🇨🇺🎺🎶🥁🎸 In 1988, Los Van Van, one of Cuba’s most popular and innovative orchestras, made a slight change of direction. The aim was to reach an international audience, whereas their undisputed success was often limited to the Caribbean. They signed to Mango and rearranged a selection of their hits with their historic recipe, mixing son and merengue with Western and American influences and modernising salsa. It’s songo, their trademark, an indescribable blend of irresistible Latin groove and funk, rock, Africa… Juan Formell formed the orchestra at the end of the sixties, with his faithful percussionist José ‘Changuito’ Quintana, and has never wavered from this recipe. And Songo is naturally also the name of this album, which mixes contemporary sounds with traditional sounds on eight tracks that are hard to resist (and why would you want to, anyway?). I’m willing to bet that Sandunguera will get you out of your chair in no time! I remember seeing Los Van Van in concert, two or three years before this record, as a support act for Kassav’, and I was both seduced and impressed by what must then have been my first live salsa orchestra! The orchestra is still very much alive today, and the direction was taken over by Samuel Formell, the son, after the death of its founder.
Songo – Los Van Van, 1988
