Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2022: Reggaeton, Salsa, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Bachata, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx

Listening to Nio Garcia, Puerto Rican reggaeton singer and dancer who’s on tour in US in April. He’s ok. Most songs are a bit formulaic

Daddy Yankee is retiring.

put his number in the rafters!

Yes ! ( after a cup of coffee got your nod to baseball Yankees getting numbers retired.)

Rosalia shouted out Daddy Yankee and other early reggaeton acts in a New York Times article

s. “I listened to Don Omar, Ivy Queen, Lorna, Yankee, Zion & Lennox since I was at least 13,” she said. “This is part of my experience.”

https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/events/listening-to-the-forgotten-archival-research-methods-in-music.html

MARCH 31, 2022 | 12:30—2:00 PM EST
a zoom chat w/ Rosa Marquetti, the author behind the web resource Desmemoriados: Historias de la música cubana; Chano Pozo: La vida (1915-1948);the forthcoming book on Celia Cruz, Celia en Cuba (1925-1960), in Spanish but simultaneously translated into English

https://www.kennedy-center.org/video/digital-stage/jazz/2022/arturo-ofarill-afro-latin-jazz-cornell-west/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=22MJMingusEM1&utm_content=version_A&pid=6235679&promocode=461235

Arturo Ofarill & Cornell West 6pm stream on Kennedy Center youtube

Oh yeah, saw something about that over the weekend, thanks for the reminder.

I am 4 to 5 or so hours from Queens NY but keep getting IG ads for April 2 "Tripleta Salsero"-Rafu Warner, Mayito Rivera (ex-Los Van Van), Osvaldo Roman (ex-Puerto Rican Power) in Queens , Looks like you have to go to eventbrite or tickeri for specific location

jArturo & Co. streaming right now on FB.

This is kind of great watching Cornell West interact with the band.

Cornel.

Helping family, missed Cornel & Arturo.

Arturo and band and Cornell West show is archived it appears

https://www.kennedy-center.org/video/digital-stage/jazz/2022/arturo-ofarill-afro-latin-jazz-cornell-west/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=22MJMingusEM1&utm_content=version_A&pid=6235679&promocode=461235

https://soundsandcolours.com/articles/cuba/premiere-harold-lopez-nussa-mixes-reggaeton-and-latin-jazz-on-first-taster-off-new-album-51973/

2020 article about Cuban Latin jazz pianist Harold Lopez Nussa incorporating Reggaeton into a track.

I wonder if there are others trying to do so?

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, March 15, 2022 4:34 PM (two weeks ago)

I have struck out on trying to find any other Latin Jazz musicians who incorporate reggaeton. But I guess it's like jazz, in that some jazz musicians do like current hiphop and r'n'b but not too many try to incorporate it in their sound. Trying to meld live instrument music with programmed beat music isn't easy

ALBERTO BARROS EN NEW YORK !
Sat, Apr 2 – Sun, Apr 3
Melrose Ballroom, 3608 33rd St
Queens, NY

Colombian salsa singer whose music I don't know

Just seeing something about the passing of a Baby Bass player named Joe Santiago with whom I was not really familiar.

Google tells me Santiago once played with Eddie Palmieri, but I don't know the name either . RIP

Join the World Music Institute on Monday, April 11th at 6PM ET for an At Home livestream event in exploration of Changüí: The sound of Guantánamo, the acclaimed and historic collection of recordings of the Guantánamo region’s unique and authentic party music. The live streamed-event will feature a discussion with the music journalist and producer behind the collection, Gianluca Tramontana, and Grammy Award-winning composer, pianist, educator and founder of the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, Arturo O’Farrill, followed by a Q&A with attendees.

https://www.pe.com/2022/04/07/coachella-2022s-expansive-latino-presence-reflects-years-long-embrace-of-a-more-divers

Is the glass half full or half empty. Saw some grumbling about the main stage not including enough Latinx headliners

RIP El Tosco

http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2022/04/18/fallecio-el-tosco-director-de-la-orquesta-ng-la-banda/

for those who want more info re him, the director of NG La Banda .

I saw the singer from NG La Banda with his own band in 2015 I think.

Gerardo Contino y Los Habaneros was the group I saw in a now gone place in Arlington, VA

Issac Delgado also used to sing for Jose Luis El Tosco Cortes group Ng La Banda

Seen both of those singers, but never saw El Tosco.

Me either

Last-minute notice: Tierra Sagrada will be screened virtually at 1 pm eastern today (Sunday) as part of the 20th Annual Pop Conference, followed at ~3:05 pm by a conversation with me and Pablo Herrera.

Oh missed that

What?

You missed your own conversation?

Ha . Don’t tell Ned S I shared that accidentally on internet.

Ned Sublette wants people to see his movie, but just to email about it , I think. Or something like that

https://latinalternative.com/

Conference on twitch April 27 to 29th

many of those panels are geared towards musicians and making it in the industry, but a few things aren't

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/ruben-blades-to-receive-harvard-arts-medal-on-april-30/

The 5:30 p.m. ceremony, presented by the Office for the Arts and the Harvard Board of Overseers, will include a discussion with Blades moderated by Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor and 2017 Harvard Arts Medal recipient John Lithgow ’67, Ar.D. ’05, and performances by the Harvard Jazz Band led by Yosvany Terry.

...This summer, Blades will join the Chick Corea Spanish Heart Band tour as a vocalist. Other upcoming projects include an album of boleros with the Editus group, a production with his songs adapted to Brazilian music with Boca Livre, and the album “Salsa Big Band Vol. I and II” with Roberto Delgado.

new Bad Bunny

https://remezcla.com/music/listen-bad-bunny-un-verano-sin-ti-new-album-music-video-watch-moscow-mule/

Panel Discussion: "Cuban and Puerto Rican Roots in Latin Jazz"
SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2022 at 5:30 PM
IN-PERSON EVENT (FREE)
Roberto Fonseca will join a panel of experts, including educator, percussionist and bandleader Fran Vielma, Puerto Rican trombonist and bandleader William Cepeda, trombonist, author, and ethnomusicologist Chris Washburne, and Claudia Morales from the Library’s Music Division in a discussion of the influences and roots of Latin jazz.
Saturday May 14, 2022. Doors at 5:00pm. Panel Discussion at 5:30pm. Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Whittall Pavilion.

If you go tell Chris I sent you, although I haven’t seen him in so long maybe he forgot about me.

I do follow up on social media so I knew he was doing these talks.

Cool. If I make it, will do. Been busy with family stuff a lot lately, and missing music stuff. I want to ask em if they have heard the touches of merengue and mambo on a couple songs on the new Bad Bunny album.

Seeing on twitter some folks expressing disappointment with the new Bad Bunny. I still haven’t heard the whole thing . New York Times has a new interview with him

it is too long and some tracks are def duds (i.e. the common problem for many high-profile releases these days), i've only listened once so far tho

It is long but it's a strategy copied from Drake to maximize his streaming numbers, everything points out that he succeeded at it. He'll dethrone Ed Sheeran as the #2 most streamed artist on spotify in a couple of weeks.

Imo Bad Bunny isn't the real highlight in most of the tracks in here, the production choices and collaborations are what really shine through. Not as immediate or as club friendly as his past albums but there's several songs in here which are his most interesting sounding yet.

Only song which sounds as an immediate hit is 'Callaita' but it's actually a re-recording of his breakthrough single and one of his most popular songs. I wonder if him dropping big labels and wanting streaming money to himself has something to do with it, like what Taylor Swift did.

"Andrea" is becoming of my favorite song of him. It actually reminds me of Passionfruit a bit, so maybe he's not only copying Drake's marketing strategy but some of his musical direction as well.

Love that it's a political song about the murder of Andrea Ruiz Costas - which is something I didn't expect thematically in a Bad Bunny album - and I love the final minute where Buscabulla seem to take control of the song and make it sound like it's their own thing.

Actually the other collaborations like Bomba Stereo and The Marias make a really good job of mixing their styles with Bad Bunny as well.

“callaita” is one of the best songs ever. the original beat and vocal are so much warmer. it also might be a hair slower? wonder why he decided to re-record it

I finally listened to Bad Bunny album last night. Liked some of it , but yeah its long and will need to listen more and give it further attention. I like that musically he's trying different directions on some songs even if they don't always work.

from NY Times article--

On the mutant mambo of “Después de la Playa,” Bad Bunny sings on a live mic over the Dominican band Dahian el Apechao, echoing the style of the merengue experimentalist Omega El Fuerte. “Titi Me Preguntó,” a shape-shifting dembow track with a horror-movie synth outro, samples Kiko El Crazy, the pink-haired dembow eccentric.

“Un Verano Sin Ti” also contains collaborations with indie artists like the Marías and Bomba Estéreo, and plunges deeper into gauzy dream-pop textures and wistful synth interludes...The aural landscape is reminiscent of indietronica artists like M83, but Bad Bunny and his producers Tainy, MAG and La Paciencia immerse it in Caribbean gloss.

Both MAG and Bad Bunny were partially inspired by Buscabulla’s lush synth pop, and Bad Bunny said he listened to the duo’s 2020 album, “Regresa,” on repeat during quarantine.

“It was Easter Sunday and we got a call from a bunny,” the duo’s multi-instrumentalist, Luis Alfredo Del Valle, joked in a phone interview. On “Andrea,” Bad Bunny renders a portrait of a Puerto Rican woman hoping to live life on her own terms, and Buscabulla’s vocalist, Raquel Berríos, assumes the character’s voice. “I felt that the chorus had to carry a lot of weight about what it means to be a woman from the Caribbean,” Berríos said. “I had never worked this hard for a song.”...

“El Apagón” is a torch song that captures both the beauty and tragedy of Puerto Rican life. The track references the blackouts that persisted after a private consortium took over the island’s energy distribution last year. But it also incorporates laugh-out-loud citations of old school reggaeton, including a salacious lyric from DJ Joe’s “Fatal Fantassy” mixtape. It even ends with a send-off for the mainland investors who have descended on the island in search of tax breaks, driving up home prices and displacing locals. “Que se vayan ellos,” sings Gabriela Berlingeri, Bad Bunny’s girlfriend. “Esta es mi playa/esta es mi tierra” (“Let them leave. This is my beach/this is my land”).

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/arts/music/bad-bunny-un-verano-sin-ti.html

N*d S*blette is doing a zoom talk Thursday night et on his Post-Mambo Sessions with Dr. Ben Lapidus, musician/author who wrote New York and the International Sound of Latin Music, 1940-1990 that was mentioned in the 2021 thread here (but I still haven't read) .

Cool. Think I've seen Ben Lapidus play tres with Mike Eckroth's Arsenio Rodriguez project but didn't really talk to him at all.

Which I think I said before, on last year's thread. It was a lot of fun, so bears repeating.

Thurs. May 12-

Los Van Van y Havana D’Primera @ Cococabana in Hyattsville, MD near DC

Have seen Cuban greats Los Van Van a few times and would like to go tonight, but more mundane things in life may get in the way

They're playing near me, too; I saw a poster hanging in one of the Colombian bakeries.

a brand new one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj86BVgsOzI
Bulin 47 x Flow 28 • Po po po

El Alfa got a bit of airplay for awhile on the Sirius XM Caliente station I listen to in the car sometimes. They play reggaeton and some salsa .

he gets a lot of airplay out of car speakers in brooklyn, but idk if they're listening to caliente

El Alfa’s “Gogo Dance”, mentioned way upthread, is #35 on the Fader’s 100 Best Songs of 2022 list.

El Alfa’s partnership with producer Chael Produciendo is 🪲🪲🪲

sorry for party rocking en español:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtc-ameWXNk
Tivi Gunz x Angel Dior x Young Gatillo x Dflow • Zuculento

some wonderful production choices on those Angel Dior tracks, I'm not too familiar with the genre but sounds very fresh

and that "aji titi"! makes me wanna sing "aji titi" all day

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/arts/music/bad-bunny-rosalia-latin-pop.html

In 2022, Latin Pop Thrived on Innovation. Again.
Bad Bunny led a takeover, not a crossover, in a year that featured standout releases from Rosalía, Rauw Alejandro, iLe, Carla Morrison and Lucrecia Dalt.

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2023: Reggaeton, Salsa,Bachata, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx