A few weeks ago, the Scarlet Mambo Team and friends attended a music festival to support a performance by Swing Sabroso in Princeton. We all were lucky to be featured in a series of three stories printed on The Princeton Summer Journal.

It seems that everyone got a mention, a quote, or a picture. Let’s see… Carenina, Lyne, Felisa, Mary, Tee, Camila, Ray (Swing Sabroso), Mike (Swing Sabroso), and yours truly.

Below are both, the text and scan, versions of the articles. So pick one to read. I will stop now because I don’t want to spoil the three articles.

Community enjoys ‘Power of Percussion’
By Krystal Valentin
Jersey City, N.J.

The muggy air and the scorching sun didn’t deter attendees young and old from learning about the magic of music at the third annual West Windsor Music Festival on July 28 at the Nassau Park Pavilion.

This year’s festival, titled “The Power of Percussion,” was sponsored by the West Windsor Arts Council to provide a showcase for local music groups. For West Windsor resident Lyne Simpson, 31, the day presented an opportunity to share her love for salsa and merengue music with her twin daughters, Felisa and Mary, 9. Simpson, who learned to dance while attending Rutgers University, has both daughters enrolled in salsa and merengue dance classes. She said she feels it is important to give her kids the same exposure to the arts that she had as a child.

Click here for the rest of the stories. Read the rest of this entry »

The 7th Annual Salsa Congress is coming up at the end of this month (Aug 30th – Sep 2nd, 2007). Participants come from all over the world to experience the raw New-York-Salsa-Style so it is a great place to make new salsa friends. Besides, New York is very close to us, it would be a shame to miss it this year. I will be attending every single night and a few people are going with me each night.

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Last Sunday, July 29th, the New York Times printed a story about Salsa dancing and its development through the last four decades. It is very entertaining to read because it discusses issues that, both, beginner and veteran Salsa dancers can appreciate.

It is apparent that the writer did her homework because this article contains quotes from seasoned Salsa gurus in diverse professions in the Salsa industry. But, as many other aficionados and newcomers to the Salsa dance scene, she makes the mistake of confusing Salsa The Music with Salsa The Dance. In my next post (very soon), I will politely disagree with a few assertions that she makes in her article. My disagreements are mainly rooted on the fact that the author groups Salsa participans (DJ’s, musicians, promoters, instructors, casual listeners, casual dancers, and veteran dancers) as one block entity of people, when in reality there are many players with conflicting business interests. More on this soon.

Ok. I am done debating and getting technical… for now.

So, enjoy the article because it DOES tell a colorful story with good quotes from important Salsa figures.

Salsa Spins beyond its Roots – NY Times

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40A15FE38550C7A8EDDAE0894DF404482

By JULIE BLOOM

(Salsa, which once ruled nightclubs across New York City, has trouble finding havens there today. The Taj Lounge, in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, offers salsa dancing to live music once a week.)

SOON after Héctor Lavoe, the great salsa singer, arrives in New York in the new biopic, “El Cantante,” he finds himself immersed in a vibrant scene in the Bronx: a nightclub crammed with bodies drenched in sweat moving to the pounding beat of congas. As the film, which is to open nationwide Aug. 3 and stars Marc Anthony as Mr. Lavoe, shows, it could have been any night in New York in the late 1960s, when dancing was a genuine physical manifestation of the energy of the streets. Read the rest of the story…

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El Cantante in Theaters in the New Brunswick, NJ area.

For salsa dancers, salsa music is as familiar and as necessary as the air they breath… for salsa dancers. However, salsa is not Pop Culture, there are still loads of people that have not been introduced to the beautiful world of salsa.

El Cantante, released Friday, Aug 3rd 2007, is a movie featuring the life of Salsa singer Hector Lavoe (played by Marc Anthony). Read the rest of this entry »