presented the night I attended.   Abracadabra is described as introducing Americans to the Cuban youth perspective on everything from the Beatles and well-loved fairy tales to the plight of the Cuban Five, a group of men who sacrificed their lives to protect the Cuban people from terrorism.  

The play is short skits which show interactions in classrooms between teachers and students, blending in musical interludes with the young actors singing, dancing and playing all instruments. The music was salsa and timba (mostly Adalberto Alvarez and Los Van Van songs).  These kids smoked (meaning they played at an extremely high and impressive level),  especially a young female drum set player who is ready to replace Samuel Formell any day now.   The show was a class act in every way - the acting and performing were top notch and the writing of the play and how it was put together were superb.

Abracadabra a sympathic protrayal of the Cuban 5.  In case you have not heard, the Cuban 5 are five Cubans who came to the United States and inflitrated some of the anti-Castro organizations in the Untied States which were planning and carrying out actions against Cuba, including attacks and bombings in an effort to topple the Cuban government.  

The Cuban 5's mission was to monitor these groups.....read the full story here. 

One of the youngest actors in La Colmenita is the grandson of the great Cuban band leader and composer, Adalberto Álvarez. What follows are some photos I took at the joy filled and emotional performance.

Back stage before performance - Kevin Lázaro Pérez Álvarez - grandson of Adalberto Álvarez

This young lady had some mean timba licks.

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Oprima aquí para leér este artículo en español - We Love Timba de Feri Dj - Perú Report 

Pinch me I'm dreaming....our Perú connect Feri DJ reports on an upcoming concert event of historical proportions. For this great collaboration to happen, the Cuban music agencies held a meeting in Lima with local promoters discussing a hold on all timba tours -- a vision led by Juan Formell of Los Van Van. The lineup is so loaded that a really concentrated effort was needed to assure participation from all the band leaders. Are you READY FOR THIS....

The concert counts with the participation of up to 40 artists of top calibre, among them...

• Juan Formell y Los Van Van (most of the band is coming)
• Adalberto Álvarez, "El Caballero del Son", and his daughter Dorgeris (pianist)
• drummer Giraldo Piloto, leader of Klimax 
• Alexander Abreu (trumpet) director of Havana d' Primera
• Maykel Blanco, director of Salsa Mayor.
• singer Leo Vera  ex-Irakere & ex-Charanga Habanera, "Hombre casado" & "Mi estrella" 
  
• singer Emilio Frías, "El Niño",  from Orquesta Revé
• Lázaro Valdés,  pianist & director of Bamboleo
• José Luis Cortés “El Tosco"  (flute) director of NG la Banda
• singer of NG fame, Tony Calá 
  
• ex-Bamboleo singer Tania Pantoja
  
• among others...Can You Believe It!!

Here's the first official video of the event:

For tickets contact - Teleticket de Wong y Metro (http://www.teleticket.com.pe/ )
Facebook page = https://www.facebook.com/festivalcubanisimo

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Haila (ex-Bamboleo) has a new album and she will be performing this Friday at S.O.B.s in New York City. Bassist Danny Rojo of PornoSon fame will be directing a group of local heavyweights (anyone have the complete list?).   

The official Los Van Van website is down = www.vanvandeformell.com = but after months of rumors that lead singer Mario "Mayito" Rivera left the iconic band (a press release was made on the Los Van Van website), no one has yet to report that they have seen them perform with the alleged new replacement Armando "Mandy" Cantero (formerly of Pupy y los que Son Son among others). Los Van Van performed in Mexico recently without Mayito but Mandy was not present, even though it was reported he was in Mexico at the time.  In related news Mayito has been singing with Monika (Mesa) y la Máquina Perfecta.  

Manolito y su Trabuco are in Hamburg, Germany today then covering Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Serbia and the Netherlands. Cuban music is truly international. Check out the tour page for all the official dates. 

Maykel Blanco's recent, independently produced US tour was well received and attended. The band was really TIGHT and executed consistently with tremendous energy. I really missed their recent hit "Un Kilo" which was not featured in any of the shows. I saw them in 2007 and this is by far the best group configuration, rhythm and horn sections. The pedal and bomba gears were in full, hard-hitting force. The singers delivered pure fun. Hoping they will be back next year for sure. Rumor has it Miami has 2 new singers and one smoking keyboard player. 

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This year's 12th Annual Latin GRAMMY awards, to be telecast November 10th, 2011, included a number of worthy nominees from other parts of the Cuban music spectrum but once again ignored an entire genre, Timba, in the final list of nominees in spite of the production of some recordings worthy of consideration during the eligibility period.  Since the primary purpose of creating a distinct Latin GRAMMY Awards program was to allow for more in-depth recognition of the many subgenres of Latin music, we consider this omission unfortunate, and there is a case to be made for considering a new category in the future to remedy this perennial oversight.  Conventional Salsa admittedly has a much larger listening - and voting - constituency than Timba, and there are sufficient differences between the two styles to make it quite possible that Timba will never stand a chance of receiving the recognition that its best examples deserve as long as it is forced to compete with Salsa for the same award.  Again, the very reason for being of the Latin GRAMMY awards as a separate entity was to help rectify these kinds of issues in Latin music generally, and this writer wishes to publicly suggest that the Academy should examine the question of a new category.  Admittedly, domestic US output alone would not sustain an ongoing separate category, but international output probably would, and even if that proved not to be the case, putting Timba under a different umbrella with something such as "Progressive" and separating it from traditional Salsa would be the next right thing.  Timba is now a truly international genre with first-tier bands not just in Cuba but also the United States, Peru and Sweden just to name a few examples.  A band in Sweden, Calle Real, is even getting some exposure now in American television.  Furthermore, enough time - over two decades now - has passed that there is no longer any question that the genre has firmly established itself as more than just a passing fad.  
It may be too late for the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (LARAS) to recognize a Timba recording this year, but it's probably not too late for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) to do so in its Best Tropical Latin Album category for the regular GRAMMY awards. There are a few worthy possibilities for consideration that are true examples of Timba and were released within the United States during the eligibility year.  We are going to mention just two of those possibilities because of our own personal familiarity with them:

My Secret Radio by Tiempo Libre.  Tiempo Libre has been a bridesmaid a few times now but never the bride.  This new recording is at least as worthy of consideration as its predecessors, and we loved it enough that we even reviewed it earlier this year.  (Read a full CD review here.)

Vestido de Blanco by Havana Heavy Hitters.  This was released in the US for digital distribution before this writer began doing reviews of new recordings for Timba.com but within the eligibility window for the award. This unique all-star project includes many of the best musicians from the best of the bands from Cuba including (among many others) Michel Maza and Alexander Abreu, two of the most respected Timba artists on the island today.  (Read more about this recording and hear samples here.)  The combination of digital distribution only and release by an independent label admittedly makes for a dark horse candidate, but it deserves serious consideration for its musical merit alone. 
We could name a few other worthy candidates for consideration if we chose, the point is that there are recordings worthy of recognition in this eligibility cycle, and it would help promote the genre as a genre (one of the Academy's many missions, is it not?) if at least one Timba recording (or even two) found its way to at least an actual final five nomination this year.  It is our hope that the voting members of NARAS will examine the best of this year's output in the Timba genre as closely as it does the rest of the styles under the Tropical Latin umbrella.  If it truly does so, this writer is confident that at least one of the many fine recordings produced over the past year will prove to warrant consideration. 
We aren't going to put the case to NARAS for a separate Timba category for the simple reason that we acknowledge that domestic US output would probably not sustain a separate category over time. Longer-term, this is clearly a subject more properly tackled by LARAS, which has the ability to consider entries from across the globe.  Since many people belong to both academies, we hope that this essay provides some food for thought.  

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