Search - David Y Charanga Habanera Calzado :: Caratula

Surpassed my expectations.

Elizabeth L. Gonzalez-novo | Vineland, NJ, usa | 10/26/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This group is the hottest TIMBA group in Habana. The director David Calzado, is a classical violin expert and plays every instrument known, to be able to graduate as a musician in the Music Conservatory in Habana. The song Gonzando en Miami is very famous and talks about a love who left for Miami to become rich and famous, but leaving the love of her life behind, she was miserable and he, who chose to be poor but happy in his homeland, was doing very well, despite the limitations."

Excellent, but not Perfect

Vain Saints | USA | 12/26/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"With regard to the lyrics, the album cover tells it all. It's simply an album cover of Calzado showing off his new album with the same cover in infinite regress. Almost all the lyrics are about how great Calzado is and how he steals everybody's women. It gets old.



Also, the record gets a bit more monotonous than the other reviewers would have you believe. Most of the songs are very similar in tempo and rhythm. The Charanga Habanera has a very distinct flavor of Cuban Son/Reggae, and their players are masters, to the point where you think they are almost too tight. The rhythm is so perfectly "filled in" and balanced that it evokes a wall of percussive sound on these tracks that leaves very little breathing room or space. They are a pretty much perfect rhythm section, each sensing each others' vibe unfailingly and filling up each space until there is no space left and no redundancy. They execute tempo changes flawlessly (Calzado comes from Ritmo Oriental) clean bloques of startling complexity and subtlety, and can turn up the intensity to 11. As players, and as a group, they are flawless. But they lack stylistic range, as evinced by their similar-sounding timba tracks and their horrible, cheesy, stupid R&B ballad "Juana Magdalena".



That said, the songs are often stunning, and it is impressive that Calzado can still turn out quality material after 16+ years on the timba scene. This record does not rank with Charanga Habanera's best work (*Tremendo Delirio*, *Hey You Loca*) or as good as NG in their prime, but El Tosco fell off the map while Charanga just put out an excellent (though not quite great) record.



4 stars anyway? Let's say the good outweighs the bad by a longshot. I was tempted to give all 5 but the album has too many weaknesses for that."

Excellent Cuban Salsa (Timba) Album

Edwin Bautista | 07/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"


In my opinion, David Calzado y su Charanga Habanera is the best Salsa/Timba band of the last twenty years in the whole world. Charanga Habanera's songs are fast but never monotonous. The songs are very different from one another. There are so many changes of rhythm and speed and styles inside individual songs that those changes really turn the songs into medleys. Besides, the music is never old fashioned. It is a blend of Salsa, Reggae, Hip Hop, Rhythm and Blues, Puerto Rican Bomba, and Rock filtered through modern Cuban music with faint echoes of yesteryear Cuban music. The style is frenetic and loud and above all, incredibly complex. I know it sounds like I am describing a Latin Jazz album. But make no mistake. This is extremely danceable music."