A posse of Cubans is coming to town! The Afro-Cuban All Stars, a big band with skills to burn and performances that simply dazzle, will be on the Michigan Tech campus on Sunday, April 9, at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Hall 135. For tickets, call the Performing Arts Ticket Center (487-3200, Tuesday-Saturday, 11:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m.), stop by the Memorial Union Box Office (Monday-Friday,11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.) stop by the SDC Central Ticket Office, or purchase tickets online at http://www.tickets.mtu.edu.
What hits you first is the power of the music, the electrifying bass and the thunderous percussion behind the Afro-Cuban All Stars. Their terrific brass harmonies, blazing solos on trumpet and trombone, and sparkling piano rhythms all add up to make music that is happy, music that makes you want to sing along and dance! You'll take a trip back in time to the glamour period of the fifties, when the mambo and the cha-cha-cha were all the rage, and forward to the latest popular salsa rhythms. You'll hear the rich musical heritage of the island of Cuba in all its diversity, the rumbas, danzon, son-montono, afro, guajira, guaguanco, and other styles. The Afro-Cuban All Stars deliver them all and more in a feast of Latin jazz. >From the oldest singer, 70-plus-years-old Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, who worked with the top big bands in the 1940s, to the youngest, 23-year-old Yanko Pisaco Pichado, one of the most promising trumpeters in Cuba today, a high note trumpeter, easily capable of playing above high C-sharp without losing sound quality, this band includes some of the very best musicians in Cuba today. The band's four generations of musicians positively sizzle with talent, and it's no surprise that they've enjoyed sold out performances all over Europe and the U.S. where Latin music is receiving more attention than ever.
Many members of the Afro-Cuban All Stars have had formal music training at the great schools such as the Havana Conservatoire and the Escuela Nacional de Arte, and some of them currently teach in the schools where they were trained. They each have long lists of credits, including tours of Europe and Latin America with some of the greatest salsa and Latin jazz groups, such as Irakere, Tito Puente, Paquito Rivera, and Sierra Maestra.
The Afro-Cuban All Stars were first brought together by Juan de Marcos González. As a youngster González' parents took him to all-night rumba parties called "rumbas de solar," and he grew up surrounded by Latin rhythms. In the 70s, he performed with Sierra Maestra, but his dream was to form a multi-generational big band with a mission to explore the island's rich musical heritage and to show the world the diversity, continuity and vitality of Cuban music. He sought out the "young lions" of Cuban jazz, as well as some of the greatest musicians from Cuba's pre-revolutionary era, who were all but forgotten, subsisting on $15-a-month pensions and menial jobs such as shoe-shining and rolling cigars. "I wanted to take the spirit of the old big-band arrangements ... [and give them] a modern sound," he says. Critics agree that he's succeeded, that this band has it all-the legacy of the great bands, singers and musicians of the past, and the legends of tomorrow. The band's Grammy-nominated debut on the CD "A Toda Cuba le Gusta" was essentially an homage to the heroes of González' youth-the great singers of the fifties. "Distinto, diferente," their new soon-to-be-released album, marries the past and the present, pays tribute to the diversity of Cuban music, and is a little broader in scope.
The Afro-Cuban All Stars' concert at Michigan Tech is made possible by the MTU Memorial Union Board, the MTU Committee for Campus Enrichment, and the Michigan Tech Fund and is coordinated through the University Cultural Enrichment Department (487-2844).
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