Sierra Maestra gave two knockout performances at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago on March 24 2012, and the crowd came to dance.     Click here to read  about it and view photos of the concerts. 

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Those of you within traveling distance of Louisville, KY can see Charanga Habanera on Friday, March 30 at the Coconut Beach Nightclub, now in a new location at 2787 South Floyd St., Louisville KY.   Advance tickets (cheaper than at the door) may be purchased at 
https://www.ticketriver.com/event/3218-charanga-habanera-2012-kentucky-tour

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La Timba y  Los Estados Unidos, Parte II: La Recepción Inicial de la Timba en los E.E.U.U
(Para leer este artículo en español oprima aquí)

          If musical merit was the only ingredient necessary for mass popularity  in the United States, Timba would have quickly  taken the country by storm the same way that the Mambo did years earlier.  However, that  is not enough, as many Jazz musicians have also learned the hard way over the years.   An infrastructure to support the music is  also required for any genre to reach large numbers of listeners, and that was not in place for Timba when its sounds first reached the United States. In order to fully understand the reasons for this, we first need to briefly revisit the three decades prior to Timba’s emergence as a distinct style.           

          In the 1960s, there was no significant ongoing cultural exchange between the United States and  Cuba.  This does not mean that there was no exchange of ideas of any sort -  musicians both here and there were listening to each other by various means, and radio enthusiasts such as this writer were keeping up with what was happening in Cuban music via shortwave stations such as Radio Habana Cuba, Radio Rebelde etc.  However, most of the general American public remained....click "continue reading" below for the full article

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Today is International Women's Day, so here's a shout out to all of the women in the music, past and present, especially Orquesta Anacaona, Cuba's all-female band that is still going strong after 80 years with a new generation of performers:

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