My plane ticket arrived 10 days before I was to leave for Amsterdam.
That was a good sign, for usually they come a day before and that means
trouble. Astrid (La Holendesa) and Gerardo Rosales were organizing a
"Proyecto Por Venezuela." Gerardo, a talented percussionist and bandleader
from Caracas, and his beautiful wife, Astrid, a Dutch vocalist, invited me to
participate with their orchestra at a fund-raiser for the victims of the
floods that have devastated la Guira and surrounding cities in Venezuela.
For me, Venezuela is my second country. When Salsa music began in the late
1960's, Venezuela was the first country to open its arms and accept our
"new type" of Afro/Cuban/urban NY Music. We played several times a year
all over this beautiful country for many years. A large number of new Salsa
bands sprang up almost overnight and millions of Venezuelans purchased
records and supported our music popularizing the "Fania Era" and helped
make us "superstars." During this great musical decade I spawned a daughter
in Caracas named Haiby Rengifo. Show is now 24 years old and has made me a
grandfather.
I had not known about the floods for almost 5 days after the
tragedy occurred, for the news services only carried the results of the
Presidential elections in Venezuela and NOT the weather reports. At first
it was thought that 2 to 3 thousand persons were hurt or missing from the
avalanches due to 12 days of heavy rain, but now we all know that possibly
60,000 persons have died and countless others are without homes, shelter,
clothing and food. La Guira, the port city to Caracas does NOT exist
anymore. The Latin Legends Band were supposed to have played New Years Eve at the
Hotel Merida in la Guira. The Hotel was washed into the sea and needless to
say out NUEVE weekend was canceled.
My daughter who I finally reached a week after the disaster has told me
that Caracas "smells of death." The Poliedro, where we played so many
concerts, is where the bodies are being kept for identification. These
wonderful people are in need of EVERYTHING to help them survive this
sorrowful time in the history of their country. This is the reason for
"Proyecto por Venezuela." New York had a fund-raiser a few weeks ago at
Hostos College. Now Amsterdam, home to several thousand Venezuelans, has
supported the cause. With the help of the Red Cross, Gerardo and friends
raised over US$10,000 from the concert and sales of the CD at the
Paradiso, a long time rock and roll venue where Sting, the Stones, etc, etc, etc have played.
The flight on KLM/Northwest was smooth and rather quick due to a strong
tailwind. I arrived in Amsterdam at 12 noon Sunday morning to be greeted by
Astrid and Fransoir, a French promoter of Latin Music and fan. I was driven
to the "Owl Hotel" a few blocks from the Centrum of Amsterdam, where all the
action is. I dropped off my bags after check in and was taken to Gerardo's
home for a Venezuelan sanchoco, that he cooked himself. There I was
reunited with Javier Plaza, a sonero from Venezuela who has been living in Germany
and singing with Conneccion Latina and Alberto Naranjo, a well known
educator, composer, arranger and percussionist , as well as a salsa DJ and
historian. We had not seen each other for many years. We ate and listened
to mucho classic recordings that brought out wonderful insider stories of the
times. We then all proceeded to rehearsals where I met the musicians we
were to play with. The band was wonderful and full of energy and
willingness to learn. We rehearsed my program and later went to have some great
Indonesian food. I was exhausted and had only one hour of sleep
crossing the Atlantic and went to sleep in a flash and slept till 10AM.
I had breakfast European style in the hotel and decided to scout out
the neighborhood. After passing the Bulldog coffee house and the red light
district, I came upon the floating barge section on one of the thousand or
so canals where they sold all of the flowers for the week. The tulips were
gorgeous and there were so many colors and types to choose from as well as
all kinds of garden supplies. I bought some gifts and stocked up on
batteries for my Nikon digital camera for the next two days. The air is
very fresh in Amsterdam. There are no slums and the most serious crime is
bicycle stealing. This Dutch city is full of every nationality you can imagine,
with many languages being spoken. Beautiful young people riding many bikes. The
big problem seems to be PARKING CARS. It seemed we spent most of the time
looking for parking spots.
I then walked to the Paradiso, where the concert
was held. It is an old concert church with very high ceilings and a
big balcony. With food services and all the Venezuelan ladies selling all
great arepas and other typico food from Venezuela for the cause. Posters,
hammocks, straw hats, CD's, etc, etc, etc. I helped Gerardo and Venezuelan
engineer, Juan Viloria, set up and stage this event for a few hours until the
musicians started arriving for the sound check. A quick lunch and everyone
was there. When the show was about to begin, the dressing rooms full of
entertainers and musicos, I decided to return to the hotel to shower,
shave and pick up my clothes for the evening.
The show opened with Eddy Veldman,
Jaco Abel, Benjamin Herman and Gerardo. Next up was the Dutch Latin Jazz group, Nuevo Manteca, who I have played with before in Europe and at
SOB's in NYC. Third was Saoco. Then came Mariaachi Tierra Caliente with some great players.Fifth up was Guadalupe Urbina playing some wonderful music with Venezuelan harps and great singing. Now for the Salsa part of the show.
Alberto Naranjo with Cuban singer Jazmin Saveedra with Astrid, Javier
Plaza, Leonardo Amuedo and Gerardo and the band smoked the 1200 people jammed into
this church. I changed into the same outfit I wore at Madison Square Garden with
the Fania All-Stars. The emerald green, sequined jacket and green, feather
Boa were really "hot." So hot that I had to remove it after the first
number of "Descarga Fania." I was joined on stage by Dutch trumpeter, Saskia
Laroo, a beautiful and talented musician who was wired up with all kinds of
electronic effects for her horn, and a band of three trumpets, two
trombones, a flute, violin, 5 singers, trap drums and timbales, bongos and Gerardo
on congas. What a sound!!!!!
The Oye, Listen sound system was kicked and Rob
from the magazine was in heaven. His magazine OYE, LISTEN is one of the most
popular music mags in Europe for Latin, African and World music. He is a
wonderful man and helps the music world mucho. La Pachanga dancers with
George Suarez were smokin' and I was pleasantly surprised to see Dr. Salsa
himself as the MC for the evening. I continued along with "La Cartera,"
"Senor Sereno," "Gracia Divina," "Paso de Encarnacion" and ended with "La Raza Latina" in
which all musicians and singers were invited to jam together. We tore down
the house. We played a descarga for an encore and left the stage exhausted.
IT WAS HOT. Back stage everyone was feeling good, slapping high five's and
started to cool down from a truly wonderful evening. There was a short party
for the staff and at 2AM I went back to the hotel to call my wife with the
details.
The next day i had brunch with Saskia Laroo and we went to her
apartment to check out her recording set up and computer system. I wrote Wendy some
emails and we listened to some sampled new recordings and discussed the
possibility of doing some recording together in the future combining
sampled Harlow cuts with rap and jazz on top. Sounds interesting. Paul Neiman, a
Dutch entrepreneur, picked me up for a dinner meeting . We went to another
Indonesian restaurant (great food) and discussed the possible tour of
Thunder Drums in the far east for 2 months in the year 2001-2002
and some presentations in Europe after the summer 2000. After dinner we went to
see Saskia play at a jazz club on the other side of Amsterdam and met some
wonderful musicians and took some great photos.
Wednesday AM I met Gerardo at the hotel. He was going to the radio
station to check out the live recording made from the broadcast at the
Paradiso Monday eve. for Dutch Radio and also the Internet. I spent the
remaining few hours at the home of Dr. Salsa, in reality a Jewish
psychiatrist named Ira Goldwater (Goldwasser), and his wonderful wife Harriet
Brockman. These two mambonicks knew my real name, date of birth and we had many mutual friends that it is amazing we have never become good
friends before. They always play host to all Latino mushiness when they
come to Amsterdam and have two radio shows on the air weekly. They are also old
Catskill mountain rats who learned to dance Latin music when they were
teenagers. We are the same age and talked about the days at the Raleigh in
Fallsburg and the Palladium in New York. We ate lox and herring and
laughed for hours until time for me to leave for the airport.
The Latin Legends Band are scheduled to play at the Hilton hotel June 2 for Wendell Robinson, a Washington Attorney who is doing a Salsa Weekend in Europe, the second
night March 3rd in Madrid, Spain. Hope to see all the European Salseros
then. Thank you everyone for making this weekend so successful for a
wonderful cause. I had a GREAT time...
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