Zoom in
Juan Formell
Zoom in
Zoom in

Founded in 1969, this group has marked the route in dancing music in the island and even beyond its borders with a diversity of rhythms that stirs the soul and the body of the listeners. Formell, the director of the orchestra, is also bass player, arranger, composer, singer, record producer and has been able to maintain the particular sonority in a propitious background for the existence of this type of orchestras. When the first voices of Van Van start its contagious singing, the audience vibrates. As a part of a spell that nobodies can decipher in a matter of some seconds, the whole scenario is full of people not only interested in the performance but in enjoying and dancing, at the tunes of an excellent dancing music while their bodies are swinging. Formell started studying music at 14 with his father, and disregarded his strong vocation he felt for medicine.

Passionate at those family scenes where he was in ecstasy watching his father, hours after hours before a pentagram while composing, he made the decision without repentance to practice the mental cure, instead of that of the body, becoming what is nowadays a great promoter of happiness. The guitar has accompanied him during his first steps as a trovador, when he was completely absorbed by the filín movement developed in the 40's and 50's when he used to interpret his own boleros or those of known authors.

He learned to play the double bass with master Orestes Urfé and attended courses of harmony taught by outstanding musicians as Félix Guerrero, Somavilla and Tony Taño. Among the musicians who have influenced him during his career, Formell usually mentions the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michel Legrand, the charangas, the bands and show orchestras while in classic music he admires Chopin and Tchaikovsky.

Along with César Pedroso "Puppy" and José Luis Quintana "Changuito," Formell created the "songo," a genre that is danced in the Cuban parties since Van Van orchestra emerged in the dancing Cuban panorama where everybody seems to perfectly understand the language of trumpets, percussion and charismatic voices. In this regard raises the almost legendary figures of Pedro Calvo and Mayito. Both singers are loved by the Cuban population for both the impeccable scenic projection and the empathy established with the audience.

In 31 years, the musicians of the orchestra has logically been replaced; nonetheless, the personality of the orchestra has been preserved and this special feature has made other orchestras and bands raised them to an honor position, very difficult to attain and impossible to improve. Juan Formell stated at the Grammy ceremony that his CD "Llegó Van Van" (Van Van Has Arrived)-a valuable work for the balance attained and the variety of genres-that he considers this award a triumph of the Cuban culture and music in the last forty years. "For a long time, the only Cuban music known and disseminated abroad was that of the fifties. With this prize the wealth attained in the last four decades will be at the reach of a larger audience," expressed to the press, completely happy after receiving the trophy.

In the last production of Van Van, several numbers have been included that highlighted the career of this orchestra: "Guararey de Pastora" (Pastora's anger), "El baile del buey cansao" (The dance of the tired bullock), "La Habana no aguanta más" (No more exodus to Havana City), "Eso que anda" (This that is going on), "La titimanía" (The syndrome of mature men for young girls), "El negro no tiene ná" (Black man has not much), they are all from Juan Formell, regarded as truly chronicles of the Cuban daily life, so much inclined to enjoy dance and music.

DISCOGRAPHY Los Van Van vol. I (1969) Los Van Van vol. II (1974) Los Van Van vol. III (1974) Los Van Van vol. IV (1976) Los Van Van vol. V (1979) Los Van Van vol. VI (1980) Báilalo eh! ah! (1982) Qué pista (1983) Anda, ven y muévete (1984) 25 años... y seguimos ahí, vol. I (recopilatorio, 1994) La Habana sí (1985) Eso que anda (1986) La titimanía (1987) Songo (1988) El negro no tiene na' (1988) Rico son (1989) Aqui... el que baila gana (1990) Esto está bueno (recopilatorio, 1991) Bailando mojao (recopilatorio 1993) Azúcar (1993) Lo último en vivo (1994) ¡Ay Dios, ampárame! (1996)