Venezuelan salsa band Dimensión Latina performed for the first time in Havana on September 3, to open the grand festival of Cuban art that is Habanarte, with Cuban musicians Isaac Delgado and Adalberto Álvarez as special guests.
Dimensión Latina’s last show in Cuba took place during the summer of 1979, in Santiago de Cuba’s Guillermón Moncada Stadium, with Adalberto Álvarez and Son 14 on stage, as well.
“That trip,” Adalberto recalls, “was very significant. Dimensión came accompanied by the singer Andy Montañez. At that time, the business agent Orlando Montiel made arrangements for Son 14 to participate in the Divina Pastora Festival, held in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, where we stayed for 12 days and won the Crepúsculo Dorado Prize. Later, we went back another time to perform fronting for Oscar D’ León in the Caracas Polyhedron.”
Dimensión Latina is a classic group in Venezuela, basing its work fundamentally on Cuban music, which constitutes 75% of their recordings. Only three members of the group which made the 1979 trip to Cuba are still with the band: trombonist and band leader César Monge, Elio Pacheco, and José Rodríguez.
“Cuba is for us America’s musical guiding light,” César Monge insisted, “It provides our band’s basic pattern. This can not be changed.”
“What Cuba has given the world is so great, that it will be so forever. I grew up in my house in Caracas listening to Radio Progreso, that broadcast the island’s best bands and groups.”
Oscar D’ León spent time in Dimensión Latina, leaving his job as a bus driver to become a musician.
After an arduous search for an ambitious salsa project, in 1972, he found Dimensión Latina, led by trombone player César "Albondiga" Monge and pianist Enrique "Culebra" Iriarte.
The group premiered March 15, 1972 in a night club called La Distinción, and in 1973 recorded their first LP, with their first hit “Pensando en ti.” Flushed with success, they were hired to perform during Carnival festivities in Maracaibo.
Their first big international hit was “Llorarás,” composed by Oscar and recored with bolero singer Vladimir Lozano.
Dimensión Latina features a line-up of four saxophones, common in salsa bands, and uses Cuban son as its rhythmic base, in a unique 1970s style.
Dimensión Latina’s participation in the Habanarte festival was a huge success, according to Cuban and Venezuelan fans and organizers alike. They played the classic “Frutas del Caney,” by Cuban composer Félix B. Caignet; “Zun zun dadae,” by Rogelio Martínez; and Julio Brito’s “Mira que eres linda,” letting everyone know they had not abandoned Cuba’s indispensable repertory.
“We came to this event in Havana,” Monge said, “because we know that in te 1990s a veritable boom took place within Cuban salsa, one those with the most success was Isaac Delgado, who sang with us in the National Theater concert.”
“We also wanted to meet up with Adalberto Álvarez, who is already a classic in Cuban son.”
“We are also interested in enriching ourselves with the history of Cuban music, which has aroused so much interest in Venezuela and all the America. We haven’t forgotten that important Cuban bands always attended the Caracas Carnivals, giving the festivals in my country some life.”
Dimensión Latina also performed at Havana’s Salón Rosado Benny Moré, La Tropical, on September 8 with up-and-coming salsero Emilio Frías (from El Niño y la Verdad), and the next day NG La Banda led by professor José Luis Cortés.
César Monge concluded, “It is an honor for Dimensión Latina to have performed with some renowned soneros and salseros, as well as the new generation in Cuban dance music. We’re pleased, we’re taking many experiences and good times back to Venezuela.”
