≡ Category: 1990s, Afro Cuban Jazz, Essential, Jazz Funk, Latin Jazz, Music Reviews, Post Bop, World Fusion | ≅ Leave a Comment
JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Omar Sosa is up to his old tricks on Free Roots, trying to cram the entire African diaspora into every tune. Amazingly, it doesn’t just sound like a freeway pileup, which is due to Sosa’s amazing skills as a pianist, composer, and arranger.
For example, on Travieso, hiphop collides with Latin, Afrocuban […]
≡ Category: 1950s, Afro Cuban Jazz, Latin Jazz, Music Reviews, Recommended | ≅ Leave a Comment
JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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This oddly named album isn’t a live date, but never mind. Cal Tjader’s Latin Concert is aptly named in at least one way. It’s Latin jazz, not jazz with a Latin lilt. The rhythms are authentic, as well they might be considering that Tjader is using Mongo Santamaria on congas and […]
≡ Category: 1950s, Afro Cuban Jazz, Hard Bop, Latin Jazz, Music Reviews | ≅ Leave a Comment
JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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I’ve got to admit, I’m fond of Art Blakey. I like the way he ostentatiously plays constrasting cross rhythms every chance he gets. He’s a highly theatrical showoff, which is not a criticism. Besides, he’s probably the drummer who best understands Thelonious Monk, which definitely earns him brownie points with me.
Aside […]
≡ Category: 2000s, Afro Cuban Jazz, Music Reviews, Post Bop, Recommended | ≅ Leave a Comment
JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Yet another jazz pianist from Cuba, Elio Villafranca is very much his own man. He is not a showoff like Chucho Valdez, and he isn’t wild and crazy like Omar Sosa. Villafranca limits his influences to Afro-Carribean music and American jazz. Again, unlike Omar Sosa, you don’t get sections which are […]
≡ Category: 2000s, Afro Cuban Jazz, Essential, Music Reviews, World Fusion | ≅ Leave a Comment
JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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If you own any one Omar Sosa release from his early period, it should probably be Prietos (on Sosa’s own Ota Records label). It is the most extreme of his African Diaspora releases.
In Omar Sosa’s early career, he seemed determined to jam every corner of the African diaspora into his recordings, […]
≡ Category: 2000s, Afro Cuban Jazz, Classics That I Hate, Music Reviews, Post Bop | ≅ Leave a Comment
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CLASSICS THAT I HATE
Let me just say it straight out: pianist Chucho Valdes’ New Conceptions is awful, almost unlistenable.
Why am I so repulsed by New Conceptions?
Perhaps it’s the selfconsciously “soulful” ballads, which drip syrup but not a drop of genuine feeling. Or perhaps it’s the ghastly rendition of […]