Cuba is not just another country with music.
It’s nothing less than the Mother Ship of Afro-Latin music.
With its habanera, danzon, changüí, son, son montuno, rumba, mambo, cha-cha-cha, timba, and wide variety of Afro-Cuban spiritual musical forms, Cuba has been as important to the music of the world as the United States has been with its blues, jazz, rock … Read more
Salsa Meets Jazz at the Village Gate…
One of the great shining episodes of American music history came to an abrupt end in 1993 when the Village Gate could not maintain in the ferocious Manhattan real estate market (such is the fate of so many creative venues in NYC.) .
When exactly it started is hard to say, but in … Read more
What do you get when you combine Broadway’s most complex score from one of America’s greatest and most jazz-friendly composers with some of New York’s finest musicians and most imaginative arrangers playing for one of the world’s hippest jazz orchestras?
“West Side Story Reimagined” by Bobby Sanabria’s Multiverse Big Band.
We’ve … Read more
The latest album from Bobby Carcassés: “Blues con Montuno”
The last time I was in Cuba, I had the great good fortune to spend time with Bobby Carcassés.
A man of vast skills and accomplishments, he is, in many ways, the lynch pin of the Cuban jazz scene and has been for many years.
Born on August 29, 1938, he … Read more
I stumbled on this gem hidden in the Bill Boggs TV archive.
Eddie Palmieri and Tito Puente explain and – then demonstrate – Latin jazz in 1979.
I bet you’ve never seen an Eddie Palmieri/Tito Puente duet before. (At the end Milt Hinton sneaks in off camera.)
Puerto Rican-American master musicians illuminating the art of Cuba.That’s a pretty good summary … Read more
