Video killed the radio star.

MP3s killed the CD.

DJs killed live music.

But then again, there's DJ Walt Digz - the DJ musicians love because he always plays the tracks they didn't even know they needed to hear yet ... the DJ who's put together a LIVE, real, timba band with the very cream of the cream of the real musicians of the Bay Area scene - Carlos Caro, Colin Douglas, Marco Díaz, Ayla Dávila, Jason Möen, Erick Barbería, Orlando Torriente ... the list goes on ... the best person in every chair. We'll have a section for them soon, but their first big show is this Saturday, at Jelly's, Saturday, July 3rd.

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Philly, NY and Pittsburgh next. Here's the full schedule. Tom and I will cover the Napa gig on July 17th. Among the many luminaries will be Calixto Oviedo on timbales and Gabriel Hernández on piano.

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23:0 horas at Clamores in Madrid - Lunes - 28 de junio

Melón celebrates the long-awaited release of Travesía, a fresh new take on Latin jazz featuring sax luminary Román Filiú and ex-Pupy bassist "El Negrón" Elizarde. Negrón is out of the country, but not to worry, Melón's old partner from the Issac band, genius bassist Alain Pérez, will be playing at Clamores .

Melón is also coming to the US in fall with Buika and will hopefully fit in some solo gigs and clinics. Meanwhile, Volume 9 of Beyond Salsa Piano , the fourth and final volume on Melón, will be done soon. It will include the songs from Exclusivo para Cuba as well as various unreleased masterpieces like La temática and La competencia, as well as some of his work with Manolín and some of the tumbaos from his Latin jazz originals. Stay tuned.

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If you are a Facebook user you know that the word has been out since Mirco's post yesterday, Maykel Blanco y Salsa Mayor's latest album, "Soy lo que te hala", has been released at iTunes and the hardcopy is at latinmusicstore and will certainly hit other on-line stores soon. I am a hardcopy fan myself  and decided to wait for the CD to appear at local stores, but after previewing the songs at iTunes, I couldn't resist buying it. I'll pick up the hardcopy later but I just had to have the songs now !

This album is packed with hits! The songs you have probably already heard if your local DJ is up-to-date are "Que tu crees?", "Se acabó el amor", "Pa' cualquiera", "La cara de salir pa' andar" and "Soy lo que te hala". If you caught them on their March tour of Europe or back in Havana you have also heard several other songs from the new album. A full review will be coming shortly. In the meatime here's the short review: great album, dancers will love it, you should buy it.

Track list:

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