I had the privilege of seeing Pablo Milanés for the first time two weeks ago in Madrid. The concert report is pending but I want to make sure everybody knows that Pablo is still on tour and will perform this Wednesday, October 31 at Polideportivo de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. This is truly a must-not-miss concert.

          Pablo Milanés in Madrid after the show with his opening act Andrés Suárez

In addition to the tour, Pablo is about to release a new CD that is going under the working title "Renacimiento". On this album he has continued incorporating Cuban traditional dance music, this time using rumba and changüí in his arrangements. His popularity with the younger generation of troveros has led to recent collaborations with artists such as Maná, Buena Fe and Andrés Suárez.

Pablo Milanés' musical career spans more than 50 years. From the very start he was a part of some of the most interesting and important developments in Cuban trova music, from his collaboration with Grupo de Experimentación Sonora de ICAIC (GESI) to his decisive roll as one of the founders of the Nueva Trova movement in Cuba and Latin America. While he has faced controversy at times for always speaking his mind, his fans deeply love him as you can see in the video below from the Madrid concert, which he closed with: "El breve espacio en que no está" . Stay tuned for the full concert report.

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Chicago, we were at Hector's rehearsal this afternoon.  Hector is originally from Camaguey, Cuba, and is now based in Chicago.  The band was blowing the doors off the rehearsal space today - this IS the real thing.  Miss this for any reason other than illness, work, out of town or death, and your license to publicly complain about any aspect of the local concert scene will be officially revoked. For more details, see our Report From Chicago section for October 28, 2012.

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continue reading Sin Clave No Hay Na

Here's a timba trivia quiz from my upcoming book for non-musicians. The idea is to demonstrate a key difference between salsa and timba - the "song-specific" accompaniment. So, this track starts by playing a typical vamp four times through with the generic conga, piano and bass parts - then it segues into a timba version with a unique part for each of those three instruments. The idea is that you should be able to know what song it is just from listening to these three accompaniment parts.

So listen to the track by clicking here and then see if you can identify the song in the COMMENTS section.

Here are some preview pages on the new book .

And for Bay Areans, tickets for HdP are on sale now !   [Kevin Moore]

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continue reading La Última

Many fans have been asking me where Pepitín went after leaving El Trabuco. He has formed his own septeto playing traditional Cuban son. Pepitín is best know to Timba.com readers as a lead singer with Maykel Blanco y Salsa Mayor and later with Manolito y Su Tabuco with whom he recorded the CDs "Anda y pégate" and "Trabuco 1 vez más", respectively. But he has also had his own following since gthe 2008 release of his solo CD "Estudiando" which was well-recieved both by fans of Cuban music as well as fans of salsa dura.

Pepitín is a stellar example of the young generation of soneros in Cuba, who represent continuity in the Cuban vocal and popular music tradition. The strength of son cubano is that it has a worldwide appeal that does not age or fade. Pepitín y su Q'mbachá have uploaded a demo to Youtube for your enjoyment.

Pepitín y su Q'mbachá - El hombre increíble

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