Miguel Quintana y Los Soneros de Oriente

Miguel Quintana y los Soneros de Oriente, a New York City-based group specializing in Afro-Cuban music, was originally known as Conjunto Son de la Loma. The late Cuban-American percussionist and band leader Armando Sanchez formed the band in the mid-1970s because he wanted to play ôthe real son,ö a Cuban folk style that forms much of the basis for modern salsa that he realized had never been properly performed in the United States. Sanchez felt that son was the true expression of the Cuban peopleÆs history and life. The music, rooted in African-based rhythms and tunes performed on Cuban folk instruments, began in the 1880s in the Oriente Province. When workers migrated to the cities, they brought their music with them.