CD Reviews

Omar Sosa is an extraordinary musician embodying both the magical virtuosity of musicianship and its soulful roots all in one. Actually one could not...

Editor's Pick · Featured Album The González brothers are a Puerto Rican dynasty, much like the Jones brothers of Pontiac, Michigan. While trumpeter and conguero...

Trombonist Papo Vázquez is the mightiest of the Mighty Pirates Troubadours. His sound is bold; his tone is brazen and ground out as if from a mill...

The term “legend” is best reserved for dead people: Buddy Bolden, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus; and directly from Cuba: Arsenio Rodríguez, Tata Güines, Frank...

In 2010 the BBC Library released tapes of a 1995 Irakere concert in London. Imprinted on record by the Beeb three years after the...

Ann Reynolds has carved a very nice niche for herself in Cuba. Well aware that she was a foreigner she decided to make her...

Luis Marín plays with the quiet assurance that shows him to be a musician of considerable promise. Mr. Marín is a pianist of immense potential. He combines the rhythmic muscularity of his left hand...

There is topographical significance in the musical architecture of Carlos Henriquez’s record, The Bronx Pyramid and it is a bold thesis, one that has...

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...

As if shepherding her brilliant vocals through a Brasilian soundscape were not enough, Catina DeLuna has turned the charms of her voice of longing...

Pasion Por La Vida is an unusual and memorable record, even by Roger Davidson's standards. It is the third "Latin" record made by Davidson, a pianist influenced by Bill Evans as much as by Chopin. But Pasion Por La Vida takes Davidson's love for the music of South America a shade further than - Mango Tango, Amor Por El Tango and Rogers in Rio [...]

What happens when you have a number of sublimely talented musicians rubbing shoulders together on a disc? If the programme is satisfying chances are the disc can be rather good...

The first thing that becomes obvious about Alex Díaz’s beguilingly titled album, Number Seven is that its music is extremely forthright. A number of...

The Battle has begun, the Battle of… Titans! The Grammy Award winner Doug Beavers brings us his exquisite, new album, Titanes del Trombón, a tremendous...

There is a certain fire that burns with a quietude that, although atypical of the Latin soul, still contains much of the passion that is contained in it. In fact the passion is so contained that the fire actually soars with its very chill. The music of Laura Fernandez “burns” with this cold fire. Much of Miles Davis’ music was “hot” in that sense (that) it burned with a similar quiet fire. Conventional wisdom dictates that Latin music is not meant to be cool but fiery and hot [...]

Experimenting with the melding together of idiomatic musical languages can be touch-and-go. Strong musical “linguistic” characteristics can often ...

That Miguel Zenón has been recognized as one of the most exciting young alto saxophonists to break into the scene has been known for...

The act of singing may be described as producing musical sounds with the voice to augment regular speech, by the use of both tonality and rhythm. This would suggest that anyone who could speak can also sing, which might ...

Ms. Cortés is a Spanish language singer but on this album she also steps out as a highly skilled singer of English language songs equal to or even perhaps even better than her performances on the Spanish...

Bassist, violinist Yunior Terry is an artist for all seasons. He hails from Camagüey, Cuba where he is the...