About this Artist

Son of bandleader Juan Formell, who steers one of Cuba’s most celebrated dance bands – Los Van Van – bassist, guitarist, and composer JUAN-CARLOS FORMELL’s, musical style hearkens back to Cuba’s acoustic tradition of the 1930s and ’50s, but he plays son and changui with an innovative and contemporary expressiveness. Born in Havana in 1964, becoming a musical sideman to some of Cuba’s great jazz musicians, but barred from traveling due to his practice of yoga (seen by Cuban authorities as subversive), he left for the U.S. in 1993. In 1999 he penned his debut album for Wicklow Records, Songs from a Little Blue House, which was nominated for a Grammy.

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