At the time of writing this critique this recording will have been almost three years old. However, the music of...
There is a reason why Tito Puente is, often, referred to as “El Rey” [The King]. Notice how that epithet stops short of defining the boundaries...
One month before his death, Ray Barretto was the recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, the highest honor that our nation bestows on jazz artists....
This album, Telecommunications, is one of the most iconic recordings by Azymuth, the ineffably funky Brasilian trio. When it was released – on the Milestone label...
1968 saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy; black athletes staged a silent demonstration at the Summer Olympics and the popular Sci-Fi...
Human history – as Gilgamesh, Homeric epics, Biblical narratives and other sagas – will tell us, is a series of events where characters, as often as...
The name [and reputation] of the great Cuban composer and pianist Frank Emilio Flynn bears similarities to that of the Brasilian composer and saxophonist Moacir Santos....
Today, Cortijo & His Time Machine y su Máquina del Tiempo (Coco Records, 1974) is considered a classic and (misleadingly) one of the top-ten salsa recordings...
It took a while for Marlon Simon to launch his celebrated career as a leader of his own ensembles. He took the plunge, however, in 1998,...
“The finest work to date is, without question, El Sonido Nuevo. Vocal music is jettisoned, thus revealing, once and for all, the depth of Palmieri’s instrumental...
This album was made at the time after Paquito D’Rivera had inherited what was left of Dizzy Gillespie’s seminal United Nation Orchestra and just before the...
Arguably the greatest Afro-Cuban percussionist that ever lived (bar Tata Güines, perhaps), Carlos “Patato” Valdés is, also one of the greatest showmen of the congas, who...
This 2007 reissue of two classic albums from the inimitable Cuban trombonist Generoso “Tojo” Jiménez bookends five years between 1969 and 1965. Entitled Trombón Majadero after...
While you might have to wait until “My Reverie” on Disc Two to experience the full virtuosity of leader and pianist Chucho Valdés, it’s worth the...
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...
