Month: June 2007

Categories
Joshua Files videos

Capoiera in Oxford

Here’s a video I made last year of the Oxford capoeira players demonstrating their sport in Summertown. The hero of “The Joshua Files” is a capoeirista. I love watching this sport, something I became interested in when on a business trip to the USA. I had this really tense meeting to go to and I couldn’t sleep, so watched this bad-but-fascinating movie called “Only the Strong”, all about a school teacher who motivates a gang of rough kids through capoeira that he’s learned in the street gangs of Brazil.

I really love writing the capoeira sections of Joshua.

(Yes, the compression sucks on this version, I don’t quite know how to fix it. Looks fine when I run it locally… Any suggestions welcome.)

Categories
cuba salsa

Maikel Blanco Y Su Salsa Mayor

Maikel Blanco y Su Salsa Mayor (Maikel on keyboards)

(Yes, I’m still going on about Cuba…)

I finally found the name of the salsa band who played in Casa de la Musica the night I first took my teenage daughter to Galiano in Havana. Yes, naughty me, I passed her for 18 when she’s only 14 and introduced her to a world of loud timba music, the best dancing in Havana, the raunchy dance moves of Bustamente and Yoandy who were grinding away with their latest dance pupils (who we met weeks later in Oxford), the Cuban hottie who tried to get my daughter to fall for him…and to this amazing timba band Maikel Blanco Y Su Salsa Mayor, who had us mesmerized.

Their hit son “Esto Esta” (This Is…) is my FAVOURITE salsa song to dance to. I hear this and I have to dance…

Here’s the video of “Esto Esta”:

Categories
cuba salsa

Soneando en Oxford – Claro Que Si!

What a pleasure last night to see a halfway decent homegrown salsa band – Soneando.

The creation of a Bristol-based keyboard player, Sara and two British conga/bongo players, Soneando also feature Jimmy, a Columbian bass player and Cuban tres-player and frontman (I think they called him Jesus…?). Yesterday they added in a terrific singer from Santiago de Cuba whose sultry, high voice blended brilliantly in the harmonies with the two male singers. It was a set of classics of Cuban son, but with groovy piano lines and pretty-darn-good improvisations.

They were as good as any small (i.e. non-famous) band we saw in Cuba. Seriously.

After dancing son all night, David and I felt as though we’d been at the Casa de la Trova in Santiago de Cuba – another place with zero air conditioning.
I went to talk to the lead singer afterwards. “You guys were great!” I said. He shook his head, embarrassed. “No…we were RUBBISH!”.

A Cuban from Las Tunas, he was amazed and then sceptical to hear that I’d liked Las Tunas, through which we’d passed on the bus to Santiago, about two months ago. Jesus has a nice line in stage patter – in English too. He likes the word “Wha’eva”.