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Artist List:
Amampondo
Amjad Ali Khan
Asad Qizilbash
Bembeya Jazz
Chico Cesar
Clave Y Guaguanco
Eliza Carthy Big Band
Ensemble Kaboul
Jimmy Cliff
Julien Jacob
LoJo
Manecas Costa
Manu Dibango and
Ray Lema
Nitin Sawhney
Ojos de Brujo
Oumou Sangare
Pape and Cheikh
Samba Sunda
Sevara Nazarkhan
Sierra Maestra
Super Rail Band
Temple of Sound
Teofilo Chantre
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Profile:
Sierra Maestra
 
The Sierra Maestra range of mountains in south eastern Cuba was the fastness from which Fidel Castro and his rebel army…well more like a platoon at that stage…launched the anti-Battista rebellion that culminated in the revolution of 1959. It was also the place where Cuban son, the old style Cuban dance music of the '20s and '30s, was born.
Small wonder then that in the late 1970s a group of backward looking forward thinking musicians from Havana chose the name Sierra Maestra for their new group. Their intention was to drag the classic son line-up of guitar, trumpet, tres (small three stringed Cuban guitar), bongo and guïro (scraper), out of the vaults where it had been consigned by successive layers of musical evolution, dust it down, and bring it back to former glory sounding sweet and savoroso!
The main protagonists in this story were Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, the singer, arranger and producer who later played a central role in the creation of the now famous Buenva Vista Social Club phenomenon and Jesus Alemañy, the trumpet player who later went on to form Cubanismo.
Sierra Maestra have released a string of classic Cuban son albums through the years including a couple for World Circuit and last year's "'Rumbero Soy" (World Music Network), an album which features spiky NYC guitarist Marc Ribot and the world's favourite Cuban crooners, Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portoundo.
The current line-up, which features six original members including singer Luis Báragaza Sosa and three new recruits, are still touring the globe and keeping that son revolution alive and tasty!
Biography by Andy Morgan, July 2003
Other links:
Artist Profile
Artist Profile
Fansite
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