Last weekend Sweden celebrated King Carl XIV Gustav's 40 years as Regent. Whether you are a royalist or not, you can't argue with the music selection. Calle Real performed as part of the festivities on Sunday September 15th in front of the Royal Palace, so I call it Calle Real at El Palacio Real. After getting the year off to a great start with the tour of Peru and Chile, the bandmembers were busy with various other projects. But summer is over; it's time to get back to work and they gave us a couple of their "new"songs at the concert. I say "new" because one is an updated version of "Hoah"and the other is a new version of Rasmus Faber's house song "Oye", which Thomas sang lead on. It is now a house/timba song. The full concert report including an interview will follow soon, but here is a little teaser from the Palace Concert: the "Intro" and "Somos Familia" and "Oye" from the second set. Stay tuned for more...

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Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival, a wonderful event that deserves a lot more national notice than it usually receives. This year's offerings include Cuban Jazz and Fusion artist Roberto Fonseca, whose recording Yo won Cubadisco 2013 awards in the Fusion and Recording (engineering) categories this year (you can read a review of Yo here).  Roberto is playing Friday, September 27 at 10:30 pm, and this show, which will be an interesting departure from what most US listeners typically expect from Cuban music concerts if the material from Yo is performed, is highly recommended. Click here for the Lotus festival's page, which includes a live video. While you're there, check out the rest of the festival schedule, there aren't any additional Cuban acts, but it is very impressive.

In Los Angeles, the AC Jazz Project is having its official CD release party for the new recording Conga Buena at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Los Angeles on Thursday, September 26 at 8:30pm.  This group is based in Los Angeles California and features veterans of Maraca, Klimax, Afrocuba and Opus 13.  The leader, trumpeter/composer Josiel Pérez, is originally from Piñar del Rio, played with Maraca and Klimax, and is just getting established in the US after coming here in 2011. The group does both Cuban Jazz and Cuban dance music (Timba, Rumba, Son etc.), and some tracks are already on the radio in a few cities. The album is now available in CD Baby and iTunes

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The Arsenio Rodríguez Project will be playing Yoshi's SF this Saturday night. This is an all-star group with New York legends Nelson González on tres and José Mangual, Jr. on bongó, plus Josiel Pérez on trumpet from Maraca's band and the Bay Area's own Carlos Caro on congas.

On Sunday, they fly to LA to play the Grenada in Alhambra.

Here's our new section on the band. 

In other Arsenio news, Beyond Salsa Bass, Vol. 2: Arsenio, Cachao and The Golden Age, will be out in a day or two. It has 120 pages on Arsenio. [Kevin Moore]

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Friday October 25th Lily and Calixto Oviedo (Mi nuevo sabor) will perform in San Francisco at Café Cocomo , uniting some of the great Bay Area musicians. Surprisingly this will actually be Calixto's first time performing at Café Cocomo, and is at the initiative of organizer Corey Raynor. Performing with Lily and Calixto will be Best Timba Bongocero Carlos Caro, legendary Peruvian bassist David Pinto, who Calixto remarks is one of the greatest bass players he has had the pleasure of seeing both on baby and electric bass, and completing the rhythm section is Peruvian pianist Mario Arseno Jr. The brass will consist of two trombones and one trumpet, El Niche Romero (ex-Manolín El Médico de la Salsa). Guest vocalist for the evening is Edgardo Cambon. This will be a night for all dancers so don't miss it! They will be performing a repertoire including timba cubana, son montuno, Puerto Rican salsa and even bachata.

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