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Juan Formell
Bassist, composer, arranger and director of
Los Van Van Juan Formell,
born in Havana on August 2, 1942 is the most important creator
of popular dance music in the last quarter of the century.
He began as a musician in 1957 in cabaret orchestras and on
radio and television, and in November 1959 he worked as a
bassist for the Banda de Música de la Policía
Revolucionaria.
In 1965 he was a member of the Orquesta Rubalcaba and in 1966
he worked for the Orquesta de Peruchín. By 1967 he
was showing an interest in experimenting and looking to renovate
the Cuban sonorous scope while working as a member of the
Orquesta de Elio Revé, where his orchestrations gave
the group a distinctive signature tone of the charanga.
His musical restlessness led him to form his own band Los
Van Van in 1969, with which he began incorporating electrical
instruments such as guitars, guitar basses and keyboards,
which replaced the double bass and acoustic piano, and amplifying
the violins and cellos, achieving a unique sound, to which
he added novel arrangements and vocal elements never heard
of before.
Since then, Los Van Van have been a driving force in Latin
danceable music. Besides creating the Songo
and the Buey Cansado (literally tired ox) two dance styles,
they were ahead of their time and foresaw what today is the
Island’s latest and greatest hit: the Timba
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