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

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.

the tickeri website lists Latin shows all over . So Los Van Van is at La Boom in Brooklyn Friday, and XL in elizabeth, NJ Saturday

https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-12-1963-latin-american-charity-game-is-polo-grounds-grand-finale/

So while I knew of the Fania show at Yankee Stadium in the 70s , I didn’t know that before a Latin American Allstars baseball game at the old Polo Grounds in NY, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and La Lupe performed in 1963.

https://www.salsaforums.com/threads/pianist-sergio-noro%C3%B1a-has-died.41709/

Cuban timba pianist Sergio Norona has died

x-post - I watched the Ben Lapidus presentation on Latin music in NYC tonight. Lots of details and cool photos. He jumped around chronologically though which was a bit hard to follow.

He's playing Saturday night @ Mi Salsa Kitchen, a Cuban place on Lower East side

reggaeton dembow rhythm as used around the world

https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/dembow-rhythm-list

nice caribbean pan steel drum comes in at one point on the reggaeton pop track by Zion & Lennox and Danny Ocean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHzcZhlgK5U

Also liking Nesi & El Alfa "Mi Bom Bom (chocolate)"

and hipster fave Reyna Tropical (afro-Mexican tropical pop)

x-post - nice caribbean pan steel drum comes in at one point on the reggaeton pop track by Zion & Lennox and Danny Ocean

great summer song "Brisra"

"Brisa" I mean (Breeze in English I think)

early heads up --for Sat. June 25 event at the Smithsonian Folklife Fest on the national mall in DC (& on Youtube)--

* A tribute to Puerto Rican master plenero, percussionist, educator, and community leader Héctor René “Tito” Matos Otero who recently & suddenly passed (as noted upthread) . He played plena, an Afro-Puerto Rican drums genre.W/ Caribbean jazz fusion by Oakland-based John Santos Sextet and Friends; orchestrated plena by New York City-based Los Pleneros de la 21; the high-energy next-generation ensemble Los Pleneros de la Cresta ; & a collective of voices presented by Plenazo Cangrejero. The host is Libertad Guerra, a community leader and long-time friend. Video clips featuring Tito’s wife and son, Mariana Reyes and Marcelo Matos,will be included . 6:30 to 9:15 pm @ Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the national mall(& on Youtube)

Saw some of a free Afro-latin fest in DC w/ Cuban drummer Yissy Garcia, Cuban vocalist Dayme Arocena, and Dominican Yasser Tejeda. Liked some of Tejada set. Was disappointed by Garcia who at times seemed too jam band jazzy. She also backed Arocena which kind of detracted from that set, as her drumming was too over the top. Had fun watching folks line dance to a dj playing pop reggaeton and Elvis Crespo in between live sets

I wrote about the mighty Fruko for Burning Ambulance this week.

Haven’t even clicked yet but awesome news!

Just randomly put on El Violento because of that. So good.

Joe Arroyo died young at 55 in 2011. Glad I saw him a couple of times between 2004 and his death. His voice was kinda raspy, he looked like he was in bad health, but he and his band (who did Latinized Motown choreography) sounded pretty good. But yeah, need to go back and listen to Arroyo with Fruko recordings.

RIP Willie Sotelo pianist and most recent music director for El Gran Combo from cancer

https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/willie-sotelo-dead-el-gran-combo-pianist-dies-obit-1235081678/

Still listening to El Violento.

RIP Willie Soleto.

Some Fruko discussion here.

Thanks. Listening to this song now:

"Fruko El Grande" ("Fruko The Big") is the name of the album I'm talking about. It has one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) salsa hits made in Colombia. The second cut from side B, called "El Preso" ("The Prisoner") is a song that not one single Colombian can say hasn't heard at least once in his/her life. Not sung by Joe Arroyo but Wilson Manyoma "Saoko", the other lead singer in the band.

Cuban band Los Van Van were playing US gigs in May and now its former Los Van Van member Pupe to come with his band Los Que Son Son around the week of July 4th. I saw Pupe and Los Que Son Son, his timba band, once and they were great.

Now coming to SOBs in NYC on July 1st, DC on 2nd, XL in Jersey on 3rd, Los Angeles on July 8, San Francisco on 9th, Louisville, Kentucky on 15th, Chicago on 16h

SALSA TIMBA FESTIVAL - PUPY LOS QUE SON SON-EL NORO
Saturday, Jul 2, 2022 - Doors: 9:00pm
Karma DC Live Music Venue
2221 ADAMS PLACE NORTHEAST
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 20018

https://www.facebook.com/DD-Records-Arts-Entertainment-107917724118129

Pupy

I wasn't familiar with her work, but RIP ethnomusicologist Roberta L. Singer.

I was not either. But I see she did this cool "A South Bronx Latin Music Tale"

https://placematters.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/mambo.pdf

Just saw the Bobby Sanabria writeup of Roberta SInger on FB that some have shared there

Yes. That's how I saw it first.

I shared info about Singer on twitter as she was barely discussed there. As annoying as FB can be, it's a better site for some older rooted music genres.

Publicists are hyping US small club tour of Chilean folk-pop Pascuala Ilabaca and her band

I shared info about Singer on twitter as she was barely discussed there. As annoying as FB can be, it's a better site for some older rooted music genres.

https://2022.jazz.org/bobby-sanabria looks really good. Don't know if I can get a virtual ticket.