Los Van Van

Los Van Van rank among the pivotal and most impactful ensembles in the story of Cuban popular music across the twentieth century. Whereas ensembles blending folkloric Cuban elements with current trends became widespread in the nineties and grew still more pronounced early in the following century, such fusions had been uncommon in the sixties and seventies. Only two Cuban groups at that time pursued combinations of pop, funk, rock, and soul with local traditions: Irakere and the far more enduring Los Van Van.

Following the revolution, authorities assessed young Cubans according to evident abilities and channeled those with athletic promise into sports while similarly directing students toward academics, visual arts, or music. The musicians who formed Los Van Van had received conservatory instruction from childhood and had attained advanced command of theory and performance by their early twenties. Band leader, bassist, and songwriter Juan Formell, pianist and songwriter César "Pupy" Pedroso, and drumset/timbales player José Luis "Changuito" Quintana were drawn to the soul, go-go, and disco sounds dominating U.S. broadcasts; they titled the group Los Van Van after the go-go trend, a phrase that translates literally as “they go-go!”

The style they originated, a fusion of son and go-go they called songo, later spread through Latin jazz, pop, and fusion circles worldwide; their debut album carried that title, anchoring its place in musical history. Not long after forming, the group became Cuba’s leading dance band and retained that position for years. With official Cuban backing, Los Van Van recorded and toured extensively through the eighties and nineties, becoming the island’s best-known act abroad and sustaining a devoted European audience. Although U.S. interest in their innovations increased, political conditions of the era limited access to the American market; unlike Irakere, which defected to the States, Los Van Van remained in Cuba. American attention rose through the nineties and reached a peak when the band received a Grammy Award in 1999 for its fifteenth original album, Llegó Van Van.

Several founding members later led successful ensembles of their own: César "Pupy" Pedroso started Los Que Son, Son at the turn of the century, José Luis "Changuito" Quintana left in 1993 to pursue a Latin jazz career, and many other original players became prominent figures in the early-nineties timba movement. Los Van Van are widely acknowledged as a genre-defining group, placed alongside the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, and Creedence Clearwater Revival as an act that redirected the path of popular music for an entire generation.

Their recordings continued to find listeners outside Cuba, and the band experienced renewed domestic attention with the 2010 album Estrellas de Cuba, released by Egrem; global tours in the years that followed drew audiences throughout Europe, the United States, Latin America, and Asia. Formell died in May 2014, leaving the band to determine its future; they nonetheless completed an album based on material Juan had already prepared, and Egrem issued La Fantasia: Homenaje a Juan Formell under the billing Formell y Los Van Van in 2015. The set contained five of his songs, his bass playing, and his vocal on the title track, though it had originally been written for Luna Manzanares. Critics placed it among the band’s strongest albums, and it also enjoyed commercial success; Sony Music released the album in North America in early 2016. César "Pupy" Pedroso died on July 17, 2022, in Havana at the age of 75.