Havana Fairfax Connection 0072

A carnival of music, joy and danceable tunes with host Toni Basanta. www.cubanbridge.wordpress.com
Jazz and Rumba with Kono in Havana - Haruhiko Kono was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1958.
He began studying Cuban percussion at age 21 with the late Yoshinori Nomi, who at that time was a member of The Tokyo Cuban Boys, a big band founded in 1949, and is still the most representative institution of Latin Rhythms, absorbing the tradition and introducing the Mambo and all the Cuban genres in Japan.
In 1984, Kono traveled to CUBA to take part in the Varadero Beach Music Festival, where he first got in touch with his mentor Oscar Valdés, former lead singer and percussionist of Irakere. Three years later, the bug bit him so hard in his island, that he decided to settle down in Havana and continue playing his percussion set.
In those days, Haruhiko Kono could barely speak Spanish, and his mentor did not speak Japanese, but the language of the Drums. In 1995, Kono became a charter member of his mentor's band, Diákara Ten years after, he produced his first album as a leader Thanks Cuba !. Kono's interest in Cuban percussion led him to become a student at the Fine Arts Institute (better known as El ISA) in Havana.
In this new episode, the band siding Kono's Happy Anniversary, stands out in my mind as magical !
About Kono his mentor Oscar Valdés II stated : "I consider him a scholar, a scientist of Cuban percussion, Kono has visited all the provinces, investigating all aspects of drumming, and now he has the largest catalog of our folkloric music. He began very important works, for his dissertation at El ISA which led him to a deeper analysis and study of all our Afro-Cuban percussion roots".
Since 1984, Haruhiko Kono has augmented the wires that join two cultures, apparently so distant and so different, but with ancestral love in common for arts.
Retro Mission
Historically, jazz has turned to the popular music of the day for its repertoire, but here you will have the opportunity to discover young composer and trumpet player Alejandro Delgado contributing one of his compositions Crazy Men in a fiery dialogue with Julio Rigal. But the core of the Live Show embraces the fire, erudition and activism of Diákara's well-seasoned Group sound honed over 20 more years, with the longest running weekly jazz gigs at La Zorra y El Cuervo and El Jazz Café in Havana.
This episode celebrating Kono's Anniversary, covers new territory musically and sonically, pushing the boundaries of Afro-Cuban Jazz with classics of Luciano "Chano" Pozo, Dizzy Gillespie, Walter "Gil" Fuller, John Coltrane, and Yemayá, a traditional song from Nigeria, arranged by reedman Liván Morejón.
The band is completed with pianist Eslys Edrey González, drummer Vicente Homero García, percussionist Mary Paz, another alumni of Oscar Valdés II, singers Haila Mompié and Tania Pantoja, and bassist Mayelín Velázquez. The soloists express their individualism without sounding fettered or compromised, making the tunes their own. Yet, none of these tunes let you forget for a moment who owned them first.
Peace is all we need

Havana Fairfax Connection 0071

A carnival of music, joy and danceable tunes with host Toni Basanta. www.cubanbridge.wordpress.com Featuring Vermont bluegrass Band Beg Steal or Borrow in the LCATV studio.
Havana Fairfax Connection presents: Bluegrass Band Beg Steal or Borrow: Episode 71.
One of the pleasures of hosting music program is the ability to meet the players with whom one feels a musical connection. Beg Steal or Borrow is the best example, and they brought me deep into their songs.
I have not changed my love of jazz, but just took the opportunity to bring my TV show into a new direction: Bluegrass Sounds in America !
For me, hosting a radio and a TV show in Vermont, has been an endless journey, and every once in a while, it's good to take a side detour, as you never know where it might lead you.
The concept of Blue Grass, as a process, means a collective creation rather than a set of specific rhythms or riffs from the soloists. It is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, and it was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe.
This encounter with Beg Steal or Borrow will keep viewers, music programmers and impresarios, alert, as Blue Grass keeps gaining track in the 21st century.
Musicians like Fran Forim (bass), Geoff Goodhue (mandolin), Jeremy Sicely (guitar), Luke Auriemmo (banjo), and Roland Clark (fiddle and violin) are a major reason why.
Their journey began 7 years ago, and their main goal was resurrecting the music of Old & in The Way, a band that included Grateful Dead front man Jerry Garcia on banjo and vocals, Peter Rowan on lead vocals, Vassar Clements (fiddle), John Kahn (bass) and David Grissman (mandolin and vocals).
Beg Steal or Borrow are grateful for the places their mission has taken them, and to the people they have met along the way. Inspired by their travels and time together, they began to broaden their own musical branch, borrowing from the Roots, and by stealing a few licks, that finally came to populate their debut album "Old Mountain Time" with 10 compositions of its own members.

How I found Beg Steal or Borrow ?
It was in the Artists' Mediums Art Shop in Cambridge, Vermont, talking to owner and curator Chelsea, a very nice lady, with whom I had exchanged some Havana Fairfax Connection episodes to be promoted with her customers. artshopAM.com
Some of her customers and artists were delighted when they watched Ruy Lopez-Nussa y La Academia on Chelsea's computer, and that was the path for the beginning of this new episode.
Old Mountain Time was on a shelf "For Sale", and Chelsea, inspired by the episodes she saw, gifted it to me, so I could connect with their bandleader, and so I did.
My first real experiences with Blue Grass sounds began at WRUV 90.1 FM Burlington, the University of Vermont Campus Radio, in 2007, and also in some Concerts for students with bands coming from Massachusetts and Canada, especially singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, whose show I attended at the Flynn Theater.
Later on, in the Valley Stage Festivals, hosted by musician and impresario Don Sheldon in the backyard of his home in Huntington, Vt. I discovered Collin McCaffrey with his impressive voice, leading his Cold Stone Roosters.
Coming from Milton and Starksboro, banjoist Rick Ceballos and multi-instrumentalist Lausanne Allen, graciously came to my radio show The Cuban Bridge at St. Michael's College and then to my former show on TV in Richmond's MMCTV.
I had met Rick Ceballos at VCAM, responding to an invitation of media personality and musician Rik Palieri. At the Vermont International Festival, I discovered Rowan.
Always curious about the Sounds of Music, I once discovered Bluegrass Underground on PBS, a program taped deep within the subterranean amphitheater of The Caverns in Tennessee's majestic Cumberland Mountains, 333 feet below, South of Nashville, TN.
This "musical adventure" series featured both long-established and emerging artists within a broad spectrum of genres to include roots-rock, jamband, r&b, soul, folk and Americana.
After this new episode with Beg Steal or Borrow, I have discovered a lot more about each one of their members. For instance, fiddler and violinist Roland Clark has played Duets with jazz guitar master and composer, Bill FriselI, but that will be a new story for a next meeting.
I hope the crowds go wild and fall in love with this new episode @ LCATV, it can help bring Bluegrass' spirit to life even more, especially for those who would have found it unreachable before.
Peace is all we need
-Toni

Havana Fairfax Connection 0070

A carnival of music, joy and danceable tunes with host Toni Basanta. www.cubanbridge.wordpress.com Featuring Yumiri and his brothers.
MOISES VALLE "YUMURI" 36 YEARS SINGING TO THE WORLD
Yumurí y sus Hermanos is a Cuban band led by singer and songwriter Moisés Valle better known as Yumiri since September 1992. It has become a chart topping sensation, mixing son montuno, salsa, cha cha cha, mambo, danzon, merengue, and conga de comparsa.
The band consists of Moisés, his brothers and in recent years, his sons. In 1993, they won prizes for the best new band of the year on the Cuban TV show Mi Salsa. The arrangements are mainly done by his brother-flutist Orlando "Maraca" Valle, former member of showman Bobby Carcassés and AfroJazz, Emiliano Salvador, Chucho Valdés and Irakere, and Cubanismo.
In 1994, the band toured Japan. Then in 1997, Yumurí played in the show Cuba Tropical, again in Japan, and onto Venezuela, Panama, the US, Mexico, Switzerland and France. In the New Millenium, new tours and recordings, helping to shape the sound of dancing music.
Discography
More than 16 albums as a leader, and top shelf collaborations with his brothers, Orquesta de la Luz from Japan, with rapper Papo Records, Salsa Idol Andy Montañez, Merengue Poet Juan Luis Guerra, Compay Segundo, Country Music sensation Beby Verdecia, Gitanos, Aragón Orchestra, Alexander Abreu, Lázaro El Fino, El Guajiro Pompa, and pianist-producer Isidro Infante. Cocodrilo de Agua Salá Magic Music, Spain 1993. Provocación Victor Entertainment Japan, 1996. Olvídame si puedes Bis Music Cuba, 1999. Sonando with his brother Orlando Valle "Maraca" Ahi Na'Ma, USA, 1999, Agárrate with his brother Luis Valle Sabroso Records / Ahora Corporation, Japan, 2005, Bilongo Bis Music, 2002. Salsa y Candela Bis Music, 2004; Live at La Casa de la Musica Bis Music CD/DVD 2005; Greatest Hits 2006; Cubano Cubano 2007 ; My Mountain with singer Beby Verdecia, Colibri 2006; Gitanos Band feat. Yumuri Bis Music, 2019; Changanero Bis Music, 2019; Isidro Infante Presents Cuba y Puerto Rico; Un Abrazo Musical Salsero; Latin Grammy Nominee 2017 - Winner of Cuba Disco Honor Award, 2019.
Yumurí was born on 29 July, 1964. Studied at the University of Havana. He has sung with Imagen Latina, La Orquesta Revé and others, before becoming a world favorite. If you see him in 2021, two of his sons are now part of The Family Band !
Peace is All We Need

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