El Sacerdote de la Rumba y su grupo LaFé

"Turning the corner at Atlantic and Seventh, Brisa Atlantica is an oasis. Light pours from the airy, Key West-style house, illuminating folks young and not-so seated on the veranda. Just inside the door El Sacerdote de la Rumba, aka Adal Delgado, has his band tucked into a corner, conserving precious inches for dancers.

Delgado and band are purveyors of a particular brand of rustic urban rumba that is heavy on volume and percussion, and usually perform deep in Miami's arty Latin heartland. Ricky Martin, this is not. So, Delray Beach?

"Oh, they love it. It gets packed in here," says Delgado, sporting a passionate red jersey emblazoned with the word "Cuba." So, they dance?

"Are you kidding me?" he snorts. "Wait, you'll see."

And he was right. The band breaks into the classic son Candela (included on the Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack), and that was that. The floor tightened up with surfers and golfers and Boca babes and us. And everybody had just enough room to twirl their date. Mission accomplished." - by Ben Crandle for The Sun-Sentinel

"It's a rainy night, but the windows running the length of the house at 9 SE Seventh Ave. are thrown wide open, and a couple of fine-looking men in black suits are standing on the veranda beneath the awning, smoking what smells like good Cuban cigars. The rocking rhythms of a rumba drift down the avenue. If you stand under your umbrella and look through those windows for a minute before dashing across the street and up the wooden stairs, you'll glimpse fragments of dancing couples: a jauntily upswept arm, a rolling hip. And you'll hear notes of a muted trumpet and maybe a couple of come-hither trills from a Spanish guitar, along with the unmistakable 4/4 beat of the cajón drums. You could be in Havana or Montevideo or San Juan. But you're in Delray Beach. The place is a new restaurant and jazz club called Brisa Atlantica."

"Even with the rain coming down in buckets, the story goes on at Brisa. If you turn up before 9 p.m., you'll get to watch the band setting up, shaking the water off hat brims, and wiping down instruments. On a recent Thursday, Adalberto Delgado, a percussionist otherwise known as "El Sacerdote de la Rumba" (the High Priest of Rumba) was unpacking his kit, along with a horn player, a guitarist/vocalist, and a standup bass player. Delgado really is Miami's high priest of Cuban music: He's been kicking around the Magic City's art scene for years, running a gallery, setting up semi-spontaneous rumba parties in Little Havana; he's a human vortex sucking talented Latin musicians into the warm circle of his music-making. Perhaps as much as any other Miami musician, he's worked to keep the flame of traditional Cuban music burning. Torres says he stumbled across Delgado's band playing at Tropical Cigars on Lincoln Road and knew this was what he was seeking. To have Delgado play three nights a week in Delray Beach (he performs Thursday and Friday as a quartet and with a five-piece band on Saturday) is like physically transporting the most happening block of Little Havana to a spot just off Atlantic Avenue."

"Despite reservations about the menu, I'm putting Brisa Atlantica on my "must do" list. For its tropical Old Havana feel, the Afro-Cuban tunes, and the Latin jazz (Charambo, a five piece jazz band performs every Sunday; a guitar duet plays romantic ballads on Wednesday) the place is just unbeatable. And I'll eat my way around the menu with care -- opting for comfort foods like the Cuban sampler plate of croquetas and fried yucca, the plates of simply prepared fresh fish, and those addictive mojitos. Until Castro kicks the bucket and Cuba opens up again, Brisa's the next best thing to Havana." - New Times - Broward

IN a Miami version of the Cinderella story, the candlelit
restaurant 190 undergoes a magic transformation every
Saturday night at 11. At the first tuck-tuck-tuck of the
drum, that hollow but warm sound of human palm against taut
mule hide, plates are pushed back, tables are removed and
the restaurant becomes a patio of a Cuban solar - a common
space where Havana dwellers with a weakness for rumba
gather to dance to the drums.

The first person on the floor this early-November evening
is Merbys Mujica, a 55-year-old interior designer from
Venezuela who has never lived in Cuba but has called Miami
home for 23 years. Just about every week, Ms. Mujica,
grandmother to a 3-year-old boy, ends her Saturdays dancing
the rumba.

"She is a rumbera," says Adalberto Delgado, 49, a
Cuban who calls himself "El Sacerdote de la Rumba,"
the "High Priest of Rumba," and leads the musical
group he has baptized as LaFe, the Faith.

"It's in my blood," Ms. Mujica says. After the second song,
she pulls a pair of black leather slippers from her bag and
puts away her aqua platforms.

No one seems to notice the quick shoe exchange. And no one
glances twice at the young man dancing near her. He is
wearing a sky-blue dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up, and
an ankle-length flannel gray skirt. A waiter drops his tray
on the bar counter and joins Ms. Mujica on the dance floor.

Around midnight, a police officer, his tag identifying him
as Officer Williams, walks in. He declines to give his first name.
This neighborhood, Buena Vista East, on the edges of the Miami
Design District, is his beat. He, too, ends up on the floor, doing a few
quick steps with Ms.Mujica, the waiter and nine other women.

One of them is Presiding over all of it is Alan P. Hughes, the owner and
chef of 190. His former wife, Donna, 35, an ex-model who designs African-style
jewelry, is at the bar. Mr. Hughes, 35, is from Argentina, and though rumba
is not his thing, he understands the power of music. "I'm a roquero,"
he says - a rock musician. He has a band, Prole, and as on many nights, after
he is done with his cooking at 190, Mr. Hughes rushes off to make music,
leaving more than a dozen people contorting on his polished floors to the drums
of this rumba.

- The New York Times

In a funky neighborhood of bold art galleries and charmingly restored old homes, a slice of Miami in the remake, the ancestral music of AfroCuba is rocking the house.

''Yambú, yambú, yambú,'' chants Adalberto Delgado, aka El Sacerdote de La Rumba, the High Priest of Rumba, launching another Saturday night of traditional Cuban sounds at a most untraditional venue, the restaurant 190 in Buena Vista East, just blocks from the Miami Design District.

Delgado and his group La Fé -- The Faith -- play the three main variations of rumba: yambú, guaguancó and columbia. Rhythmic African drumming, accented by the tick-tick of clave sticks, fills the rustic candlelit restaurant.

The music flows outside, enveloping the neighborhood and casting a mystic spell, the way rumba has for generations on the Caribbean island.

Cuba Nocturna the show is called. Cuba by Night.

One recent Saturday, when the place is packed with artists and art lovers who had been gallery-hopping in the District earlier, the tiny dance floor is particularly steamy.

Internationally known Cuban dancer Marianela Boan, artistic director of Cuba's DanzAbierta, in town for a visit, hits the dance floor with friends. Her expert moves catch the eye of Lázaro ''Tato'' Alfonso, a veteran street musician who used to play with La Fé and is just hanging out tonight.

Their pairing is a sight to behold.

They engage each other in the sultry, risqué moves of a guaguancó, the most urban of all rumbas, in which the man struts around with his chest out, like a rooster courting a hen, and the woman, at first, pretends she's not interested.

Another Saturday night, the restaurant is filled with young people gyrating to the rumba beats as if they were dancing to funk, timba, salsa. It's all fast, hip movement, a fusion of yesterday with the new culture that is Miami today.

''We have always attracted a young crowd looking for their Cuban roots or just interested in the exotic and different,'' Delgado says. ``Although most of these kids enjoy trance, bass and funk, they also need to see live performances and participate.''

Like the audience, which varies from one Saturday to the next but also has its perennial cast of characters, the members of La Fé come and go.

Most of them are informal barrio musicians who strike up a jam session wherever they go. But there have also been some big names -- like percussionist Daniel Ponce -- in the mix.

The current line-up: Frank ''Pancholo'' Lam plays the bass conga and tres dos. Abel García, plays quinto, the lead, also called el repicador -- the drum-roll instrument -- of the ensemble. Antonio ''El Yoruga'' Avigliano, an Uruguayan, plays small percussion, an instrument called guagua or catá.

Delgado has just incorporated Israel Rodríguez on electric bass, and flutist Elaine Romero, daughter of the legendary Puerto Rican bongo player Rey Romero Jr.

''A flute is very inappropriate for traditional rumba, but it's a step towards the fusion we want to create with the rumba,'' Delgado says. ``Our roots are always going to be rumba, but we want to do other things as well -- just to create, just to play.''

Havana-born Delgado, 49, can't remember when rumba wasn't a part of his life.

When he came from Cuba in 1966 at age 12, he already was a bicultural music lover, a ''pepillo'' as the young and hip were called then, who revered the Rolling Stones and Beatles as much as he did the old Cuban rumbero Alberto Zayas.

In those early years of exile, the late '60s and early '70s, a teenage Delgado used to meet up in Coconut Grove with older Cuban drummers, congueros who went on to play with Joe Cocker, Chicago, and K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

''We used to play a hell of a Cuban rumba at Peacock Park,'' he remembers.

In the late '80s, Delgado began dabbling in the slower paced trova music scene at the defunct JJ's in downtown Miami. He has been staging the rumba shows the past three years since Calle Ocho began experiencing a cultural renaissance and Delgado started hosting Rumba on 6 at one of Little Havana's new artsy spaces on Southwest Sixth Street.

''When we had Rumba on 6 lots of Germans, Dutch, French, Spaniards and even Australian -- we once had a table of 9 -- came just to listen to guaguancó, yambú and columbia and they knew the distinction of these genres to salsa or merengue,'' Delgado says.

(Yambú is a slower paced guaguancó and columbia hails mainly from the countryside).

Finding a permanent home, however, has been elusive because he doesn't have the money to invest. He has been moving from venue to venue, playing mostly at small, modest places, a Peruvian restaurant on Coral Way, the tiny El Siglo on Calle Ocho, and most recently, at South Beach's Bolero and at music festivals all over town.

At 190, the regular crowd is a hodgepodge of Miami -- Cuban, Cuban-American, North American and Haitian fans of the music, and of the restaurant, which is owned by the eclectic couple, Alan Hughes, a chef with an exquisite French flair, and his wife, Donna, a designer of stunning African-inspired jewelry.

The cross-cultural interaction of musicians, audience and venue makes it a uniquely Miami experience. And as long as there are partyers willing to stand up and dance, the night is a smash hit.

''Rumba is an interactive party and without the audience participating it's kind of dull,'' Delgado says. 'This is the main reason we kind of keep it informal. Interaction is what makes it a success for all ages. What I think is more interesting yet, is the attendance of Colombians, Venezuelans, Argentines, Mexicans, Peruvians -- young and not so young `kids' who come weekend after weekend to rumba with us.''

And weekend after weekend, the song goes:

Yambú, Yambú, Yambú, caballero,

Yambú, Yambú, Yambú, que me muero . . . Yambú, gentlemen, or I die.
- The Miami Herald

Con una gran pachanga se cierra el año en Viernes Culturales de la Calle Ocho
esta noche en Viernes Culturales de la Calle Ocho esta noche, de 7 a 11. Los
ritmos afrocubanos daran el sabor, a la altura de las expectativas de los asistentes
mas exigentes, con los interpretes mas dedicados de la ciudad, Adalberto Delgado,
El Sacerdote de la Rumba, y su grupo LaFé, y el grupo de Seve Matamoros. Todo
animado por José Camilo del Canal 51 y con la actuación de un niño flautista
recomendado por Nestor Torres, el cubano Ernesto Fernández, que reside en Santo
Domingo.

Adalberto Delgado, que trae su grupo LaFé como orquesta invitada. Dice que fueron
sus amigos quienes le bautizaron con el nombre de Sacerdote de la Rumba, por
mantenerla vigente. “Ahora está de moda hasta en Finlandia,” anota. Interpretan tres
variedades: el Yambú,” una rumba antigua suave, el Guaguancó y el Columbia, pero
el Guaguancó es la mas urbana, de La Habana y Matanzas.” Estas cosas las aprendió
el “Sacerdote” en Miami, pues se crió en el mismo barrio de La Pequeña Habana.

“Fue por interés propio y por escucharlo en los discos, de chiquito me empecé a
enamorar de todo eso.” Los que iban a JJ allá a fines de los 80, en South Miami Avenue,
recordarán que amenizaba las noches Adalberto Delgado, con todos su amigos, Pedro
Tamayo, Juan “El Negro Raymat, Lusito “El Boricua.” Tambien iba Miguelito Cruz que
estará esta noche con el grupo. “Y tendremos hoy tambien a Mo Morgan un jazzista que
toca el saxo y un instrumento italiano peculiar,” añade. Luego fué él, quien comenzó la
moda de isrse a la avenida 12 y la calle 6. Allí tocaban Daniel Ponce y su AchéCaribe,
RockinChá, Johnny Conga, un localcito adonde acudian los fanáticos de la rumba, un
verdadero culto.

“La rumba es la cuna de toda nuestra música, hasta el mismo Lecuona hizo coas inspirandose
en la rumba,”dice. Esta noche promete que taocarán Cachita, que no es una rumba verdadera,
sino más bien un son que habla de la rumba. “La rumba es muy africana y muy andaluza a la
vez, es como el “Rap” antiguo” comenta, mientras entona el “guarará, guarareeé.” “El son lleva la clave de tres, dos, y la rumba de dos, tres y es todo percusivo, aunque le han agregado bajos y tres,” como hizo Arsenio Rodriguez, y le han agregado otras canciones, boleros que son rumbas, como Lágrimas negras.”

“Ahora estamos haciendo una cosa que le llamamos rumbulerias, lo han hecho Los Muñequitos, pero no manteniendo el acento andaluz, sino a lo cubano, pero nosotros lo hacemos con la cosa gitana y la percusión detrás, y tambien le añadimos un bajo, lo que agarra tremenda fuerza.”
La rumba, explica, es inspiración y luego viene el montuno, o coro, o guiro, que es lo que canta el grupo, como “Tú vez, yo no lloro”

Su grupo está formado por Pedro Maceda, el tumbador, Abel García, el quinto, Israel Rodriguez, en el bajo, Roberto Marcelo en el catá y la cantante Ivette Viñas, nueva con el grupo, que vino de
Nueva York, donde fué alumna de David Oquendo el del grupo Raices Habaneras, pero advierte que “lo que hacemos es una descarga total, todo el mundo participa.” Lo curioso es que Adalberto Delgado es cinematógrafo de profesión e hizo carrera en las artes plásticas por 20 años. Ahora sólo quiere música, es “gratificación instantanea.” Los Jueves se les puede ver en
Tropical Cigars (741 Lincoln Road) y los sábados en el One Ninety Restaurant en el Design District (190 NE 46th Street)...
- El Nuevo Herald

¿Qué la rumba llegó a South Beach? Nunca mejor dicho. Uno de sus exponentes más importantes en el patio, El Sacerdote de la Rumba y su grupo LaFé, se presentarán hoy en el restaurante Bolero Bar & Grill (661 Washington Avenue). La presentación forma parte de una serie de conciertos que Lily Zanardi, junto a las productoras de EastonBravo Productions, planean llevar a cabo durante el verano. Es importante recordar que las chicas de Easton Bravo fueron las responsables de la organización del Primer Festival de Latin Funk Miami/NYC.Encabezados por su director Adalberto Delgado (también conocido como El sacerdote...), los seis excelentes músicos que componen LaFé interpretan ritmos cubanos como guaguancó, rumba y culumbia con una maestría que no es común en esta ciudad.

De hecho sus ''descargas'' de los sábados en el restaurante One Ninety del Design District atraen a una audiencia tan colorida como interesante.

La fiesta en Bolero comienza a las 10:30 p.m. y la entrada cuesta $5 por persona antes de las 11 p.m. y $10 después de las 11pm. Para más información llamar al 786-543-6222 o visitar la página digital: www.cook cuban.com/rumba.


English translation of article by Miguel A. Sirgado of El Nuevo Herald


That Rumba has arrived in South Beach? Never better said! One of Rumba's most
important exponents in our own backyard, The High Priest of Rumba and his group
Faith, will be performing tonight at Bolero Bar & Grill (661 Washington Avenue)

The performance is part of a concert series which Lily Zanardi and the producers from
EastonBravo Productions, plan to have during the summer. (It is important to remember the young ladies from EastonBravo were responsible for organizing the First Miami/NYC Latin Funk Festival)

Spearheaded by it's director, Adalberto Delgado (also known as The High Priest...,)
the six excellent musicians who make up LaFé (Faith) perform Cuban urban rhythms like Guaguancó, Rumba and Columbia, with a mastery not common in this city.

In fact, their "Descargas" (Cuban jam sessions) on Saturdays at One Ninety Restaurant in Miami's Design District, attracts a colorful and interesting audience.

The party at Bolero starts at 10:30pm and the door charge is
$5 before 11pm and $10 after. For more information, call
786.543.6222 or visit their web site www.cookcuban.com/rumba

- El Nuevo Herald

for the atmosphere alone..." "Don't leave too early, the
place starts hopping at 11pm with a rocking Cuban jam
session, hosted by Miami's premier Rumba empresario
Adalberto Delgado a.k.a. "The High Priest of Rumba." If you've never heard an authentic descargas band, then pay the bargain priced $5 and stay for a wild ride" - Boston Globe - Travel Section

“you notice the band setting up in the corner. First a drummer, then a guy with a set of bongos, then timbales, then another drummer, then a guy with a box that looks like a drum, and so on, until at around 11 the stage is packed with about eight percussionists and three singers.”

“From the opening wham-bam, El Sacerdote de la Rumba (The High Priest of Rumba) and his group LaFé (The Faith) hits the room with a jolt of rugged, unapologetic enthusiasm. A sort of poor man’s Buena Vista Social Club. Gradually tables screech out of harm’s way and the dancing begins. An older couple who had been clinging to the tiny bar in the corner spring into action. Young black-clad hipsters leave their tables to join in. Chicago vacationers kick up their heels. Hey, what’s Doll Face doing out there?” - City & Shore Magazine

Mañana se llevará a cabo --como todos los sábados--
la fiesta conocida como Cuba Nocturna.
La cita es en el restaurante One Ninety ubicado en
el Distrito de los Diseñadores.

Este lugar ha ido cobrando popularidad y hoy en día se
repleta de ''personajes'' interesantes: artistas y aficionados,
diletantes y gente funky.

La música está a cargo de El Sacerdote de la Rumba y
su grupo LaFé, que además siempre invitan a otros músicos a
sus ya conocidas descargas.

La entrada cuesta $5. 190 NE 46 Street, Miami.

The High Priest of Rumba in the Design District -
(independent translation)

Tomorrow night --like every Saturday night -- is the party
known to all as "Cuba by Night."
This event takes place at One Ninety Restaurant in the
Design District.

The venue has been gaining popularity and today is frequented by
interesting characters: artists, "wanna be artists," dilatants and
funky people.

In charge of the music is El Sacerdote de la Rumba (The High Priest
of Rumba) and his group LaFé (Faith) who also invite other musicians
to their already famous "descargas" (Cuban jam sessions)

There is a $5 cover charge. 190 NE 46th Street

- El Nuevo Herald

While there is definitely nothing Latin about Lee Williams and the Square
Egg, a band primarily submerged in R&B and Jazz elements, this group
definitely provided a lot funk and a different aspect of what is going on musically in Miami manifesting in an enthusiastic response from the crowd. Dj Le Spam and Spam All Stars’ improvisational approach to an eclectic blend of Hip Hop, Funk, Jamaican Dub and Latin Rhythms has created quite s stir within the Miami music scene and was the pinnacle of the event on Saturday night drawing in people from the crowd to dance on stage and visually impacting the audience. El Sacerdote de la Rumba y su grupo LaFé ended the night with the rhythms of the Guaguanco and the Son taking the audience back to the roots of where it all began. Outside in the patiion DJ Geoleche accompanied on the Congas by The Latin Monk, Edgar Montoya, served as the sonic wallpaper to the event, creating a relaxed and spiritual vibe where people could dance and freely mingle with each other. The Line up of the event served as a trajectory of how music has evolved and gave an isight into where it can be taken.
- Clue Magazine