The radio program Salsajazzeando, led by Deborah Holtz, celebrates 15 years of life between changes in tastes, rhythms and technological advances. She stands firm every Saturday from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Horizonte FM 107.9. Oriented more towards salsa (a label that brings together a wide range of Afro-Antillean rhythms), the cultural promoter also spins up with a bit of Latin jazz.
When Holtz started the show in 2006, you had to bring the records or have someone who had a large collection of CDs and was willing to share it. She turned to her friend and mentor Andrés Rosales, who introduced her to the taste of tropical rhythms by inviting her to participate in his program. salsamania at Rock 101, where he spent five years.
Thanks to the help of Rosales, he was able to carry out the program the first year. “In the meantime I was making all the material there was. I nailed myself in a very tenacious way ”, he expresses in an interview. “Sometimes it is very difficult to get records in Mexico. You had to have your suppliers, who, sometimes, gave you pirated copies, in others, the original discs, ceded, because the LP really didn’t exist anymore ”.
Today, the Internet has become the provider of the material. Holtz has “spotted” salsa groups in many places like Ukraine, Sweden and Greece. He has established contacts “here and there, especially in Colombia and Cuba”, from where they send him news.
For the director of the house Trilce Ediciones, these three decades have represented a continuous discovery of the music of the 50s, 60s and 70s of the last century, to later enter the “salsa dura”, all that is contemporary. He prefers to skip the 80s, which he hates: “All the romantic and commercial salsa wave that sparked the success of Fania Records”.
Salsajazzeando is not tied to any canon of what sauce should be. It was “one of the first programs to re-launch boogaloo, a mix of rhythms from the 60s that has become fashionable. I also introduce strange things that have to do with fusions, covers, in which there is music that has a background of other rhythms related to funk, rock and jazz ”, he pointed out. There is no lack of listeners who demand so much diversity.
The 15th anniversary is celebrated with three programs. In the first, on June 19, Holtz had bassist Juan Cristóbal Pérez Grobet and Santiago Ojeda as guests, who presented their musical project, The Poli Son. A subsequent broadcast will comprise a selection of interviews conducted in recent years.
The host regrets that many people still despise salsa, because “it seems ordinary to them, they don’t understand it. I’ve always insisted that there is a lot of brilliant music and composers in this genre, and it’s worth listening to. I study a lot, I always find out, I do research, I talk to them so that the public can learn a little more about what they hear ”.
Salsajazzeando is also broadcast on Facebook and Instagram.
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