Rolling like tumble weed Afro-Latin music thread 2012 (salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, tribal guarachero, etc.)

Any charanga fans here who can encourage me to go see Orquesta Aragon Wednesday night?

Not a charanga fan, obviously, but that is a major charanga outfit. On the other hand, wasn't their heyday back in the 50s and 60s (or earlier)?

Yep.

Maybe they are the Beach Boys or Rolling Stones of charanga despite more membership changes and deaths and such

Charanga Beach Boys, there's a scary idea.

yamulee's performance from the philly salsafest is up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIuwz59zgE0

Received an email about bachata group Optimo appearing out in Hyattsville, MD November 10. Eh, can't excited enough to listen, although maybe I should give 'em a try.

Unrelated:

I see that Puerto Ricans voted to seek US statehood yesterday. Wonder if anything will come of that?

i've seen a few comments that us reportings on the vote had a lot of fallacies in terms of the actual numbers and that the majority really didn't vote for statehood. dunno the specific deets. also: FTW if puerto rico becomes a state before dc.

I now see that it is discussed over on ILE:

I don't fully understand what's going on in Puerto Rico. . .

Forgot the Latin Grammys started at 8 US eastern time on Univision. Probably nothing surprising. Just turned it on at 10:20 and saw a cowboy hat act with an accordionist in the band performing. Mexican or Mexican-American I am guessing. Not bad

Didn't catch the name of the sappy female pop balladeer I just watched. Pepe Aguilar just won best ranchera album. They speak Spanish too fast for me. A schlocky rock band is on now with a grey-haired 60 something male singer and a spikey haired 60 something woman singer. The chorus is actually kinda catchy.

If I am reading my Toy Selectah tweets correctly 3Ball Mty won best new artist

Wow, Brazilian Caetano Veloso performing with a big band. This is great.

Alt-pop singer Carla Morrison just won an award. I think I would like her. The little sample they played as she came onstage resembled Julieta Venegas. I think one of the hosts just interviewed 3Ball Mty

Juanes' MTV unplugged album just won album of the year. Caetano veloso and Carla Morrison were 2 of the many acts nominated

fuckin' juanes man

Yep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wewId40ega0

3Ball Mty and too many guests

http://www.latingrammy.com/en/winners/113

Luis Enrique won best salsa album

Don Omar won best Urban album over the below nominees

MTO2 New Generation
Don Omar [Machete Music]
La Bala
Ana Tijoux [Nacional Records]
The Most Powerful Rookie
Farruko [Siente Music]
The Original Gallo Del País
Tego Calderón [Jiggiri]
Otro Nivel De Música Reloaded
J Álvarez [Nelflow Records/Codiscos]

Maybe a few decent videos will pop up from the performances; but probably not many are worth seeing

Restaurant I am eating at has a Bacalao special tonight so I made them play "Te conozco" off Cosa Nuestra.

Speaking of food, reading a reference to pigeon peas in Love Goes to a Building on Fire has me regretting not buying any when I just saw 'em in a Caribbean/African international grocery store.

Acts appearing locally who I don't know much about:

Thurs. Nov. 22

*Thanksgiving cumbiabomba bash with live cumbia band from Mexicoa La Sabroso Sabrosura
+ DJ Jaime Flores (Peru) AKA K-593. (live music that circumnavigates cumbia, reggae, funk, and electro)
9PM at Tropicalia

*Aniceto Molina at the Palace in Woodbridge
__________________________________________________________
Fri. Nov. 23

* Los Rieleros at at the Palace in Woodbridge

*Bachata Heights at Cococabana

bachata heightz is pretty popular, i'm sort of under the opinion they're the biggest pop bachata group next to aventura (but i don't really know at all)

Thanks wiki: Aniceto Molina is an accordion playing bandleader from Colombia who lives in San Antonio now and comes to the DC area frequently. Los Rieleros are a Mexican norteno band.

Love Goes to a Building on Fire

That book is going to make me even more unsympathetic toward the rock/punk/bohemian ethos. "And then Patti Smith spit on the floor. . . And then [some third rate nobody singer] hit an audience member with the mike stand. They threw food in the hotel room."

Oh, wow, man.

The musicians from other genres don't come off sounding so bad, generally, but the rockers seem like a bunch of assholes.

I don't care about most of those bands anyway.

I'm checking out the Billboard charts this morning--Romeo Santos and other bachata and merengue performers are dominating the tropical album chart (a Ruben Blades live album/dvd is there too; although its old I think); and the top Latin song is "Algo me gusta de ti" by Wisin y Yandel with Chris Brown and T-Pain. Nothing too surprising

Is there any reggaeton left that is not Euro-dance club influenced?

I heard this bachata cover on the radio:

Be My Baby by Lala Rodriguez

She and others will probably re-do the whole Phil Spector Christmas album bachata-style next

I heard that on the radio recently too and wondered who was singing -- is that the same person who did "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow"?

I think Leslie Grace did the bachata version of "Will You Stll Love Me Tomorrow" (if my google search is correct)

Saw old-timers El Gran Combo near W. DC. many years ago and thought they were great, and they're back there tonight at Cococabana. They're busy touring the East coast, were in North carolina last night and are gonna be back in DC itself at the Howard Theatre in a few months.

I think they have a Christmas album coming out. I wish they'd just put out a regular album, it's too easy to hide behind Christmas album conventions and muddle through. There has been a small flurry of big name releases for the end of the year. Gilberto Santa Rosa has a new album out, and going by the no-nonsense cover I was hoping it might be a mostly salsa dura recording, but no such luck, at least from what I heard of it last night. (It's already on Spotify.) Ismael Miranda and Victor Manuelle both have Christmas albums out. Hard not to yawn.

This Sammy Gonzalez reissue looks good, but the audio clips don't make this thing sound that carefully re-mastered:

http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/24986.10?n3Sr4xmc;;402

I am way overdue to buy a few salsa CDs/downloads so I can stop listening to the same stuff over and over again in the car.

cuba bans vulgar / degrading music from the airwaves

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-04/reggaeton-banned-in-cuba-as-castro-cracks-down-on-music.html

latina.com's 25 greatest afro-latino musicians of all time

i haven't read through because it's an obnoxious paging through for each entry. only went there because i was appalled when i heard los rakas are on it. i mean they're fine or whatever but in the 25 greatest of all time!?

Haven't visited this thread before, as I have very little to contribute. But, as I'm taking salsa lessons (mostly to get out of the house, I'm very decidedly not very good), I was wandering if anyone here is aware of salsa musicians who sound a part of the 21st century. By which I mean retaining the typical salsa rhythms (not 4/4 bangers with salsa horns), but introducing a bit of electronic novelty or production touches to the arrangements.

Can answer more at home. See what you think of Michael Stuart's Back to da Barrio. I could recommend a lot of salsa with some electronics here and there or very audible production goings-on, but it isn't necessarily going to sound 21st century.

How about something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T6BShvK3dk

Or this dubby sort of remix (which is pretty old at this point and you'll probably end up hearing sooner or later if you keep taking salsa classes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeqBKR6a7Ng

There's also some salsa with what I consider 80s sounding touches, but you have to tolerate some schmaltz. This is actually a pretty hot track to dance too despite the iffy synths, mostly because the percussion comes in so strong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7yHpxRsFPE

Or this, older one I like a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Hz6ja2kH0

Again, hardly contemporary sounding, but not completely traditional.

This was good and fairly contemporary sounding to me, but there's been no follow up I know of (though at least some of these guys appeared on Bannakumbi's neglected 2009 debut album):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-2jeoR_b6w

Bannakumbi w/ Voltio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYT9cjdLjB0

Having sampled Back to da Barrio I probably should clarify that I'm aware of salsa with digitally crisp production. I was hoping there were unknowns (to me) that remade salsa into their own private soundworld like the late Serbian musician Suba did with bossa nova (Bebel Gilberto's Tanto Tempo, his own São Paulo Confessions).

Okay. I would say BTDB also draws from R&B/pop production in ways beyond being crisp.

I can't think of anything in salsa as electronic as the Suba things you are talking about. Possibly I wouldn't even hear it as salsa at that point, but I can't think of anything that really fits that I've even heard.

I don't think any of those tracks are going to come close to what you want then.

Maybe Sidestepper? I forget what they sound like though.

Didn't some individuals Grupo Fantasma was collaborating with have a very electronic Latin music project of some sort? Help me remember this. Or maybe it included some Grupo Fantasma members. I don't remember how salsa it was, though. Probably not very.