Eddy came up with a chord progression that reminded me a lot of a tune I like by Gerardo Alfonso, called “Asi de sencillo.” He had the basic structure in place, with a great groove and coro, but we both thought it could use a bridge to break up the monotony of the basic progression. Inspired in part by “Sencillo,” we started with a basic minor descent from the iv chord, then used some modal mixture to resolve the phrase in an unusual. I think it gives the song some nice harmonic variety – and Eddy found some great lyrics to fit to the melody, as well.

Con el permiso de los santos

A very short clip of our concert in Vaires-sur-Marne, filmed by flutist Emilie Laroubine (thanks, Emilie!), who came to sit in with us for a few tunes.

Çasonando Live

We’ve just finished the arrangement of singer Eddy Carvajal’s new tune, which includes a bridge that Eddy and I worked on together. We’ve been looking for a solid medium tempo song to include in our new demo recording (to be completed by the early spring, we hope!), and this track looks like it will make it on the list. In the meantime, this rough mix will give you an idea of what’s to come!

With Premier Gaou, we tried taking a song from another context and approaching it in a fundamentally Cuban way. We don’t do this song in concert very often, as it is not always comfortable for dancers, but we still pull it out every once in a while for fun.