JUAN DE MARCOS & THE AFRO CUBAN ALL STARS 2013 US TOUR
Legendary Orchestra First Time Performance in El Paso Texas!!
Cuban music fans have a rare opportunity to experience Juan de Marcos and the Afro Cuban All Stars for the first time in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, March 3, 2013! As part of a 25 city US Tour; the Afro- Cuban All Stars are touring from the West coast to El Paso and Dallas before heading East to Maine, New York City, Boston and more.
The Afro-Cuban All Stars Orchestra is the creation of acclaimed Cuban bandleader, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez. Juan de Marcos is best known as the creator of the Grammy Award winning group and Oscar nominated documentary of the same name; “Buena Vista Social Club.” Deemed the “Quincy Jones” of Cuba, he built the Afro-Cuban All Stars with Cuba’s finest musicians & vocalists of all ages and genres.
Juan de Marcos & The Afro-Cuban All Stars, Sunday, March 3rd, 7:00PM
at UTEP Magoffin Auditorium. Tickets at the UTEP Ticket Center
915.747.5234 or ticketmaster.com
BIOGRAPHY FROM: www.afrocubanallstarsonline.com/en/
Juan De Marcos González, a central figure in Cuban music today, has set himself a lifetime mission: to show the wealth, diversity and vitality of Cuban music to the world. His work with the Afro-Cuban All Stars, the Buena Vista Social Club, Ruben Gonzalez, Ibrahim Ferrer, Sierra Maestra and others has made an extraordinary contribution to raising the profile of the music of his country throughout the world.
Juan de Marcos was born in Havana in 1954 and grew up surrounded by music (his father was a singer and played with the great Arsenio Rodriguez, among others). He studied classical guitar at the Havana Conservatory and privately with the great maestros Vicente Gonzalez and Leopoldina Nunez. Also contemporary harmony and orchestral conducting. Later, at university, he turned to studying Hydraulic Engineering and Russian and English Languages before working as a consultant at the Agronomic Science Institute, gaining his doctorate in 1989.
While at university he co-founded the group Sierra Maestra in 1976. Styled as a traditional Cuban septeto group (tres, trumpet, bass, percussion, and arid vocals), the dynamic young band’s aim was to bring about an appreciation of Cuban son by the youth of the island. The band achieved great success, recording fourteen albums in Cuba, Africa and Europe, touring many countries and receiving various awards.
In 1994, Juan de Marcos began his association with the London-based record label World Circuit, when the band recorded the album ‘Dundunbanza’. For this recording, World Circuit’s Nick Gold encouraged the group to expand their line-up to include piano, congas and a trumpet section in tribute to the forties and fifties styles of the legendary Cuban musician Arsenio Rodriguez. Having found both success and a common ground, Juan de Marcos and Gold looked to develop them further with a big band recording in Havana, featuring the neglected stars of the ‘golden age’ of Cuban music (the 50s).
The Afro-Cuban All Stars album ‘A toda Cuba le gusta’ (Grammy Nominee ’98) was the first to be recorded in the now famous Buena Vista Social Club sessions and Juan de Marcos proved to be a springboard for the success that came up. Following the albums’ release, Juan de Marcos led the Afro-Cuban All Stars and The Ruben Gonzalez Ensemble on their debut European and U.S. tours and directed the Buena Vista Social Club in the only concerts of the original line up at the top theatres ‘Le Carre’ in Amsterdam, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Mexico’s Auditorio Nacional.
Having been instrumental in these various projects Juan de Marcos is set to move into the limelight with his new projects and ambitious new ideas. “We have to use all the heritage of Cuban music to create a sound of the future” says Juan de Marcos “it’s important to have that continuity and fight for our identity”.
Juan de Marcos’ work has been nominated three times for Grammies and once for a Latin Billboard award, and his Afro-Cuban All Stars were voted “best beyond band” by Downbeat Magazine. During his career, Juan de Marcos has arranged, conducted, produced or co-produced more than twenty five albums, some of them, like the mentioned “Dundunbanza” (Sierra Maestra, 1994), “A toda Cuba le gusta” (Afro-Cuban All Stars, 1997), “Distinto, diferente” (Afro-cuban All Stars, 1999), “Introducing Ruben Gonzalez” (Ruben Gonzalez, 1997), “Buena Vista Social Club presents Ibrahim Ferrer” (Ibrahim Ferrer, 1999) and “Buena Vista Social Club”(1997), have been acclaimed as seminal productions of the Cuban 20th century.
Considered by many specialists as the head of the Cuban musical revival of the past years, Juan de Marcos shared with his friend Nick Gold, the first Womex Award in 2000.
The Afro-Cuban All Stars is a unique orchestra that has always been devoted to promoting the full range of Cuban music, one that embraces several generations and all musical styles. Over the years many of the band’s musicians have become international stars, including brilliant performers such as Ruben Gonzalez, Ibrahim Ferrer, Guillermo Rubalcava, Amadito Valdes and Manuel “The Guajiro” Mirabal.
The genesis of the Afro-Cuban All Stars has its roots early in the 1990s. At this time the son ensemble Sierra Maestra, headed by Juan de Marcos, received a lot of international exposure. As a consequence, de Marcos was introduced to Nick Gold, president of World Music Records (at that time a small independent world music label). That encounter led to a couple of very successful tours in Europe. Later the group went to London and recorded Dundumbanza, considered one of the jewels of the world music scene of the early ‘90s. (In retrospect, this recording opened the doors to the further incredible boom of the traditional Cuban music of the period.)
Months later, de Marcos got the go-ahead to do an album celebrating the classic Cuban sound of the ‘50s – a recording whose personnel would feature many great musicians that de Marcos knew. An agreement reached, the plan was to prepare two projects: one featuring a Cuban big band, the other record favoring a more traditional sound reminiscent of the acoustic style of Nico Saquito or Portabales.
In March of 1996 they recorded the album A toda Cuba le Gusta, featuring nearly 60 performers. Then, with the addition of celebrated artists such as Compay Segundo, Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa, and legendary American guitarist Ry Cooder, what became the legendary Buena Vista Social Club CD was recorded. Finally, with low budget and only during two live sessions and with simple orchestrations carried out at the studio by de Marcos, they also recorded the first solo album of Rubén González, Introducing Ruben Gonzalez. This was destined to be one of the most successful of the “Buena Vista” series of recordings.
During the spring of 1997 and along with the release in Europe of the three albums, de Marcos and a select group of stellar musicians started touring all over the continent under the banner of a band christened the “Afro-Cuban All Stars.” The original line up, familiar from the records, included Ruben González and Guillermo Rubalcava (piano), Orlando López (bass), Amadito Valdés (timbale), Carlos González and Roberto Valdés (bongos & cuban percussion), Ángel Terry (congas), Daniel Ramos, Alejandro Pichardo y “Guajiro” Mirabal (trumpets), Alberto “Molote” Martínez and Jesús “Aguaje” Ramos (trombones) and, Raúl Planas, Manuel Licea, Pío Leiva, Ibrahim Ferrer and Félix Baloy (lead singers).
After several years of tremendous and unexpected success – including four Grammy nominations, being the subject of several documentaries and films, and being recipients of many other distinctions – the All Stars are certainly the best-known and successful Cuban orchestra after Los Van Van and Irakere.
The Afro-Cuban All Stars has also opened the doors to a new generation by incorporating young musicians into the band. With The Afro-Cuban All Stars, de Marcos has developed a concept: to stand up on the roots for creating the future.
In 2002, de Marcos founded his own independent label, DM Ahora! Records, with which he released the Afro-Cuban All Stars’ albums Live in Japan and Step Forward (which was Grammy nominated in 2006). He also released A Diario (Telmary) and Goza Pepillo (Interactivo), projects that represent a new generation of Cuban music, one that fuses hip-hop with contemporary Cuban genres.
More recently de Marcos, along with his wife Gliceria Abreu, has founded, GG and LL, a musical production company based in Mexico City that aims to create a space for the new Latin American Music, especially that interpreted by songwriters. Moreso than simply creating a band, his approach has allowed him to expand its creative range by incorporating contemporary styles of Cuban music; as well, as a fluid approach to adjusting the orchestra’s line-up by changing or adding musicians as appropriate has made it easier to best reflect the different styles of music from the various periods that the band features.
The Afro-Cubans are the same orchestra that can be seen in those distinct performances captured in the famous Oscar-nominated Buena Vista Social Club documentary by Wim Wenders, the Tony Knox documentary Salon of Dreams, or the DVDs Live in Japan and Live in The Hague.