Bobby Sanabria Big Band: Live & in Clave
Sixteen years ago Bobby Sanabria took his Big Band on the road and when they were in Birdland on May 20 in 1999, the...
Various Artists: The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions
There is much anecdotal evidence – some of it apocryphal – that the Cubans brought a diabolical complexity to Jazz when the musicians among...
Patato y Totico: Patato and Totico
This seminal recording by one of the finest congueros Carlos “Patato” Valdés and Eugenio "Totico" Arango, another great Cuban musical figure, also features two...
Chico O’Farrill: The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suites 1 and 2
Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill, who was born in Cuba in 1921, decided to follow family tradition and enter into law practice. But before he could...
Armando Romeu: 1er Concierto de la Orq Cubana de Música Moderna
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...
Kenny Dorham: Afro-Cuban
The fabled Spanish tinge has hovered on the fringes of jazz a lot longer ago that it was known to have been introduced into...
Giovanni Hidalgo: Villa Hidalgo
Giovanni Hidalgo is just fifty-two years old, but he has been a professional percussionist for a little over forty years. This is remarkable. Very few percussionists, even those in the rest of...
Tito Puente: The Best of the Concord Years
Producing a compilation of the music of someone like Tito Puente is no easy task. With scores of recordings where do you start? What...
Cachao: Master Sessions Volumes I & II
Israel “Cachao” López is one of those larger-than-life figures, a monumental Cuban musician. Although not as famous as Bebo Valdés, he was still one...
Chucho Valdés & Irakere: A 2-CD Retrospective
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...
The Caribbean Jazz Project: Dave Samuels, Paquito D’Rivera, Andy Narell
This 1995 recording, made on the Telarc label, Heads Up was the debut album for the iconic group, The Caribbean Jazz Project. On the...
Michel Camilo: One More Once
When Michel Camilo recorded One More Once and released the record on Columbia in the Fall of 1994, it created quite a sensation. Not...
Mongo Santamaría: Mongo at The Village Gate
Mongo Santamaria, more than any other Cuban percussionist, has had a wider appeal across musical idioms and metaphors. His music comes from deep within...
Linda Ronstadt: Frenesí
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,...
Mongo Santamaria: Our Man in Havana
This superb music from 1956 has an odd footnote at the bottom of my copy, which says “Recorded under the personal supervision of the...
Frank Emilio, Guillermo Barreto y su Cuban-Jazz Combo: Drume Negrita
The clave that is pronounced in Afro-Cuban music is almost stealthily present in Jazz and has been lurking secretly in that idiom ever since...
Rumbajazz: Tribute to Chombo Silva
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,...
Herbie Hancock: Inventions & Dimensions
Herbie Hancock was just twenty-three when he recorded this Inventions & Dimensions. The music on the recording, and the fact that Mr. Hancock was...
Ray Barretto: Standards Rican-ditioned
This album Standards Rican-ditioned by Ray Barretto has a very special – albeit tragic – place in the history and in the everlasting...
Rubén González: Introducing Rubén González
It is one of those travesties of justice that some of Cuba’s greatest musicians were discovered or re-discovered by adoring audiences worldwide when they...
