Dress to Impress: Cafe Sevilla on the Bay Red & Black Summer Party

Monday, May 31, 2010

Cafe Sevilla and Alma Marketing are bringing to San Diego an event that cannot be missed!  Sevilla on the Bay will feature a Black and Red themed yacht party on the Inspiration, the Hornblower’s largest ship.

For those of you that attended past yacht parties hosted by Cafe Sevilla, you know that the event is a fun mix of salsa dancing, hip hop, top 40, and even Spanish guitar playing.  I’ve included some videos below for everyone else to be able to get a preview of the Sevilla on the Bay yacht party and why you should not miss this event:

As part of this 23 year celebration of Cafe Sevilla the event will feature the great musical talent of Angel Lebron y Su Sabor Latino (check out the recent Ritmo Bello interview of Angel Lebron, he is a great guy).  There will also be DJ Mambo and Malamaña (see and hear their great Spanish guitar skills in the video below):

Ritmo Bello and the San Diego Salsa and Latin Dancing Meetup Group will have a special table set out close to the dance floor where Angel Lebron will be playing.  Make sure to RSVP here and find out all the details on the Meetup.com calendar.

Lastly, don’t forget that I will most likely be shooting video there and I’m still trying to raise funds to upgrade our videos to HD quality. I’ve included the donation widget below and we appreciate any help you can give!  (You can click here to find out more information about this fundraiser).

See you all at the Cafe Sevilla on the Bay Red & Black Summer Party!

John ;-)

@RitmoBello

The Best in Colombian Salsa Music Comes to San Diego: Blue Agave Nightclub Presents Sonora Carruseles

Friday, May 28, 2010

That’s right!  Colombian salsa powerhouse Sonora Carruseles will be performing live in San Diego and Ritmo Bello invites you to experience some of the best contemporary salsa music that exists today.  Formed in my family’s hometown of Medellin Colombian, the group is well known throughout salsa dance circles for their energetic and fun salsa dance songs.  I’ve included some of their more well known music below including “Al Son De Los Cueros”, “Cachondea”, and “La Comay”.

Al Son de los Cueros

Cachondea

La Comay

Sonora Carruseles will be performing at Blue Agave Nightclub (a special thanks to them for bringing the big name salsa groups here to San Diego!) and tickets are on sale right now.  The San Diego Salsa and Latin Dancing Meetup Group along with Ritmo Bello will be on hand for this special performance and we encourage you to enjoy the show live as well.  For more information on the event please visit this RSVP page on the San Diego Salsa and Latin Dancing Meetup Group.

Also don’t forget that I will most likely be shooting video there and I’m still trying to raise funds to upgrade our videos to HD quality. (You can help click here to find out more!) See you all at Blue Agave Nightclub for the Sonora Carruseles concert!

John ;-)

@RitmoBello

Come Celebrate the Beginning of Summer at 1st Wednesdays of the Month w/Meetup.com!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Hope you are all doing well. Just a quick reminder that our next 1st Wednesday’s of the Month with Meetup.com event is Wednesday June 2, 2010.

This event will feature a “Beginning of Summer” theme where you can sport your best summer wear to ring in the summer season.

For those of you unfamiliar with Café Sevilla, the venue is known for its great Spanish Cuisine and as a great salsa dance venue.

The event is open to everyone so feel free to come alone or bring any friends. We’ll meet downstairs at 8pm in the VIP area of club that will be reserved for our group. Just look for the Meetup.com signs. Valerie will give a free salsa lesson starting at 8:30pm.

For full details and to RSVP please check out the special event page here on the San Diego Salsa and Latin Dancing Meetup group. If you have additional questions feel free to contact me on Twitter @RitmoBello. See you all Wednesday June 2nd!

John ;-)

@RitmoBello

Great San Diego Salsa Dancing Video: Alma Latina Kids Performing at the San Diego Salsa Festival

Friday, May 14, 2010

Here is another great video taken from last year’s San Diego Salsa Festival.  It features Alma Latina kids doing a great salsa performance.  The video shows that you are never too young (or too old in my case!) to learn how to salsa dance. Check out the original Ritmo Bello video above and visit the Ritmo Bello YouTube Channel to see more great San Diego Salsa dancing videos.

Also don’t forget that I’m still trying to raise funds to upgrade these videos to HD quality and you can help! (click here to find out more!)

John ;-)

@RitmoBello

UCSD Dance Team To Dance Samba and Compete On ‘Dancing With The Stars’

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A dance team from UC San Diego will compete on  “Dancing with the Stars” Tuesday night against dancers from Purdue University.  The episode airs Tuesday, May 11, 2010.  The teams will dance the samba, with the winner to perform on the show’s season finale May 25, according to UCSD.  The video above gives a nice example of what you can expect from our San Diego team.

“This will be an incredible experience for the team to perform live in front of a national audience,” said Brodie Kester, UCSD Dancesport team captain. “It will be a once-in-a-lifetime performance.”

In the San Diego area, “Dancing with the Stars” will air at 8 p.m. Tuesday on ABC affiliate KGTV Channel 10.  Ritmo Bello wishes them good luck in their competition!

John ;-)

@RitmoBello

Want to see San Diego Salsa and Latin Dancing in High Definition? The Ritmo Bello HD Challenge

Sunday, May 9, 2010

If you’ve seen our Ritmo Bello YouTube videos online, you know that we cover all sorts of local San Diego salsa and Latin events. In doing so we hope to give you, the viewer, a small glimpse into the breadth of talent and life that comes from our local dance scene. Someone recently asked me why we haven’t upgraded to high definition for those videos. Here is what our current videos look like in standard definition (this is a great performance but unfortunately you see how grainy the video gets):

Contrast that with this YouTube video shot in full 1080p HD video and you can clearly see the difference:

So why haven’t we upgraded to HD yet? It’s simply outside of our current monthly household budget (we need that to live).  Many of you may not realize that Ritmo Bello is run by Elizabeth and myself (John) here locally using funds from our own pockets. The total costs include maintaining the Ritmo Bello website, camera equipment, editing software, website bandwidth, and covering the costs of attending many of the events that appear in our YouTube videos. In addition to this, we cover the full costs for maintaining the popular San Diego Salsa and Latin Dancing Meetup Group directly from our own budget as well.

HOW YOU CAN HELP!

We set up a “challenge” to see if the local San Diego salsa and Latin dancers can help us bring our YouTube videos to full HD quality.  Below you will see a donation counter that will track  any monetary contributions or donations you are willing to provide us (even if it is just $1.00). Your donations go directly to our costs of upgrading to an HD camera, obtaining quality editing software, and other things we’ll need to make the leap to high definition.  We have close to 3 months to reach our goal and we encourage you to contribute whatever you can by simply clicking on the “ChipIn” button to make a donation:

Thanks and we appreciate whatever you can do to help!

John ;-)

@RitmoBello

Palladium Era Salsa Today: A Ritmo Bello Interview with Angel Lebron y Su Sabor Latino

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The New York Palladium.  The name alone conjures up memories of Latin music greats such as Tito Puente, Machito, and Tito Rodriguez.  From the 1950’s on, Latin music was created and nurtured by these and many other great musicians that performed at the Palladium.

Today, the spirit of New York Palladium Latin music is alive and well in Southern California.  Angel Lebron y Su Sabor Latino do a great job of bringing back contemporary audiences to an era of big band mambo, salsa, and other great Latin music.  I had the privilege of sitting down with Angel Lebron, the group’s leader, to talk a little bit about his experiences and what it means to bring Palladium era salsa to the world today.

John ;-)

@RitmoBello

_________________________________________________

Ritmo Bello: Angel, it’s great to finally sit down with you to talk about you and your music.  I want to start by asking you about the main focus of your salsa music.  How would you describe your music?

Angel Lebron:  First, thank you John for this interview its a good thing that the salseros get to know their band leaders or even their favorite musicians through interviews as this.  In answering your question my main focus is that of the Palladium era Big Band sound the Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente, Machito and moving along to the beginning movement of the late 60s early 70s of that street/urban NY sound, the music I’m playing is described as Street Salsa or Salsa Callejera (Dura).

Ritmo Bello: What are the origins of your salsa music career?

Angel Lebron:  I was born in music, I come from a family of professional musicians.   My grandfather Antonio “El Mosquito” Camacho not only was on vocals with Machito but he was 2nd voice to Davilita back in the early 40s.   My father Luis Lebron was known with the romantic trios he played Primera Guitara (also known as “Prima”) and segunda voz with El Trio de Johnny Rodriguez brother to Tito Rodriguez (see the connection).   This trio in NYC was the first to be heard on Commercial Radio WCBS. On WNBC my birth was announced publicly.  My mom told me after the announcement that while my father was attending to my mother he had to run out to work that night, LOL, the life of a musician.

My father then went on to work with El Trio San Juan, Daniel Santos, Jose Feliciano and many more.  I had the honor while living in Puerto Rico to perform with my father and his group.  Unfortunately he died two months later.  So I have both worlds of Latin Music, the romantic trio and the Big Band because I was raised by my grandparents.   I was more into the Big Band sound, Cuban style music with the jazz influence as well.  However, being raised in the South Bronx all one can hear each day is Latin Music, everyday at my grandparents home was either a rehearsal, practice music of some kind or my grandmother beating education in me, LOL, on the weekends after the gig the musicians and family friends came to party at my grandmothers, who in the world can sleep with all that happening !!! My brothers and I would just laugh and imitate them all, we were 9 years of age.

It wasn’t until 11 years ago that I met after knowing for many years that the Lebron Brothers are my distant cousins (4th or 5th), understand John that this is the first time I mention this publicly, we met once with Angel the director and bass player and my manager Norma Santos has in the past spoken with Angel on a few occasions but never did or have I used this relationship to move in the music world past, present or future, I am me and have something of my own to give to you.  Growing up in those mean streets of the South Bronx exposed me more to the music and instruments of the street – PERCUSSION.  I picked up the congas being street taught no classroom just pure “calle’, either you feel it or you don’t. We played everywhere on the side walks, roof tops, local parks, school yards, basketball courts (outdoors) everywhere and kept the neighborhood happy with music.   BTW at the age of 12 I witnessed Charlie Palmieri recording at a record store/label on Westchester Ave and Prospect Ave., called La Ciguena, in those days there were booths with a turntable where you were able to listen to those 78s give it back and leave, I was a regular…LOL….

Ritmo Bello:  Why did you choose Su Sabor Latino for your band name?

Angel Lebron:  I chose that name because with my concept its Su Sabor Latino – Your Latin Flavor – we are a dancers band.  We don’t play for us (the band) we play for you with “Sabor”.  Whether you’re dancing or just listening I want our energy and that flavor to reach out to you so that you can feel what I feel and we both join in a music communion and communication.  Speaking of concept, any band that begins to form should have a concept, this is the road map and people are able to identify ones band, for example I don’t play Merengue, Bachata, etc., it doesn’t mean that I don’t like that form of music in fact I do but I don’t play it because its not within my concept, I play STREET SALSA !!!!!!!!  While on this subject of bands John, you probably already know that I’m a bit outspoken, LOL, but always respectful toward others, but I can’t understand why bands feel that they are competing or in some kind of competition to get back or with the want to throw another down at the same token with constant negative criticism.  I want to say that music is an art form where one expresses the art of music however or whatever it may be, to bring the competitive attitude to music I strongly suggest go into sports, what goes around comes around.

Ritmo Bello:  What types of influences from your Puerto Rican and New York background have impacted how you’ve created your salsa music?

Angel Lebron:  My influences come first from my father’s and the experience I underwent with that authentic back home feeling.   To play it one has to feel it, grow up in it, smell it and love it.   Hanging out in local neighborhood parks, participating in jam sessions, learning from each other, my childhood friends – I MISS YOU ALL.  And the great Nigerian Master Drummer Babatunde Olatunji and Chief Bey whom I worked with for 2 years learned to understand the drum and be a part of Drums of Passion when later after I left John Coltrane came on.  That West African influence can be heard at times as I perform intertwined with Latin sound.

Ritmo Bello: How and where do you find inspiration for creating new salsa music?

Angel Lebron:  I find inspiration for creating through the music of culture that is  the Yoruba Culture and my meditation through the sound of the bata drums my spiritual being is then uplifted to another level of thought and feel then I receive and I place that on paper.  Nature also inspires me, that’s why I live in Moreno Valley, LOL.

Ritmo Bello:  What has been your experience been like working and performing in Southern California?

Angel Lebron: You’ll love this one, at first I wasn’t sure how the reaction was going to be like until that first gig at Mama Juanas in 2007, it was GREAT!!!  California is now my home. I belong to California as well as represent California in the salsa genre, I love it here and my experiences have been the best, I never look at things negatively, only taking everything as a learning experience in life. At all times I maintain myself and the band focused.  Working in California is the bomb, I’ve met and made so many friends working and performing its unbelievable.

Ritmo Bello:  Can you tell me a little about your CD’s that you’ve released to date?

Angel Lebron:  I’ve been on various CD’s with other artists but ‘PRIMO’ is my first solo release with my own band.  This CD is intended to continue my concept by keeping the classic Latin music alive and well with the purpose of allowing those not able to see me live to hear and enjoy that true street sound. They can know what it really is so that when my original music is released people will know that sound is Angel Lebron “…..It ain’t no rinky dink and it ain’t no dinky dink….”  Once again I got caught by surprise, “PRIMO” is now worldwide distributed by Reyes Records in Miami and endorsed by Tycoon Percussion located in Chino, CA.  The PRIMO is on music charts ranked and highly recommended on notable sites as DESCARGA.COM.   PRIMO is the editor’s pick and for the last 4 months this CD has continued to be rated in Europe as well.

Ritmo Bello:  Are there current plans for new CD releases coming up soon?

Angel Lebron:  Yes, there are plans presently on the works, I have 3 originals which should be completed soon and continuing with additional classic salsa, all dance music.

Ritmo Bello:   What are some of your best memories from your performances?  Are there any in particular that stand out in your mind?

Angel Lebron:  All of them, LOL…But you want one….Ok, it’s the Oxnard Salsa Festival of 2008 where I jumped out from behind my congas and started to dance, people were shouting all I can see is a river of heads as far as I can see all yelling in cheers as I continued to dance to the end of the finale, then as I was walking off the stage I hear “OTRA, OTRA, OTRA !!!”  I was overwhelmed with tears of joy and the satisfaction that came into play.   My manager looked at me and said ‘Angel they love you go back’ and I did go back and played another for everyone….This will make my 3rd year at the Oxnard Salsa Festival.

Ritmo Bello:   How often do you make it down to San Diego and when can we expect to see you again in America’s Finest City?

Angel Lebron:  I don’t go as much to San Diego as before. I love your city, the people, it’s my cup of tea sort of saying.  There’s venues which I want to perform at but I’ll leave that information at the end of this interview, however, I’ll be back to San Diego on the Sevilla Yacht Party on Saturday June 26, 2010 and John I can’t wait!   I’ll be performing new songs to San Diego which will be remembered for a long, long time.

Ritmo Bello:  What advice can you give to up and coming salsa musicians?

Angel Lebron:  My advice is first finish your education and study for a degree. This business & industry is hard, rugged and doggy dog bluntly speaking. This will enable you to fall back on something but at the same time if you really I mean really have that feeling inside of you that burns then pursue your dream and don’t stop and don’t allow anyone to discourage you.  And my second advice is : IT’S NICE TO BE NICE….Which means we don’t make our own success, people do that is, your following, the dancers, the DJs, the listeners, the Promoters and Club Owners they are the cause of our success.  Be nice, be professional, Be Humble and Be Real.

Ritmo Bello:  Is there anything else you’d like to share with the Ritmo Bello readers that I haven’t covered so far?

Angel Lebron:  Yes, I want your readers to know that my successes are due to my grateful God and my ancestors, to my manager Norma Santos, her assistant Carmen Ortiz of Dream Enterprises/Dream Records whom have both been pushing and breaking through the barriers, their promotion and Public Relations as well as believing in this project has made my life that much easier, many now have met them both and are well loved.  And people should also know that I’m very personable with the public so when you see me at the venues don’t be shy come over and say hi, I truly would love to meet you.

Ritmo Bello:  Do you have contact information in case anyone from the Ritmo Bello audience wants to contact you?

Angel Lebron:  Oh absolutely, here’s our office information :  Contact person is Norma Santos or Carmen Ortiz, Office Phone :  951-208-0177 , FAX:  951-208-0115 , EMAIL :  allmusic33@yahoo.com,  WEBSITE:   www.nycdreamenterprises.com

Monday through Saturday, 9am to 7pm

Also, to purchase the PRIMO CD you can purchase online at DESCARGA.COM or REYES RECORDS, any local distributors or local record stores can purchase through our company Dream Enterprises / Dream Records.

Ritmo Bello: Angel, thank you so much for your time and I’ll see you at the upcoming Sevilla Yacht Party!

Angel Lebron:   Thank you John, Love you bro a big shout out to Michael Onsurez, another friend also to all of San Diego. Thank you all…..And CALIFORNIA MIL ABRAZOS Y BESOS LO QUIERO A TODOS !!!!!!!  SEE YOU EN LA RUMBA, EN LA SALSA….

John F. Bello

Meet John ;-)

Found useful information here? Please Donate to Ritmo Bello

SD Dance Venues
Live View from Pacific Beach CA in San Diego
Scan This Bar Code for Ritmo Bello Contact Info!
San Diego Salsa Bachata Festival
BlackWhiteParty
Advertise with Ritmo Bello
Catholic Answers
Advertise with Ritmo Bello
Jesus Christ God's son Savior