Hilario Durán Trio – Motion (Alma Records – 2010)

In his much-anticipated follow-up to the Grammy-nominated and Juno Award-winning Latin Big Band recording, From The Heart (Alma Records,2008) the piano master, Hilario Durán brings together a power trio comprising bassist, Roberto Occhipinti and drummer, Mark Kelso. In the process he has created Motion, a memorable, new canvas of sound, unveiled through a palette of vivid tonal colors throughout the album’s eight tracks [...]

Hector Martignon – Second Chance (Zoho Music – 2010)

In a literal world the music on Second Chance would simply represent “B” sides of music that pianist, Hector Martignon has played in the past. In reality they are anything but that. It is here that Martignon has provided wicked twists to all the music he has played before—he uses the term “devilish,” which in Spanish is a word fraught with meaning. The word diabólico might be infinitely more appropriate as it has fangs and breathes a fire [...]

Trio Esperança – De Bach á Jobim (Disques Dreyfus – 2010)

There is a rare and celestial beauty that pervades throughout De Bach á Jobim, the album by the legendary a capella Brasilian group, Trio Esperança who share a very special connection with the 10-voice ensemble, Grupo Vocal Desandann. Both ensembles use the oldest instrument known to human kind in intricate harmonies that have a spirit connection seemingly as old as the Psalms of David. However, from the historical perspective [...]

Federico Britos – Voyage (Sunnyside Records – 2010)

As the world continues to awake to the rising tide of undiscovered music and musicians from the South American paradigm—in an almost ironic kind of reversal of Alejo Carpentier’s voyage of musical discovery in Los Pasos Perdidos (E.D.I.A.P.S.A, 1953) or to the English-speaking world The Lost Steps (Alfred Knopf, 1956, Univ. of Minnesota, 2001)—the Cuban violinist Federico Britos celebrates five decades in the lonely and all but forgotten [...]

Bobby Carcassés – De La Habana a Nueva York (Vero Records)

The insane revelry of the guaguancó kicks off De La Habana a Nueva York, and produces a blue flame of energy from an all, but forgotten master musician, Bobby Carcassés. The Cuban-born flugelhorn player, pianist, percussionist, raconteur and vocalist of exceptional talent and virtuosity has been making a quiet noise—heard, sadly, only by his musical peers—for over fifty years. With this fine album, it is hoped that the world will listen [...]

SunlightSquare Latin Combo – Havana Central (2010)

Just how contagious is the music of Cuba? It has spread far and wide in a veritable pandemic. It is no longer an underground thing, something the Brits love to call any music that is not conventional rock and pop (how inane those monikers now sound). The seismic activity that comes from SunlightSquare Latin Combo on Havana Central was in fact a cracking session that the ensemble recorded over on the sunshine isle—no not Her Majesty’s territories at all [...]

Arturo Sandoval – A Time for Love (Concord Jazz – 2010)

The great trumpeter, Maurice André and Wynton Marsalis apart (who play in other musical realms as well, everybody really serious about the idiom of jazz—about music in general—dreams about making a recording with a string ensemble. Louis Armstrong made What a Wonderful World, his album of Broadway, Hollywood and standard charts. Cornetist, Warren Vaché made his, Don’t Look Back (Arbors Records, 2006) [...]

Kenia Celebrates Dorival Caymmi (Mooka Records – 2010)

Dorival Caymmi was considered a seminal figure in the music of Bahia in Brazil. His influence on the Música Popular Brasileira movement was incalculable and Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso continue to pay him homage in their original work even today as it is impossible to escape his influence. In the appropriately entitled album, Kenia Celebrates Dorival Caymmi, the wonderful vocalist, Kenia literally recreates the unusually festive nature [...]

Paul Austerlitz – Journey (Innova Recordings – 2008)

There is very little precedence for Journey, a work of striking newness and dazzling virtuosity, by the reeds player, Paul Austerlitz. First of all it occupies a rather narrow stream in Afro-Caribbean music—Dominican music of African origin—and secondly it is largely played on reeds of the very lowest register—only the great Anthony Braxton ventures there. It combines Yoruba chants with African and jazz musical idioms [...]

Roberto Fonseca – Akokan (Justin Time – 2010)

In his follow-up to 2007’s Zamazu (Enja/Justin Time), Cuban piano master, Roberto Fonseca deepens his journey into his quasi-mystical musical search. Like the mythical Gilgamesh, the pianist has embarked on a seemingly endless journey, a leap of faith into the musical unknown, to find the tonal center of pain and joy, heartache and ecstasy and yes, in the tradition of the timeless myth, he has set the mystery and magic of artistry that courses through his [...]