Pellejo Soco

And here is a (rather bad) picture of Pellejo Soco, a Cuban band performing at Biscuits and Blues last night.

They draw from Latin pop, Brazilian, Flamenco, Afro-Cuban and Jazz influences, and sang one of my favorite Latin songs, Besame Mucho, which I hadn’t heard in a while.

Later, I wrote a note on the back of a napkin, and sent it to Fito Reynoso, the vocalist. Por favor, Senor, “La Paloma”, and got to hear a song that I have not heard in at least a decade. Joseph Braganza, my piano teacher in Calcutta, taught me to play that song when I was a teenager. Fito said he has not sung La Paloma in at least seven years …

In fact, as I am thinking about it, I learnt to play Besame Mucho as well, from Tony Menezes, not long before Tony died.

And of course, it was played often in the dance halls that we frequented in the mid-nineties.