About

Influenced by the musical  Arcaño y sus Maravillas, and Las Estrellas Cubanas, and by Cuban jazz pianists Frank Emilio Flynn and Pedro "Peruchin" Justiz, and also a nod to 19th & 20th century Cuban classical piano composers such as Ignacio Cervantes and Manuel Saumell, Live Latin Band Cafecito plays an exhilarating pre-salsa and orquesta francesa - cha cha chas, danzones and boleros plus Latin jazz, which you will have heard a flavour of in the Buena Vista Social Club recordings. Our repertoire includes new arrangements of Cuban classics such as Frenesí, new takes on standards as diverse as John Coltrane's Giant Steps, Sidney Bechet's Petite Fleur and the Brazilian bossa nova Recado, as well as original compositions such as the danzón El Gato Que Tiene Hambre and El Aciano by Cafecito's pianist, leader and musical director Janet Sherbourne.
 

".....a great big thank you for the wonderful music at our wedding! The music was just brilliant and we had lots of people say how perfect it was for the day!"
 

What Is Charanga?

All terms in Cuban music seem to have more than one meaning – certainly the most confusing one must be “Mambo”, which can be a dance; a tune type; a rhythmic feel and a section of a composition (not just of a mambo). Even the original composition “Mambo” was a danzón!

Charanga is almost as confusing a term – it is most likely to be a type of Cuban musical group.
 

But the essence of charanga is that it is based on the line-up of the charanga francesa (flute, violins and rhythm section) as opposed to that of the orquesta típica (brass instruments, clarinets, violins and percussion), and that is what the band Cafecito is modelled on.
 

Charanga bands developed in Cuban music in the early twentieth century playing danzones, the beautiful semi-formal partner dance which evolved into the cha-cha-chá, and since it was charanga bands who invented the cha-cha-chá, it was charanga bands who played it during the hey-day of this dance in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. And since it was also musicians in charangas who invented the mambo and the pachanga.
 

Famous charanga ensembles include Arcaño y sus Maravillas, Orquesta América, Orquesta Aragón, Orquesta Almendra, Orquesta Ritmo Oriental, and Estrellas Cubanas. There are dozens more.
 

To understand charanga it is first necessary to understand the danzón, which in some ways is the classic Cuban dance-form.

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