Tito Peunte

Wanna dance? Tito was the master. This seems to be his most popular CD at Amazon: Oye Como Va: The Dance Collection. Santana did some nice things to Oye Como Va. Tito wrote it. Hear what Tito does with it!

Put this CD on and you will dance. You will dance when you do the dishes. You won't walk across the room, you will dance across the room. Are you sitting down? If so, you will be butt-dancing. With Tito driving the band on the timbales. Yes!

This is also can be downloaded from EMusic: Oye Como Va!: The Dance Collection. As the EMusic page says: Extra good and plenty Puente in a classic Latin-jazz collection of definitive dance jams by the immortal mambo master. EMusic has 11 other albums by Tito. Start those downloads!

Lets mambo! (You have to use a lot of exclamation marks when you listen to this music!!)

Profile: Tito Puente
Tito Puente
El Rey's Mambo-ology: An Interview with Tito Puente
Tito Puente Way
TITO PUENTE - MUCH MORE THAN A LEGEND
Latin musician Tito Puente dies after heart surgery

Tony Martinez

Last November, I downloaded Tony's latest album in a download orgy at Emusic. It was at that time that my receiver was dying. Listening to a stereo recording on one channel leaves something to be desired. It is only recently that I have gone back and listened to Tony. Hoo boy!

Maferefun

As he brazenly demonstrated on La Habana Vive, his 1998 debut for the Blue Jackel Entertainment label, Tony Martinez is among the most elite ranks of contemporary Cuban musicians. An artist with an exceptional understanding of his country's African- derived rhythms, he possesses an equally impressive awareness of how to incorporate elements of jazz, funk and other non-Cuban ingredients to achieve stylistic hybrids that produce uncommonly bracing results. His ability to meld primordial rhythmic and vocal elements with contemporary jazz savvy values places him in the vanguard of today's most impressive and promising Latin musicians.

On Maferefun, his follow-up release for Blue Jackel, the 31 year old master musician, composer and arranger and his group The Cuban Power further advance their goal of defining a new way of using the dialect of traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms to forge a new music language for the next millennium. And the company Martinez keeps on the album speaks both of the high esteem in which he is held by many of Cuba's most important musicians and of their eagerness to contribute to the leader's imposing artistic quest.
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The entire band cooks! (More exclamation marks!) Tony's CDs are available at Amazon: Maferefun and La Habana Vive.

Emusic has both these CDs for download as MP3s (you have to join and pay a monthly fee but it's worth it!):

Maferefun "70 Minutes of the most advanced and revolutionary Afro-Cuban Jazz music that has come out this year." --Oasis Salsero

La Habana Vive "While Martinez's style is firmly grounded in such rich Afro-Cuban traditions as son and rumba, the fashionably dreadlocked Cuban is every bit the contemporary musician, infusing this session with modern dance grooves. “Tony's Cha Cha Cha” and the Irakere inspired title track are superb examples of how Martinez can achieve dramatic, forward-thinking results by giving traditional rhythms a smart new attitude." - Mark Holston, JAZZIZ

Tony Martinez & The Cuban Power - Maferefun
Tony Martinez
Tony Martinez - Maferefun