New York Times article about Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and Rumba

Well I guess Rumba is main stream!! lol

It must be if the New York Times is writing about it.. love to see Rumba live and well in 2011.

The article was written before the show in NYC, so there was not much to say.. but here is a bit of the article by Larry Blumenfeld:

'To see the powerfully symbolic and sexually suggestive movements of the group's dancers, and to feel beats pinging and pounding in patterns beyond comprehension ... is to get the visceral sensation of becoming part of something big, precise and mysterious.'

'Ned Sublette, author of the book "Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo" (Chicago Review Press) and founder of the Qbadisc label, recalled his first exposure to the group during a 1990 trip to Matanzas, Cuba. "I was involved in Latin music in New York, but I had not experienced anything remotely like Los Muñequitos," he said. Mr. Sublette's book traced the appearance of the guaguancó, the rhythmic form by which rumba is best known, to Matanzas in about 1880. "It was a place and a period of great cultural compression," he said, "and Los Muñequitos captures that most clearly. But they also represent the fact that rumba is alive today. It's not museum music—it's a living thing that answers the needs of contemporary people."'

Ache!