Introduction
Welcome to the best web site of salsa dance video shows, Music track interests and artists biography! I hope that the content and material that will be shown in this portal will enhance your addiction to the salsa dance and Music if you are familiar with it or, it will bring you to join this world if your are not in it yet.
Each month, a Salsa Music figure will be displayed on this web site with the intention of bringing a panoramic view of the World of Salsa to Ottawa-Gatineau Canada. Many have been dancing Salsa in our city without any interest in the Music that characterizes the Dance. That Music has an history that reveals its roots. If you come to discover some atomic parts of that history, you will want to know the real elements of it. Those atomic parts are the artists, the bands and their success. Behind each of them there is a page. It is a short picture: the substance in a condensed form of some pages that you will discover with OttawaSalsa.ca.
Should you have any interesting article or particular biography of a salsa band or a salsa artist-musician and you are willing to share it with the public of ottawa, please write to us.
Oscar D'Leon: El sonero del mundo
May 2011 - A skill at improvisation is combined with a highly textured vocal tone, Oscar D'Leon is among the Greatest Salsa Music performers of the Latin America.
Oscar Emilio Leon Dionisia was born in July 1943 in Venezuela. Taxi driver, he started a second occupation of musician by playing bass and performing with different groups in many clubs in Caracas. In 1972, he became the co-founder of the mythic group Dimension Latina. He realized six albums with that group. Some songs such ?Lloraras?, ?Pensando En Ti? were first created with that group. With an exceptional good sense for the music, a great talent for the contrabass and a perfect musical arranger, his voice impressed. His songs are fabulous. That started to give him wings to be appreciated as an artist musician. Inspired of the Cuban Soneros such Beny More to cite one of the most known between them, in 1977, he moved forward to create his own group: Orquesta La Salsa Meyor. Then later, he created the group la Critica and later, he founded the Oscar D'Leon y su Orquesta. A group that you have seen or wish to see in concert. In 1990, he joined the famous RMM records: one of the greatest New York labels. Soon, the occasion allowed him to co-produced with reputed artists like Celia Cruz, Tito Puento and Jose Alberto. He remains one of the best today's active Soneros and one of the most important artist of the Latin music.Honored everywhere he passed, he is an international phenomenon to have been requested from Asia to Europe, from South to north of America passing through the Caribbean, he is known as "El Sonero Del Mundo": "the Songs Singer of the World".
The salsa lovers of Canada will have another opportunity to see Oscar D'Leon in concert in Montreal, on Saturday, May 07, 2011.
February 2011 - Two months already inside 2011, we are all glad to continue another cycle of our same yearly activities Salsa Dancing Parties, Salsa Festivals and Congresses, Dance Workshops, Dance Practices and other Salsa Things in our Ottawa local community: its is so many to mention.
Some responsibilities prevented me of writing, whatever short, something about our Salsa world in its past or its current. But hopefully, I will keep trying to continue with the idea of maintaining the website with reading interests.
In this article, we are going to talk about a man who stamped the Salsa era with his imagination, competency, professionalism, love and passion for music.
Tito Puente
Ernesto Antonio Puente known as Tito Puente, the son of a native Puerto Rican couple, was born in 1923 in the USA. "El Rey" of the timbales for many and the "King of Latin Music" or the "King of Mambo" for others became one of the best known Latin musician. He realized many Great records of Mambo and Latin Jazz that brought him honors all along his career and stepped him gloriously on many distinguished stands with Grammy awards and recognitions. Born artist, at ten years old, the boy who originally intended to become a professional dancer, has already played as musician with his local neighborhood bands during gatherings and social parties. He formerly performed for the first time with the band: Los Happy Boys. As teenager, he joined already Noro Morales and the Machito Orchestra. In fact, Tito Puente has flowed himself in big band, bosa nova, pop and other music styles. At the top of his popularity, he embraced the afro-cuban and Caribbean sounds and rhythms such the Son, the Mambo and the Cha Cha Cha to value them to the audiences of the years 1950's. Then he spontaneously started a Latin-Jazz fusion: a combination that have started a derivation style that brought him the credit of being an early pioneer of Salsa Music, even he never like the term that he openly criticized as not being a style saying "I am a musician not a cook". The percussion man who has amazed his audiences, crowd and fans, is internationally recognized for his enormous and significant contributions to the Latin Music as a band leader, composer, arranger, percussionist and mentor. He also played many other instruments such the trap and the conga drums, the claves, the piano, and occasionally, the saxophone and the clarinet. In his life time, Puente recorded 120 albums. Le legendary Tito Puente died in 31 May 2000. He left to the world, an incredible legacy of Latin jazz and mambo music.
listen to some Tito Puente's tracks.
Fania All Stars: the Legend
October 2010 - Fania Records which was a New York based record label created by Johnny Pacheco and his lawyer Jerry Masucci, holds a legendary spot in the history of Latin Music: Its sizable catalog is composed of landmark recordings that have marked and defined the history of Latin Music. During the 1970s daylight, Fania's roster included virtually every luminary of the genre, among them Ray Baretto, Tito Puente, Hector Lavoe, Willie Colón, Celia Cruz, Larry Harlow, Ruben Blades, Eddie Palmieri, Ismael Miranda, Cheo Feliciano, Bobby Cruz, Pete "El Conde" Rodríguez and many others including the co-founder and band-leader Johnny Pacheco. All these artists were grouped under a revolutionary name: Fania All Stars The famous fable of Fania All Stars was writen: a legend of all star super band that took Salsa Music to the world.
The world of Salsa carries a lot of legends in its history.
listen to some Fania's tracks.
A New Scoop
September 2010 - This Video was found on a friend profile. I expose it here to share with you. It is really funny but, it shows a dog talent on one side and the passion and the determination of the owner to have trained the dog to execute such choreography, on an other. This might be a way to bring something to you until I am ready to start displaying what you are waiting for.
Enjoy!
A Dog Dancing Merengue