(Che Guevara band)

This is a group that plays Afro-Cuban and Latin American dance music and romantic songs.

It consists of four musicians:  

Keyboard (also back vocal)
Bass guitar
Drums
Lead vocal (also acoustic guitar)  

On some occasions, we can add a trumpet, a flute or percussion.  

Time of performance: 60 to 90 minutes; the group's repertoire is about three hours of music.  

We can play both originally arranged well-known hits and beautiful traditional songs.  

Besides concerts, we can also play background music and create nice atmosphere for people to mingle and chat.  

We can also do acoustic concerts.  

Our mission is to make everyone around us happy and cheerful!

History of the Group

Che Guevara Band is a relatively young project formed in 2001. It was founded by a Cuban musician Abelardo Alfonso López.  

Before 2001, Abelardo had formed other projects but they were not as successful for one reason or another. It was only in 2001 that all natural conditions existed to form a new group: he had met 11 excellent musicians who lived in different places and shared his thinking and brought them together to form a group.  

The group includes three flutes, a trumpet, a tenor saxophone, a baritone saxophone, a flamenco guitar, drums, percussion, a bass guitar  and a lead vocalist. All the music the group plays have been arranged by Abelardo.  

At the first concert, the project did not have a name yet. On the day of the concert, after we sang "Hasta Siempre", the audience chanted: "Che Guevara! Che Guevara!" This is how Abelardo decided to call the group "Che Guevara Band".  

Che Guevara is Abelardo's idol, a person beyond time and space, an example of courage and self-sacrifice for the sake of a high ideal to the whole world.  

A little later, it occurred to us that our first rehearsal took place on 14th June, right on the Comandante's birthday.  

At the beginning, the band included members of the Va Bank group: bass guitarrist Alik Ismagilov, drummer Andrey Belisov and keyboardist Alexander Belonosov (he is also the sound producer of the albums Superposición 2000 and Victoria).  

With time, the band got smaller. Now, you will see either six (trumpet, flute, drums, keyboard + back vocal, bass guitar and acoustics + lead vocal) or four (same less the brass instruments) musicians on stage.  

The band plays songs in the following styles: salsa, merengue, son, cha cha chá, rumba, bolero, timba etc. Our repertoire includes music hits and traditional music; to play the whole of it we would need about three hours.  

The Сhe Guevara Band performs in clubs, concert halls and at various parties, festivals - wherever we are invited.  

Over the nearly seven years of existence, the band has performed in many Russian cities: Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Bratsk, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Togliatti, Tomsk, Izhevsk, Ekaterinburg, Kirov, Yoshkar Ola, Saransk, Cheboksary, Kazan, Ufa, Sochi etc.  

We plan to record some albums; there will be surprises!