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

Wished I liked his own vocals more.

https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/event/the-bad-bunny-symposium-thinking-with-bad-bunny-beibi-2/

Bad Bunny symposium live from NY today Friday and Saturday. On zoom as well

Thursday, May 18, 2023, 8 pm eastern: Post mambo Sessions presents another round of Afro-Cuban Rare Groove Listening Sessions with Pablo Herrera and Alexis El d'Boys, this one focused on recordings of Afro-Cuban sacred music.

This is a N*d S*blette thing

Saw that 60 year-old something Dominican salsa singer Jose Alberto El Canario is going to be in Virginia Beach in June when I am there. Over a decade ago saw him do a couple of great live shows. Have not kept up with him since.

Listening to Kiko El Crazy again tonight. Some of his relentless dembow from current second album, plus some of the first album that has some pop-reggaeton, edm, and a bit of more traditional Caribbean flavorings on certain tracks.

Gonna be away and miss dc area gig of Kiko el Crazy Friday night . I wrote a preview for local alt-weekly website

Kiko el Crazy has been sampled by Bad Bunny, quoted by Rosalia, and got an 8 from I. H in Pitchfork. Not too much other crossover attention. My preview of tonight’s gig is here with previews of other stuff

https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/605653/beetlejuice-rare-books-and-more-best-bets-for-may-18-24/

I missed another Ned S# online zoom thing on Cuban music

Sorry

Don't think I can make this but https://www.lincolncenter.org/series/lincoln-center-presents/latin-jazz-in-new-york-city-1920-1960

DC used to have plenty of panels like that too, but not in awhile

I remember when Jerry Gonzales showed up late for a Smithsonian panel, calmly strutting down the aisle with his horn in a beat up case, with punk rock like attitude

Picked up Camarão - The imaginary Soundtrack to a Brazilian Western Movie 1964 - 1974 on Analog Africa at the weekend. Not quite the description I'd give the work. It's Brazilian Forro music though and it's great!

https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album/the-imaginary-soundtrack-to-a-brazilian-western-movie-1964-1974-analog-africa-nr-25

I remember when Jerry Gonzales showed up late for a Smithsonian panel, calmly strutting down the aisle with his horn in a beat up case, with punk rock like attitude

Picked up Camarão - The imaginary Soundtrack to a Brazilian Western Movie 1964 - 1974 on Analog Africa at the weekend. Not quite the description I'd give the work. It's Brazilian Forro music though and it's great!

If they were going to call it that they should at least have gone with the canonical Brazilian term for spaghetti western, "bangue bangue à Italiana".

I don't know why they called the compilation that - it doesn't sound like that and it wasn't conceived as that (as far as I know) - quite misleading. The music is great though - fun, emotional and catchy in all the right amounts

Vampisoul just put out Fruko Power Vol. 1, a collection of "rarities and deep album cuts 1970-74," and it's great. A lot of it is sourced from not-pristine vinyl, and it's been mastered for maximum blare.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3405044731_10.jpg

I only want to hear Fruko from the master tapes! Just kidding .

So the Sirius XM station caliente that plays reggaeton, Latin pop, bachata and salsa is now playing the Peso Pluma (from Mexico) w/ Eslabon Armado (cali) Mexican folky pop song "Ella Baila Sola"

Pluma is mentioned on a couple of other threads re Mexican regional music and corridos. He's crossing over to Latin pop and pop in general.

But he hung up on LA Times writer part way into interview when she asked him about his history with narco-corridos

Mexican singer Peso Pluma, 23, has quickly risen from TikTok sensation to the Coachella main stage with Becky G to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart — where last month, his starry-eyed folk ballad with California trio Eslabón Armado, “Ella Baila Sola,” or “She Dances Alone,” made history as the first regional Mexican song to reach No. 1....We’re about 20 minutes into our interview when I ask about the controversy surrounding his earlier songs — known as narcocorridos, a popular subgenre of Mexican folk music akin to gangsta rap — for which he’s been accused of glorifying local drug kingpins. Before I finish the question, Pluma utters “nah” and tosses his smartphone across the table. (His publicist told The Times that he “does not talk politics” with the press — but added that he ended the call because he needed a bathroom break.) We never did reconnect.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-05-22/peso-pluma-regional-mexican-ella-baila-sola

https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/323887-cuban-bassist-and-guitarist-juan-carlos-formell-died

Oh no, heart attack at 59

Oh no, heart attack at 59

His Dad founded Los Van Van and he was the bassist in recent years

wow.

Was he the bassist in Los Van Van or on his own? Actually I was more familiar with him as a guitar player. I guy I know from my neighborhood often played bass for him.

Oh that link says he did join Los Van Van.

I can ask I guess.

Oh, all this happened on Friday at Lehman College. Another friend played that gig on Thursday.

Some kind of festival.

He was both a guitarist doing his own projects and a bassist with Los Van Van.

Yes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/arts/music/juan-carlos-formell-dead.html

NY Times obit of Juan Carlos Formell with the tragic details of his collapse onstage

So I like Eladio Carrion ‘s trap rap en Espanol best when he is more melodic and has a guest I like . He has lots of collaboration cuts .

He’s got a nearly sold out show near me Saturday, but I have a family thing

Ben Lapidus doing a CD release show in my neighborhood tomorrow!

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

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

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/

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

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

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*

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

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.

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

Cumbia seems to be the crossover style of the moment for English speakers

Also seeing teknocumbia dance nights

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

Cool! Only yesterday I was trying to explain judíos maravillosos to someone.

Larry Harlow is definitely mentioned in that article. I love that lead sentence

His brother too!

Like that the headline uses the term "record man."