Tirso Duarte in Colombia

Speaking of Charangueros, Tirso Duarte will begin his first tour of Colombia with a concert in Santander de Quilichao on December 24th, a great way to celebrate Christmas Eve.! Tirso & Proyecto K Libre will have 6 concerts in Colombia during the holiday season, culminating in a New Year's Day concert in Robles. Check Tirso's tour page for the complete list of concerts. And thanks to salsaproducciones for posting information about the tour in the Timba.com Forum.

Meanwhile in Havana Tirso is performing at Café Cantante today in a special concert with Pachito Alonso y Sus Kini Kini and Manolito y Su Trabuco. It breaks my heart to miss it!

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Wednesday, 09 December 2009, 06:49 PM

La Charanga Habanera has passed through several distinct incarnations in its 21-year existence starting as a traditional charanga in 1988, transforming into one of the most influential timba bands of the 1990s and changing with the times into a timbaton/timpop band in the past couple of years. Each epoch has had it's own character and made the questions "which is your favorite version of La Charanga Habanera?" a favorite topic among timberos. If you are new to timba, check out the History articles about the Charanga Habanera.

La Charanga Habanera - Stockholm, Sweden 28 November 2009

What is undisputeable is that under director David Calzado’s guiding hand, the band has remained at the top of the Cuban charts since 1992, adapting to the recent reggaeton explosion in Cuba by successfully integrating reggaeton into their music and collaborating with some of the most popular reggaeton bands such as Eddy-K, Gente D’Zona and Baby Lores & El Chacal. With the approaching “new premier” of the Charanga Habanera in the US, I think it is timely to share my concert report from Stockholm, November 28, 2009. Click here to read the full concert report including video.

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Sunday, 06 December 2009, 03:40 PM

For those of you who haven't kept yourselves up-to-date on the comings and goings in La Charanga Habanera, it's time for a few introductions before El Ciclón de La Habana hits the US. The band now has a five-singer line-up. The veterans are Aned Mota "El Charanguero Gozador" and Dantes Cardosa "El Ricky Ricón". The newest singers have already been with the band for over a year, but since the band hasn't been to El Yuma since 2001 they may still be new faces to you.

La Charanga Habanera Junior, Heikel, Dantes, Lachy & Aned

Last Saturday, November 28th I took the opportunity to talk with Lachy and Heikel so they could introduce themselves to the readers of Timba.com. Junior was on the move most of the time so I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but you should know him from the very popular song "Mentirosa".

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Thursday, 03 December 2009, 08:12 PM

On November 28th I saw La Charanga Habanera for the first time in three years. As always I had a great time. This was a major event put on by Cuba Nocturna with an opening show of rumba by Grupo Raices, reggaeton by Robertico "El Galán" and one of the newest acts in the hiphop/reggaeton scene La Nueva Union with Frank Belicer and Yarién Oviedo. I will get back to this in the full concert report. But let me begin with some of the pre-show interviews with the charangueros, starting with Aned Mota. The interveiw is in Spanish and in video format. Click here to go to the interview.