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The news has been all over Facebook since Sunday - Yenisel Valdés is leaving Los Van Van to begin a new life with her husband Dancer, singer and percussionist Erick Barbeira. The newlyweds will be settling down in California, and Yeni's relocation is what caused her to leave the orchestra. Timba.com wish them both much happiness in their new life together. It will certainly be interesting to see what she does with that voice of her in La Yuma. Bay Area watch out! Kevin, are you paying attention?

During her career, Yeni had to face down tough, macho audiences that were not receptive to seeing a woman in timba bands such as NG La Banda and later Los Van Van. But her combination of grace and humor on stage with that incredible voice earned her the respect and love of the Cuban and international audiences. Where once people thought Maestro Juan Formell was crazy to bring in a woman after the departure of the iconic Pedrito Calvo, now they mourn her leaving and can't imagine Van Van without La Van Vanera.

But the world moves on, and while Yeni has an exciting new life to begin, bandleader and drummer Samuel Formell has the unenviable job of deciding what to do now. Maybe he will find another amazing talent from Cuba's seemingly endless fountain of musical geniuses. Or maybe he'll decide that no one can fill her high heels and stick with three voices. As always, changes in Cuban orchestras fill me both with sadness and yet also a sense of excitement and possibility.

Yeni, I want to leave you with a short clip from an interview I did with Juan in January of 2008. He was talking about how he decided that to fill the space left by Pedrito's departure he would add two singers to the band - Lele and yourself. And here is what he had to say about you. Congratulations and best wishes - Michelle .

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I. Mezcla Celebrates 30 Years, Releases New Album Pure Mezcla

Since Mezcla was already performing in public before the band was officially named, even its leader, Pablo Menéndez, is uncertain about which day should be considered its birthday, but 2015 is the 30th Anniversary year of one of Cuba's foremost Fusion groups, and the group is currently engaged in activities related to that milestone in Cuba. 
Oakland-born Pablo Menéndez and Cuban-made Mezcla have served as a cultural bridge between Cuba and the United States for decades.  A key moment in that history came in 1993, when 5 of the 8 band members were denied entry for a US tour by the State Department.  This galvanized activists and the musical community in the Bay Area.  The lawsuit that followed, Encuentro del Canto Popular vs. Christopher, helped set the course of the subsequent career of one of the leading attorneys in the US for assisting US-Cuba cultural exchanges, William Martinez, and it also helped cement the Bay Area's reputation as a supportive center of the music in the United States.   The show went on after a fashion in 1993 with Santana and some members of his band performing with Pablo Menéndez and Lazaro Ros in place of Pablo's full band.  Here's a clip from Yerba Buena Gardens from that time...  

In 1999, Pablo Menéndez, Bonnie Raitt & Woody Harrelson performed together at an event in the Karl Marx Theater in Havana called Music Bridges in which 40 Cuban musicians and 40 musicians from the US collaborated in a joint songwriting and performance effort.  Sadly, subsequent events in the United States a couple of years later prevented the musicians in both countries  from fully developing the opportunities presented by this project.

In more recent years, Mezcla has placed more emphasis on both Jazz and Folkloric fusion elements including a wonderful DVD made in Cuba, Todos estrellas del Jazz cubano.  Mezcla's current fans include Arturo O'Farrill and Orbert Davis among many others.  

Now, Mezcla has just released a new album, Pure Mezcla, which contains the best parts of a live concert at Yoshi's Oakland in 2013.  The album is already getting airplay across the planet (literally, from Canada to Australia) and is drawing favorable reviews in the music press. Best of all, the intial release is an exclusive download with bonus content on Latin Pulse Music. Don't wait for something to turn up on Amazon or I-Tunes - those are fine services, but the label (Tilford Productions, run by yours truly) has no plans of putting it there in the near future because we were able to load liner notes, bonus content etc. on LPM, and these things matter to us. 
Click here for the album page, which includes sample videos, audio samples and review clips. 

II. Next
Weekend:
The 7th Annual San Francisco Salsa Rueda Festival

February 19-22, 2015
Hotel Whitcomb
1231 Market Street, 
San Francisco, CA 94103. 
Ticket Info
Quite simply the best and most important festival of its kind in the United States.  Of very special interest to TIMBA.com's visitors will be the performances by Mayito Rivera (who incidentally  also blogs for us from time to time) and Timbalive and two lectures by our Editor in Chief Kevin Moore on clave and its relationship to the basic dance step. People come from considerable distances to attend this event. Here's a link to Kevin's review of last year's performance of Mayito and Timbalive at this same festival.

III:  Happy Anniversary to Septeto Santiaguero!

Septeto Santiaguero, one of Cuba's best traditional Son bands and a group that has been working with an impressive collection of guest artists in recent years, celebrated its 20th Anniversary on February 2.   Their forthcoming new recording (in May 2015) will be No Quiero Llanto - Tributo a Los Compadres, a joint project with José Alberto El Canario. You can read our review of this excellent recording here in English and aquí en español. 

IV.  Meanwhile, in Chicago: 

Many Chicagoans are enjoying the 14th Annual
Chicago International Salsa Congress this weekend, and on Sunday, February 15, the Pedrito Martinez Group is doing two shows (5 and 8pm) at City Winery.  We aren't positive, but we think this may be the PMG's first visit to Chicago featuring their new lineup. PMG is a regular visitor here, and the winery has named one of its selections after them. 

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As promised we have uploaded the full program for the 2015 Havana Rhythm & Dance Festival. Over six days music and dance events will be held in nine venues across Havana. In addition to the percussion competition and the Casino competition, highlights include the Giants of Percussion at Teatro Mella March 4th at 8:30pm and the concerts at La Tropical on March 7th and 8th with Paulo FG y la Èlite, Pupy y Los Que Son Son, Cándido Fabré y su Orquesta, Lazarito Valdés y Bamboleo, Manolito Simonet y su Trabuco, Giraldo Piloto y Klimax,  Jose Luis Cortés y NG la Banda, Compañía Santiago Alfonso, Maykel Blanco y Salsa Mayor, and El Niño y La Verdad. Click here to check the full program or to download the program in PDF format, click here.

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La Clave Cubana was founded in 2000 in Buenos Aires, Argentina as an 8-man band that played traditional Cuban repertoire. In 2014 they were reborn as La Clave Cubana Timbera , a 15-man band performing their own compositions with more updated arrangements. Today the single "La Chismosa"   from their upcoming debut album "Llegó La Clave", has dropped at Cubamusic.com. It will also be available soon at the other on-line and streaming sites such as iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon and Spotify. You can check it out in the video also released today.

La Clave Cubana Timbera band is under the direction of tresero Eduardo Suárez "El Guajiro" with pianist Hubert Garcia as the musical director. They write the arrangements while the compositions are by this duo and vocalist Geovanny Ruiz Perez. See below for the list of musicians and the instrumentation.

To keep up on the latest you can follow La Clave Cubana Timbera at their Facebook page .

Band members
Eduardo Suárez "El Guajiro", tres & coros. (Cuba)
Hubert García, piano & coros. (Cuba)
Yoedis Oconor, baby bass. (Cuba)
Erick Ricardo Hernandez, keyboard, coros. (Cuba)
Geovanny Ruiz Pérez, vocals. (Cuba)
Daniel Vera, vocals. (Cuba)
Fernando Cruz, vocals. (Cuba)
Eddy Gomez, vocals, coro & minor percussion. (Cuba)
Cristian Ceccardi, congas. (Argentina)
Choco Drumss, timbales. (Cuba)
Moises Quiroz Gomez, trombone. (Peru)
Gabriel Leonetti, trombone. (Argentina)
Javier Sedeno, trombone. (Venezuela)

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