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 [...]

Samuel Torres – Yaoundé (Self Produced – 2010)

For the spirits to materialise when they are summoned in worship the practice of the worship must reach a level of intensity—get to the blue part of the flame, so to speak—and arouse the angels and God as well to come down and bless the worshippers a million-fold. When David played his harp, so intense was his music that Samuel was inspired to anoint him King. Now it is the turn of another Samuel, not to anoint, but to call up the angels and saints [...]

Antonio Adolfo & Carol Saboya – Lá e Cá (Self Produced – 2010)

Although Antonio Adolfo makes a point to explain his singular style as an amalgam of a very personal style with a distinct infusion of Brazilian phrasing, this may not be necessary at all. Adolfo’s sweeping, symphonic pianistic style and the immaculate sense of swagger is highly recognizable. His virtuoso piano playing echoes with the offbeat of the samba, the irreverent rattle of maracatu and flights of fanciful capoeira. These he incorporates into his often [...]

El Movimiento – The Movement (Nueva Nota Records – 2010)

To employ a guitar in the melange of Latin music is no great deal, but to make use of the melodic and harmonic richness of the instrument over its rhythmic capability in the manner that El Movimiento have done on The Movement is quite courageous. Adam Agati has woven a mighty spell of seductive magic here. His mastery of the elements of melody and harmony are second to none and on this album, he certainly follows saxophonist Rashaan Barber close enough [...]

Gabriele Tranchina – A Song of Love’s Color (Jazzheads – 2010)

It appears that exacting pitch is not really important in the grander scheme of things, for Gabriele Tranchina’s singing. Although it seems likely that if she really wanted to this vocalist could nail the exacting pitch of the notes themselves with perfection, Tranchina eschews the exactitude of notation to scale impossible heights of emotion. In this respect she is like a storyteller who uses lyric passages to let tales of longing and other elusive emotions unfold [...]