From the dramatic pacing of its tracks, to its meticulously crafted beginnings and endings, right down to its bizarre, neo-psychedelic vibe, TREMENDO DELIRIO is clearly the mature and lovingly-created work of a truly great band whose ascent to mega stardom in their own country had given them the time, resources and creative control to inspired them to believe in their own greatness, and yet had not destroyed them. A must have for any Cuban music collector. 12 tracks with 62:43 (mm:ss) total time.

Although all hell was about to break loose, the original Charanga Habanera's personnel remained remarkably stable throughout their four album run. All told, two people left and two joined in over five years. On Pa' que se entere La Habana they replaced singer Leo Vera with Michel Maza without missing a beat and they didn't even bother to replace their one-man violin section, an anachronistic vestige of their early Charanga roots, when Pedro Fajardo left for the much more string-oriented Los Van Van. It's interesting to note that Calzado, González and Pedro Pablo began their careers on violin, viola and cello, respectively, only to make history in a group with no strings at all.

On "Tremendo delirio" the only change was the addition of a third singer. Danny Lozada's impeccable intonation and phrasing and his distinctive voice and charismatic personality made him the perfect foil for Sombrilla and Michel. More importantly, Lozada was a prolific composer and wrote or co-wrote four of Tremendo delirio's eleven songs, including the epic final track.

The addition of Lozada, however, does not account for the extreme stylistic changes in the sound of the group. The rapped and partially-rapped coros the group had experimented with on "Pa' que se entere" were now present on every single track. A more fundamental change was the dramatic shift of focus from major to minor. The early records were overflowing with bright major tonal centers and bell-like major tenths in the piano tumbaos. On "Tremendo delirio" the cuerpos run the gamut of harmonic possibilities but once you get past them to the meat of the arrangements, every track works its way into some sort of dark minor tonality, and the horns, vocals and even the piano tumbaos are laced with blues notes. The darkest of the blues notes, the flatted fifth, referred to by early classical composers as el diablo en música, manages to find its way into almost every tumbao. Even the clave had changed! The first albums favored 3:2 rumba clave for the majority of the coros and mambos and featured a maze of complex and fascinating clave changes to get in and out of this groove. Tremendo delirio is almost exclusively in 2:3, with only two tracks involving 3:2 and clave changes.

Finally, "Tremendo delirio" is an album, not a collection of tracks. It has a unity of style and concept, and the songs follow one another purposefully and with dramatic pacing.

--review by Kevin Moore of www.TIMBA.com

Much has been written about the July 1997 Charanga Habanera concert at the Festival de la Juventud y los Estudiantes that resulted in Charanga Habanera's 6-month suspension and the series of events that led to the formation of Dany Lozada y su Timba Cubana, Charanga Forever, and the second great incarnation of Charanga Habanera.

You can click the annotated link for our youtube video on Beyond Salsa Piano, Volume 14 to hear the full story. (on the Timba.com youtube channel) http://goo.gl/xb1c98

This video is an attempt to fuse together the best existing video and audio of each song and reconstruct the concert as accurately as possible.

The video begins at 2:52, halfway through No estamos locos.

SOURCES

1. a poor quality VHS tape that begins with Charanguéate and ends during Usa condón

2. a much better VHS tape that begins during No estamos locos (earlier than tape 1) and ends during Lola Lola (also earlier)

3. a cassette tape of somewhat better audio quality than the videos that begins with the Intro, and continues well past Usa condón to include four more songs including Hay que tocármela, a strong unreleased Charanga Habanera song

You are currently listening to the audio from this tape, which is used when possible to replace the inferior audio from the videos.

CAVEATS

There is no guarantee that all of the music on the audio cassette is indeed from the same concert, although it sounds like it is. If so, we can conclude that the concert was simulcast on television and radio and that only the feed to the television was cut.

Because one VHS cuts off during Lola Lola, after Michel's strip tease antics,many of us incorrectly assumed that this was where the censors cut the TV feed, but the other VHS shows that it was actually during Usa condón that the feed was cut.

REQUEST: If you were at the concert, heard the broadcast, or have picked up any clues from the audio or video, please report your findings inthe comments section! And if you have any other versions of this concert - please contact us (kevin@timba.com) or post them to youtube yourself.

Thank you, Kevin Moore - http://beyondsalsa.info

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:33 No estamos locos
00:05:15 Charanguéate
00:11:26 Nube pasajera
00:18:22 Un disparo en la mirada
00:27:40 Lo siento por ti
00:32:47 Lola Lola
00:44:11 Usa condón
00:58:31 Tanto le pedí
01:01:51 El avión
01:12:48 Hay que tocármela
01:20:30 Hagamos un chen