Posted inArts

30 years of cutting-edge music with Machete Records

John Santos: playing Berkeley’s Casa de Cultura on Saturday. Photo: John Ehrlich John Santos: playing Berkeley’s Casa de Cultura on Saturday. Photo: John Ehrlich Complete artistic freedom often comes with a cost. For Oakland percussion maestro John Santos, the price of running his own musical realm to pursue a sweeping pan-Caribbean musical vision means accepting […]

Posted inArts

Cuba’s Ernesto Oviedo makes U.S. debut in Berkeley

Ernesto Oviedo, the 77-year-old maestro of boleros, performs at the Brazilian Cultural Center on San Pablo Avenue on Sunday. Oakland percussion master John Santos has spent the past three decades introducing Bay Area audiences to Caribbean musical treasures, but he’s got something unprecedented in store for Berkeley this weekend. Havana’s Ernesto Oviedo, the 77-year-old maestro […]