December 15, 2006
Several days ago, I told both Sally and Vishal that I would DJ for a short time at Club Salsa before heading to LeL for Sally’s X-mas party. Thus that’s exactly what I did.
Playlist at Club Salsa
La Muy Muy – Roberto Torres (1)*
Pachito Eche – Tito Puente & Celia Cruz
La Resbolosa – Ray Barretto
Don Goyo – El Gran Combo*
A El – Oscar D’Leon (2)
Mambo of the Times – Joe Cuba Sextet (3)
Mambo No 5 – Perez Prado (4)*
El Abaniquito – Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers
Caballo Viejo – Roberto Torres (5)*
Caballero Y Dama – Celia Cruz & Willie Chirino
Otra Oportunidad – Jimmy Bosch
Usted Abuso – Celia Cruz & Willie Colon
Prestame Tu Mujer – Ray Barretto (6)
Felices Horas – Hector Lavoe
(1) The first song for the club hour was El Matrimonio by El Gran Combo because of a glitch. Hardly anyone danced to it though. La Muy Muy fared much better.
(2) The floor seemed to lose steam with Don Goyo and A El (I don’t think anyone danced to A El), so I decided to take a drastic action with big change of pace next.
(3) I thought it worked to get people’s attention so I decided to follow it up with another oddity.
(4) Vishal seemed scandalized. I thought many of the people there were getting a kick out of it and having fun.
(5) Vishal’s reaction was something along the lines of “That’s great. This is perfect. This is how it should be.” Come on. There is finite number of very popular songs, and it’s very easy to overuse them.
(6) Vishal asked, “Aren’t you going to Sally’s party?” I replied, “I’ll play one more song then go.”
Total 14 songs. 14 Salsa. 4 new songs.
It was extremely quiet when I arrived at Club Salsa, but it seemed to get better as evening went along. With luck, a big after-party people would have shown up after I left to make it worthwhile for Vishal.
Earlier in the day, I exchanged e-mails with Sergio and Cyrille and made reservations for them with Sally. Cyrille asked me when I planned to go to LeL. I said I probably will go around 11 after DJing at Club Salsa. I left Club Salsa shortly before 11, and arrived at LeL around 11:20.
Apparently Cyrille, Sergio and Mimi arrived merely minutes before my arrival. Cyrille commented that I must have been driving very fast. I was never very far from the speed limit. Those three apparently got together last night, but it had been a while for me with all three (I hadn't seen Sergio for 3+ weeks). Hmm. Maybe this helped to convince them to show up tonight – wishful thinking?
Sally seemed very glad to see us all. She had Cyrille take an imaginary photo of Sergio on her left and me on her right.
Mishap of the day – Mimi accidentally brought a mismatched pair of shoes – for the same foot. I don’t know if they both were for her left foot. She ended up dancing in her boots.
Santa Claus jokes are still prevalent.
Strangest tic of the day was Chris stomping his feet (presumably his left foot) loudly on 1 through large part of the evening. No idea why – maybe he was trying to shake the earth.
Although I only managed to hear 4 or 5 songs by the band (El Equipo), I thought they sounded quite good. Sergio liked them too. Gordon said they sounded fantastic. The songs they played included Descarga Cachao, Vamonos Pal Monte and a cha cha tune. One other person told me that the band was great also.
After the band finished playing, there was a performance given by Mark and Sam. It was essentially the same routine they did at the CDC Salsa social Pasion de Invierno. I think the performance tonight was executed just as well and probably done with more ease than at the CDC party. However, the novelty factor was missing because I knew all of the surprise elements. It’s a challenge, no? You learn or make a nice routine, but it quickly and continually loses freshness as you use it multiple times.
I’m not sure if there was a team performance. Because I had a very poor look at it last week, I was hoping to catch it tonight. I either missed it completely (although it did not sound that way in a conversation I had with Sally) or they did not repeat it tonight.
It was the busiest evening I have seen at LeL to date. I believe it was a highly successful party for Sally and company. However, because LeL is much bigger than Club Salsa, there always was decent amount of space for dancing. Nice.
Even though I was there for over two and half hours, it felt as if the party seemingly ended very quickly. I suppose time passed so fast because it was good. I had nice dances with Susie, Sam, Mimi, Nicola, Lindsey, Charlotte as well as at least three people I probably never danced with before. I’m guessing that the music started shortly after 9 and that the band started playing shortly after 9:30, so I probably missed close to half of the party. Presumably I would have danced with many more people if I arrived earlier.
I did notice that some of the people I danced with the most in Cambridge were missing – away for a vacation, etc. The most noticeable absentee otherwise was Rajiv, who’s also away on a vacation for among other things the Dubai Salsa congress. No Ivan either, but he’s probably allowed to go out once a week only [evil laughter].
It was nice to take a break away from the fishbowl, write things without worrying about consequences because it wasn’t going to be made public, etc. I guess I could call it a sabbatical. It was planned as a 4-part series. I guess I’ll save the last part for later.
Next up. SOS. I’ve been looking forward to it all week.
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