Latin music begins with the drum. It sings, dances, composes, improvises and tells the story of the song. Many of our favorite tunes are melodies transposed from the murmurs of a talking drum. But only a few drummers are allowed to "lead" the band - names such as Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaría. This month, in its now annual parade of releases, the World Circuit/ Nonesuch team who brought you the Buena Vista Social Club presents the Europe-based Cuban percussionist Angá Díaz.
Díaz's new album is called "Echu Mingua," after the Yoruban god Elegguá, often thought of as the guardian of the crossroads, sometimes the trickster. He's the one who haunted Robert Johnson's dreams, made Thelonius Monk get up from his piano and spin slowly in place. Díaz calls "Echu Mingua" a "religious service" of sorts, and it serves the purpose of guarding the crossroads between Cuban son, rumba, jazz, hip-hop and maybe even what Izzy Sanabria once called "salsa."
A gifted conga player, Díaz has an impressive track record: He began with the legendary Afro-Cuban jazz band Irakere; put in time with jazz experimentalists Steve Coleman and Roy Hargrove; anchored Juan de Marcos' Afro-Cuban All Stars; and made a singular impression on bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" López's 2001 solo effort, one of the best Buena Vista spin-off albums. Díaz's presence contributed greatly to that album's forward-looking avant-garde edge.
"Echu Mingua" has a similar, live- in-the-studio feel to "Cachaíto." The resulting music is decidedly "Freeform" (the name of a hip-hop-inflected jam session), with several stops and starts in rhythm, style and influence. Tracks such as the flamenco-tango inspired "Ode Mar- tima" seem better suited for experimental dance than salsa, and "Conga Carnaval" sounds like Los Van Van partying on a Brazilian tour.
You can find the full review here
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Bajofondo Tango Club
Bajofondo Tango Club, a tango-meets-electronic-music project directed by Gustavo Santaolalla, came aboard Friday in the Allen Room as a satellite event in Lincoln Center's festival for the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov.
Mr. Santaolalla is a leader in the international movement to widen pop music: an Argentine rock musician who in the 1990's became one of the world's great record producers - Café Tacuba's brilliant "Reves/Yosoy" is sufficient proof - and more recently one of the film industry's favorite soundtrack composers. (His score for "Brokeback Mountain" is an Academy Award nominee this year.)
You can find the full review here
Mr. Santaolalla is a leader in the international movement to widen pop music: an Argentine rock musician who in the 1990's became one of the world's great record producers - Café Tacuba's brilliant "Reves/Yosoy" is sufficient proof - and more recently one of the film industry's favorite soundtrack composers. (His score for "Brokeback Mountain" is an Academy Award nominee this year.)
You can find the full review here
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Interview with Emmanuel Jal
No singer in the world fits the label "soul rebel" better than the Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal, who launches a UK tour in Manchester this month. This former boy-soldier now sings in the service of the Christian church. His album Ceasefire, nominated for a BBC Radio 3 world music award, is, he says, "my way of passing on the message that has been in my heart for a long time: simply, peace and love. Our land is big, and there's plenty for people to share. We don't have to kill each other."
His voice is light, sincere and boyish as he talks about his short but eventful life. His earliest memories are of war songs: "Men chanting, women ululating, songs to celebrate victory, and to console them for the loved ones they lost." The drum-backed music of the villages was a peaceful kind of rap, he says, but in his town the music was for war.
You can find the full interview here
His voice is light, sincere and boyish as he talks about his short but eventful life. His earliest memories are of war songs: "Men chanting, women ululating, songs to celebrate victory, and to console them for the loved ones they lost." The drum-backed music of the villages was a peaceful kind of rap, he says, but in his town the music was for war.
You can find the full interview here
Bob Brozman, Blues Reflex
What happens when someone creative enough combines Delta blues with music from the Pacific Islands? The result is Bob Brozman's Blues Reflex. Even though the adjective "eclectic" linked to music has been used so much that it's been killed, left to rot, then buried, dug up, cremated and reformed with water and glue 10 times over, the style of Blues Reflex is just that: eclectic.
You can find the full review here
You can find the full review here
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Debashish Bhattacharya, Calcutta Slide Guitar
Now here's a great musical idea. Take the gorgeous musical tradition that is Indian raga - with all its richness, complexity and subtlety - and, instead of playing the raga on a sitar, play it on specially modified instruments based on the Hawaiian slide guitar.
You can find the full review here
You can find the full review here
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