There are many reasons why it is a remarkable travesty of justice that the celebrated Venezuelan drummer and percussionist, Marlon Simon, has had to resort to...
There is much anecdotal evidence – some of it apocryphal – that the Cubans brought a diabolical complexity to Jazz when the musicians among them bewitched...
This album Standards Rican-ditioned by Ray Barretto has a very special – albeit tragic – place in the history and in the everlasting library of Latin-Jazz....
The Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna was one of the early swing bands that rocked Cuba and it’s hardly surprising why. The big band not only...
The first point worth making is that Roberto Quartin’s 1970 recordings of Victor Assis Brasil Esperanto and Toca Antonio Carlos Jobim (now combined by the Brasilian-centric)...
It is one of those ironic twists of fate that Linda Ronstadt was forced into retirement in 2011, the year her seminal Afro-Caribbean album, Frenesí was...
Producing a compilation of the music of someone like Tito Puente is no easy task. With scores of recordings where do you start? What (compilation) merits...
These recordings have captured the vibraphone artistry of Cal Tjader in what was to become the last years of his life. He was only signed to...
Essential Albums Revisited At first blush one might feel that William Cepeda AfroRican Jazz: My Roots and Beyond might seem like an attempt to re-brand what...
The history of music of Afro-Cuban origin, music that begat Latin-Jazz cannot be told in 500 words, not in a thousand and you can only make...
For Bebop to work in the Latin realm it takes a very special talent with an uncanny ability to feel the flatted fifths in clave. It...
Patato, Changuito, Orestes – Ritmo y Candela Put three mighty Cuban percussionists together at any time and the unquenchable fire of creativity is bound to be...
This 1995 recording, made on the Telarc label, Heads Up was the debut album for the iconic group, The Caribbean Jazz Project. On the recording Paquito...
This superb music from 1956 has an odd footnote at the bottom of my copy, which says “Recorded under the personal supervision of the Fidel Castro...
Chombo Silva performed in the legendary Cuban Jam Sessions and shared the stage with Machito, Ray Barretto, Johnny Pacheco, the Alegre-All Stars, Charlie Palmieri, the Tropical...
