Cuba originates some of the most sensual, interesting, multicultural music in the world. Fusing Spanish, African, Arabic and European influences into irresistible rhythms, it has a certain wry worldview and a dance groove that knows no boundaries. It's no surprise, then, that Los Van Van, possibly the hottest Latin dance band in the world, is from Cuba.
What is surprising is that the band, fresh from playing Carnegie Hall in New York and House of Blues in Chicago, is swinging through Tampa June 26 on the way to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Given the other venues they're playing, you might expect that Los Van Van would be at someplace like Ruth Eckerd Hall, Tampa Theatre or the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
Nope. Here's another surprise: They're playing at the West Tampa Convention Center on Columbus Avenue. Fine by me. At those other venues, they'd probably make you stay in your seat and listen politely. And that would be a waste because even the most uptight blue blood or tragically cool hipster would be hard pressed to sit still when these guys play.
Los Van Van have been together since 1969, issuing more than two dozen albums, many of which are available in this country despite the increasingly tiresome and counterproductive trade embargo. The band has been described as the Rolling Stones of Latin music and one writer dubbed founder Juan Formell "Cuba's Lennon and McCartney" all rolled into one. It's an apt description because Formell wrote most of the band's repertoire, with lyrics that touch on everything from sex and religion to ethnic identity and just hanging out, often adding layers of meaning and humor through irony and double entendre.
Here's a bone for the music snobs: A review in Rolling Stone said of Formell: "He enriches the opulent trombones and frisky violin lines of traditional salsa with interlocking polyrhythms that would make any innocent bystander shake his hips." The reviewer went on to say that, "it is Los Van Van's dense orchestral textures and tricky time signatures that will gain the group fans among rockers with adventurous ears."
The band's name translates literally as "The Go Go's," but it really means something like "those who go and go" or "those who keep moving forward." True to its name, the band has continued to reinvent itself and has even evolved a new musical form.
Born in 1942, Formell started playing bass professionally at 16 and joined Cuba's National Police Band at an early age. There he learned all the traditional Cuban musical forms (mambo, bolero, rumba, son, danzon, cha cha cha). He later played in various Cuban orchestras and worked his way up to becoming an arranger and musical director.
On his own time, Formell listened to rock, pop, blues and R&B on American radio stations broadcasting from Florida and longed to play that music too. When he started Los Van Van with Luis Quintana and Cesar Pedroso, he added electric bass and drums to the traditional charanga instrumentation of flute, violin, piano and güiro. They created a new musical style called songo, an electrified combination of son (traditional Afro-Cuban dance music), rock and jazz, among other forms. Although some Cubans criticized them for not playing real Cuban music, the band was tremendously popular, partly because their music was so danceable. Formell says he took his cues from the dancers in creating new music, playing off the way they moved, and the band is still known for interacting with the audience.
During the 1980s salsa boom in New York, Los Van Van salsified by adding trombones and began to tour internationally. The embargo kept them out of the United States until the late 1990s when powerhouse California concert promoter Bill Graham took on the considerable challenge of getting official permission to bring them in. Since then, they've toured this country several times, won a Grammy and had two of their songs recorded by David Byrne.
Unfortunately, Los Van Van are probably best known in Florida for the 1999 controversy surrounding their appearance in Miami, which attracted as many protesters as audience members and resulted in two interventions by the ACLU. In a nutshell, Mayor Joe Carollo and two Miami-Dade commissioners opposed the concert, reportedly calling the band "the official Communist band of Fidel Castro," and canceled their appearance at the city-owned James L. Knight Center, scheduling an anti-Castro rally there instead.
The Los Van Van concert was rescheduled at a different venue, but the city made the promoter pay $39,000 for extra security while local radio stations fanned the flames. Bomb-sniffing dogs and police in full riot gear kept violence to a minimum but failed to prevent protesters from spitting, throwing eggs, rocks and bottles and yelling obscenities at concertgoers. Some ticket holders were frightened away, some ignored the protesters and others jeered back. According to one Miami Herald account, "a woman in a miniskirt and black high heels walked half-way up the arena steps, then stopped, waved her ticket and stuck out her tongue at the crowd. She then ascended to the area's front door, let the breeze lift her skirt, and shook her white lace panties at enraged onlookers." In return, they called her a whore.
Such a scene is mercifully unlikely in Tampa, though hosts of a local AM radio show did accuse La Teresita Grocery, where tickets were being sold, of supporting communists. Even though the station apologized and discontinued the show, the store is allowing tickets to be sold only outside. Still, we've come a long way in the tolerance department. Franco Silva, host of WMNF-88.5 FM's Latino 54, has been playing Cuban music on various Latin radio shows for 11 years. "When I first started, I used to get bomb threats," he says. "Now I get requests."
Los Van Van play West Tampa Convention Center, 3005 W. Columbus Drive, Tampa, Thurs., June 26, at 9 p.m. (doors at 8). Tickets cost $35 at the door, $30 in advance (cash only) in front of La Teresita Grocery, 3302 W. Columbus Drive. Call 813-786-6638 for details.
Senior Editor Susan F. Edwards can be reached at ed@weeklyplanet.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 122.
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 2, 2003.