@Instituto Cervantes, Manchester 6.30pm Talk plus gig FREE EVENT

Shoot You Sir?

Instituto Cervantes, Manchester

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Talk 1:

The Danzón Cinquillo Rhythm – in Cuba, Mexico, Argentina and the US

The five-beat danzón rhythm can be found not only in Cuban danzón and contradanza musical styles but also in ragtime, stride, boogie woogie and Argentinean Tango. In this talk Dr Sue Miller traces the development of this rhythm from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Cuban dance styles of contradanza and danzón in the orquesta típicas and charangas, to its appearance in ragtime, blues and tango forms. Also forming part of classical repertoire from George Bizet to  Ernesto Lecuona, this rhythm never truly disappears  – it just migrates!

Concert:

Charanguita del Norte: a small charanga orquesta, the baby sister of Charanga del Norte, the band perform and demonstrate the Cuban danzón, danzón-chá, mambo and chachachá styles.

@ Instituto Cervantes, Manchester 29 February 2012

Tromgangsters

In 2007 Sue Miller was invited to New York by Eddy Zervigón (the bandleader and flute player of Orquesta Broadway) to perform with him at the annual Mamoncillo Festival. Before taking to the stage Sue saw Eddy play with Manny Oquendo’s Conjunto Libre and was impressed by his soloing against a five-strong trombone section. Always a fan of Eddie Palmieri’s trombone and flute-led Salsa band ‘La Perfecta’ Sue decided to set up something similar here in the UK inspired by the two Eddys. The band features the Peace Artist’s Vicki Beere and Casa Latina veterans on trombones plus musicians from the Charanga del Norte stable such as Ana-Luisa Muñoz del Valle on vocals, Simon Siddol on piano and rising young stars of the salsa scene Jack McCarthy on timbales and Helen Curtis on congas.

Expect hard driving grooves and melodic soloing designed for dancers and Latin music lovers alike. Influenced by Eddie Palmieri’s La Perfecta, Mongo Santamaria and the legendary Cuban Descargas expect high energy riffing, high-faluting solos and songs about dancing, love, deception and revelry.

CONTACT

http://www.charangasue.com

s.miller@charangasue.com or call 07957 244 167

Thursday 10 November Trombanga performance

In 2007 Sue Miller was invited to New York by Eddy Zervigón (the bandleader and flute player of Orquesta Broadway) to perform with him at the annual Mamoncillo Festival. Before taking to the stage Sue saw Eddy play with Manny Oquendo’s Conjunto Libre and was impressed by his soloing against a five-strong trombone section. Always a fan of Eddie Palmieri’s trombone and flute-led Salsa band ‘La Perfecta’ Sue decided to set up something similar here in the UK inspired by the two Eddys. The band features Cuban bass monster Ivan Pavon Martinez,  the Peace Artist’s Vicki Beere and Casa Latina veterans on trombones plus musicians from the Charanga del Norte stable such as Ana-Luisa Muñoz del Valle on vocals, Simon Siddol on piano and rising young stars of the salsa scene Jack McCarthy on timbales and Helen Curtis on congas.

FORTHCOMING GIGS

Thursday 10 November Square Chapel, Halifax

Square Chapel Website

Wednesday 29 February Instituto Cervantes, Manchester

FOR BOOKINGS

EMAIL s.miller@charangasue.com or call 07957 244 167

This is my homage to Melquiades Fundora who died on 14 February 2009

I have played alongside him with La Sublime in Havana in 2006 and 2007 and this performance at the Cabaret Nacional in Havana  on April 6th 2009 was a tribute to him as one of the founders of Orquesta Sublime in 1955.

Melquiades Fundora played the flauta de cinco llaves and there’s an interview with him on the publications page of this site. The new CD ‘Look Back In Charanga’ will be dedicated to Melquiades and Richard Egües.

Melquiades Fundora and Sue Miller in the Cabaret Nacional in 2007

Caribbean and Latin American Music Study Day

Saturday 12 November 2011
University of Huddersfield
School of Music, Humanities and Media, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH

Guest Speaker Dr Henry Stobart (Royal Holloway, University of London)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The study of music from the Caribbean and Latin America has tended in the past to remain the preserve of ethnomusicologists and those writing on popular music. This study day intends to extend this area of academic research by also focussing on practice-led research in this area. In addition to historiographic and ethnomusicological studies on Caribbean and Latin American music forms we hope to incorporate performance as a main element. Alongside paper presentations we encourage submissions for lecture recitals and short performances. The aim is to bring together researchers from the fields of performance, musicology and ethnomusicology to enable new ways of researching this subject.

Possible music areas in a range of national settings could include:

• Tango in Buenos Aires or elsewhere in the world
• Cuban musics
• Brazilian musics
• English-speaking Caribbean forms (such as pan, soca, reggae and calypso)
• Salsa (in all its manifestations)
• Traditional and Modern Latin American forms from Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia etc
• Jazz from the Caribbean

Although not restricted to specific themes, possible topics could include:

• Performance as research
• Exoticism in Latin American music
• Approaches to the analysis of world musics
• The influence of Latin music on popular Anglo-American styles
• A critique of participant-observer methods of ethnomusicological fieldwork
• Film music
• The spiritual in the secular
• Migration and trans-cultural exchange
• Cultural policy and how it affects musicians’ lives on the ground
• The African aesthetic in New World forms
• The relationship between Iberian and New World musical forms
• Latin American music in the global marketplace

Abstracts of no more than 200 words are invited for papers (20 minutes duration followed by 10 minutes for questions) and for lecture presentations or performances (30 minutes with 15 minutes for questions).

Abstracts need to be submitted by the 15 of September 2011 to Sue Miller s.miller@charangasue.com for consideration by the programme committee. Proposals from those pursuing practice-led research are particularly welcome.

Conference committee:
Jessica Quiñones (University of Huddersfield),  Sue Miller (University of Leeds), Rachel Hayward (City University)

See http://www.rma.ac.uk/conferences for further details

01 Sue Miller Postgraduate Recital hackensack

Sue Miller – piano

John Day – bass

Ronnie Bottomley – drums

You’ll dance to this with two left feet and a bag on your head!
Brampton Live

Charanga del Norte is now taking the music one step beyond — top-notch music from one of England’s leading Latin combos and the only 100 percent genuine charanga and pachanga band in the land.They are making some fine music that stands up shoulder-to-shoulder proudly with the best charanga musicians still around today, like Orquesta Aragon. They also write their own quality original material which displays a deep and clear understanding of the music and gives a perfect rendition of this distinctive and historically important Cuban style. The creative juices are certainly flowing freely here.
Dave Hucker The Beat 2006

Susana tus inspiraciones son muy buenas – pareces una cubana inspirando!
Susan your solos are great – just like a Cuban improviser!”
Policarpo (Polo) Tamayo, flute player Buena Vista Social Club

Latin music, but not as you may know it, this band are deliciously different and incredibly danceable
The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen

Sue Miller’s fluent flute featured strongly on Orquesta Aragon’s Bodeguero.
Steve Millward Manchester Evening News, The Bridgewater Hall review

Superb UK-based salsa and charanga band
Songlines magazine

Inviting supporting acts to perform with legendary Cuban artists involved in the Buena Vista Social Club project is no easy matter, finding an outfit in the UK that can hold its own with a well informed audience makes the task all the more difficult…. Bridgewater Hall has a reputation for authentic, first class music and Charanga make the grade.
The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Just discovered a tape of my postgraduate recital at LCM from 1994 – here’s the rough recording of my  Bill Evans tribute  ‘When I Fall in Love’:

jazz piano 1

piano – Sue Miller

bass – John Day

drums – Ronnie Bottomley