Among the most influential exponents of the Cuban Son is The Sexteto Habanero. The original Sexteto Habanero was formed in Havana in 1920, by Castillo (guitar & vocals), Godinez (tres & vocals), Felipe Neri Cabrera (maraccas & vocals), Antonio Bacallao (botija), Oscar Sotolongo (bongos) and Gerado Martinez (claves & vocals), who eventually became the group’s director. Gerardo soon replaced the botija with the marimbula, and then with the string bass some time later. The Sexteto Habanero’s instrumentation of tres, guitar, bongos, and bass, created a format for the Son which rode the crest of popularity in Cuba until the late 1930s when major changes in the format and the instrumentation of the Son were made by artists such as Eliseo Silveira, Arsenio Rodriguez and Niño Rivera. In 1927 the Sexteto Habanero was among the first sextets to convert into a septet by incorporating a trumpet, although they did not always record with it. This innovation also became standard within the Son format in Havana. The first trumpeter to join the Sexteto Habanero was Enrique Hernandez, soon to be replaced by Felix Chapotin, destined to become the greatest trumpeter within the Son field. The following were also known to have been members of the group at different times during this period: Cheo Gimenez (claves & vocals), Agustin Gutierrez ‘Manana’ (bongos), José Maria incharte ‘El Chino’ (bongos), Miguel Garcia (vocals) and the great singer Abelardo Barroso heard here in Loma de Belen. The tradition and repertoire of the Sexteto Habanero has continued to this day in Cuba, with the Son group known as the Septeto Tipico Habanero, originally under the direction of Gerardo Martinez himself, until he was later replaced by Manuel Furé.