A break in monotony

November 3, 2006

Playlist

El Menu – El Gran Combo
A El – Oscar D’Leon
Ave Maria Lola – Sonora Carruseles
Esta Cobardia – Frankie Ruiz (1)
Miye Na We – Africando
Ritmo Caliente II – Eddie Palmieri (2)
Lindo Yambu – Cheo Feliciano (3)
Adelante Siempre Voy – Ray Barretto*
Nina Y Senora – Tito Puente
Abran Paso – Orchestra Harlow (or Larry Harlow/Ismael Miranda)
Mi Mujer Es Una Bomba – Oscar D’Leon
La Fiesta De Pilito – El Gran Combo (4)*
Songo Soron – Isidro Infante (5)
Soy El Rey – Pete Rodriguez (6)
Debo Pensar – Toque D’Keda
Ven Tu – Dominic Marte
Asia Mood – Tito Puente (7)
Hong Kong Mambo – Tito Puente
Caravan – Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers (90’s recording) (8)*

break

La Fruta Bomba – Fruko Y Sus Tesos
Timbalero – El Gran Combo (9)*
Senora – Dominic Marte (10)
Lamento Boliviano – Toque D’Keda
Los Rumberos – Markolino Dimond & Frankie Dante (11)
Anacaona – Cheo Feliciano
Hacha Y Machete – Hector Lavoe
Suavemente (Merengue) – Elvis Crespo (12)
Revolucionando – New Swing Sextet (13)
Carioca – Bobby Montez*
Contigo – Cache
Me Prendiste Velas – Oscar D’Leon
El Preso – Fruko Y Sus Tesos
Another random Merengue from Vishal’s CD (14)
Picadillo – Tito Puente (70’s recording) (15)
Me Libere – El Gran Combo
Thinking of You – Lenny Kravitz (16)

(1) Nope. Not Frankie’s kind of night.
(2) Sure, it sounds happy but I do not think it is a particularly good for dancing. I doubt I’ll play this again.
(3) Last time, it was very popular. Not especially so tonight. I guess it’s all context dependent.
(4) It worked nicely and seemed popular enough. I am sure it’s no guarantee of future success though.
(5) I meant to play El Pito, but I was distracted by a guy hounding me for a Merengue all night. I guess it didn’t matter.
(6) Fast song to set up for Bachata-thon.
(7) Gordon said, “Nice song,” but he wasn’t dancing to it. I suppose I still should take it to mean that I should play it again. No problem. I know that it’s a good song.
(8) The album title is Rip A Dip. I think this is a nicer slower version, which still means medium speed or faster. Vishal’s comment, “I guess people like dancing to Mambo now. It’s about time!” I might call it Latin Jazz rather than Mambo.
(9) I knew this was going to be too fast. Previous song was pretty fast too. I should slow this one next time. It still worked as a setup.
(10) Cyrille was puzzled for a bit but later said that it’s good.
(11) That’s one way to play this one and be reasonably sure that sufficient number will dance to it.
(12) I finally succumbed to the guy who begged for Merengue throughout the evening. This is from Vishal’s CD. It would seem that a good number of people know that I don’t have any Merengue CD.
(13) At least one person seemed to recognize this song.
(14) Same guy again. Not many people are left to dance Merengue though. There was another guy earlier who asked for Nelly Furtado (what kind of music does he (or she) play? He was also asking for R&B. Does Vishal play R&B on Fridays? I thought he stuck to Merengue, Reggaeton, Bachata and Salsa on Fridays. I think Cyrille, Zern and Euvian were making fun of this song.
(15) This was a mistake. Too energetic for this hour. Poor context. I don’t know if the recording from the 40’s or 50’s (my original choice) would have been better.
(16) Early closing time. About 1:05 AM.

Total number of songs was 36 (19+17). 30 Salsa. 4 Bachata. 2 Merengue. 5 new songs (I’m not counting songs from Vishal’s CD as new, of course). There were some other songs that I had not played on Fridays before too (e.g Asia Mood, Revolucionando). I think this might be the first time I played every song without altering the speed. One song should have been slowed down of course, and I came close to playing Indestructible at –4% at one point.

My car broke down so I took my bicycle to Club Salsa. I guess life will be complicated until a repair (or perhaps replacement) can be arranged. Vish thought it was the worst time to have such thing happen. I suppose a Sunday night would have been more convenient. Then again, the breakdown could have happened in London with multiple passengers in stormy weather too. Life will go on - perhaps with a break in monotony.

I think I only danced with two people tonight for total of 3 songs. One of the song was Cali Pachanguero (Grupo Niche?) remixed (by Vish?), which led me to dance it like disco half the time. Fortunately my partner did not mind (and seemed rather into it despite me going that route at least 3 times during the course of the song). I was expecting to dance more but one cannot rely on that sort of things.

Perhaps Vishal let me play a long second set because of my luck with my car. Or perhaps he judged that not many people were likely to demand Reggaeton, etc. I thought I might be done after Caravan (or if not, then for a brief set later). In any case it was pretty clear that most people remaining (which were not many) were Salsa people by the time I played Suavemente.

As expected, Cyrille tried to talk me into going to the Scala tomorrow. I suppose Scala is just as viable and convenient option as SOS is given current situation (arguably more so). No final answer for Cyrille as of this writing, but if the pattern holds true...