Changui KL plays Changui for the SF Bay Masses

The exciting and versatile young guitarist/trescero Kai Lyons, (pictured left-photo by Luis Medina) formerly with the highly regarded band Soltron band made up of many now prominent Bay Area musicians, has been busy these days! Kai who has been featured, with Javier Navarette’s Socially Distanced Friends all star group has been producing his own Changui nights at venues such as the Ivory and Wine nightspot in SF’s Mission District on 22nd and Bartlett Streets.

Kai will be debuting his new group “Changui KL” as part of the lineup at the annual Festival De Las Americas on Saturday, September 16 from 11 am to 6 pm on 24th Street between Folsom and Byrant Streets in SF. The 24th and Bryant Street stage lineup also includes headlining Conscious Hip-hop group Audio Pharmacy, Adelante, Inti, Ricky Aguilar’s Grupo Afro-Nativo and the Mariachi Femenil Orgullo Mexicano. I’ll be your DJ for the afternoon spinning in-between live music sets.

Kai’s new group Changui KL has been coming together with weekly Changui jam sessions will feature the special talents of Pacific Mambo Orchestra’s vocal powerhouse Christelle Durandy and other musicians who have been both sitting in and performing regularly at Lyons’s Changui nights. Lyons has been heavily influenced by the Changui and has visited Cuba to study the musical genre

Changui is a thriving music tradition rooted in the Guantanamo region of Cuba. According to Gianluca Tramontana, music journalist and record producer on a NPR interview “Changui is a rural, riff-based improvised dance music that came out of the plantations around the mid 1800’s. It was homemade music that gravitated around a riffing tres player who improvises a call and response. The whole community participated (played) on whatever was lying around that could make music.”

“It’s riff-based. It’s different than most Cuban music. Generally speaking, Cuban music is on the clave. It’s straight time on the beat. Changui is very different. It’s syncopated. It swings, and it’s call-and-response.” Tramontana said. Changui in it’s contemporary modern Cuban dance music form was made popular by timbalero Elio Reve and later his son, vocalist Elito Reve y Su Charangon.

Lyons also was part of the Oakland based group “Sentimiento And Mañana” that put out a highly regarded recording a couple of years ago. Two of Lyon’s Socially Distant friends bandmates, percussionist/bandleader Javier Navarrette and violinist extraordinare Anthony Blea will join Changui KL as special guests at the Festival De La Americas. The group will appear around 2 pm at the 24th and Bryant Street stage. The festival is free to the public and produced by the Calle 24 organization.