Nice !
I was just reading below blurb about a movie doc showing at the AFI Silver near me:
“Bebo”. This documentary tells the story of the great Cuban musician Bebo Valdés, whose career as a pianist and bandleader helped cement Latin jazz as a worldwide phenomenon. June 11, 7:30 p.m.June 12, 5:00 p.m.https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/Movies/Details/f-0100004067
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 3 June 2023 04:58 (eleven months ago) link
https://tribecafilm.com/films/sonic-union-presents-perreo-101-live-with-reggaeton-con-la-gata-2023
La Gata has class in session next week in NY
― curmudgeon, Monday, 5 June 2023 20:03 (eleven months ago) link
Kevyn Cruz was 12 years old when he started writing songs. “My mom gave me my first guitar, and with the first three notes, I learned how to compose,” he recalls. “Little by little, I perfected that art.” Now 26, the Colombian songwriter, known as Keityn, is behind some of the most recent Latin hits by Shakira, Karol G, J Balvin, Maluma and Manuel Turizo, among others.
https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/keityn-songwriter-shakira-karol-g-latin-hits-interview-1235345030/
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 7 June 2023 14:31 (eleven months ago) link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/06/02/regional-mexican-music-peso-pluma/
A long feature on Mexican regional music star crossover to Latin pop act Peso Pluma who has been mentioned on this thread and others
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 7 June 2023 16:17 (eleven months ago) link
Making some music this Saturday at @TheJazzGallery as a special guest with #Caracastrio...These guys have been exploring Afro-Venezuelan music from a modern jazz perspective, and they do it VERY WELL...You should come...#miguelzenon #jazzgallerynyc #caracastrio #nycmusic pic.twitter.com/pfzJ0ZwYFN— Miguel Zenon (@miguelzenon) June 8, 2023
This gig could be good. Zenon’s music is usually too abstract jazzy for simple me without enough clave . I know he’s critically acclaimed and teaching 2023/2024 at Berklee school of Music in Boston
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 8 June 2023 15:54 (eleven months ago) link
Zenon’s music is usually too abstract jazzy for simple me without enough clave . I know he’s critically acclaimed
Gosh, I wonder if there could be some link between these two things? *strokes chin while staring at a photo of an assemblage of current jazz critics*
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 8 June 2023 16:14 (eleven months ago) link
I mean it’s Zenon’s choice to sound like he does and not to sound like standard Latin Jazz or to go pop or whatever. I am saying it’s me who is not a fan . I have seen him tweet on occasion re hiphop and reggaeton and I still entertain my fantasy notion that he could add such elements to his sound.
That end of year Francis Davis run jazz critic poll has a separate breakout for Latin Jazz and the small amount of critics who participate in that seem happy with Zenon, and also with Sanabria whose Latin Jazz I like but who I also wish would incorporate some newer elements
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 8 June 2023 17:14 (eleven months ago) link
I'm not beefing either — I like some of Zenon's stuff. There's just a bias among jazz critics for music that can be appreciated from a comfy chair, is all.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 8 June 2023 17:31 (eleven months ago) link
And a shortage of English language critics writing about Spanish language music that gets people out of their comfy chairs
I think Lindsay Zoladz in NY Times amplifier newsletter who usually just writes about American and UK indie and pop just wrote about Silvana Estrada and Lido Pimienta for first time because she acknowledged being hipped to them by fellow NY Times writer Jon Pareles and they felt indie comfy chair enough for her . Nothing from her on Kiko El Crazy or El Alfa
― curmudgeon, Friday, 9 June 2023 17:28 (eleven months ago) link
Cumbia seems to be the crossover style of the moment for English speakers
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 14 June 2023 03:19 (eleven months ago) link
Also seeing teknocumbia dance nights
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 14 June 2023 15:49 (eleven months ago) link
Harvey Averne begins most days with a bialy and whitefish salad. He watches “Morning Joe,” plays with his cat, Coco Baby, and fields calls from Latin music legends like Joe Bataan at his eclectic but tidy Woodhaven, Queens apartment.
On a particularly humid day in mid-March, they were advising each other on prescription medication. But a peek at Averne’s foyer — which is adorned with awards, concert posters, framed newspaper clippings and photos, including a prominently displayed shot with Celia Cruz — tells a story that belies his typical 86-year-old day-to-day travails. Averne is one of the last of the Latin music giants: a Jewish kid from East New York who had a hand in the development of Latin music, from the borscht belt to boogaloo and salsa.
[i}As a producer, manager and musician, Averne has a storied history behind the scenes at some of New York’s biggest Latin music labels. He was the de facto chief operating officer of the crucial Fania Records, where he produced or supervised records by Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Ralfi Pagan and Ray Barretto. At his own Coco Records, which released Latin jazz and salsa, Averne’s work with the pianist Eddie Palmieri earned the first two Grammy Awards for Latin music...At 14, Averne was leading a Catskills hotel band when he noticed another employee strumming a guitar and singing in Spanish. He was “hypnotized,” he recalled, and asked to learn the song. Inspired, he changed the name of his Harvey Averne Trio to Arvito and His Latin Rhythms and made the leap from Catskills stages to the Palladium, where the group opened for stars like Tito Puente, Machito and Tito Rodriguez.
Before he entered the record business, Averne “ran errands for the local mafia guys,” he said, worked in diaper service and family photo sales,[/i]
“Ray was the one who really saw my potential,” Averne said of the percussionist. “I produced ‘Acid,’ but Ray Barretto produced Harvey Averne. He was the most prepared artist I’ve ever worked with.”...While Averne had no previous label experience, he aggressively (and successfully) marketed acts using the sales tactics he honed in his teens and 20s, broadening the appeal of Fania artists and Latin music beyond the tristate area. “‘Unfinished Masterpiece’ was a war between Eddie and I,” Averne said. Palmieri, now 86, declined to comment...“I’m relaxed. I’m chilling,” he added. But “if the right musical project came along that was interesting to me, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/arts/music/harvey-averne-latin-music.html
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 15 June 2023 13:36 (eleven months ago) link
Cool! Only yesterday I was trying to explain judíos maravillosos to someone.
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 15 June 2023 13:58 (eleven months ago) link
Larry Harlow is definitely mentioned in that article. I love that lead sentence
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 15 June 2023 14:04 (eleven months ago) link
His brother too!
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 15 June 2023 14:08 (eleven months ago) link
Like that the headline uses the term "record man."
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 15 June 2023 14:12 (eleven months ago) link
the conflict between Averne and Palmieri is fascinating and hard to get to the bottom of. HA tells his side of the story here:
https://latinjazznet.com/featured/harvey-averne-interview-2/
but it seems that Eddie doesn't like to talk about it:
“It’s a scar. It’s a vital scar in my life,” regrets Palmieri, “my wife sent them the album with a bow on it that said ‘shove it’. I closed myself in my home in Long Island for three years.
― budo jeru, Friday, 16 June 2023 07:01 (eleven months ago) link
Let me check if I can find the Irv Greenbaum book to see if he had something to say about this.
― Holly Godarkbloom (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 16 June 2023 12:25 (eleven months ago) link
Money that Palmieri allegedly owed to Averne, and the way that Averne had musicians do overdubs on Unfinished Masterpiece seem to be issues
― curmudgeon, Friday, 16 June 2023 13:05 (eleven months ago) link
Irv does indeed have something to say. Not sure if I can summarize right now.
― Holly Godarkbloom (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 17 June 2023 00:11 (eleven months ago) link
Palmieri talked about Unfinished Masterpiece a little when I interviewed him for the BA podcast, but I don't recall the details offhand.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 17 June 2023 00:28 (eleven months ago) link
Irv talks about how temperamental Eddie could be, how he personally had to pull out all the stops to finish Unfinished Masterpiece as well doing the same to edit the centerpiece of the previous album, The Sun of Latin Music, “Un Dia Bonito,” and how both Harvey and Eddie were very stingy about giving him proper credit.
― Holly Godarkbloom (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 17 June 2023 00:37 (eleven months ago) link
Italics tags, why are they so bad and hated.
Had to hang with wife's family this past Friday on vacation at beach and missed Jose Alberto El Canario nearby (or maybe his show got cancelled as it was outdoors and it was rainy with some thunder earlier)
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 18:33 (eleven months ago) link
Meanwhile rapper Myke Towers is touring US in October and November and got a lot of airplay in April and May for various collaborations:
To ring in the month of May, the acclaimed rapper celebrated hitting #1 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart thanks to smash hits: “Caramelo” with Ozuna and Karol G; “Bandido” alongside Juhn; Manuel Turizo, Rauw Alejandro, and Towers’ “La Nota”; “Bésame” with Luis Fonsi; “Mi Niña” alongside Los Legendarios and Wisin; power collaboration “Travesuras”; and “Pareja Del Año” alongside Sebastian Yatra. In April, Towers joined forces with reggaeton pioneer, Daddy Yankee, for the momentous release of “Gasolina” (Safari Riot Remix) – a new remix of his 2004 global hit song, “Gasolina.” The remix is part of the original motion picture soundtrack to the new chapter in the Fast & Furious Saga, Fast X.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 19:12 (eleven months ago) link
Bad Bunny in Rolling Stone cover story on what he’s listening to:
“I’ve been listening to Luis Miguel a lot,” he says, referring to the famous mariachi and bolero balladeer. He lists off a few more Mexican acts that have been blowing up lately: Grupo Frontera, Peso Pluma, Eslabon Armado. There’s a range of genres, too: “Radiohead,” he says, name-checking albums like OK Computer and In Rainbows. “Phob …” He trips over the name slightly. “Phoebe Bridgers?”
“Whether I’m at home or with the guys, we listen to everything: reggaeton, trap, bachata, salsa, música Mexicana, banda, regional, corridos tumbados,” he says. He sees a newer generation of artists as constant motivators: “I see them tearing it up, and it makes me want to tear it up even harder.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 23:49 (eleven months ago) link
Salsa singer Victor Manuelle anniversary tour coming to DC area this weekend.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 23 June 2023 18:15 (eleven months ago) link
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tainy-producer-new-album-reggaeton-bad-bunny-ai-1234776008/
Reggaeton producer Tainey on the genre plus non-reggaeton artists he is working with including Four Tet and uh Skrillex
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 28 June 2023 19:11 (eleven months ago) link
Tainy ( my phone’s spelling error)
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 28 June 2023 19:13 (eleven months ago) link
Just saw a picture of Fruko on a wall.
― Looking For Mr. Goodreads (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 2 July 2023 00:20 (ten months ago) link
Guess he’s appearing next week.
― Looking For Mr. Goodreads (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 2 July 2023 00:21 (ten months ago) link
I saw Joe Arroyo do a good solo show years ago. He had previously sang in Fruko y sus tesos. I never saw that Colombian band though.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 3 July 2023 02:04 (ten months ago) link
https://festival.si.edu/event/memorias-de-agua
Forgot to post this earlier. Streaming live now and hopefully archived is Puerto Rican bomba music from Bombaya and Cuban Orisha sounds and more from Bobi Cespedes and group at the Smithsonian Folklife Fest
― curmudgeon, Friday, 7 July 2023 23:50 (ten months ago) link
Fruko tribute in my neighborhood on Thursday.
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 11 July 2023 20:37 (ten months ago) link
You should go
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 12 July 2023 03:11 (ten months ago) link
Totallly plan to, especially since the band has some aces and the singer, who sang with Fruko, seems to still have it, according to this video from several years ago.
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 13 July 2023 12:08 (ten months ago) link
Also primed the pump for myself by doing a salsa song last night there at karaoke.
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 13 July 2023 12:09 (ten months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcblg8AKBdA
I guess that's his son who will be playing timbales on the gig.
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 13 July 2023 12:13 (ten months ago) link
Really excited about this
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 July 2023 02:21 (ten months ago) link
OMG they are starting with “Oye Como Va.”
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 July 2023 02:28 (ten months ago) link
Maybe that was just for soundcheck
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 July 2023 02:29 (ten months ago) link
First set was awesome although I don’t know well these paper napkin earphones are protecting my hearing.
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 July 2023 03:51 (ten months ago) link
They are playing Hector Lavoe’s greatest hits over the sound system during the break.
― The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Elektra) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 July 2023 04:09 (ten months ago) link
Had to sit outside the second set to avoid hearing problems. Then this morning my neighbor told me his girlfriend couldn’t hear for a week after a loud salsa show, which is apparently the norm, volume-wise.
― Live and Left Eye (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 July 2023 16:10 (ten months ago) link
The new Tego Calderón song is really good, but why does he look 75 in the video? He's my age!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGRxyz2W2Og
― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, 16 July 2023 15:46 (ten months ago) link
I like that song too
― curmudgeon, Monday, 17 July 2023 04:51 (ten months ago) link
Saw Natalia Lafourcade at Wolftrap last night. Really beautiful show.
― Heez, Friday, 21 July 2023 15:31 (ten months ago) link
Nice. Was busy with family and couldn't make it. She did a good gig years ago at the now gone Rock n Roll Hotel in DC that I saw
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 22 July 2023 14:53 (ten months ago) link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/08/04/chihuahua-mexico-misogynistic-music/
“a bandage measure that does not get at the root of misogyny …”
― curmudgeon, Monday, 7 August 2023 15:09 (nine months ago) link