An Evening with Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta 2

La Perfecta 2 is the reincarnation of Conjunto La Perfecta, which came to be known as La Perfecta and whose over arching mission was “to destroy the dancer’s.” The band reigned supreme from 1961 to 1968 and was notorious for its trademark duo trombone sound and killer rhythm section. La Perfecta is one of the most influential and imitated bands in the history of Latin music [...]

The Odyssey of Anat Cohen

We are all – man and woman, child and beast – pilgrims here on earth. No matter where or when we are born, or where we live. No matter what we do for a living or where we worship. We migrate chronologically from a body with a finite age to another with a newly finite age. Or we may migrate geographically from one end of the earth to another – a tropical landmass to a temperate one [...]

Arvito: The Harvey Averne Story – The Interview – Part 3

I have noticed that today’s latin jazz is so much more diverse than it was back then. Of course, we could say that the musicians in New York picked up where the Cubans had left off, but that would be speculating. It’s my contention that the Cubans were not alone in their endeavor, and that various ethnic groups were also responsible for the development of this hybrid music [...]

Arvito: The Harvey Averne Story – The Interview – Part 2

Overall, no "one-hit" album could ever come close to the total album concept we achieved with "Sun Of Latin Music". So here was little Coco Records, with Eddie Palmieri and the greatest salsa band of the moment, with producer Harvey Averne at the helm, winning the first Grammy ever given in the "latin music" category [...]

Arvito: The Harvey Averne Story – The Interview – Part 1

I spoke with Harvey Averne several times over the past summer, mostly by phone, where our conversations eventually turned from latin jazz and his own personal experiences as a performer to his experiences with superstar Eddie Palmieri, with particular focus on the “Unfinished Masterpiece” controversy, which we discussed at length [...]

Arvito: The Harvey Averne Story – Preamble

Sometime around 1968, I became totally disillusioned with Cuban music, or "latin" music as it was called back then. It seemed that the endless array of boogaloos and shingalings were inadvertedly channeling me into another direction. I was an aspiring conga drummer at this point in my life and my main inspiration was Mongo Santamaría [...]

Jane Bunnett – Embracing Voices (EMI Canada/Blue Note 2008)

Jane Bunnett is never afraid to push the envelope. She did so with her 1988 album, In Dew Time, the now out-of-print vinyl that was produced privately by the Toronto imprint, Dark Light, on which producer, husband and trumpet/flugelhorn player Larry Cramer scooped both keyboard player Don Pullen and saxophonist Dewey Redman [...]