From the revolutionary police to the world stage

Juan Formell was one of Cuba’s most celebrated musicians ever.

He had a nickname of The Mozart of Cuba and the Latin Recording Academy once described him as “the true definition of an innovator of music”. He started out, of all things, as a bassist with the band of the Policia Revolucionaria after the 1959 revolution. He died in 2014, having along the way founded an orchestra called Los Van Van in 1969.

This was an orchestra in which the electric organ and the electric guitar were married to violins and brass. Jazz and rock, Latin rhythms; they all came together with the percussion, piano and bass holding them together. Synths, synthesised saxophones, electric violins; these were all introduced in making Los Van Van one of the most popular Latin ensembles on the world stage.