POPULAR! BLOG - Charanga Habanera star in Popular!

New DVD: HAVANABUZZ LIVE! Charanga Habanera @ La Tropical in Havana

2010-03-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

New DVD! http://www.havanabuzz.com HAVANABUZZ LIVE! Charanga Habanera + Los Salvajes + Osmany Garcia at La Tropical in Havana

DVD NUEVO! http://www.havanabuzz.com JEN PAZ FILMS presenta DAVID CALZADO Y SU CHARANGA HABANERA+ Los Salvajes (Los 4) + Osmany Garcia at La Tropical in Havana, Cuba

DETAILS/DETALLES :
http://www.havanabuzz.com

David Calzado Y su Charanga Habanera in the USA!

2009-12-22T22:34:00.001-08:00

Here is a twit pic from Omar Jr. who is keeping us stay-at-homes up to date with the Charanga Habanera concert in San Francisco. He just posted this photo of David Calzado greeting the timbero audience in California after a 9 year absence.

FACEBOOK Page for Animals of Cuban Music - PAGINA FACEBOOK join! ser miembro!

2009-07-30T11:15:00.001-07:00

Havana Buzz: Animals of Cuban Music on Facebook

Trailer for Animals of Cuban Music starrng Charanga Habanera and Gente d'Zona

2009-07-23T21:13:00.001-07:00

Please click to go to havanabuzz.com to see the trailer.
Pulse aqui para ver el trailer en havanabuzz.com

Ladies and gentlemen it's finally time to reveal the name and trailer for the new music film ANIMALS OF CUBAN MUSIC / Animales de la Música Cubana. ¡Por fin el trailer!

The official website for the film is HERE
El sitio oficial para la película está AQUI

New Cuban Music Film starring Charanga Habanera and other orchestras!

2009-05-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

See timbatv.com for details

Nueva película sobre la música cubana & regueton cubano
.. detailes en timbatv.com

We are officially announcing that the film is wrapping, really! The trailer will premiere next week. Click to enjoy some stills and a minute of "Gozando en la Habana" from the new CD by Charanga Habanera "La Caratula".

El trailer de una nueva película sobre la música cubana actual va a estrenarse en timbatv.com y cubaam.com exclusivamente la semana que viene. Dale click para ver imagenes y preparense para lo que viene.

Click To Play

Appearing in the images: Tania Pantoja, Damien from Eddy-K, Tirso in the background, Samuel Formell, David Calzado at La Tropical with Heikel and Baby Junior, Baby Lores, El Chacal, Pedrito Calvo, El Micha, Insurrecto, Ricardo Amaray, El Noro, Lazaro Mayami, Mayito Rivera, and Yulien Oviedo

USA Premier of Popular! Santa Barbara International Film Festival Jan. 31 & Feb. 1

2007-01-30T16:45:00.000-08:00

Check website for more details:

festival schedule

Click on "FILM GRID" for calendar

Filmmaker will be present for Q&A

Screening #1: Wednesday, January 31 @ 4pm CENTER STAGE THEATER
Screening #2: Thursday, February 1 @ 10pm VICTORIA THEATER

For more information contact:
info@popular-documentary.com

Popular! invited to Santa Barbara International Film Festival

2007-01-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

Popular! will premiere (USA premiere) at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival January 25 - February 4 2007. The festival happens between Sundance and the Oscars. It is close to Los Angeles and star studded with Oscar contenders. This year Al Gore will attend. Popular will be a part of a section of Spanish and Latin American film sponsored by Univision. The curator is University of Santa Barbara Professor and fellow Cubaphile Cristina Venegas.

Estrenoooo!! Popular! Festival de Cine de Santa Barbara (California, USA)
Sitio internet: sbiff.org

Santa Barbara International Film Festival website

www.sbiff.org

Articles about the Festival:

Stars Say "Yes" to Santa Barbara International Film Festival
Al Gore, Will Smith, Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren are all expected to appear
By: Matt Cota
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Roll out the red carpet. The 22nd Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival is just three weeks away, and as Action News reporter Matt Cota tells us, the lineup is impressive.

Once again, some pretty big names have RSVP'd. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival continues to draw an impressive guest list, including a former vice president-turned-moviemaker.

"An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's movie about global warming, is expected to win the Oscar for Best Documentary. Will Smith's "The Pursuit of Happyness," Forest Whitaker's "The Last King of Scotland," and Helen Mirren's "The Queen" are also expected to be in the running on Oscar night. So when Roger Durling, Artistic Director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival asked them all to come to Santa Barbara, they said 'yes.'

"We are a month before the Academy Awards," says Durling. "They want to come out here. They have heard of our reputation and how important it is to be here."

The festival attracts big names due to both location and timing.

Santa Barbara is just a short drive from Hollywood. And the event happens just after Oscar nominations, when actors are eager to promote their films.

It's also good timing for the city. January is usually a slow month for tourism.

"It really has made a huge difference," says Das Williams of the Santa Barbara City Council. "When they changed the month of the film festival to be earlier -- when there isn't a whole lot of folks coming to town -- we see a huge spike in sales tax during that month."

According to a recent study by the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project, the film festival contributes more than $7 million to the local economy. The more than 50,000 visitors who come here for the festival spend about $400 a day apiece.

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival takes place over 11 days this year, starting on January 25 and finishing on February 4.

Concert planned for December 25 - Concierto!

2006-12-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

Popular! Blog will report details on an upcoming major concert with David Calzado Y Su Charanga Habanara. Date: December 25, 2006 OJO! Popular! Blog va a publicar detailes sobre un espectaculo grande del orchestra el 25 de diciembre EN FIN NO PASO NADA mucha lluvia ... This was cancelled due to rain...

Happy Holidays from Popular! Blog

2006-12-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

Good to see you - Placer verte

2006-12-06T16:51:00.001-08:00

David Calzado & amiga

Photos from Charanga Habanera Tour Fall 2006

2006-11-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

The latest photos and concert reports from the 2006 fall tour
Photos by Indochine - FOTOS
Concert Report by Michelle - REPORTAJE

At the Popular! Opening & David with Divas

2006-11-01T08:51:00.001-08:00

Beer & Press Book at Popular! Tokyo Opening

David with Divas Vania Borges and Osdalgia in Paris, France October 2006 (copyright IndocinoDJ@yahoo.fr

Popular! reviewed by Peter Watrous - Critic for the New York Times

2006-10-30T23:08:00.003-08:00

Review by Peter Watrous

Click here - Pulse aqui - direct to DESCARGA REVIEW

David Calzado Y Su Charanga Habanera
Popular! DVD

Directed by Jennifer Paz
released 2006 (JenPaz Films)
75 minutes. Additional 14 min. bonus material

Finally, a well-shot, mostly well thought-out documentary on Cuban music, the sort of work that can be used to explain what all the fuss is about. Using the hugely popular, and hugely controversial, and hugely talented Charanga Habanera, as a guide, the documentary takes on some of the biggest themes in Cuban music and in popular culture and music, going in and nosing around subjects that are often overlooked, politically risky for us from the left.

The film follows the band around, moving to Japan for a show, then catching them at fancy concerts, and at workers parties, government gigs for workers — in this case construction workers in the foreigner only resort area of Varadero. The music is often stunning; Jennifer Paz, the director, has shot the band professionally (though the sound isn’t always up to the visuals), and all the band’s routines are clearly delineated, the rhythm and blues dance moves, the intro routines, the breaks where the band draws big women up and makes them shake their, well, you know.

The audience is shot lovingly as well, with pans across acres of young woman fans who are clearly turning to jelly over the lead singers the band uses with the aplomb of any boy band; and by the way, Charanga Habanera owes a bunch to American boy bands, despite how deadly their funk can be.

A select group of people are interviewed, from people in the street to musicians Juan De Marcos and Chucho Valdes, both of whom might as well be delivering prewritten speeches. The film makers follow the band to their rehearsal space in an area of deep poverty, shacks on the outskirts of Havana — Calzado, an immensely intelligent, and for Cuba, well-traveled man, calls the neighborhood the Cuban version of the Bronx; remember, Rudy Calzado was a relative of his.

And the filmmakers use a few conceits to form a narrative backbone in the documentary. For one, they use the song Soy Cubano, Soy Popular as a key to open the door on the Cuban debate. The film records the band singing the song several times in different places, with the lead singer El Boni — who leaves the band half way through the documentary — singing about being broke but popular. It seems like everyone on the island knows the song, its works, and their coded meanings.

Now, money and being broke are political subjects in Cuba, and like many of Charanga’s songs, which deal with street realities, i.e. sex, money, foreigners, and the ball that bounces ferociously between the three, Soy Cubano, Soy Popular brings up the issue of loyalty to the communist cause, and decides that being popular is ok, maybe. One shot has El Boni talking, in front of the audience, about his credit cards; he whips one out, even though it’s illegal to have one.

Money is a big deal in Cuba, it means power and illegality. And Charanga has all the trappings, wandering through the streets in, for the place, fancy cars, with women all over the musicians, and access to foreign culture and foreigners. Finally though, all of this gets them only so far, and the film returns to the idea that their popularity is what allows them pride. It’s an interesting, not totally convincing observation, given the band’s fixation with moolah.

And popular the musicians are; you can see the crowds mouthing the lyrics to the songs, and girls scream about which of the lead singers they like the most. Calzado, interviewed regularly, talks about all the street terms he uses in the songs, from temba to others. He’s letting us in on the relationship music in Cuba has with the street, the language that goes along with the space in Cuba which is the most free, where prostitution, and drugs and ecstasy all work together to create a sort of freedom that is rarely found in the society. The documentary also touches on the government’s ban of the band for various reasons, one of the constant attempts to shut down music as a place of abandon.

But the documentary works ultimately as a music show, and Charanga comes off pretty damn well, at times a bit boy band-ish. At shows where the musicians aren’t all dressed up, in front of an understanding audience, the band produces dance music at it’s communicative, absolving, best. Dance music can be a dismissive term, but the documentary lets us know that in Cuba, it’s a term that is so complicated, so intertwined with culture and politics, that one poor documentary — as good as this one is — can only cover a chip of the immense mountain that is music in Cuba.

Photos of Charanga Habanera Norway Concert October 2006

2006-10-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

Salsero Vikingo in Norway put up these photos of Charanga Habanera from their latest tour. Click here - Pulse aqui - : オーケストラの写真 Photographies de l'orchestre Charanga Habanera with Osdalgia, Vania & Eddie K, Oslo 2006

Timba.com announces Popular Special Edition

2006-10-28T10:56:00.001-07:00

Timba.com announces the Popular! Special Edition
see Kevin Moore's LA ULTIMA

Send your email to win the Special Edition of Popular!

2006-10-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

Send your email to win the Special Edition of Popular!
Evia su correo para ganar una copia de la nueva version de Popular!
Entri vostro email per vincere una copia di nuova versione di popolare
普及したのコピーに勝つためにあなたの電子メールを送りなさい
Send/Envia/Entri EMAIL HERE/ AQUI/ QUI

Popular! Mini Press Release

2006-10-24T00:09:00.000-07:00

POPULAR! Special Edition Release - 4 Bonus Extras

For those who did not yet catch the film in theaters
in Japan or upon its first preview version release,
this Special Edition will be available for a limited
time. New Bonus Features on Popular! Special Edition
include deleted scenes and an excerpt from the infamous
"Suspension Concert" that got the Charanga Habanera
banned for six months. Also a Bonus Feature shot mostly
by ANED MOTA as he queries fellow Charanga members on
"How does the Cuban artist get by?". Includes a muy
caliente version of "Esta es mi Charanga" from Ciclon
de la Habana in Lenin Park with crowd interaction.
Descarga.com has Very Highly Recommended the DVD
Special Edition of Popular!.

Popular! Outtake Video Clip

Outtake Clip from original rough edit of Popular!. Chucho Valdes
and Juan de Marcos discuss "timba" music (contemporary cuban
music), Leoni, Noel, Randolph, & Junio sit in with traditional
musicians. David makes passionate points about salsa cubana.

Una clip dalla versione originale che non è stata usata nel finale

Esto es un clip de la versión original que no fue utilizada en el final

Photo Gallery

Lazarito, percussion/clave player dances rumba in the Green Room

Ryu Murakami dances onstage with Haila

Pa'que se Entere la Habana Cover Art

Scenes from Popular!

2006-10-22T00:46:00.004-07:00

Popular! Photo Gallery: Shots from the film

Photo Gallery

Fanguito Rehearsal

Concert in Jagway Grande, David Cazado and Yulien Oviedo

Juan de Marcos Gonzalez commentator and Grammy Nominee for Afro-Cuban All Stars

Members of the Charanga Habanera Fan Club, Havana Branch

Leoni and Leo arrive in Lenin Park

Randolph Chacon, Bass

David arrives in Lenin Park

Singing with the orchestra

Grafitti in Fanguito where Charanga Habanera holds rehearsals

Popular! Special Edition DVD Release

2006-10-20T23:13:00.001-07:00

POPULAR! SPECIAL EDITION Upcoming Release - see popular-documentary.com
For those who did not yet catch the film in theaters in Japan or upon its first release, this SPECIAL EDITION will be available for a limited time. New Bonus Features on POPULAR! SPECIAL EDITION include deleted scenes and an excerpt from the infamous "Suspension Concert" that got the Charanga Habanera banned for six months.

Photo Gallery:

Concert in Roppongi Tokyo

Popular! Voted No. 4 in Japan in newspaper poll P.I.A. ranking

David receives a flag while on tour (Photo by Sophie Giraud)

Japan Cover Art

Images from show in Shibuya, Japan