By JON PARELES
Published: January 10, 2010
An audience packed with cheering Cubans greeted David Calzado and his
Charanga Habanera at S.O.B.'s on Friday night, in a rare and welcome
American appearance by one of Cuba's top bands — signaling, perhaps, an
Obama administration thaw in Cuban-American relations. Formed in 1988
and persisting through multiple personnel changes, Charanga Habanera has
made hits in Cuba through the 1990s and 2000s, and its set raced through
them in an exultant, nearly nonstop two-hour medley. In songs like "Soy
Cubano, Soy Popular" ("I Am Cuban, I Am Popular"), the band sang of its
own fame and success, and the crowd proved it by shouting along, verse
and chorus.
Charanga Habanera isn't a charanga group, the traditional Cuban ensemble
with violins and flute. Since the early 1990s it has played timba, the
hopped-up modern salsa that developed through constant performing on
Havana's club circuit. Timba uses every bit of the Afro-Cuban propulsion
of mambo, rumba and guaguancó, with voices and trumpets jabbing back and
forth. Often it pushes the salsa rhythms even harder with choppy,
stop-start bass lines that give the rest of the band something to
hurdle. Timba lyrics also hint at the everyday struggles of Cubans.
Charanga Habanera deploys five lead vocalists, not including Mr.
Calzado, who sometimes stepped forward to sing a few hoarse lines or
play M.C.; otherwise he stayed busy directing the band. The singers
united in robust harmonies and traded off lead vocals: crooning romantic
entreaties, brightly declaiming the band's self-praise and, now and
then, rapping. They danced too, in synchronized bump and grind and a few
routines — like one that had them tossing hats to one another — that
suggested boy-band choreography, if a boy band were replaced by
pumped-up, grown-up Cubans.
For brief stretches Charanga Habanera showed it had heard hip-hop, at
one point toying with the low bass line and high synthesizer swoop of
gangsta rap. And it has certainly borrowed the self-congratulatory
posturing of hip-hop videos. But instead of hip-hop's programmed music,
Charanga Habanera has live muscle, and it only teased at funk or hip-hop
before returning to kinetic Caribbean rhythms.
Dipping into hip-hop isn't the only way that Charanga Habanera glances
toward the United States. At the center of its set on Friday night was
"Gozando en la Habana" ("Having Fun in Havana"), a hit from Charanga
Habanera's latest album, "No Mires la Carátula" ("Don't Look at the
Cover," Planet Records). The song — highly unusual in Cuba — openly
addresses expatriates. It's about a girlfriend who emigrated from Havana
to Miami, where "they say she has money, the car that she dreamed of/
But she doesn't find in Miami what she left behind in Havana," and she's
"crying in Miami," while he's having fun in Havana. The singalongs were
nearly as loud as the band.
Music Review - David Calzado and His Charanga Habanera - Hit Cuban Band
Plays Timba at S.O.B.'s - NYTimes.com (10 January 2010)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/arts/music/11sobs.html
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