The acclaimed singer-songwriter, who emigrated from Cuba and settled in New York City, eventually succeeding as bassist for Juan Formel, the famous father of Los Van Van, one of the most influential bands in post-revolution Cuba. Writer Juan Carlos Formel has died. Saturday, during a performance in New York City. he was 59 years old.
His death was confirmed by his lover and musical partner, Danae Blanco, after he suffered a heart attack on stage at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx. She said Folmer suffered from high blood pressure and arteriosclerosis.
Since defecting from Cuba to New York City in 1993, Mr. Former has planned his own music course and has released five solo albums. Grammy Award nomination In 2000, he won Best Traditional Tropical Latin Performance for his debut album Songs from a Little Blue House.
When his father passed away in 2014, Former agreed to continue his legacy as bassist in the Afro-Cuban dance band Ross Van Van, co-founded by his father. The band’s current line-up also includes brother Samuel on drums and sister Vanessa Fommel Medina on vocals.
As the band entered just a few songs into an energetic set at the Lehman Center, Mr. Foumel stepped away from the upright bass, leaned back as if to catch his breath, then staggered backstage. bottom. As the band continued playing, Van Van singer Abdel Lasarpus Sotorongo, better known as Lele, and sound engineer Javier León Peña helped him offstage, but he collapsed near the curtain. rice field.
After a brief announcement that Mr. Fommel was having health problems, the band took a break of over 30 minutes before returning to finish their set, apparently in honor of their friend Mr. Fommel. Played for nearly an hour. Musician Ned Sublette, who attended the event, said in a telephone interview:
Mr. Former was a fourth-generation member of one of Cuba’s most famous musical families. His great-grandfather, Juan Francisco, was a popular bandleader. His grandfather, Francisco Formel, was the conductor of the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra and the arranger of the Lecuona Cuban Boys, a popular big band that began in the 1930s.
his father, Juan Formel, along with other giants of Cuban music, César Pedroso, known as Puppy, and Jose Luis Quintana, known as Changito, are known for traditional Afro-Cuban genres such as son cubano and rock, soul and rock. Established Ross Van Van, which fused the elements of disco.
With the support of the Cuban government, the band has toured the world for decades and amassed a worldwide fan base. that is, grammy awards In 2000, the album won the Best Salsa Performance Award.Lego…Van Van/Van Van is here. ”)
Despite his family name, Mr. Former’s road to musical success has not been easy.
Juan Carlos Formel was born in Havana on February 18, 1964, the eldest of three children of Juan Formel and cabaret singer Natalia Alfonso.
When he was three weeks old, his parents sent him to live with his paternal grandparents in a suburb of Havana. His grandfather was a conductor who had been expelled from the Castro regime as a member of the Old Guard. Fommel told the Los Angeles Times in 2000 that other children teased him for having holes in his shoes.
Nevertheless, he pursued a musical career, studying at the Alejandro García Caturla and Amadeo Roldán Conservatories in Havana, and then at the National Academy of Arts in Cuba.
Influenced by the Afro-Cubanismo, a Cuban artistic movement that focused on black identity, and the Negrista movement in poetry, particularly the work of Nicolas Gillen, Former began composing as a teenager. He studied bass with Andrés Escalona of the Havana Symphony Orchestra. He continued to play bass alongside jazz pianist Emiliano Salvador.
He was also a talented guitarist and hoped to carve out a career as a singer-songwriter, but he felt he could not express himself freely under the restrictions of the government-controlled Cuban music industry. his wife, Dita Sullivan, said in a phone interview. .
“I was in my twenties, and at a time when most musicians were full of hope, I was prepared for a future of alienation,” he once said.
In 1993, while touring Mexico with dance band Rumbavana, he fled into exile, crossing the Rio Grande near Laredo, Texas, and eventually settling in New York City. The transition wasn’t easy.
In a 2005 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Foumel said, “If you leave Cuba, you don’t exist.” “Come here, I can’t see you. No one cares when you come here. If you want to go into exile, you better have a support system.”
Still, he built a career performing solo and in various ensembles at New York jazz clubs such as Blue Note and Birdland before releasing his Grammy-nominated debut. Former has produced 2002’s “Las Calles del Paraíso” (“Streets of Paradise”), 2005’s “Cemeteries of Desire”, which ruminates on the flavors of New Orleans’ Latin music, and “Son Radical” (2006). Johnny’s Dream Club (2008) is said to have spun “haunting magic” in a review for The Village Voice.
His music is rooted in filin, a romantic, jazz-infused genre of Cuban popular music, and son cubano, a traditional style that mixes Spanish and African influences, and is inspired by the natural beauty of his homeland. not only for its beauty but also for its complex history. slavery and revolution.
“My songs don’t specifically talk about politics, but they reflect Cuban reality from my point of view, not from a regime point of view,” he said in a 1996 interview. .
In addition to Samuel and Vanessa, his survivors include other sisters, Elisa Formel Alfonso and Paloma Formel Delgado, and another brother, Lorenzo Formel González. He and Ms. Sullivan separated in 2012 and divorced in 2021.
and facebook post Ros Van Van announced his death and said he would continue his tour of the United States “in every performance, in every note, in every Vambanero choice, to honor Juan Carlos as Juanca would want”.
