Salseros de Boston
I took the US air shuttle from La Guardia and was picked up by Hernan, a wonder Bolivian-American dj from the Boston area, who was promoting his first big show at the Grand Hyatt Regency in Cambridge Dec. 23rd a really difficult night, because it is so close to Christmas and many folks are away or saving their money for presents or New Years Eve. He was very cordial and professional. I check into my room and had some lunch and waited for the sound crew to start loading in and for the musicians to arrive who were driving from the NYC area on this rainy day.
Pabon arrived with most of the backline and proceeded to set up with his crew. missing was the cymbal stand, piano seat, and some small things like music stands... These were found and shuttled over about an hour later. Sound check scheduled for 5pm was not possible. Emo Luciano left Atlantic city at 10am and got to NYC after 4pm , so he had a 4 hr drive in front of him.. First to arrive was Louie Bauzo and Eddie Montalvo. Next was Mac Gollehon , with Baby Izaga, Lewis Kahn and Crawford our sound engineer. By 6:30 we started to check the mikes and sound.. We had a large conference room upstairs on the second floor to change clothes and have dinner.. Dinner came with no silverware, drinks or napkins.. After finding all of these things. Emo arrived with Richie Viruet at 8:15. Start time was 10:30.. I got dressed and went to the ballroom to see it overflowing with Salseros....Boston's BEST. There was a dance exhibition going on with some marvelous teams and costumes. THey even had a choreographed number to my recording of Silencio. I was so surprised.. When we started to play the crowd came close to the stage and began singing all the coros to all of our songs.. Now these were not the 40-50 yr old salseros from the 70's but rather their children in their 20's who are really into the dance and good Salsa Pura music.. I met so many new friends and there were several people videoing, that I am sure I will get copies soon for Youtube postings.. The second set was even better. Bobby Sanabria broke the skin on the high timbale the first song in the second set but continued to take great solos on only one skin. Two encores kept us on stage until 2am.. The gang left to drive back to NYC and I crashed in the hotel until my 11am flight home to NYC... A great time was had by all... VIVA SALSEROS DE BOSTON!
