#47 Jhair Sala- Percussionist for the Pedro Martinez Group and others!

The image of Jhair was taken by Danielle Moir. 

This week's guest is Jhair Sala. He is the percussionist in the Pedro Martinez group among many others. Sometimes people refer to him as "the baby" and they should not confuse him with Pioladitingancia, Dominican 23year old adult. 

R.I.P. to drummer Ben Riley. American Jazz drummer who passed away at age 84. 

Congrats to Jacquelene Acevedo for winning a Latin Grammy with Flor de Toloache. The American Music Awards also took place and you can see the winners list here. 

For our Educational Spotlight, we talked about Dave Weckl's Online Drum School. If you are interested in signing up or getting more information, click here. The percussion book we mentioned is called: Cuban Rhythms for Percussion & Drumset: The Essentials by Aldo Mazza. 

You can now vote in the 2018 Modern Drummer Reader's Poll. 

Here's some background info on our Iconic Recording "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie. Here's a video of Arlo performing the song live. 

For music news this week......

The first thing we mentioned is Vinyl Hub. Their mission is to document every physical record shop and record event on the planet. The next bit of news if Forbes' list of 30 under 30 in the music industry. Next, Beyonce Is the Music Industry's Highest Paid Woman after earning a quarter of a billion dollars mostly due to her Formation tour. Last is the app Jamm Card which is an invite only social media type app aiding L.A. based musicians to get gigs. 

We start with a brief history on the cajon and you can check out more by clicking here. With regard to the slave trade through Angola, there are more details on that here. 

As far as the Afro-Peruvian Rhythms Jhair mentions, here are links to Festejo, Lando,  Zamacueca, Marinera, Vals & Tondero. Here are some links to more info on Peruvian music and dances. 

The band we refer to that had a very diverse collection of people was called Yerba Buena. This was one of their hit songs. 

The Drummies are awards presented to drummers and percussionists that are voted on by fans who read Drum! Magazine. 

This is one of the many practice videos that Jhair refers to. 

The martial arts Jhair studied in school at Rutgers were Karate and Jiu Jitsu

This is an example of Festejo showing the campana (cowbell), cajita, and cajon

This video shows some of those calls and bell playing Jhair was talking about........

Here are some upcoming tour dates for the Pedro Martinez Group with Jhair on percussion. 

A couple of the new albums Jhair is listening to are Alain Perez,  Ruben Blades, and Los Herederos. 

Jhair uses Latin Percussion, Zildjian Cymbals, Vic Firth Sticks, Gibraltar Hardware, & Percusion Real

You can follow Jhair, on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Check out his studio, Mercury Studios in Rahway, NJ