Guayaberas

The origin of the name Guayabera may come from a Cuban legend that tells of a poor countryside seamstress sewing large pockets into her husband's shirts for carrying guava (guayabas) from the field. Guayaberamay also have originated from the word yayabero, the word for a person who lived near the Yayabo River in Cuba.

Today, they come in different colors, and are sometimes worn inside the pants. An original Guayabara is white like an innocent young girl!

Juan Lopez

Here is one of the few Havana brands which is offered only in handmade styles, started in 1876 by Juan Lopez Diaz. The range of sizes is limited, but the workmanship is first-rate and the flavor is considered to be medium to strong, with light and almost aromatic overtones. A sampling of this cigar may develop into a long term love for it.

I had the pleasure smoking a couple of them last week with a friend and need to get more, soon....

It's not the camera, but who's behind the camera

Tony Gaye – An award winning photographer, his work is found in many permanent collections, including the prestigious International Museum of Photography at The George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, and Graphis in Zurich.

Tony was the first studio photographer to introduce high-resolution digital photography to the Philadelphia market in 1991. A Vietnam veteran and musician, he holds an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology and is a member of the faculty at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. A specialist in commercial and location photography.

His hundreds of clients have included Martin Guitars, Winterthur Museum, Hewlett Packard, Anheuser Busch, Johnson & Johnson, Campbell Soup, Coca Cola, Crayola, Glaxo Smith Kline, Hershey, McDonalds, Panasonic and Sunoco. He is currently shooting on the PBS Production, "The Soundtrack Of Our Lives", the history of recorded music, that is scheduled to air in the Fall season 2010.

Tony is working on a multimedia book about Savor, and Cuban Harely riders called Harlistas, due this fall.

Tony has lived and worked on five continents. www.tonygaye.com

The Mulimedia Book

One among thousands

This large format book concept will combine stunning and emotional photography with music recorded live as the photos were taken. The book will give you the feeling of being right there in Havana, on street corners, in bodegas, performing live with who ever wants to join in with Victor Alvarez. The book is an emotional journey back to Cuba with a sensuous experience for your eyes and ears as never experienced before. Book chapters will correspond with audio tracks on the CDs to guide you through the streets of Havana.

Tracey Eaton - will be the writer on the multimedia project. Tracey was Havana bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News from 2000 to early 2005. A journalist for 25 years, he has covered guerrilla uprisings, presidential elections, riots, war, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions. He has written about everything from the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Pope in Israel to surfers in Brazil and snakes popping out of toilets in Florida. He has wide experience in Latin America. He was metropolitan editor for the Houston Chronicle before joining Flagler College as an instructor in 2007. Eaton holds a master’s degree in journalism from Temple University. He was a Fulbright scholar in Ecuador. He has conducted journalism workshops in Central America and has been an invited speaker at conferences in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Cuba. Eaton has been a staff writer at seven newspapers, including the Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune and Orange County Register. His work has appeared in more than 60 U.S. and Canadian newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Daily News, USA Today and Denver Post. He blogs when he should be mowing the lawn. http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/

The evil eye

"Regla de Ocha", commonly known as Santeria, is a religion widely practised in Cuba. Santeria is the result of the meeting of the cults coming mainly from Nigeria, Africa, and catholic religion; after their deportation in the New World, the slaves continued to profess their cults, hiding their gods behind the appearances of the catholic saints, and mixing their rituals with the ones of the religion brought by their dominators. Santeria, is practiced mainly in the houses of the followers; there, rites of sacrifice and of initiations, "rogacion de cabeza", "limpiezas" and feasts, known as "rites of possession", dedicated to the deities are performed; the feasts culminate with the "possession of some of the followers" by the deities, which, in this way, show themselves to the believers. 

Havana Cafe

Barbarito Torres has found a place among the finest folkloric musicians the island has to offer.

A master of the Cuban lute-like instrument called the laud, close to a mandolin, he was part of the Buena Vista Social Club. He presents the rich string tradition that exists inside Cuban music scene. On tour outside Cuba, Barbarito and Victor met in Santa Fe and became friends. Victor hopes to meet up with him during filming in Havana.

¡Viva Street Music¡

“It’s a naturally happy place, and people are generally joyous there,” Havana-born Víctor Alvarez, Savor’s bandleader, says. “The island is such a paradise, with the sea, the flowers. Music in Cuba is in the streets.”Hearing Savor play is like being handed a gift. This is traditional Cuban music, straight from Havana’s fabled streets.

Alvarez’ mother taught him much of what he knows about music, but he was also educated by his childhood neighborhood. It helped that he lived two doors down from the legendary La Bodeguita del Medio, where well-known musicians were known to mingle with the likes of a guy named Ernest Hemingway. Inevitably, the musicians would pick up their instruments.

“They’d sit and play and I’d go down there and listen from the outside, memorizing the songs and ripping off their licks,” Alvarez says. “A lot of the licks I play today are from those days, from listening to those musicians.” Continue

Festival del Cine Pobre de Humberto Solás

In a city by the sea, you're lured out of the spring sunshine and into a darkened cinema - but, no, you're not in Hollywood or Cannes. Don't expect to find any gala dinners or five-star hotels. No actors, directors, producers, distributors, promoters or sponsors are getting rich off the movie business. All the films showing here in Gibara were made for less (usually much less) than 300,000 dollars, and their value is not intrinsic to their potential to generate ticket sales or celebrity product endorsements.The Gibara film festival is dedicated to movies made against seemingly overwhelming odds. What's different this time around is that the odds have turned against the festival itself.

Bassist 'Cachaíto' López dies at 76

Buena Vista Social club member Orlando López died in a Havana hospital of complications from prostate surgery. The López family is a veritable musical dynasty whose specialty is the bass—any kind of bass, upright or acoustic, classical or pop or jazz. Cachaito’s father and uncle, Orestes and Israel (a.k.a. Cachaito, who earned international fame with a couple of amazing recordings in the early 90s), learned their craft from their father, don Pedro.

The Film

One among thousands is a sixty-minute HD documentary of the long journey of Victor Alvarez, a gifted cuban musician who left Havana at the age of 13. Fifty years later, Victor returns home, now an outsider, to experience his old world of cuban street music.