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Artist
Sierra Maestra
12+ albums
latincubansalsasoncuba
about
Sierra Maestra are a Cuban band started in 1976. They sought to revive 1920's classic son, which came from the mountain range on the east of Cuba, after which the band was named. Their members included Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, before he left to join the Afro-Cuban All Stars and Jesus Alemany, who formed Cubanisimo. The band is still together. The group Sierra Maestra, headed up by Juan d'Marcos Gonzales, is an outstanding nine-piece son band from Havana. They are one of the finest and most popular musical ensembles performing in the Spanish Caribbean today. They were the first group, and remain the best, to play in the old-style son line-up: tres, guitar, trumpet, bongo, güiro and vocals--as during the great days of the 1920s and '30s. They have been the pioneers in reviving this style for new generations and re-introducing it into the Cuban mainstream. They named themselves after the mountain range in the eastern part of Cuba as a tribute to the birthplace of son. Sierra Maestra first performed in 1976 at the University of Havana where the group members all studied. Their aim, then as now, was to revive and re-explore this popular Cuban music style of the 1920s which had become forgotten. The original line-up mentioned above was slightly augmented with extra percussion (congas and maracas) and the replacement of the old marimbula with electric bass. Some of the guaracha rhythms were speeded up to allow for the move away from the slow close pair dancing of the '20s. This r
