Lucas van Merwijk

Europe's most prominent salsa and latin jazz bigbandExellence since 1995The Cubop City Big Band has been at the forefront of the international salsa en latin jazz scene for many years. The orchestra was founded in 1995 by Lucas van Merwijk and was named after the New York club ‘Cubop City’, the stage where in the years 40-50 giants such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Machito and Chano Pozo would perform and ‘invent’ Cubop. The Cubop City Big Band is one of the most prominent salsa and latin jazz formations in Europe.The CDs of the Cubop City Big Band are illegally being copied on a large scale in South America; the biggest compliment you can get as a European Latin orchestra.The band now has seven albums to its name with music from key figures of Latin music such as Machito (the Machito Project) Beny Moré (Moré and More), Arsenio Rodriguez (Arsenio), Tito Puente and Grupo Afrocuba (Que Sensacion!).The band members are musicians from the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Panama, Germany the USA and Venezuela.Over the years the orchestra has worked with a number of big names from the Latin scene, including Alfredo 'Chocolate' Armenteros, Edy Martinez, Andy Gonzalez (Libre, Tito Puente), Armando Peraza (Carlos Santana), Luis Conte, Nelson Gonzales (Cachao, Gloria Estefan Paul Simon), Edmar Castañeda and Roberto Quintero.The band had multiple hits on Latin radio stations in South America and the United States (Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York). Their album Moré and More was chosen as number 2 on the list 'Best Latin Album of 1998' in the New York Latin Beat magazine.The band has done three tours to South America and performed three times at the North Sea Jazz Festival.