Title: Reina de Todas las Fiestas

Artist: Chico Trujillo

Label: Barbés Records

Format: CD

Release date: June 23, 2015

The group Chico Trujillo was formed fifteen years ago in the little town of Villa Aleman, just outside the colorful seaside city of Valparaíso, Chile. In informal gatherings, singer Aldo “Macha” Asenjo and his punk band La Floripondio played old cumbia hits from before the Pinochet dictatorship. The more they played together, the more they began to create a cohesive sound, and before long a new band was formed. Chico Trujillo has gone on to become one of the leading cumbia bands in the world, touring everywhere from Berlin to Chicago and releasing six albums. Their latest effort, Reina de Todas las Fiestas, which translates to “Queen of All the Parties,” brings more upbeat cumbia songs with a new “pan Latin American sound” that includes “an Andean edge, some Argentinean slang, and Mexican fans.”

Some of the standout collaborations on the album are with Banda Wiracocha, Kevin Johansen, and Rebel Diaz. Banda Wiracocha is a thirty-piece brass band from Iquique in the North of Chile. Their specialty carnival music brings a big-band feel to the title track “Reina de todas la fiestas.”  Argentinian pop star Kevin Johansen is featured on “Los nervious que te di” with the chorus sung in unison by all nine members of Chico Trujillo. Rebel Diaz is a hip-hop group from the Bronx led by two Chilean brothers, and they are featured on “Chatito,” a slower cumbia track with a great electronic keyboard part.

Chico Trujillo gave the album a high bar when naming it Reina de Todas las Fiestas, but through their international collaborations, years of experience, and larger than life sound, they proved themselves once again as the kings of cumbia and the queen of all the parties.

Reviewed by Anna Polovick

Listen on Spotify here.

Title: Sagüita Al Bate

Artist: Leticia Rodriguez Garza

Label: CD Baby

Format: CD, MP3

Release date: August 16, 2014

Leticia Rodriguez grew up in Austin, Texas surround by Mexican musicians. Her aunt, Eva Garza, was one of the first internationally recorded bilingual artists to crossover in the United States. Eva recorded over two hundred songs for various labels and starred in more than 20 films during the 1940s and 1950s. She served as the primary influence for Leticia Rodriguez’s latest EP, Sagüita Al Bate, to the point where Leticia decided to add “Garza” on to her performance name.

Leticia Rodriguez Garza’s songs have a variety of Latin and Afro-Caribbean influences, but have the strongest roots in Mexican, Cuban, and Argentinian music. In addition to being a singer, Leticia is a dancer and choreographer, as well as the producer, writer, and director of the one-woman show she calls Canciones for Generations. The show is also inspired by her aunt, Eva Garza, and eventually led Leticia to create her first album La Americana, which is her tribute to some of Eva’s most influential and popular tracks.

Sagüita Al Bate has one new song along with three previously released tracks from La Americana. The new song, “Sagüita Al Bate,” was her aunt’s greatest hit and helped Eva cross over to audiences in the United States. Leticia describes it is a traditional Cuban folk song that became popular in the 1950s. Leticia and her band perform it as a combination of cumbia and salsa. The song features trumpet and tenor and baritone saxophones, which add an exciting energy. Leticia fearlessly shows the variety of her vocals in this track, adding in different exclamations, tones, and dynamics throughout:

“Milonga Sentimental” and “La Cumbancha” were both originally slow and dramatic songs, meant for dancing the tango and the waltz, respectively. Leticia puts her Cuban-Mexican spin on them, and lightens them up with new horns and rhythm patterns. “Milonga Sentimental” includes syncopated piano fills and accordion played by Carlos Alvarez. On “La Cumbancha,” Leticia is joined by singer Lisa Morales, and together they create beautiful harmonies and accompany Al Gomez on the trumpet and Grammy nominated guitarist Joe Reyes.

Leticia ends the EP with “Incertidumbre,” a passionate ballad in the style of a traditional bolero. She decided not to change the song from its original version, as she loved the arrangement that Eva Garza’s daughter, Rosa Maria Bojalil, had uncovered.

On Sagüita Al Bate, Leticia Rodriguez Garza shows not only her talent as a vocalist and arranger, but emphasizes the importance and beauty of bringing music from the past into present, through both preservation and reinterpretation.

Reviewed by Anna Polovick

Title: La Rumba SoYo

Artist: Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca

Label: Cumbancha

Formats: CD, MP3

Release date:  June 24, 2014

A native of Congo-Kinshasa now based in Los Angeles, Ricardo Lemvo and his band Makina Loca have become known for their fusion of Congolese and Cuban music, deftly blending rumba and soukous with son and salsa.  Fully embracing the concept of world music, their new album La Rumba SoYo was recorded on three continents and four countries—the U.S., Canada, France and Angola—and is sung in a mix of Portuguese, Spanish and indigenous Angolan languages.

A fan of Cuban music since his youth, Lemvo could often be found immersed in his cousin’s large collection of vintage Cuban LPs.  More recently he has been mastering Angolan styles and rhythms such as samba and kizomba, and these feature prominantly on three of the album’s tracks written in collaboration with Angolan songwriters: the humorous “Dikulusu” (A Heavy Cross) about a man who complains that alimony payments are ending up in the pocket of his ex-wife’s husband, the rumba “Padre George” about a man who seeks advice from his priest, and “Simone CM,” a kizomba love song similar in style to the Caribbean zouk.

On the title track, Makina Loca aim to kick off summer celebrations with a song tailor made for partying. Drawing heavily from Caribbean merengue and Congolese soukous, the band creates infectious dance rhythms that will lift your spirits while you kick up your heels.  Other album highlights include the festive opening song “Santo António do Zaire,” blending Cuban son montuno and Congolese rumba, and the salsa “El Caburnacho” which fully utilizes the band’s terrific horn section.

Popular performers in salsa clubs from Cartageña to Tokyo, Makina Loca are touring the U.S. and Canada this summer in support of their new album. In July and August you can catch them live in California, Chicago, Ann Arbor, and London, Ontario.

Reviewed by Brenda Nelson-Strauss

Title: ¡Saoco! The Bomba and Plena Explosion in Puerto Rico Vol. 1 (1954-1966) & ¡Saoco! Bomba, Plena and the Roots of Salsa in Puerto Rico Vol. 2 (1955-1967)

Artist: Various

Label: Vampisoul

Formats: CD

Release dates: June 19, 2012 (vol.1), July 23, 2013 (vol.2)

Puerto Rico is not only known for it luscious landscapes and the coquí. The island is also home to two highly influential music genres, bomba and plena, both of which served as a backbone of musical experimentation during the golden era of salsa.  During the 1950s and 1960s, various Puerto Rican artists set the stage for future integrations of Latin American and Afro-Caribbean dance rhythms and provided a framework for the emergence of New York salsa.  Bomba and plena puertorriqueña—two highly percussive musical traditions—achieved commercial success in the field of tropical music during the 1950s and became the main precursor towards the development of Nuyorican salsa. ¡Saoco! The Bomba and Plena Explosion in Puerto Rico, Vol. 1 (1954-1966) and Bomba, Plena and the Roots of Salsa in Puerto Rico, Vol. 2 (1955-1967) are outstanding compilations of popular Boricua music.  In these volumes listeners will be pleased with the selection of hits from a pantheon of Puerto Rican musicians.

Often mentioned together, bomba and plena reflect the African heritage of Puerto Rico.  Roots of bomba lie in the African slave communities of the 17^th century.  Originally a genre for percussion and voice it features Barriles—a barrel shaped membranophone much larger and deeper in sound than the Cuban conga—maracas, and an idiophone that is sometimes referred to as a catá, cuá or fuá. In contrast, plena developed one basic rhythm, features stringed instruments, and is charcterized by the Spanish lyrical poetic tradition whose typical metric combination is the décima espinela.

During a time that many Caribbean elites wished to hide their Afro-Caribbean heritage, vocalist Ismael Rivera celebrated it with his topical streets sounds direct from Puerto Rican neighborhoods.  Deeply percussive and oozing with African dialect, his vocal improvisations were virtuosic.  Competing with the soneos of his Cuban counterpart of the ‘50s, Benny Moré, no other place is his talent more apparent than his feature in “Caballero qué bomba” with Cortijo y su Combo.  Here, listeners will appreciate his skill as a bombero.

Other highlights of these volumes are the contributions of the tongue-twisting Mon Rivera.  Embodying his mayagüezana heritage, Mon Rivera introduced a new way of playing trombone; this “trombanga” sound replaced trumpets and saxophones with trombones and was key in the development of Nuyorican Salsa and Boogaloo. “Ron con coco” exemplifies this style.  The combination between the bomba rhythms and trombone moñas became popular on many of the tracks produced by the next generation of Nuyorican salsa trombone players (e.g., Willie Colon).

We have these trailblazing musical giants to thank for introducing the plena of the mixed-race, poor and working classes well as the primarily Afro-Puerto Rican vocal and percussive form, bomba, to the ballrooms of large hotels and the world stage.  Few compilation CDs like that of  that detail thoroughly the devethe ¡Saoco! volumes provide their listeners with the breadth and depth of the repertoire and valuable liner notes that detail thoroughly the development of the salsa genre—from a Puerto Rican perspective.  This extremely important set is essential for all collectors of Afro-Caribbean dance music.

Reviewed by Madelyn Shackelford Washington

Title: Border-Free

Artist: Chucho Valdés & the Afro-Cuban Messengers

Label: Jazz Village/Comanche Music

Formats: CD, MP3

Release date: July 9, 2013

Redefining the lines of Afro-Cuban secular and sacred music, Dionisio de Jesús Valdés Rodríguez has gifted the music world with his most recent album, Border-Free.  More commonly known as Chucho Valdés, this Afro-Cuban jazz giant’s bold production fuses elements of flamenco, Gnawa music of Morocco and classical music and arrives less than one year after the passing of his father, mentor, and master pianist Bebo Valdés.

Deeply rooted in the tradition of fundamental practice, Chucho, with his Afro–Cuban Messengers—who all equally match his level of technical ability, intensity and natural musicality—insinuate the importance of an introspective approach to music production.  Border-Free is an homage to significant players in Chucho’s life and upon listening to the 8 tracks that comprise the album, one can sense his great deal of pride in the ability to tell stories exemplifying the multifaceted nature of Afro Cuban identity.  Three tracks are family tributes: “Caridad Amaro” is dedicated to Chucho’s grandmother; “Pilar” composed for his mother, includes a quotation of J.S.Bach’s “Prelude in D Minor,” with hints of Miles Davis’s “Blue in Green;” and “Bebo” was recorded both in Havana and in Málaga, Spain where Chucho relocated to be close to his ailing father.  His composition “Afro-Comanche” serves as a call to action for students to examine the history surrounding events occurring in the 18th century that were integral in the mixing of Africans and Amerindians in Cuba.

Without a doubt, the most exciting features of the album are Valdes’ virtuosic improvisations.  Innovation will always remain the hallmark of the Valdes family of master pianists, but Chucho’s improvisations in Border-Free experiment with more esoteric means in the jazz idiom.  Free meter and extended rhythmic ostinatos interlaced with installations of clave, ebb and flow to fit with any meter with out losing the essence of the groove.  An astonishingly skillful grand master of piano, Chucho’s pristine, lightning fast runs and arpeggios titillate his listeners with each repetition. I can liken it to being hit in the face over and over with buckets of cool water on a hot day.  Only listening to Valdés’ polyrhythmic improvisations in Border-Free is like being happily greeted by musical masses of ecstatic sonic wondrousness flowing forth from his fingertips.

Border-Free is Valdés’ second release featuring the Afro-Cuban Messengers, a group of phenomenal Cuban musicians: Reynaldo Melián Alvarez (trumpet), Dreiser Durruthy Bombalé (batá drums and lead vocals), Rodney Barreto Yllarza (drums and vocals), Yaroldy Abreu Robles (percussion and vocals), and most appreciated for his improvisational ability is double bassist Angel Gastón Joya Perellada. From the Marsalis family of jazz, Branford Marsalis provides priceless support on three tracks, which, according to Chucho, have given color and strength to the new material.

The following video is from Valdes’ Comanche music detailing the making of Border Free:

Reviewed by Madelyn Shackelford Washington

Title: The Devil and the Diamond

Artist: Matuto

Label: Motema

Formats: CD, MP3

Release date: May 14, 2013

Matuto, a New York-based music project that blends Afro-Brazilian popular music and Appalachia-driven Americana, brings us twelve songs that provide a unique sonic experience in the album The Devil and the Diamond. Accordionist Rob Curto and bluegrass/jazz guitarist Clay Ross manage to create a space in which both the traditions of North American grassroots folk music and Recife’s forro and choro meet. This soulful musical stew, which tastes as if it had been cooking for generations, has been served by this group at festivals and concerts in West Africa, Europe, and across the United States.

The sound resulting from Matuto’s lab is a mature blend which seems to expand and update the musical legacy of MPB (Música Popular Brasileria), refreshing the relationship that for so many decades has existed between U.S. American folk musics and Brazil’s own musical heritage. Since the mid-20th century, Brazil’s popular musics, such as samba, choro, forro and bossa-nova, have been strongly influenced by US American popular musics. However, in the late 1960s and 1970s, a new musical movement emerged called MPB, which emphasized these traditional languages but with a stronger influence from North American genres, such as jazz, rock, folk, or pop. With world-class music figures such as Chico Buarque and Jorge Ben, MPB is probably one of the most listened to Brazilian styles around the globe. Even though guitars, fiddles and accordions are as recognizable to Braizilian audiences as they are to US American ones, Matuto seems to have taken this relationship to the next level.

Because of their historic relationship, MPB and American popular styles share common grounds, but also because of this history, they have their own separate identities. Matuto breaks that barrier by bringing together what had been kept separate, so far, by using exclusively English lyrics. Songs such as “Diamond” (track 2), present vocal styles and arrangements that resemble some kind of indie rock/funk atmosphere, which is supported by a samba-rock groove and violin improvisations that sound like a Santana electric guitar solo. “Drag Me Down” (track 8) is an interesting melding of Delta blues accordion with berimbau (a wire-stringed musical bow used to perform capoeira music) and pandeiro (Brazilian tambourine) lines that come from the traditional samba de roda styles, mixing together two very old traditions from the Black people of Northeastern Brazil and Southern United States.

These two songs, though, are just a small sample of the many musical shades that Matuto has ready for you, ranging from pop to straight-up samba beats. The following video is a sample of their most jazzy stuff (performed at the Kennedy Center) and their heavy forro beats (at the RecBeat Festival in Recife, Brazil):

Reviewed by Juan Sebastián Rojas E.

Title: Heritage

Artist: Angel D’Cuba

Label: self-released

Formats: CD, MP3

Release date: September 17, 2012

Chicago-based Cuban musician Angel D’Cuba (Angel Luis Badell), a singer and multi-instrumentalist as well as former member of the renowned Cuban band Mezcla, presents his first solo production, Heritage. This independent release features plenty of Chicago’s musical talents, such as drummer and percussionist Jean-Christopher Leroy, trumpet player Victor García, and sax player Steve Eisen. The whole album brings together a broad variety of rhythms, which reflect Angel’s experiences in Cuba and the United States: from Cuban and Caribbean rhythms, including timba, mozambique, cumbia, songo, guaracha,and even reggaeton, to that of African US-American music styles such as soul, funk, and jazz. The eleven tracks on the CD display mature arrangements that cleverly intertwine different sonorities in what seems to be an attempt to cover as many different sound fields as possible. Angels sings in many different styles in this album, demonstrating his experience and long musical career. Signature Cuban sounds, however, are deeply present in Angel’s voice, the electric bass lines, and the horn arrangements, most of which have the unique flavor of timba’s orchestral sound. Impeccable recording and post-production, a tight full-fledged band, original compositions, and arrangements full of flavor and spice, are the hallmarks of this album.

Here is a link where you can hear snippets of the whole production. Enjoy!

Reviewed by Juan Sebastián Rojas E.

Title: Mãe Carinhosa

Artist: Cesária Évora

Label: Lusafrica

Formats: CD, MP3

Release date: March 4, 2013

Cesária Évora, who passed away in December 2011, possessed a voice whose silken sorrow draped listeners in a slow moving fog of wistful emotions. Évora was widely known as the “Queen of Morna,” a Cape Verdean musical genre that has tints of Portuguese fado, Brazilian modhinas, and British sea shanties, but is entirely unique in its own ways thanks to the underlying West African percussion. The morna ensemble is usually comprised of percussion, clarinet, violin, guitar, piano, cavaquinho (a Portuguese four string guitar), and of course, a singer. The singer subtly commands the listener’s focus and attention with romantic lyrics of love, homesickness, migrant issues and, perhaps most engagingly saudade.

Saudade is a Portuguese word that is not directly translatable into music, but that described a longing for something that was loved but is gone, most likely never to return. Cesária Évora’s life was full of the kinds of experiences that would lead to strong feelings of saudade, a nostalgic yearning that coated every word she sang.

The following video features Cesária Évora performing her break-out hit “Sodade” (not featured on this CD), which is Cape Verdean Creole for “saudade”:

Born in Mindelo, São Vicente, Cape Verde, in 1941, Évora suffered the loss of her father at age seven, and then only three years later was sent by her mother to an orphanage. Évora had a lovely voice that caught the attention of a friend who convinced her at age 16 to begin singing in local taverns, which she parlayed into singing on Portuguese cruise ships by the 1960s.

In 1985, Évora was invited to perform in Lisbon, where she enraptured  music producer José da Silva. He invited her to record in Paris, eventually releasing her highly successful first album, and becoming her production partner for the rest of her career. Mãe Carinhosa is the first posthumous album of unreleased Évora tracks curated and produced by da Silva.

That there was a clear bond of affection between da Silva and Évora is evident in this collection, from the perfectly organized and selected tracklisting to the title of the album itself, which means “mother tenderness,” a title selected by da Silva “in tribute to her mother because she used to talk a lot about her.”

Mother tenderness could also apply to the way Évora approached the music on each of the thirteen songs. There is a quiet strength of expressivity in her voice that never sounds forced or forceful but rather subtly accepting of whatever life may bring. In spite of the expert performances from the musicians, Évora is always in the front of your mind. The way she would add a lilt to the end of a word, the world weary manner she would slow down at the end of phrases, the way she manages to dance above the accompaniment (such as on “Emigue Ingrote”) while keeping her voice smooth and grounded; all the elements of Évora’s performance show her as the master of song interpretation she was. Listening to her sing morna completely resets your mind to a space of deep feeling, regardless of whether or not you can understand the words she is saying.

Mãe Carinhosa is a perfect tribute to Cesária Évora and makes listeners feel their own sense of saudade for an artist who is gone, never to return. Luckily, we will always have these mementos, recordings of her beautiful spirit and voice.

Reviewed by Dorothy Berry

Title: Live From Stern Grove

Artist: Pete Escovedo

Label: Concord Picante/Stiletto Flats Music

Formats: CD, MP3

Release date: September 25, 2012

In his latest release, “Live from Stern Grove,” timbales master and bandleader Pete Escovedo, 77, demonstrates to the Latin jazz audiences that he is not done yet. In fact, he is greater than ever, accompanied by his whole family: a legacy of tremendous percussionists, arrangers, composers and singers, of which the most salient is, of course, percussion-virtuoso Sheila E. This album, released under the labels Concord Picante/Stiletto Flats Music, is an eight-track live performance conducted in early 2012 at the famous Stern Grove Festival in San Francisco. In this performance, Pete Escovedo and his Orchestra perform Latin jazz classics, like Tito Puente’s “Picadillo Jam,” as well as recent compositions like the salsa/songo “Dance,” in which daughter Sheila and father Pete share the microphone on Spanish- and English-driven lyrics.

This album has plenty of fresh arrangements, brilliant improvisations, and abundant percussion solos, which are beautifully constructed the way that only collective performance throughout decades can: the feel of a reunited family. Pete Escovedo is on timbales, Juan Escovedo on congas, and Peter Michael Escovedo on the drumset. Daughter Sheila appears in just a couple of songs, which makes her presence even more meaningful in this production, where she is also co-producer along with her father. A fundamental addition to this already wonderful mix is the guest appearance of trumpet-genius Arturo Sandoval on the closing track, “Sueños de los toreros,” where he contributes to the grand finale of this amazing concert. In general, this album is a masterful and all encompassing sample of the renewed classic sound of Latin jazz in the 21st century.

Following is a video-trailer from the concert, featuring “Picadillo Jam” and “Dance.”

Reviewed by Juan Sebastián Rojas E.