There has never been a recording by the true historian, musician, composer, conceptualist and master percussionist John Santos that has not always been an intrepid foray...
The word, ‘wonderland’ [spelled with a lower-case ‘w’] may strike one as having many connotations. It may be associated with a joyful, almost magical place –...
The evening of February 20, 2025 at Koerner Hall in Toronto was really special. On the first part of a double bill concert, we experienced an...
Soapbox oratory and art are like oil and water. They do not mix. Sometimes, however, it becomes necessary for art to be wielded as a provocative...
February in Toronto has been cold and snowy, it’s not unusual, it’s winter after all, but in the True North we are used to harsh weather,...
At the beginning of each of the last three years, John Santos gathered together his sextet and musician friends and had a CD release party, this...
When you hear that there is something such as The Latin Side of McCoy Tyner, some thoughts of incongruency do creep in. After all McCoy Tyner...
It is really no wonder that Eliane Elias has come to literally personify those ineffable Brasilian expressions of both saudade and alegria. Her sensuous music is...
Once the wunderkind of Afro-Cuban jazz [that was magnificently espoused via his most iconic group, Irakere] Dionisio Jesús Valdés Rodríguez, better known as Chucho Valdés, is...
This grand association between the Dominican pianist Michel Camilo and the Spanish flamenco maestro Tomatito has now been documented by the third recording Spain Forever Again....
Having followed Ray Obiedo’s groups for four decades, I was delighted to see that his Latin Jazz Project was playing for two nights at The Sound...
Vibrant, earthy rhythm, often evocative of the comparsa, not to mention beauty of tone, a sense of yearning, and an uncommon sensuousness pervade all the music...
The idea that the vibrant and seductive [African-European] melodies, harmonies and – particularly – rhythms of Cuban music have washed ashore thousands of miles away from ...
The stamp that Oscar Hernández has put on music – not simply Afro-Cuban, Afro-Caribbean music and the often-seamless mélange of all of those ensuing rhythms into...
We know from the cognitive aspect of anthropology that ever since ancient times, every instrument invented – if and when perfectly played – was meant to...
