Albums
Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: The New Immigrant Experience
During the course of your mission as a music critic you might come across numerous recordings that are really good – even great. But every once and a while you will chance upon one that is so compelling and fulfilling that you might so want to walk down the street giving away copies for free, just so that everyone might have the opportunity to listen to it, receive its message and be uplifted by it. The New Immigrant Experience – Music Inspired by Conversations with Dreamers by the Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble is one of those endeavours that calls for such an act. The gripping narratives contained within, superbly relocated to the landscape of music, which is then performed and to perfection are, in sum, the reason for its demand to be heard. But there is, so much more to this event; so much nuance that could get lost – but isn’t – in the great wash of US and world events that we are drowning under today.
First, though, Felipe Salles must be congratulated for keeping his eye on the issue of undocumented immigrants in the US – the Dreamers as they are euphemistically called – long after it has ceased to be a “media event”, and also reminding us that it is a much deeper story than merely a matter of immigration law. The main body of this work is contained in nine stories – each from real (properly identified) undocumented immigrants in the US. The stories are told in camera to Mr Salles and it was a master-stroke for him to conceive of a way of telling them with both a DVD and CDs (there are two in the set). The DVD ends up being absolutely essential to the experience of this project and so we will review it first.
Here too we have what seems to be a conscious effort to create an in-your-face experience with no attempt to use filters both of a technical or a metaphorical kind. And it ends up being a master-stroke on the part of cinematographer and director Fernanda Faya. The camera is held steady, right up and into the face of each of the interviewees who have been identified by full names in each instance (see list of song titles below). There is no attempt to pull or cut away when they pour their hearts out to Mr Salles during their interviews; no attempt to dissolve into a fanciful idiomatic re-interpretation of the narrative; just a steady hold on the often teary emotion in the eyes. The ache in their voices clearly comes from a deeply interior place and is eminently palpable. Most shockingly of all is the truth in the revelation (not only felt by them, but by us as viewers too) that they are just as much part of the citizenry of the United States and the world – human beings just like any of us.
Narratives are brutally honest. There is no attempt to “act” for the camera, which captures every nuance in eye and lip movement, speech and silence. The soundtrack captures emotions so vividly because the camera is so close-up that and subtitles, though unobtrusive, seem unnecessary although these often serve to punctuate what the camera captures. Dialogue editing is beautifully timed. The best part of the editing is, however, the cutting away to live music – performed and recorded at The National Sawdust Theater. The timing of cutting away to music is so perfect because it enables the viewer to breathe out after he or she may have held his or her breath (often) throughout the individual, gut-wrenching interview. (I was certainly one of them). This leads us not only to the live music but, as we would discern, to a moment in the score perfectly suited to the mood, emotion and narrative we’ve just been listening to.
And then there is the music… Mr Salles clearly feels these stories. His involvement in them is evident from his deeply empathetic score, which isn’t a score really for that would give the impression that his music is merely the soundtrack to the story. His music is the story. It includes the thunder of drums and rumble of bass when he intends to tell us about something truly brutal. His trumpets soar when he is describing a particularly joyful, ebullient aspect of being set free by coming out of the shadows. The trombones gurgle and cry mournfully when singing a dirge about loss or death. And best of all this is a sublime ensemble effort by an orchestra playing loudly and with uncommon feeling and intensity, clearly telling us that they too live the experience of the undocumented immigrant as if each nuance of each story was their own.
This is a master-stroke on the part of Mr Salles who clearly knows exactly the depth and immensity of this story and how it absolutely must be told again and again. This is why there is not one, but nine stories placed back to back driving home the tragedy of the undocumented immigrant relentlessly. Also, and equally importantly, the release of this disc comes at a time when mainline media have long since abandoned the story of undocumented migrants to the US because it is one that no longer gets the ratings that newspapers and television have an insatiable appetite for. This is so much more than Mr Salles’ magnum opus. Indeed even if Mr Salles never made another recording in his life he could rest happy with this one for on it will rest his reputation as an artist committed to telling the buried (human) story of both tragedy and beauty that must continue to be told until change comes to our inner selves.
Felipe Salles IE: The New Immigrant Experience
Track list – Disc One – 1: Introduction; 2: I – Did You Eat? (Tereza Lee); II – Their Stories Have Never Been Told (Diana Sanchez); 3: III – An Education to Begin With (Noor Ismail); 4: IV – A Part and Not the Other (Nathan Ferraz); 5: V – Survivor’s Guilt (Catalina Cruz). Disc Two – 7: VI – It’s Just Lines on the Ground (Kelly Yzique); 8: VII – Built on Thin Air (Hector Martinez); 9: VIII – Crossing Barriers (Cielo Mendez); 10: IX – These Things That Are Taken for Granted (Joana Costa); 11: Coda. DVD contains all tracks except the Coda.
Personnel – Felipe Salles: composer and conductor; Saxophones and Woodwinds – Jonathan Ball: alto and soprano saxophones, flute, piccolo (solo on II); Aaron Dutton: alto and soprano saxophones, flute (solo on V); Mike Caudill: tenor saxophone (solo with electronics on IX), soprano saxophones, flute and clarinet (solo with electronics on IX); Rick DiMuzio: tenor saxophone and clarinet (solo on VII); Tyler Burchfield: baritone saxophone, bass clarinet and clarinet (solo on VIII); Trumpets & Flugelhorns – Jeff Holmes: (lead trumpet I-III, V-VII, IX and Coda); Don Clough: (2nd trumpet II, III, VII, IX, Coda; lead on VII); Yuta Yamaguchi: (2nd trumpet II, III, V; lead on IV); Eric Smith: trumpet (solo with electronics on IX); Doug Olsen: (solo on I and VIII); Trombones – Clayton DeWalt: trombone (solo on VI); Randy Pingrey: trombone; Bulut Gulen: trombone; Angel Subero: bass trombone (solo on III); Rhythm Section – Nando Michelin: piano (solo on I); Kevin Grulecki: guitar (solo on IV); Ryan Fedak: vibraphone, marimba and glockenspiel (solo on V, VII); Keala Kaumeheiwa: bass; Bertram Lehmann: drums and percussion; Matt Hayes: engineer. DVD Production – Fernanda Faya: director, editor and cinematographer; Felipe Salles: interviewer, post production editor; Megan Rossman: producer and sound engineer; Tatiana Stolpovskaya: additional sound recording engineer; Marika Lutz: colourist; Kevin Grudecki: subtitles editor; Charles Hagaman: live video production coordinator
Released – 2020
Label – Tapestry Records (76030-2)
Runtime – Disc One 46:38 Disc Two 40:48
DVD length – 1:26:34
For Claudia Acuña, home has never been a fixed destination. It is something carried—in the body, in memory, in language, and in sound.
On Ave de Luz, the Chilean vocalist brings those fragments together with unusual clarity. After three decades in New York, Acuña no longer treats her roots as something to weave quietly into jazz. She places them at the center. Her striking declaration—“I’m coming in with my crown, my poncho, my everything”—captures the album’s spirit perfectly.
Raised in Concepción during Chile’s dictatorship years and later transformed by New York’s jazz scene, Acuña has spent much of her career moving between worlds. Ave de Luz feels like the moment when those worlds stop competing with one another.
A Specifically Chilean Jazz
Acuña has resisted the idea that “Latin jazz” can be reduced to a single vocabulary. Afro-Cuban and Brazilian traditions may dominate the popular understanding of the term, but Latin America contains countless rhythmic, folkloric and indigenous languages.
Her own metaphor is simple: noodles and spaghetti may look related, but they are not the same thing.
That idea shapes Ave de Luz. The album is not merely jazz with Chilean colour added to it. It is music whose identity emerges from cueca, Andean traditions, indigenous sonorities, poetry, migration and improvisation.
The trutruka, charango, zampoña, tormento and Chilean pandero become part of the album’s grammar. They interact with Manu Koch’s piano and keyboards, Carlos Henderson’s bass and Yayo Serka’s drums and percussion without sounding ornamental or exoticized.
Poetry, Memory and Resistance
“Chinga La Ka Chinga” captures one of the album’s most expansive ideas. Festive on the surface, the piece also acknowledges Afro-Chilean and northern Chilean currents, suggesting how celebration can carry history, resistance and cultural memory within its pulse.
Elsewhere, the music turns inward. “Piececitos de Niño,” inspired by Gabriela Mistral, brings poetry and childhood into the album’s emotional landscape, while “Rezo” feels almost elemental: voice, charango, atmosphere and silence shaping a meditation on nature, distance and belonging.
Acuña’s reading of Violeta Parra’s “La Jardinera” is equally significant. Its imagery of planting, tending and healing becomes an apt metaphor for tradition itself. Culture survives not by remaining untouched, but by being replanted. Acuña does precisely that.
The Wind From the South
“Viento del Sur” also carries special resonance, recalling the title of Acuña’s 2000 debut, Wind from the South. Then, the image suggested a Chilean artist arriving in the international jazz world. Here, the meaning has changed.
The south is no longer where she came from. It is something she continues to carry.
That idea finds its fullest expression in the title track. The “bird of light” becomes an image of migration without erasure—a figure moving forward while remaining connected to its place of origin. The metaphor fits Acuña herself.
Her longtime musical relationship with Koch, Henderson and Serka gives Ave de Luz much of its freedom. Years of trust let the ensemble move naturally between folk memory, jazz improvisation and contemporary textures without forcing boundaries between them.
Ave de Luz may be Claudia Acuña’s most complete artistic statement because it no longer asks her identities to compromise.
The crown is experience.
The poncho is memory.
Jazz is the road between them.
And Claudia Acuña travels that road carrying Chile fully into the light.
Album Information
- Artist: Claudia Acuña
- Album: Ave de Luz: Chilean Jazz & Soul
- Label: Delfin Records
- Release date: July 10, 2026
- Genre: Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Chilean jazz
- Format: Digital/streaming
- Final digital release: 7 tracks, approximately 36 minutes
Tracklist
- Chinga La Ka Chinga – (Claudia Acuña, Coch, Hernandez & Serka) – 4:43
- Ave de Luz– (Mario Rojas) – 5:48
- Viento del Sur– (Claudia Acuña & Jason Lindner) – 6:01
- Rezo– (Claudia Acuña) – 3:49
- Piececitos de Niño– (Based on a poem of Gabriela Mistral / Music by Claudia Acuña) – 6:10
- Un Gorro de Lana– (Víctor Acosta) – 4:18
- La Jardinera– (Violeta Parra) – 6:01
Personnel
- Claudia Acuña – vocals, percussion/claps, tormento; producer
- Manu Koch – piano and keyboards (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5)
- Carlos Henderson – bass
- Yayo Serka – drums and percussion
- Pablo Vergara – piano (tracks 6, 8)
- Andrés Pollak – piano, organ; producer (track 7) | organ (track 1)
- Pablo Zárate – accordion, Chilean pandero (track 2)
- Fredy Torralba – traditional Chilean/Andean instruments including charango, trutruka and zampoña
- Paulina García – spoken word (track 6)
- Daniel Kelley-Acuña – vocals (track 6)
Production Credits
Produced by Claudia Acuña and Andrés Pollak. Most of the sessions were recorded at East Side Sound in New York in November 2025, with “Ave de Luz” recorded at TOC Música in Santiago in October 2025 and additional recording completed at Banduria Studio in Santiago. Andrés Pollak handled engineering on the principal New York sessions; Rafael Chaparro engineered the Santiago title-track session with Javier Lizana assisting. Marc Urselli mixed and mastered the project.
With La Malinche, Eva Cortés delivers one of the most ambitious recordings of her career—a project in which history, identity, migration and music converge around one of the most contested figures in the Americas.
Malintzin, also known as Doña Marina or La Malinche, has long been portrayed through conflicting narratives: interpreter, intermediary, mother of mestizaje, victim, survivor and, in later nationalist mythology, traitor. Cortés does not try to settle that debate. Instead, she uses Malintzin as a symbol of cultural transition, displacement and survival.
That choice makes particular sense for an artist whose own life has unfolded across borders. Born in Honduras (Central America), shaped culturally in Seville (Spain) and later immersed in New York’s jazz community, Cortés has always made music from the space between traditions. On La Malinche, that in-between space becomes the heart of the album.
A Music of Crossings
The album brings together flamenco, Latin jazz, contemporary jazz and Indigenous-inspired imagery without turning the result into a forced fusion.
Rather than attempting to recreate pre-Columbian Mexican music literally, Cortés evokes Indigenous memory through percussion, communal voices, repetition and themes of ancestry, earth and maize. Flamenco enters through Spanish guitar, vocal inflection and the expressive grit associated with cante. Jazz supplies the harmonic freedom and improvisational space that allow those elements to interact.
The musicians surrounding Cortés are crucial to that balance. Pianists Pepe Rivero, Jon Cowherd and Zaccai Curtis, bassists Christian McBride, Luques Curtis and Reinier Elizarde “Negrón,” and drummers Antonio Sánchez, Adam Cruz and Georvis Pico give the album both rhythmic strength and harmonic flexibility. Roman Filiú, Paco Heredia, Marvin Sewell, Bandolero and others expand the palette further. The result is music that never feels boxed into one category.
The Voice at the Center
Cortés’ singing remains the album’s most powerful instrument. Her phrasing can be loose and conversational, then suddenly sharpen into something more urgent and flamenco-inflected. She moves between reflection, mourning, protest and defiance without sacrificing musical control.
Most importantly, she refuses to define Malintzin through betrayal. Her interpretation focuses instead on endurance and complexity.
The opening “Abuelita Malinche” immediately makes that clear. By calling her “Abuelita,” Cortés transforms Malinche from a figure of accusation into an ancestral presence. The arrangement blends Latin-jazz movement with flamenco coloration, while her wordless vocal passages move naturally between scat and cante.
“Hij@s del Maíz” extends that idea of cultural mixture. Paco Heredia’s guitar, Pepe Rivero’s piano, Antonio Sánchez’s drums and the accordion create a sound that travels across regions rather than belonging to one. Maize becomes a symbol of Indigenous continuity, while the music reflects the constantly changing character of mestizaje itself.
From History to the Present
The album becomes even more powerful when it connects the past to contemporary realities.
“Letters to Heaven” and “Remember Me” introduce themes of Indigenous loss and the disappearance of women from both historical memory and present-day communities. “Sur Global” shifts toward resistance, combining rhythmic drive with a broader reflection on colonialism, migration and inequality.
Then “Spanish Harlem” brings the journey firmly into the present. Horns, flute, tumbao and call-and-response place Cortés within New York’s Latin-jazz tradition, completing a musical path that stretches from ancestral memory to the modern city.
A Major Statement
La Malinche is more than an album built around a historical figure. It is a meditation on who controls history, who gets remembered and how identity continues to change across generations and borders.
Cortés turns her own musical hybridity into the album’s central idea. Jazz, flamenco and Latin American traditions do not simply coexist here—they help tell the story.
The result is one of her strongest and most focused recordings to date: emotionally direct, musically sophisticated and deeply rooted in the ongoing conversation between memory and transformation. La Malinche is not about recovering a pure past. It is about reclaiming the right to reinterpret it.
Album Information
- Artist: Eva Cortés
- Album: La Malinche
- Label: Truth Revolution Records / TRRcollective
- Release: June 2026
- Official press release date: June 5, 2026
- TRRcollective Bandcamp release date: June 19, 2026
- Format: CD / Digital
- Number of tracks: 11
- Total running time: 51:53
- Genre: Jazz / Latin Jazz / Flamenco / Afro-Latin
- Recorded in: Madrid, Spain, and Little Falls, New Jersey, USA
Tracklist
- Abuelita Malinche — 4:35
- A Tribo do Vento — 5:46
- Soy el Aire — 5:31
- Light and Sorrow — 3:59
- Hij@s del Maíz — 4:24
- Letters to Heaven — 5:04
- Remember Me — 3:28
- Sur Global — 5:43
- No Me Limites — 4:33
- Indians of All Tribes — 3:53
- Spanish Harlem — 4:57
Personnel
- Eva Cortés — vocals, composer, lyricist, backing vocals
- Pepe Rivero — piano, keyboards, arrangements
- Jon Cowherd — piano
- Zaccai Curtis — piano, keyboards
- Christian McBride — bass
- Luques Curtis — bass
- Reinier Elizarde “Negrón” — bass
- Paco Heredia — Spanish guitar, guitar, arrangements
- Marvin Sewell — guitar
- Roman Filiú — saxophone, flute, backing vocals
- Bobby Martínez — saxophone
- Manuel Machado — trumpet
- Antonio Serrano — harmonica
- Javier Colina — accordion
- Bandolero — percussion
- Roland Guerrero — percussion
- Antonio Sánchez — drums
- Adam Cruz — drums
- Georvis Pico — drums, vocal solo, backing vocals
Production Credits
- Produced by: Eva Cortés, Roman Filiú and Pepe Rivero
- Label: Truth Revolution Records / TRRcollective
- Session One: Camaleón Music Studio, Madrid, Spain
- Recording Engineer, Madrid: Diego Román
- Session Two: Studio Mozart, Little Falls, New Jersey, USA
- Recording Engineer, New Jersey: Kostadin Kamcev
- Mixing: David Darlington
- Mastering: David Darlington
- Mixing and Mastering Studio: Bass Hit Studios, New York, NY
- Photography: Noah Shaye
The title Abriendo Puertas—“Opening Doors”—captures the spirit of guitarist Roni Ben-Hur’s latest recording with unusual precision. Recorded in Havana with an accomplished group of Cuban musicians, the album is built not around the novelty of a visiting jazz guitarist encountering Cuban music, but around something more meaningful: musicians listening closely enough to find a common language.
Ben-Hur has spent much of his career moving naturally between musical worlds. Born in Israel to a Tunisian family and shaped professionally by New York’s jazz community, his playing draws from bebop, Brazilian music, Mediterranean traditions and Latin rhythms without sounding like a collection of influences. His years with pianist and mentor Barry Harris helped establish the melodic clarity, swing and understated sophistication that remain central to his guitar style. On Abriendo Puertas, those qualities fit remarkably well within a Cuban setting.
The key creative partner is pianist Alejandro Falcón, who contributes four of the seven compositions: the title track, “Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby,” “Lo que es del César” and “El Teide.” Rather than treating Ben-Hur as a soloist placed in front of a Cuban rhythm section, Falcón helps create an ensemble language in which guitar and piano continuously exchange roles. Their compatibility is evident from the opening title track, where rhythmic momentum and lyrical improvisation develop patiently rather than through display.
“Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby” pushes the conversation toward the blues while retaining a strong Cuban rhythmic identity. It is one of the album’s most spirited performances, illustrating how readily the vocabulary of jazz can coexist with the rhythmic imagination surrounding Ben-Hur in Havana. By the time the ensemble reaches “Lo que es del César” and “El Teide,” the distinction between guest and host has largely disappeared. What remains is a cohesive band responding to one another in real time.
The album’s romantic center comes through three classic Latin American songs. José Antonio Méndez’s “Mi Mejor Canción” brings the intimacy of the Cuban filin tradition into the program, while Osdalgia Lesmes appears on Isolina Carrillo’s “Dos Gardenias” and Armando Manzanero’s “Esta tarde vi llover.”
Lesmes brings warmth and emotional directness to both performances, and Ben-Hur proves once again what a sensitive accompanist he can be. His guitar surrounds the voice rather than competing with it, reflecting an approach he has developed through years of working with singers, including the late Brazilian vocalist Leny Andrade. Ben-Hur has spoken of the importance of leaving space for vocalists and allowing melody and lyric to remain at the center of an arrangement.
That same sense of space benefits the entire recording. Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez on acoustic bass, Ruy López-Nussa on drums and Octavio Rodríguez Rivera on percussion provide a foundation that is rhythmically rich without becoming overcrowded. Tenor saxophonist Emir Santa Cruz, featured on four tracks, adds another expressive voice and gives several performances a broader jazz-ensemble character.
Recorded at DBega Studios in Havana in November 2025, Abriendo Puertas is part of the Cuban Notes recording series co-produced by Ben-Hur and Dot Time Records founder Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt. Yet the album succeeds beyond the concept behind the series.
Its strength is ultimately found in the musicians themselves. Nobody appears interested in proving how effortlessly jazz and Cuban music can be combined. They simply play together until those distinctions become secondary.
For listeners who appreciate expressive jazz guitar, Cuban music and recordings where collaboration matters more than spectacle, Abriendo Puertas is easy to recommend. Warm, sophisticated and deeply conversational, it finds Roni Ben-Hur opening another musical door—and discovering an ensemble waiting on the other side.
Album Information
Artist: Roni Ben-Hur
Album: Abriendo Puertas
Label: Dot Time Records
Catalog: DT9192
Genre: Jazz / Latin Jazz
Release Date: June 26, 2026
Recorded: November 2025
Studio: DBega Studios, Havana, Cuba
Format: CD / Digital
Program: 7 tracks, approximately 49 minutes.
The project is part of Cuban Notes, co-produced by Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt and Roni Ben-Hur. It follows Alejandro Falcón’s Falcón in Blue as the second album in the series.
Tracklist
1. Abriendo Puertas – Alejandro Falcón – 8:12
2. Mi Mejor Canción – José Antonio Méndez – 6:32
3. Dos Gardenias – Isolina Carrillo – 5:23
4. Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby – Alejandro Falcón – 9:23
5. Esta tarde vi llover – Armando Manzanero – 5:56
6. Lo que es del César – Alejandro Falcón – 6:17
7. El Teide – Alejandro Falcón – 7:49
Personnel Credits
Roni Ben-Hur — guitar
Alejandro Falcón — piano
Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez — acoustic bass
Ruy López-Nussa — drums
Octavio Rodríguez Rivera — percussion
Emir Santa Cruz — tenor saxophone, tracks 1, 4, 5 and 7
Osdalgia Lesmes — vocals, tracks 3 and 5
Production Credits
Executive Producer: Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt
Co-Producer: Roni Ben-Hur
Recorded at: DBega Studios, Havana
Recording date: November 2025
Sound Engineer: Carlos D’Bega
Label: Dot Time Records
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