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Pupi has made his name as pianist of Los Van Van. On top of playing he piano, and developing his own piano tumbao style, he has also contributed many songs and arrangements to Los Van Van repertoir over the years, and occasionally produced solo albums. While, more recently, Los Van Van spent 5 years without new albums (between LLego Van Van and Chapeando), Pupi left the band, formed a new one and gave us an impressive string of closely released CDs; one better than the other.

The first impact with Pupi’s music may be a shock, a pure avalange of music and power. It may also be intimidating, since the impression is that all instruments play at full power, all together, all the time. Obviously, it is not the case, and the arrangements are cleverly designed and often brilliant. However, if you are a beginner salsa dancers and you are still hesitating in finding the timing to dance to, this will not make your life easy; it is timba at its best, but with no economy of ideas and musical virtuosity. But.. !! If you are an advanced dancer, and in general you like Cuban music, you will be in paradise and you will be able to enjoy this whether dancing is all you care or whether you like to listen to music with the ear of a musician. Pupi is a ‘senior’ musician but, thanks to his reputation, he has surrounded himself with young talents, the best of the best, and his music appeals to everyone in Cuba, and young and former-young alike.

While most old style timba songs have the peculiarity of starting slow, with a melodic intro, and suddenly breaking in a powerful tumbao, where all the energy of the song gets released, most of Pupi’s songs hits you with maximum impact from the very first note: no messing around.. just getting straight to the point. The first track, ‘Que cosas tiene la vida’ is a perfect example: “If you don’t dance to this one, you won’t dance to anything” the introductory lyrics make the point very explicitly! “El gato amaga y no arena” is catchy, pure enjoinment to dance to (and even funny if you can understand the lyrics) with the voice of Tirso Duarte as an unexpected extra gift. “Manita portate bien’ short-circuits my brain.. the combination of the arrangements and the surprising harmonies prevent me to think and take me directly to Lah-Lah land: Pupi at its best. ‘La bomba so yo; is a reprise from a classic from Los Van Van. El pregonero’, ‘Juegala’ and ‘Hoy se sumplen seis semanas’ are also powerful songs, quite fast to dance to, while ‘Te molesta que sea feliz’ is a beautiful, more ‘serious’ song decorated once again by the great voice of Tirso Duarte and by masterful arrangements. Not a single track will disappoint you; let’s hope Pupi will continue delivering such masterpieces for many years.. 6-8-07

FabSalsero - Rueda de Casino vol 1

Level: Beg-Int

Style: Cuban

Content: Casino Rueda Patterns

General Comment: This DVD contains all you need to know in order to build a rueda de casino team from scratch or at least from a group of dancers who know how to dance basic steps in Cuban style salsa. The first session shows the 'basic rules' that is the mechanics of the rueda, how the dances relate to the circle, how the dancers position themselves in relation to other dancers, how the rotation of the partners happens, and so on. Then you are taught a set of rueda moves in increasing order of difficulty, 17 all together divided into 3 sessions. Rueda moves are very well standardised since they need to be executed by memory from the call of the leader, so the material contained in this DVD is the basics which any rueda group needs to learn, anywhere in the world. The teaching is done with a camera positioned high above the team, so you have a front view which allows to see the entire circle, which is very useful. All moves are first demonstrated by Fabrizio with partner and then executed by 3 couples to counting and then to music. The instruction is clear and easy to follow. A good tool to get into rueda dancing.

Reviewed by: Fabio from SalsaIsGood Ok

Fact 1 . Roughly speaking, most people dance salsa either On1, or On2 Modern Mambo (NY style) or On2 Classic Mambo (Puerto Rican style also similar to Cuban contratiempo). Today Modern Mambo is used more frequently than Classic Mambo at congresses and salsa classes around the world.. more...

There are no objective answers to the above questions. They all, one way or the other, depend on subjective views on the artistic expression we call salsa, on what we like, and on what we intend by salsa in the first place. But we can still say reasonable things about the matter and make the creative process clearer and possibly easier. What follows are some thoughts of mine, mostly borrowed from my maths background. I am sure all this must have been said already within the art or humanistic literature, and if you are aware of work in this area please let me know, so that I can learn more.