The 14th annual Festival Bayamo is in full swing. To my knowledge it is Europe's longest and certainly the most beautiful Cuban festival of the year, located at Fort Napoleon on the French Riviera. While it's easy to get caught up in the line-up of outstanding bands performing each year, there is much more to the Festival Cubain Bayamo. The festival also offers dance classes, conferences, art exhibitions and Cuban cuisine. Click here for all the information (in French).

But getting back to the bands...each year features four nights of dancing under the stars to the most exciting orchestras on tour. This year the first concert was Contrabando from Belgium. Esto sí es pa' gozar!

Tomorrow Los Conquistadores de La Salsa from Peru take the stage, Friday it will be Elito Revé y Su Charangón and closing the festival is Oderquis Revé y Su Changüí. I was lucky enough to attend in 2008 and what more can you ask than lounging on the Riviera, shopping and soaking up Cuban culture by day, and sweating to timba by night? This festival is really a must for all serious timberos. If you can't make it this year, start planning for July 2015!

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Yoel Cuesta Fernández is the new conguero of Los Van Van upon the passing of Manolo. Timba fans know him from his work with Azúcar Negra and Adalberto Álvarez y su Son. In addition to being a stellar conguero, Manolo was a wonderful human being who contributed to the group with his kindness and his love. Yoel, in addition to being an excellent conguero, is also a genuinely nice person and thus a fitting choice to fill the huge space left by Manolo's death. We wish him the best as he steps into the shoes of one of Cuba's legendary percussionists.

We will soon see Yoelito with El Tren as Los Van Van begin their European Tour on March 1st. This will be the first European tour for Los Van Van since the departure of Mayito Rivera and the entrance of Mandy Cantero, and now the first international presentations with Yoelito on congas. Click here for the list of Van Van concert dates.

Below you can check out video of Los Van Van with Mandy singing Este amor que se muere - qué riiico!

Los Van Van with Mandy Cantero singing Este amor que se muere

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"Dial", Buena Fe’s eighth studio CD, was released one month ago on iTunes, Amazon MP3, Spotify and other digital download sites. To my knowledge the hardcopy is only available at the EGREM stores in Cuba and at Buena Fe concerts. If you have the opportunity to score a hardcopy, take it. I did and the cover art by Jesús Lara is worth the purchase price!

I have spent a couple of weeks agonizing over the CD review, not because I didn't know what I wanted to say, but because I didn't know how to say it to really get my point across. As I was working on the review, I took the opportunity to ask Israel and Yoel a few questions. Click here to read the short interview with Buena Fe.

The first official video for the CD was released just over two weeks ago, and a video says more than a thousand words. "La culpa" is a brilliant guaguancó-rock fusion and a perfect example of Buena Fe's talent for combining intelligent lyrics with captivating music. The video, below, was written and directed by Ian Padrón and features the participation of Clave y Guaguancó and Havana Queens.

Click here for my review/report on “Dial” .

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Festival Directors Nick Van Eyck and Serena Wong with El Médico de la Salsa

The SF SalsaRueda Festival was really a great event - having 500+ great and enthusiastic dancers in the crowd really seemed to fire up the musicians. Here's Tom's gallery from Saturday - Part 2, covering Sunday, is still to come.

Rumor Central: As per DJ Melao, Arnaldo Jiménez (ex-Paulito, leader of la Cosmopólita) will be Los Van Van's new bassist.

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