African, Indian & Steel Bands,, Band Hire : London and the south east, Music Styles:-, Party Music Bands:-, Themed party music
Gabriel Fonseca takes Hartley Wintney Jazz Club by storm.
On Friday 1st November, Gabriel Fonseca and his Cuban friends from La Mono Band and Cuban Strings entertained a full house at the Jubilee Hall in Hartley Wintney. Read on to find out how the performance was received …
Imagine the good time vibe of the Buena Vista Social Club back in the `1940s and you come close to the atmosphere Gabriel Fonseca and his friends conjured up on a dark and dismal November Friday night at Hartley Wintney Jazz Club.
The Hot Rhythms of Havana come to Hartley Wintney
Find out more about booking Gabriel Fonseca and La Cuba Ritmo..
The performance generated the warmth and good humour of a hot sultry Cuban evening. Add in the infectious salsa beat and you can’t help getting that good-time holiday feeling. It’s a party from start to finish.
The evening opens with La Mono Band, ably accompanied by Gabriel himself on violin. Ingrid’s dusky voice and delightful looks and swaying hips charm us, while the sharp crisp rhythms from Mono’s bongos energise and excite. Salsa and Merengue set us all in the party mood. Add spare, tight chords from the keyboard and sonorous tones from Gabriel’s violin and the night really starts to get going.
The band performs a mix of dance rhythms and joyful folk songs. Sometimes Mono takes the lead, with soulful singing that touches the heart. Harmony singing adds to the feeling of community between the musicians on stage and with the audience.
Romantic guitar and violin evoke the soul of Cuba
Find out more about booking Gabriel Fonseca and La Cuba Ritmo..
In the second set, Cuban Strings – Gabriel’s guitar and violin duo, with a guest appearance by delightful young vocalist Laura – take us to a boulevard café in downtown Havana. We are entertained with simple but effective arrangements of folk tunes from the Caribbean and Southern America. Sometimes catchy and humorous, sometimes elegaic and soulful and sometimes high drama, we are enchanted by the musical trip.
Gabriel is joined on stage by Mike Evans, leader of The Pump Room Trio in Bath during the 1980s and the original violinist with the rock band Stackridge, who opened the very first Glastonbury Festival back in 1970. The ensuing musical badinage is one of the the highlights of the night. We find ourselves in the middle of a delightful light-hearted musical duel.
There is nothing quite like rivalry to sharpen up the playing! We are treated to musical virtuosity and witty exchanges from both players, each answering the other back with interest, featuring humorous references from Mike to the English tradition to which he is firmly rooted, skilfully woven into the complex sultry tropical rhythms.
A trip to Cuba means party time!
Find out more about booking Gabriel Fonseca and La Cuba Ritmo..
The first set engaged the interest, the second set absorbed and enchanted: now we’re all really ready to step out – and so are the musicians! The evening ends with a thoroughly good, full-on party.
With Mono and Ingrid in full swing the party really gets into gear – and before you can say Jack Robinson, Hartley Wintney is on the dancefloor! English reserve is jettisoned in order to join in the Latin-American magic. For a short time, we forget our winter woes and bask in the Cuban musical sunshine.
Got the Winter Blues? You don’t need to visit the doctor for a tonic. Come to Hartley Wintney Jazz Club and join in Gabriel Fonseca’s Cuban musical extravaganza. It’s a totally reinvigorating, utterly refreshing burst of musical sunshine. We all want him and his band to come back so that we can do it again!
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