Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2017: Salsa, Bomba, Merengue,Reggaeton, Bachata, Latin Jazz, Bolero and more

Finally listened to the Grammy winning late Lugo and his Guasábara Combo-- Dónde Están?.

Nice solid salsa and a cut near the end that has a Brazilian carnival drums feel to it.

Ben Ratliff, former NY Times critic and others liked his late 2008 “Guasábara” (Norte) album that has a mini-orchestra on it with 9 horn players and 5 percussionists plus guest vocalists.

A current freelancer for NY Times on Latin jazz folks like Pedrito Martínez, Alfredo Rodríguez and Arturo O’Farrill and David Virelles and bassist Luques Curtis. Martinez is a great rumba percussionist and more.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/arts/music/grammys-latin-jazz.html?_r=0

gio's good people and a solid writer

He used to be down here in the DC area and yes, good people. As for what he's writing about--As I have previously noted here--too much Latin jazz seems formulaic to me in a manner that does not wow me, but I will give a shot to listening to some of the folks he mentioned that I have not previously heard.

Salsa can also be criticized as formulaic, but I like that Pedro Lugo farewell release more than most Latin jazz.

Jose Lugo I mean.

Listened to a bit of Jose Lugo and his orchestra on the 2008 Guasábara album. Good stuff. He's not quite hard enough salsa I am guessing for some, but his arrangements aren't wimpy either.

Listening now to last year's album. They sound like they'd rather be playing bad Latin jazz. The rhythm is solid though.

Lugo was an arranger and band leader at times for singers like Santa Rosa and Manuelle that you have rarely praised, so I don't expect you to be impressed

Lugo did lose in the Latin musicians only Grammys held earlier:

Best Salsa Album
Grupo Niche, 35 Aniversario
WINNER: India, Intensamente India Con Canciones De Juan Gabriel
José Lugo & Guasábara Combo, ¿Dónde Están?
Bobby Valentín, Mi Ritmo Es Bueno
Johnny Ventura, Tronco Viejo

He also used to play with another nominee there-- Bobby Valentin

Aka "Mr. Soul"

Lugo was an arranger and band leader at times for singers like Santa Rosa and Manuelle that you have rarely praised, so I don't expect you to be impressed.

Funny, I've had "Perdoname" popping in and out of my head lately. I still kind of like that song, I think just because it was one of the songs from my first salsa dance classes.

I just got The Vitral Saxophone Quartet's Kites Over Havana album off bandcamp. It's some beautiful Cuban style chamber music. Pre-ordered the new Chano Dominguez album while I was there, because I'm in love with that Flamenco Sketches Miles tribute album he did a few years back. I shouldn't really be spending money on music right now, but couldn't resist these two.

didn't really like the new Chano Dominguez which is a pleasant but fairly undistinguished live solo piano recording. But was happy to pay for it after leeching the rest of his gear off slsk.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/arts/music/dave-valentin-dead-latin-jazz-flutist.html?_r=0

Had a stroke in 2012, plus Parkinson's

RIP. Liked him in Tito Puente's Golden Latin Jazz All-Stars

Colombia's Maluma is performing at a 10,000 seat arena near Washington DC . Just listened to him for first time. He's pop-reggaeton. Kinda formulaic but ok

I think its been years since anyone here on this type of thread was enthusiastic about reggaeton (although I think someone who's on the Afropop/afrobeats auto-tuned African club thread is a fan)

Isidro Infante (where has he been?) has a new album featuring Cuban vocalists singing Puerto Rican salsa:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3JgWMmWDZeR6AOHJdydvhJ

"Salsa y Control" with Mayito Rivera will work on the dancefloor. I think the Lebron Brothers live in Colombia extended version is definitive, but it's pretty lengthy.

Haila singing "La Vida Es un Carnival" is an unimaginative choice, but I kind of hate that song anyway. Give her something that wasn't sung by Celia.

This "Fuego la Jicotea" is pretty on point though. Can't do that any more, unfortunately.

Overall this still seems like more cover versions that never needed to exist. I've only skimmed it, but that seems pretty clear.

I think I should wait to post until something I genuinely like comes along. This could be a long wait.

I'm switching over to the new tqd, but I think I've heard everything on the album already, via their soundcloud.

ILM's 2017 Rolling Latin and Afro-Latin Thread Spotify Playlist

Slim pickins galore.

it's true.

I wonder how much that is because of us (the choices from the few of us here) and how much due to the state of the music

i would presume the latter; there's lots in the field to choose from, a broad variety of popular styles and not many folks on this board who specialize in latin popular music. fewer still who like to talk about it!

It's the state of the music in the styles that the people who post on this thread care about. I'm certainly not that interested in Latin music in the broadest sense, as such.

Just for comparison for anyone who cares who isn't already familiar with it (probably an empty category), this is the original Dejame Sonar recorded by Tito Puente and Tony Vega. This is why we don't need the new, somewhat softer version:

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

Way more bite.

As others have said, I wish Cubans would go back to singing like Benny More sang, and drop the annoying rootsy nasal/old lady timbre. I know a lot of people like it and it's got roots in rumba, but I find it really annoying.

Just watched 2014 movie "The Chef" and I like the soundtrack. Available on 2 volumes. It includes:

https://www.amazon.com/Original-Soundtrack-Album-Various-Artists/dp/B00JO739MG

I Like It Like That

by Pete Rodriguez

Homenaje Al Beny (Castellano Que Bueno Baila Usted)

by Gente de Zona

Bang Bang--Joe Cuba

Kinda obvious to some stuff, but hey, still nice to hear

How some of DC's latin dance community does it:

TWO Ballrooms - Salsa/Mambo y Bachata/Kizomba/Zouk
★ Dancing til 3am

Mr. Mambo's 12yrs Anniversary Bash is Going Down SAT APRIL 22, 2017 w/Mardi Gras Masquarade Theme at the Hollywood Ballroom!

Join us in Celebrating DC's Premier & Longest Running Salsa & Bachata Social Consistently serving the DC/MD/VA Latin Dance Community with the TOP Local Instructors, HOTTEST DJs, and the BEST Dancefloors for the past 12 years!

SATURDAY APRIL 22, 2017

HIGHLIGHTS:
★ Special Workshop & Performance by NYC's Jacob Lugo & Selena Tornez
★ Mardi Gras Theme, Dress Code Festive w/Masquerade Masks
★ (4) Salsa & Bachata Workshops w/Top Local Instructors
★ Show at 11:30pm- More Groups TBA
★ TWO Ballrooms - Salsa/Mambo y Bachata/Kizomba/Zouk
★ Dancing til 3am

WHERE: HOLLYWOOD BALLROOM DANCE CENTER, 2126 Industrial Parkway, Silver Spring, MD

I didn't make it to the above. Nor did I fly down to New Orleans this year where Jazzfest's first weekend included a special Cuban segment with various groups. Jon Pareles in the NY Times:

He also liked, among others --TELMARY Y HABANA SANA The Cuban poet, rapper and songwriter Telmary Diaz didn’t rely on her words alone to get across her socially conscious messages. She had a full Latin band, playing the sinuous rhythms of son and speedy, percussive rumba, surrounding her with melodic refrains.

http://www.thefader.com/2017/05/09/romeo-santos-interview-bachata-history-cover-story

Romeo Santos

https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/daddy-yankee-luis-fonsi-bieber-despacito-remix-billboard-singles-charts

This song was huge even before they added Bieber to the remix. Pop with touches of bachata romantic softness . Apparently the biggest Spanish language crossover since the Macarena

Jazz critic Larry Blumenfeld on the Cubans at Jazzfest in New Orleans this year--

• A 150-strong Cuban delegation energized jazzfest in profound and varied ways. Los Van Van rocked the Congo Square stage, as did Adonis y Osain Del Monte. But mostly, The Cuban Cultural Exchange Pavilion was the magnet for anyone with ears, hips and a heart. (The ropa vieja in back wasn’t bad, either.) Standout shows here (and on other stages) came from rapper Telmary y Habana Sana and singer Daymé Arocena.

• Though roughly a dozen performances at jazzfest (and a few outside the Fair Grounds) percussionist and singer Pedrito Martinez was an unstoppable engine of power and ingenuity, leading his own quartet and co-leading a Rumba Project with percussionist Román Díaz. Their Rumba Project—different in each of its several iterations—was simply the place to be within jazzfest’s swarm of must-see shows.

http://blogs.artinfo.com/blunotes/2017/05/in-around-the-2017-new-orleans-jazz-heritage-festival/

RIP bassist for the Fania All-Stars and many others Sal Cuevas.

RIP. Dude played with everyone in NY from late 70s to so point in 80s .

Wiki take --

While maintaining the traditional flavor and concepts of authenticity within Latin music, he managed to fuse all those other "worlds" into his bass playing technique resulting in the creation of a completely unique style. On some recordings for instance, he would play very intricate horn section lines or phrases on the bass in unison with the horns, which until then was virtually unheard of within the genre, as was his funky bass slapping and string snapping technique which today has become a norm for bassist within Latin "salsa" music thanks to Sal. He also incorporated the technique of "tapping" in his Latin bass playing.

a few reggaeton tracks i've been digging a lot :

karol g ft ozuna - hello (it's from late last year, but i only discovered it recently and it's great)
wisin ft ozuna - escapate conmigo
justin quiles - egoista
j balvin - sigo estrañandote

previews for yandel ft farrusko - despacio are very promising as well.

Saw Wisin y Yandel years ago, but have lost track since they started doing more solo efforts.

I should see this:

Fri. June 9 7:30– 9:00 p.m. at Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC for free |movie-- Fania All-Stars: Live in Africa
New York City’s legendary salsa group performs before the Muhammad Ali/George Foreman fight

I think Celia Cruz was there with them. There's a new album out of the African performers from that concert btw.

what's the album title?

new double CD called Zaire 74: the African Performers (Wrasse)

gracias

NY Times Popcast hosted by Jon Caramanica (that I have not listened to yet) . Headline on the page--Latin Pop Thrives, No Bieber Required

Popcast

excerpt from the intro to it

The last few years have seen numerous shifts in the sound of Spanish-language pop: Colombian reggaeton (J Balvin, Maluma) giving a bright sheen to the Puerto Rican original; Dominican dembow (El Alfa) emerging as an eccentric counterweight to reggaeton; and in the last couple of years, Latin trap (Fuego, Bad Bunny), a Spanish-language take on American hip-hop, growing in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the United States.

On this week’s Popcast, for a conversation about Latin music’s speedy and constant evolution, Mr. Caramanica is joined by Isabelia Herrera, the music editor of Remezcla, and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, the culture editor of Jezebel.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/arts/music/popcast-latin-pop-despacito.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmusic&action=click&contentCollection=music®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

karol g ft ozuna - hello (it's from late last year, but i only discovered it recently and it's great)

This has that Colombian pop-reggaeton flavor. Shakira's latest has some songs that sound a bit like this (and vice versa)

https://scontent.fbed1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/19029236_10155455482208278_522506473722757720_n.jpg?oh=c57fa696ea13a458b055121be52be4a5&oe=59E0AF1D

wacky cover art

x-post to me-

Missed Karol G. at an El Zol radio station fest in a football stadium parking lot this past Sunday. Video clip the station tweeted looked good. #veranozol

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/11/16/arts/ap-us-music-latin-grammys.html

I like Uruguay’s Jorge Drexler—pop rooted in folk and Brazilian bossa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpG5dR3cp9w

Awwww

That’s what the Salsa Dura DJ at Terraza played to ring in 2019.

From the NPR jazz critics poll, the separate Latin Jazz category--I have only heard the Sanabria and the Palmieri efforts, but gonna try to listen to some of the others (although that may lead me to come back here complaining that Latin Jazz is stuck in a rut and seems so formulaic

Latin
1. David Virelles, Igbó Alákorin (The Singer's Grove), Vol. I & II (Pi)
Votes: 21
A vibrant compendium in which Virelles disinters the rich musical traditions of his hometown Santiago de Cuba. Unexpectedly, his boldest album. The 35-year-old pianist has spent the last decade channeling Afro-Cuban folklore through a jazz prism, producing records that operate as open-ended mysteries. Here, refreshingly, he eschews abstraction in favor of fealty to the past. Though the traditions Virelles explores are fading from Cuban culture, this effort, fiercely rhythmic and thrumming with energy, is deeply alive. —Matthew Kassel

2. (tie) Dafnis Prieto Big Band, Back to the Sunset (Dafnison) 12
2. (tie) Miguel Zenón, Yo Soy La Tradición (Miel) 12
4. Bobby Sanabria, West Side Story Reimagined (Jazzheads) 8
5. Carlos Henriquez, Dizzy Con Clave (RodBros Music) 7
6. Eddie Palmieri, Full Circle (Ropeadope) 6
7. Elio Villafranca, Cinque (ArtistShare) 5

The Virelles album is on Bandcamp but not Spotify. Haven’t checked where else. Virelles went back to Cuba and recorded with elders, including vocalists I think, for this. 1 track I heard on Bandcamp was nice enough in a very old-school Cuban way. More dance and traditional than jazz.

Isn’t it time for a new Rolling thread?

I guess so. I resisted in the past since not too many folks post, and I wasn’t keeping up the genres represented, but I guess yearly threads do make some sense. Not a lot of new salsa these days that I follow; Latin Jazz hangs on, while reggaeton and bachata seem to thrive, and Latin Trap has become very big

I say go for it!

Ok, here it is:

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2019: Reggaeton, Salsa, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Bachata, Merengue, and more