Friday, August 8, 2008

El Cantante

Though they don't look much alike, slight actor-singer Marc Anthony was born to play robust salsa sensation Héctor Lavoe. In addition to similar ancestry and vocal skills, Anthony has been building a respectable cinematic resume with roles in Big Night and Martin Scorsese's Bringing out the Dead. The title of El Cantante comes from a number Rubén Blades wrote for The Singer. Lavoe would make it his signature song. In the film, Anthony's wife, producer Jennifer Lopez, plays Puchi, the Nuyorican beauty who won Lavoe's heart. She narrates their story from the perspective of 2002 (the real-life Puchi passed away shortly afterwards). Leon Ichaso (Piñero) contrasts Lavoe's rise from Puerto Rican street singer to New York superstar with his fall from innocent immigrant to heroin-addicted ladies man. By the mid-1980s, Lavoe's popularity hit its peak, and Ichaso spends the rest of the time ticking off the tragedies of his final years: the break with trombonist Willie Colón (John Ortiz), stay in a mental ward, etc. It's a dynamic portrait, and Anthony and Lopez work well together, but despite the urban setting and Latin-flavored soundtrack, El Cantante follows virtually the same trajectory as Ray and Walk the Line (Ichaso has also directed biopics of Jimi Hendrix and Muhammad Ali). His movie looks and sounds authentic, but Lavoe's story might've been better served as nonfiction. There's a sense that there was more to the man than what appears on screen. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Customer Review: El cantante sings!
I loved this movie and I also love JLo and Marc Anthony! I think this movie was underrated. If you are truly interested in Hector Lavoe, you will love it. If you buy it just cause you want to see JLo and Marc, you probably won't like it. They are good in the movie but the story is what made it for me. Of course, it goes without saying, Marc Anthony's voice is supberb!
Customer Review: WONDERFUL....
I rented this film recently and was surprised at how good it was. The story depicts the stormy life and tragic end to the great salsa legend Hector Lavoe. This movie hits you in the heart from the start. It makes you care about the character and his music. I now own a cd of Hector Lavoe and I never knew I could like salsa. Who knew?? His music is amazing and the tragic events of his life makes you want to know the person behind the prose of his songs. My ears know good music when it hears it and this man was a icon. Hector Lavoe.......rest in peace! I'm not much of a fan of Jennifer Lopez but she played a good role. However, another actress (a more popular one) would have made this film more marketable to the non-Hispanic population ( mass audience).


A guitar is an amazing instrument. Sometimes hard to play but with easy nice sounding guitar chord secrets everywhere. Let's explore some easy but nice guitar chords.

Our first guitar chord will be Dmaj7. It is played in this way for example:

Dmaj: 0/4 2/3 2/2 2/1

An explanation of the notation. The first number indicates which fret to press down. The number after the slash which string. 2/3 means, press down the second fret on the third string.

If you lift up your fingers from this chord you will get a very easy guitar chord to play indeed! We can call it an Em7. It will look this way:

Em7: 0/4 0/3 0/2 0/1

This little chord progression makes a nice little intro to a song in D-major. If we write down a little guitar chord sequense it might look like this:

Dmaj7 / / / Em7 / / / Dmaj7 / / / Em7 / / /

We will now spice the second chord a bit by playing a Gm6. It looks like this:

Gm6: 0/4 3/3 3/2 0/1

We can use this guitar chord in an intro with the same function as the one above:

Dmaj7 / / / Gm6 / / / Dmaj7 / / / Gm6 / / /

Let's introduce a new guitar chord. We can call this chord D11:

D11: 0/4 5/3 5/2 5/1

As you maybe already have figured out you can slide the Dmaj7 chord up a few frets and you will get this chord. We will now create a progression with these three guitar chords:

Dmaj7 / / / D11 / / / Gm6 / / / Gm6 / / /

The next guitar chord is easy to play too. It is a G-minor chord. It is actually the same chord shape as the guitar chord Dmaj7 but on the third fret. It looks like this:

Gm: 0/0 3/3 3/2 3/1

Now we will create a guitar chord progression with these four chords together:

Dmaj7 / / / D11 / / / Gm / / / Gm6 / / /

The art of sliding chords to new frets is an exciting and easy way to find new guitar chords and sounds to use in your playing.

We will end this article on easy guitar chords in D by experimenting a bit with the D-major chord. Here is the most common D-major chord:

D: 0/4 2/3 3/2 2/1

By sliding this guitar chord up three frets up you will get the Dm7 chord or D-minor seventh. It looks like this:

Dm7: 0/4 5/3 6/2 5/1

Slide it up two frets from this position and you will get a G-major chord. It looks like this:

G: 0/4 7/3 8/2 7/1

The last guitar chord to explore will be A-major with D bass, notated A/D. Here it is:

A/D: 0/4 9/3 10/2 9/1

Let's make an impressive intro with these four chords but with the same chord shape by sliding the D-major chord up:

D / / / Dm7 / / / G / / / A/D / / /

The guitar really is an amazing instrument. Many more chords can be changed in similar ways to create new interesting sounds that will enrich your playing!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free guitar sheet music and learn to play guitar resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

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