Three the Hard Way

“Vamos a cogerlo en serio, si separados somos una potencia, unidos somos un emperio…”

Taking over from Tirso, on the same rhythm with no break in the song, just when you thought things could get no more interesting, and no more Jamaican, next up is a very young talent with an almost older type of rumbafied voice, kind of like the Angel Bonne nasally sound, but much more rumba and nasally and not at all annoying. His voice —peculiar, high-pitched and almost female-like, was very reminiscence of the great dancehall singers like Courtney Melody— and the weaving in and out of different singers, on the same rhythm really enforce the comparison to Jamaican dancehall.

From a serious and guapo Tirso this guy ( I can’t remember his name, Luisito??) bursts right into “conmigo no, con Van Van” with, “Vamos a cogerlo en serio, vamos a cogerlo en serio, si separados somos una potencia, unidos somos un emperio…” with Maza doing the coros.

I hope he’s including himself in the unidos somos un emperio. As a third singer with Michel Maza and Tirso he could be an ingenious touch to the coros and would make a tough frontline with three very distinctive voices, which no doubt would lead to an empire. He throws in a bunch or regueton coros, rumbafied, showing that he is at the perfect stage in his career to sit behind Michel and Tirso as a coroist and occasional lead, and learn to cultivate coros and guias from the best.

Throughout the concert the coros, with Michel and Tirso taking turns singing backup, were not bad but could be better, compared to the stellar performance of the rest of the band. I can’t ever recall seeing Michel or Tirso with really great backup singers, excluding of course their time with CH. Maybe strong lead-vocals in timba does away with the need of good backup singers. The opposite is certainly true.

Some of the all time great timba songs are based on incredible coro singers and mediocre leads, of course I’m talking mostly about el Medico, but a current example is Issac Delgado’s Dime cual es. This scorcher is much like another Issac bomb, La sandunguita.

The beauty of Dime cual es is 100 percent in the backup vocals sung by Vannia, Enrique Pérez and Coco Freeman —a coro section on par with the lethal coroists of El Medico in his prime. In fact Issac’s lead vocals could have been sung by anyone, without downgrading the song at all.

Michel Maza closes the show with Yo no imito a nadie, yo soy original, no imito a nadie yo soy natural. Cuidaito…In which he talks about a clown going around imitating Manolín…

Around a half hour after the show, as I headed back down 41st past the Tropical, I noticed Michel and Tirso out wondering the streets, go figure… I took the opportunity to ask Maza a few slurred questions about the future, and he assured me, that he and Tirso will be working together to form a band and put out an album…

Since the Tropical, Michel and Tirso have been featured at a number of gigs. What a great way to close out the year, the future is here.