Less Famous but Just as Great

If Issac's performance on this early arrangement of Solar de la California doesn't take you on an emotional journey from tears to euphoria, check your pulse. Of Issac's many epic live bands, the Alain/Melón, Yoel/Joel, and Piloto/Pérez incarnations are probably the most famous, but the Spring 2000 group was just as amazing in its own way.

Before Bombón Reyes became the founding drummer/arranger of Pupy y Los Que Son Son and Pupy's spot in Van Van was taken by Roberto "Cucurucho" Valdés, both of these phenomenal musicians played in this short-lived but historically great Issac Delgado Group, along with the ubiquitous bass master Frank Rubio, conguero Denis "Papacho" Savón and many others.

This concert includes the original arrangements of El Solar de la California and Amor sin ética and two tremendous guest vocals by Mayito Rivera. Manolín is on hand, and, doing what he does better than anyone, he adds coros, rather than guías, to the proceedings. Don't forget that you can use the links in the video descriptions to jump from song to song. For Beyond Salsa geeks, this band was the heavyweight champion in the categories of efectos and signals. The rhythm section here is as brilliantly loose and creative as the piano and bass were in the Melón-Alain band of 1997. The '00 band's sello is based on that of the '99 band that played the Y2K Concert that we added last week, but they added their own sello to the inherited sello - you'll see what I mean. Enjoy! If the response is good I'll add another show, two days earlier at the same club, with Robertón sitting in.

And Bay Areans - Gente de Zona will be in Alameda Sunday for their Bay Area premiere. It's supposed to be a full band of live musicians - will they force us to change our name to regueton punto com? [Kevin Moore]

permalink | Share