Me sube la fiebre was one of about a dozen early Charanga arrangements that were so joyously original and completely different from any other Latin music that they could be described as a genre unto themselves. Every note of every instrument is magical - the fat, warm, melodic bass, the bright, bell-like, wonderfully original piano, the tight, crisp percussion and brass, the creative and perfectly executed coros and guías, the stunning, bloque-filled transitions, and above all, the hooks - the way each irresistibly catchy musical idea grows organically out of the one before it. There’s no doubt that Charanga Habanera’s huge popularity has had a lot to do with their sexy, bombastic stage show but to hear the true greatness of of this band we suggest listening to these records with eyes closed through a good set of reference monitors or headphones. This is timeless, classic pop music at its best.

The opening 10 seconds of Me sube la fiebre established a sound which was uniquely Charanga Habanera’s and worlds away from NG La Banda and Los Van Van. It starts dramatically with just voices - "Ay, me sube" - then three fat snare drum hits accenting the entrance of a piano montuno unlike any that had been recorded before it- then "la fiebre" - then a funky bell lick - then a tight, melodic, R&B flavored response from the horn section -- a unique instrumentation of two trumpets (they would add a third trumpet in 1995) and a sax. [audio example 1] There was also a new attitude and sense of style which, to an even greater degree than NG, set the pace for gimba revolution of the 90’s.

The next stylistic jolt of Me sube la fiebre comes at 0:24 when the tempo drops through the floor -- from 100 to 88 bpm! [audio example 2] Virtually all salsa and timba that’s not recorded to a click track will tend to gradually pick up speed as the arrangement makes its way through the more intense coro and mambo sections. Cuban folkloric music is much more extreme, sometimes more than doubling in tempo, but one of the trademarks of CH's style is to dramatically pull the tempo back at selected points in the arrangement, something that only a band which rehearses six days a week can have a prayer of pulling off. Charanga Habanera can change tempo at will, like a Ferrari darting its way through rush hour traffic.

The cuerpo of Me sube is a beautiful pop tune which might momentarily cause Timbaphiles to reflect on the great influence CH must have had on Klimax before remembering that it was Klímax’s leader Giraldo Piloto who wrote the song and that the smooth, soulful vocalist is Leo Vera, who sang on two of Klímax’s CD’s. As any reader with the temerity to digest all of timba.com will discover, Piloto’s influence, like that of Juan Formell, is everywhere, and this is one of Piloto’s most beautiful compositions, one which CH continues to play at most of its concerts a decade later.

A key element of CH’s style is the bass-playing. Allan Johnson , of "Grupo Jazz y Tumbao", compares Pedro Pablo’s role in Timba to that of legendary bassist James Jamerson, who played on most of the hits from the Motown era. Check out the tasteful baby bass fills at 0:33, 0:57, and 1:16 [audio example 3], and also Allan’s article, “The Bass Style of Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez”, on his personal experiences with Pablo in Havana and the finer details of his style.

At 3:40 we hear the voice most closely identified with the original Charanga Habanera, and a man with twice as many names as the average Joe - Mario Antonio "Mayito" “Sombrilla” Jiménez Sánchez. "¡Oye! Lo que necesito es … una enfermera! ¡di tú!" Sombrilla’s "di tú" and "¿eh?", along with Leonel Polledo’s "¡qué liiindo!" became CH’s trademark vocal catch phrases. After the false ending at 4:47, the a capella coro returns, this time against the kick drum figure that has become so common in Timba, (2, 2+, 4, and 4+), i.e. the two backbeats and the eighth notes following them. [audio example 4] But in this case they’re played on the snare. When CH recorded a second, almost identical version of Me sube on their second album, this rhythm was played on kick drum, [audio example 5] so it’s very revealing to hear that the rhythm was first conceptualized on snare, because it’s the snare which plays the backbeat in American music. It’s as if the Cubans heard something they liked in R&B and funk and experimented with it until they found a way of Cubanizing it by placing it lower in the frequency spectrum. Pianist and arranger Juan Carlos González, when asked about this rhythm, explained that he had been spending a lot of time in a café where Issac Delgado’s brother Nelson had a gig singing and playing guitar. Delgado had an unusual guitar style in which he would thump the body of the guitar on these same four beats. González loved the sound and eventually incorporated it into CH’s arrangements, first with the snare and later with the kick drum. While earlier examples of this rhythm can be found  [Changuito had earlier played this figure in 1990 on Aquí el que baila gana], it was definitely Charanga Habanera who made it such a staple of the timba style.