Salsa City Forum » Salsa Music and Dance » Salsa tracks that always get you on the dance floor?

Hey guys

I am doing a lot more salsa nights for my students, for them to practise their moves.

So I am always looking for great Salsa tracks that get you on the dance floor every time!

Also I am looking for some top Bachata, cha cha, and merengue tracks.

If anyone has any suggestions then please let me know so I can find them.

Thank you very much in advance

Carl

The thing to do Carl with respect, is to teach them Salsa (cause that’s what you have knowledge of presumably) and then if you are going to provide a social side to your events, hire in a DJ with knowledge of the music! It takes a good many years to acquire sufficient knowledge to keep people form becoming bored listening to a repetition of tunes, however good those few tunes might be!!! This is especially true if you are offering more than one night geographically close to one another and especially true also if people with knowledge such as Latinos turn up to your events... :-)

If a teacher runs a social/practice night - they don’t need a guest DJ - even one with such a vast knowledge of music (presumably) such as eldj. These nights are purely for his own pupils surely and not for the “posers”. How Carl runs his social side of the business is up to him. As far as I am aware Carl is an experienced, qualified and well respected dance teacher who hasn’t had to rely on “tips” from his pupils to survive.

A few suggestions on a variety of catchy tunes is a very good idea. We have all missed the odd good tune over the year - even eldj,

Carl - I’ll post a few suggestions shortly.

P.S. Who are these “latinos” with the knowledge that might wander into Carl’s practice nights?

Steve... (if that’s your name or are you addressing me?)

You’ve made quite a few negative and rather unhelpful assumptions about people who attend Salsa nights there including one or two about me personally! I won’t react other than to put you straight (for your education) about the purpose of my post because I assume you are not a promoter

I gave my opinion because the poster asked about music! I assume they’ve asked because they are not really that knowledgeable at this stage in their promoting career! Unless I’ve misunderstood the question they are not offering a “couple of tunes after practice” they are offering a dance/club section and on more than one night! If Carl wants to do that professionally, then my suggestion makes perfect sense and was intended as a helpful suggestion as I have a great deal of experience in promoting Latin nights in their entirety! I can tell you that it is almost impossible to run every aspect of a successful business single handedly; therefore you’ll need to hire in professional help to cover at least one aspect of the business be it Teacher/s, DJ/s or Promoter/s! I’ll not include the door or the cloakroom unless you believe Carl should also cover those separate and distinct jobs also!

My post was not a plug for business! I am not interested in doing a night any further away from Bristol than Newport/Cardiff and would most likely set one up myself if I were! You needn’t be so defensive / protective of Carl I’m sure if he didn’t appreciate the advise he could answer for himself...

I note you didn’t offer any positives in your post... like a couple of tunes for instance!...

By the way I don’t need tips to survive I don’t need to earn money from Salsa I have other means, but I do need to at least cover costs! I am not, after all a charity!

I assume you are referring to Tip Top Salsa a highly successful night in terms of numbers at around 200 each week and that after just 16 weeks of trading. The tipping policy by the way, was an experiment to see if people would be happy to pay a fair price at their discretion! Unfortunately, it didn’t work out to the extent that we won’t be continuing with it! I.e. It wasn’t a failure, but wasn’t successful enough to be viable either! But then, such is the nature of an experiment especially one that had never been tried before! A couple of the biggest promoters in the country (and good friends of mine) monitored it’s progress as a charging model and were extremely interested in it as a charging method during the recession!!!

P.S. The Latinos are around 1 Billion people that live on planet earth! They are spread around the Globe even as far as in Countries such as Great Britain; though mostly they reside in South and Central America! They can walk into any establishment and take part in the proceedings without prejudice and may offer advise and indeed criticism! A good many of them do have knowledge about their culture :-) Since you asked

Yes the name is the same - but that is where the similarity ends.

Your views needed a reply and whether Carl bothers or not is up to him. The additional tunes he was looking for are quite clearly for practice sessions held for his OWN pupils - and not any wandering Latinos.
Also I don’t need any education from you.

Steve, you are clearly very confrontational and without reason!

Firstly you misunderstood totally the purpose and intention of my post which was to offer some sound advise to Carl about what he could do if he was offering more than classes with practice time to his students and that advise still stands

I don’t think Carl was talking about a few songs for practice time!

Here is his question again, he quite clearly states ‘Salsa Nights’ Quote:

"I am doing a lot more salsa nights for my students, for them to practise their moves.

So I am always looking for great Salsa tracks that get you on the dance floor every time!

Secondly you insulted Salsa people in general ‘posers’ you called them! Neither do you seem to be enamoured with Latinos and their musical/cultural interest...

Thirdly you threw insults and made assumptions about me and my business; A business that you know nothing about and one which has been successful for a number of years and was in fact one of the first in the UK to offer Salsa... So unlike you, I have experience in these matters and am well placed to offer friendly advise to someone who is relatively new to Salsa promotion however good a teacher / promoter they might be in your opinion

They asked a fair and reasonable question and I gave a fair and reasonable answer! If you misunderstood completely that answer and felt the need to wade in with insults to me and everyone else outside of your immediate circle that is your choice but I have to say it is far from an educated position

With that in mind, I’m more than happy that you recognise the similarities between us end with our names!

Any further posts in this thread must include music recommendations or they will be deleted.

Fair comment Hugh :-) the thread was definitely heading in the wrong direction!

Here is a recommendation for an award winning CD:

La Excelencia - Mi Tumbao Social

And here is a link for you take a listen Carl:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/laexcelencia2

Enjoy :-)

Here are a few suggestions for your practice nights Carl as promised:-
Salsa:-
1) Le guayaba - Latin Bros.
2) La LLave -Grupo Larin Vibe.
3) Boogaloo con Gale - Grupo Gale
4) Galante Boogaloo - Jerry Galantae

Cha- Cha:-

1) Going to Shenzhen - Orquesta La Palabra
2) Bones Bugalu - Gabriel Rios

Merengue/Bachata- Lots of choice with Grammy winning Latino - Juan Luis Guerra.

Hope this helps.
Regards,

Steve.