SOUL OF KEY WEST

 

By Ralph DePalma

 

Rolando Rojas:

 

Rolando’s original home is in vineyard and wine making region of Vina del Mar, Chile.  He moved to Key West in 1993 with his former wife to be close to her family, which had lived here for years.

 

His first gig in 1993 was with the original Conjunto Caribe band with Jose Rodriquez.  Caribe was originally formed in 1989.  At that time it was a twelve piece band comprised mostly of Navy musicians. In 1993 the original band was downsized a bit and changed names to Caribe of Key West.  The combination of Conjunto Caribe and Caribe of Key West have been playing together for over 25 years and are probably the longest running Key West band.

 

Today, Caribe is made up of a number of musicians who play all over: Kenny Fradley, Jose Rodriquez, Dave Parker, Roy Chavez, and Louis Vera.  Most of their gigs involve a three piece band.  

 

Rolando plays seven days a week in a regular rotation at venues such as El Meson de Pepe, Virgilio’s, Ocean Key Sunset Pier, Sloppy Joe’s, and Little Palm Island.  In a modified Caribe group called Mojito, Rolando provides the only Latin music featured by Sloppy Joe’s.  Rolando finds his popularity at Sloppy Joe’s very interesting because the audience there is accustomed to hearing rock and roll but when Mojito cranks up the Latin beat the place is hopping.

 

In the beginning of his music training, Rolando learned to play the guitar. While in music school, he stopped playing guitar and learned the piano.  He did not touch a guitar for fifteen years.  Then, in 2004, he fell back in love with the guitar again and now plays all types of guitars from the 10 string Charango mandolin used for classical Andes music to the American classic 6 string.

 

Today Rolando enjoys playing a variety of music.  He loves his Latin and Andes roots but also enjoys jazz, blues, Cuban, rock and roll, classical, flamenco and almost any other type of music, with special fondness for the music of Carlos Santana.

 

He and three other local musicians performed a tribute to the music of Carlos Santana at the Green Parrot this past July. It was a very special performance. Roy Chavez played the Congas, Luis Vera drums and the timbales, Larry Baeder played rhythm guitar and Rolando handled a double keyboard. They played every Santana piece that one could imagine with such fire and passion the audience couldn’t believe after two and a half hours that it was over. They dubbed the group “Soul Sacrifice” after the famous instrumental performed by Santana at Woodstock. If you love Latin music its Virgilio’s on Thursday and El Mason de Pepe on Friday.

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