ABOUT
Arnaldo Rivera &
His Bentetú Band
Arnaldo Rivera and his Bentetu Band has its base in Willimantic CT. Our band consists of 8 to 12 musicians. We have been active and playing this music since 2003. We are composed of people from different ethnicities, gender, age and musical backgrounds. This makes us stand apart from other groups. All of this diversity make us unique and affects the expression and the interpretation of the music we play.
Our band plays Spanish Afro-Caribbean music. Hot and spicy, consisting of mixed styles from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. This is what we call Salsa. It combines all those elements and ingredients, and adds a little bit of jazz melodies and concepts.
Musical instruments that are necessary to interpret this music are percussions: congas, bongos, clave, guiros, maraca, piano, timbales and tambora. In the brass section; trumpets, saxes, flutes, and trombone and Vocals; Lead singer and chorus.
Our Heritage
Bentetu band interprets music which has it roots in Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. From Cuba we have the Son Montunos, guaguancos. and guajiras(Cha-chas).
From Dominican Republic, mostly merengues and Puerto Rico, Bombas and plenas. These rhythms and jazz expressions are mostly all in solo parts.
Bentetú Music
The Bantu and Yoruba tribes are the major contributors of our music. These two african tribes brought the rythms, and percussive instruments to the Caribbean. Our music uses their contribution everytime we play our repertoire. Bentetu repertoire is a compilation of original, public domain music pieces, and popular salsa hits.
Among some salsa and latin Jazz that has influences in Bentetu are Batacumbele, Fania All Stars, Santana, Eddie Palmieri, Sonora Poncena, Ricardo Ray, Irakere, Arturo Sandoval, Paquito de Rivera, Mongo Santamaria, Oscar De Leon, Johnny Ventura, Juan Luis Guerra etc. Our primary purpose is to play our music to make people dance and move and be entertained in a fun and vibrant way. That’ is why our music is vibrant, hot and spicy.
