Gift Certificates
Best of 2007

EditorsPick: Good records come from somewhere beyond prediction. Here's a hard swinging, modern Cuban charanga record that in no way sounds fussy, dated, or covered in dust. In part the updated sounds comes from the singer Cesar Infante, who sounds "street," and deserving his own record date - the other singer included Pedro Calvo and Angel Bonne on one track each, with Calvo sounding rough and aggressive, and totally dedicated to the prospect of having a fat woman hanging around. The band, led by Lazaga on güiro (a good sign, to have a band led by a percussionist) rips through the tunes, fast, the violins sawing away, thankfully in tune. And the arrangements work a whole bunch of different rhythms, making the older tunes sound fresh. There isn't enough time in the day to take it all in. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Now here's an idea: take the songs written or associated with the Argentinean tango god Carlos Gardel and set them to a salsa big band. Or maybe try and mix it all up, adding some accordion and stuttering bass to the situation. Ah, then the horns pick the music up, and it enters into some sort of merengue-ish, pan Caribbean thing. Rivera's dressed retro on the cover with an old microphone, and what the hell, he sounds good, his boyish voice aching with passion. The recording's dripping with money, well produced for the radio, the band immense, loaded with good musicians. When the improvisation kicks in, Rivera's voice seems to fade, as if his salsa material wasn't intimate enough. Very pretty, it is. I can see this in Radio City. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Damn, classic Riverside, classic '50s Cuban music, classic orchestral mambo. This is as hard rocking as mambo gets, harder in its sound and drive than even Moré. The percussion is up in the mix and the whole thing sounds hot, as if the meters on the recording instruments were living in the red and beginning to smoke. "Cuchi Cuchi" gets into punk mambo, and again no notes, no info and yeah, stand in line, pay yer money and shaddup. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: The charanga tradition is alive and well and living through Charangoa, the orchestra led by flautist Fay Roberts. Roberts, who has studied with Aragón's Richard Egües, has created an authentic charanga that captures the spirit and locomotive drive of the best Cuban charanga bands. Listen to the Egües composition "Animate Maria" or Pedro Aranzola's "Un Son Para Una Orquesta" two top notch dance numbers. The violin-flute jam "Caballo Viejo" swings hard, as does the terrific "Charangoa's Jam," a composition by percussionist/bassist, Jimmy Branly. Roberts also thinks outside the box: there's Stevie Wonder's "Bird of Beauty" as well as a flute based interpretation of the Beatles "Blackbird." A fine debut release. Highly recommended. (BP 8/17/05) West Coast Charanga, lead by the flautist Fay Roberts, along with arrangements by the violinist Harry Scorso. Other arrangements by ex-NG La Banda drummer Jimmy Branly, who plays percussion in the group. There's some heavy duty playing on the album, and makes the whole thing a surprise; it swings deeply, and Eddie Ortiz, the lead singer, holds up his part of the deal admirably. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Oh boy, I like this stuff. New York in the salsa '70s, what a time. La Consagracion, a local New York band playing salsa dura, didn't record this for Fania, but it could have. Check out the guests: arrangements by Marty Sheller, playing and singing by Larry Harlow, Adalberto Santiago, Ismael Quintana and Harry Viggiano all show up. Recorded in 1977, the album has its wonderfully dated moments - one bit of pop, some rock guitar that owes just a bit to Carlos Santana. But I go for the singer Victor Rodriguez, another great singer from the era, flashing a high tenor voice dripping with sadness and tears, ideal for fans of the greatest Fania singers. Good horn section, good percussion, and a total New York sensibility. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Here's a good idea: get a strong charanga orchestra to pull out a tribute to the great violinist and flautist Pupi Legarreta. And then, get Legarreta to play on it. The result is great music, deeply in the groove, and happy. At its best, this is classic charanga. There a few missteps, the inclusion of not so great standards, including "The Shadow of Your Smile," but the rest of the material is swinging and strong, and Legarreta sounds good, as always. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: An ambitious project featuring two things: the killing new Latin jazz style that's slowly becoming common, and a great band. Included are Rodriguez on saxophones, who's joined by Miguel Zenon on two tracks, and Luis Perdomo on piano, Ramon Vazquez on bass and Efrain Martinez on drums. Rodriguez is a serious composer, and the control over the dynamics of the band and the material is worth thinking about, going back to Miles Davis' mid-'60s band, where quietude wells up between sound. The pieces take their time, and the language that everyone uses is completely up-to-date. If you want to check into what's happening today, this will tell you. It's also superfine music. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: One talented guy, Rodriguez, a Cuban living in Miami, sings a sort of souped-up son, deep with political insight. He helps his cause with a big voice, and a range of musical influences; at times he wanders into singer-songwriter territory. Included in the record is a small dictionary of Cuban terms for Spanish speaking non-Cubans, which suggests how his world works: he doesn't bother translating the terms into English. Good, smart music. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Descarga Oriental is right, and a play on words because the title's not referring to the East of Cuba, but to the hook up between El Medioni, a Jewish Algerian pianist and Rodriguez, a Jewish American percussionist of Cuban descent. El Medioni is an amazing pianist, a North African Bebo Valdéz, and in his playing you hear Arab music, along with Caribbean and jazz music. He's joined by Jennifer Vincent on bass, Ben Lapidus on tres, Oscar Onoz on trumpet, Nir Z on darbuka and Rodriguez on percussion. But it's Medioni's piano playing that's so shocking, his time to great, and the way he blends the rhythmic and melodic ideas that are all rooted in Al Andalus, the great forgotten culture where so much of what we like in music comes from. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A collection of pieces dating back to the '60s by Cuba's preeminent singer/songwriter/politician. The two-cd set comes with annotations by Rodriquez about each piece, and it's easy to hear why the singer has been as important and influential across Latin America as he has been. Careful writing, arrangements, and points of view all help; he has been mixing Cuban and other musics for decades. Includes some previously unreleased material, too. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Rosario, best known for his work with Larry Harlow's Latin Legend's band, can swing, and he does it old-school. Working with the producer Jesus "El Nino" Alejandro, who helped Edwin Bonilla on his fine records, Rosario has put together a modern salsa record that exemplifies the salsa gorda movement. The percussion doesn't hide, and the arrangements, full of hard horn riffs, drive the music. Rosario can sing, and the music gives way to let his voice make its statements. The tempos change a bit, giving the record both dance floor appeal - it's a natural for djs - and living room value. So: Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: An immensely important, reissued early work by Rubalcaba, when he was in his late Miles Davis/Weather Report stage. I wonder if he'd disavow this stuff now. Anyway, it's a landmark work in Latin jazz, fully fusioned out, heavy with synthesizers. It's so dated it sounds kind of quaint. El Negro's on drums, and it is a work of genius, if a bit tinny and well, corny. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A long time ago, Rubalcaba moved into the group of musicians whose work will last. This solo recording shows why, with Rubalcaba moving through a set whose quietude suggests discipline and restraint. Its beauty, well, that's another thing, and the music is beautiful, dense with grace, rife with silence and utterly evocative. There's nothing like Rubalcaba now, and while he thanks his mentors Chic Corea and Herbie Hancock - and the whole thing reminds you a bit of Keith Jarrett - this is something different, new. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Ruiz, in 2004, convened an extraordinary group, including George Coleman on saxophones, Leon Dorsey on bass and Grady Tate on drums. It's a straight-ahead jazz session, the sort, that if one heard it on the radio, would make you wonder who it was. Per usual, Coleman, a giant saxophonist, plays lines that are filled with substitutions, cramming his solos with harmony. The recording itself is beyond fine, with every tap of Grady Tate's drumming easily heard. And Ruiz's playing, in this context, is perfectly idiomatic; the man could play the blues and swing. It's a language that's rapidly being forgotten, straight ahead swing, and Ruiz was a master. This is beauty in the form of music, highly intelligent, relaxed, verbal without being overwrought. It's music that could only be made by adults. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Another piece of amazing music by Ruiz, but this one a solo recording. From the opening blues "Home Cooking" to the end of the album, Ruiz's time is astonishing, as is his ability to move between clave feeling and straight ahead swing; his bebop playing is fairly perfect, and on "Michael's Mambo" it's hard not to fall in love with his montuno playing, filled with space and percussion at the same time. This is a serious document by a serious player whose death in 2006 was a real loss to the cultural life of the United States. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A nice rumba date from Cuba, complete with an occasional flute (J.J. Oliveros) and tres (Felix Rondon) thrown in for flavor. A thick coro mixes really well with the percussion, and there's a late afternoon tranquility to the session that separates it from the competition. Cool. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Umm, this stuff feel so good, so right, that it's not budging from the cd player. Rumbavana, one of the older groups in Cuba, is also one of the best run. It's neither a folklorist's dream, nor is it trying to play timba. What it plays is deep, deep, salsa, with sophisticated horn charts, direct in the big band lineage, along with a thick four person coro, and seriously good lead singers. The writing is fine, too, with two pieces by Adalberto Alvarez. This stuff reminds me of the best of Puerto Rican salsa, but with Cuban singers singing about Cuban things. This is a D.J.'s dream, in part because the tempos, and the time feel are just simply so perfect. It's a dancer's paradise, also, with good breaks, nice coros, good soneos, all adding up a project with no drawbacks. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Back in stock! Tempestad starts out just right: Saa singing against percussion, as if to say that he's not going to fool around with pop salsa. And the record bears Saa out; Saa, one of the lead singers of the Colombian band Grupo Niche, settles immediately into a great groove. At its best Tempestad gets the sort of explosive power of a classic Willie Rosario recording; the comparison doesn't end there, either. Saa's harnessed the horn power of the best of the Puerto Rican bands, using a heavy baritone sound to build a foundation for the trombones and trumpets. Saa pushes his voice to its limits, sounding a bit like a younger Tito Rojas, and the tempos never rush, always taking their time. The tunes have an all night swing to them, with good, melodic coros; this is manna for club D.J.s; it'll keep a club moving till the sun comes up. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Rumba from Puerto Rica, with a pile of bomba and plena thrown in. The music has a rolling beat, meant to move your hips. Saborioco sings with a hoarse voice, and it sounds great, especially since the rumba's well organized, with tight coros and drum breaks making the music take off. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A hot little orchestra from Colombia warms up to the task of rocking the place. They cover tunes by Cortijo - "Fuego a la Jicotea," and "La Casa" by Orlando Marin, but the band sounds fresh, with coros that have Colombian style. The arrangements incorporate the percussion - check out the breaks for the timbal on "Montuneando." And the slurs on the trombone parts, well, that's cool stuff. Put this one on and keep it there; a great way to pass the afternoon and night. It's for moving, one way or another. Great music. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: High quality commercial salsa out of Puerto Rico. This stuff's ready for the radio and the dance-floor, and it's slick and good, salsa dura for the most part. It's impressive, the singing high and emotional and the grooves absolutely useful, with fine arrangements, full of rhythmic changes, and serious horn charts rooted to a baritone. Don't let the name fool you, this stuff's good. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A quartet, Samurindo's evidence of the continuing intermingling of musical ideas and communities in New York. The group works with Colombian rhythms, and features a great rhythm section - Trifon Dimitrov on electric bass and Daniel Correa U. on drums. Sebastian Cruz, who's part of Lucia Pulido's group is on guitar and Jan Pablo Uribe's on saxophone. It's spiky, modern music, gritty and dirty and thick and adventurous. It's texture is raw, unadorned; there's hardly any reverb on the recording and it has a New York energy to it, as if the recording machine stepped into a jam session. Highly recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A few years ago I was wandering around the New School and heard this amazing Afro-Caribbean big band wailing away in a practice room. I asked around, and got this response: "Oh yeah, that's Bobby Sanabria's student band. Pretty great, right?" And it was pretty great. Since then Sanabria's run a big band that's been nominated for a Grammy, and written plenty of new material. The band, including four former students of Sanabria's, is made up of some of the best musicians in New York -- Chris Washburne, Michael Philip Mossman, Jeff Lederer and more. What makes this session a classic, the sort of recording that'll be reissued as long as there are people to hear it, is something almost ineffable. It's a big band project, dripping with New York knowledge, and it sounds neither modern, in any clichéd sense, or historical, in any sort of out-of-it way. It just sounds in time, perfect, a product of a place and time and personality, i.e. Sanabria's presence. As for the session, that ineffable thing happens: it's a session blessed with a rhythmic perfection, and an excitement takes over. There are details here: tunes by Frank Zappa, Hermeto Pascoal, Ella Johnson's "Since I Fell for You," "Besame Mucho," smart things like that, none of which make a difference if the music isn't happening. And it is. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: The title refers to the fact that the album comes with two cds, one of salsa, the other titled popbalada. Not exactly the White Album, but still, a feat, because every Santa Rosa album is just that, a feat of singing. The salsa album is smooth and old-school, with well-arranged coros sounding like vocal groups, and perfect breaks. At times it's hard not to ask for more: the music seems overly controlled, salsa at its least explosive, perfectly constructed but not always persuasive. But then, Santa Rosa enters, reminding us that he's one of the finest singers in the history of the music, liquid and rhythmic at the same time, a master of the distinct phrase. All over his soneos, there's brilliance, with Santa Rosa playing with time, with repetition, with rhyme, with the sound of consonants. The pop album - and there are plenty that'd argue that Santa Rosa's soft salsa is pop - takes the singer into the heavy breathing of an older style of pop, one where the modern world doesn't intrude. There's lots of quivering notes, even wah-wah guitar. It's so overly emotional at times it seems like a parody. Still, it's perfectly done, and those for whom this was made will like it. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Damn, it's Gilberto again, with his traditional perfection. One of the best singers in the world arrives with another example of classic salsa, undisturbed by trends, and loaded with his pleading, honest voice. He's the boss, a brilliant improviser, interpreter, and Directo al Corazon doesn't change the formula. Check out the "Locura de Amor," a track by composer of the moment, Fernando Linares, the way the arrangement and his voice lead you though changing moods -and keys - taking the listener on a trip. The rhythmic precision of his improvisation gives a class on how to hook up with the rhythm section, how a vocalist is part of the band. It's the real deal, appreciate it now, not later. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Part of the incredible series put out by Cacao Musica in Venezuela, Santos Viejos are a pretty good example of how fertile it can be to be literate in South and Central America (see one of the essays in the fantastic booklet that comes with the recording). The band, from Venezuela, mixes rock and Venezuelan music and Cuban son; it's related to an art movement and it's smart and musical. Plus, the packaging, with lyrics, essays and more, has a bunch of swing. What does the music sound like? At times like son, and at times the lead singer sounds like the singer in the Mexican group Café Tacuba; there are plenty elements of '80s rock and electric guitars. It's ironic, like most rock from the '80s. Songs deal with, who would have guessed? Girls Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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Part of a new series of superb, high quality CDs under the new Cacao label of Venezuela. Each Cacao release is a pristine production involving the finest musicians and sporting detailed book-like liner notes in a custom, spiral bound, CD package. With gorgeous, high resolution printing, this might be the best CD presentation we have come across - very slick indeed.

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EditorsPick: A straight up, rocking old-school salsa record from the Puerto Rican singer D'Los Santos. He sings with an urgent voice, aggressive and tough, and the record will sound great in the clubs and stations that like the old school emotionalism. With Adalberto Santiago, coro. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Mmmmm, this stuff is good. Manyoma, a Colombian sonero, has that big voice that tells you he's an adult; there's no little kid salsa here. Manyoma keeps on the path to salsa righteousness, backed by high, pinched coros and a nonstop, rocking rhythm section. This stuff is made for the dance floor, and it's also great for those of us who like their soneros to be percussive and rhythmically sharp. Plus, he sings about black bikinis. You might wonder why the whole thing swings with such authority; the Gales are in the percussion section. Highly Recommended (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Modern jazz-fusion, direct from Havana, featuring a 19-year-old trumpeter. And as much as I'm curious about the new kid trumpeter from Havana, it's the group concept that interests me, and on the opening track, check out how the rhythm section grooves under his solo, a funky, hard masterpiece of new rhythm. Charly's after something different in his soloing, too, sounding almost like Lester Bowie, the great American trumpeter, going in and out of tune, smearing notes and roughing up his playing. He takes on Wayne Shorter's ESP; Bobby Carcassas plays piano, and he does a duet with Chucho Valdes on another piece. The band includes Harold Lopez Nussa on piano most of the time, and Lazaro Rivero on bass. Amadito Valdes plays on one tune, and Teresa Garcie Caturla sings on a tune. All very cool; a great debut, verging on timba jazz. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Great swinging Colombian salsa. Now, Colombian salsa has its own sound, and Sensacion Orquesta doesn't have that slick, fast sound as much as a classic New York feel; it's harder and funkier, and like a pile of new recordings from Colombia and Cuba, the band's doing stuff that you'd have heard hear a long time ago, tunes by Tony Pabón and Joey Pastrana, along with classics like "Achilipu" and "Adiviname Y Olvidate." Anyway, this stuff's great, with actual live musicians playing together, reacting to each other. The leader and lead singer of the band, Orlando Hurtado, owns a big, mature voice, that reaches into the higher registers easily to show you how much he cares. The arrangements, with breaks that give way to montunos and coros, work to make the music danceable; it's all the highest quality possible in the salsa world, infinitely listenable and grooving. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Here's a better than average son group from Santiago de Cuba. They flesh out the sound with a trombone. And though the music's called traditional, it sounds modern, with lots of solo space to the trumpet and trombone, and a looseness that seems contemporary. Also, the group writes new material, mixing it with older tunes. It rocks; there's no half-stepping here. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Yet another good Colombian release. For a while the Colombians were making music that was more Puerto Rican than music made in Puerto Rico. Here's they're picking on Cuban son, and doing a good job of it, also. Straightforward and ebullient, the band sounds like it's having a great time, swinging and light, with good singing and good trumpet playing. The tres motors along, and like all the best son recordings, there's a bit of pressure, like the whole thing's going pop with excitement. Good song choices with tunes by Ñico Saquito, Ignacio Pineiro, Luis Marquetti, Don Felo and more; good playing. (Comes with bonus DVD disc video of the title track "Mimi Pinzón.") Highly recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: There's a lot to like here from one of the better groups in Cuba. Sierra Maestra hasn't put out an album over three years, in part due to some personnel changes; Juan DeMarcos joined the Buena Vista organization, helping in part with the great recording Afro Cuban All Stars. Anyway, he's not on the record, but José Antonio Rodriguez, Luis Barzaga, and Alberto V. Valdes, the group's extraordinary lead singers, take on tracks like Arsenio's "Bruca Manigua." The band also does "La Loma De Belen," plus a pile of boleros in a potpourri. There also a bunch of son standards, and I like the way the band does them all, including "Suavecito," and "Santa Isabel de las Lajas." The tres motors on with the trumpet playing the high notes. Highly recommended, and give these singers a medal. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Now here's a recording to hang out with, a descarga featuring the saxophonist Chombo Silva, recorded in 1971 in Panama, and reissued by some Japanese fellows. It's fascinating to hear how Silva makes sense of the dueling traditions of jazz and Latin music as he slips in and out of montunos. He's backed by Carlos Zulueta on piano, the trumpeter Rafael Labasta, the drums of Dr. Cedeño, congas by Tomas Plomo Espinosa, bongo by Santiago Labastid and the bass of Luis Freddy Anglin. It's as it appears, a hard rocking descarga by a small group of talented musicians. The tunes include the jazz standards "Invitation," and "Here's That Rainy Day," along with "Lamento Borincano" and "A Noro Morales." Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: From the first blasting shout from the horns, you can hear that this session is ready to take on the world. Straight up salsa from the hand of Willie Sotelo, the pianist and part producer whose presence guarantees real deal, hard swinging salsa. He's joined by a tremendous group including William Thompson on congas, Pedro Pérez on bass along with a coro including Pedro Brull, Henry Santiago and Reil Peña - the best Puerto Rico can offer. As for singers, Pupy Cantor's joined by Gino Melendez, Rafi Andino, and Bernie Pérez; this is non-stop salsa durissima. For those fans of Envidia's Cuban catalog - the project's overseen by Luis Dominguez, Envidia's owner - there are some familiar tunes, including "Dime que lo Tengo que Cuadrar," that were first heard on Cuban discs. This stuff reminds me of the greatest moments of salsa from Puerto Rico; with the baritone riffing on the bottom of the horns it sounds like Willie Rosario. The coro, with perfect melodies, envelopes the music, and the singers, always mindful of the percussive elements of their job, peck out rhythms while Sotelo's piano gracefully churns out the montunos. And - this makes me happy - not one ballad. It's pure, uptempo, sleek, killing salsa, littered with great singing and playing and arrangements. I can hear it in a club, late at night, driving the dancers wild. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: What a great little party record, in the groove of, say, Sergent Garcia or Manu Chau. It mixes cumbia, ska and son, and to put it simply, rocks. It's a totally artificial idea, proposed by an English businessman, who hooked up an English dj/toaster with a Benny More imitator in Cuba. The music's raw, and sounds acoustic (retro's the word thrown around in the press release), with horns sometimes, and who cares about all of it. The music works - and I love the Spanish singing over a raw ska background - and it makes you feel good. A great debut for a new label. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Halfway through the first tune, the coro pops up and with a nasal sound, and bent notes, and the music declares itself Colombian. Yes, more Colombian salsa, with touches of say, danzón, with flutes and violins. High tenor singing, swinging hard over the band; good songs - how about "Sabroso Veneno" for a title? Good change up material for a dancefloor, high energy, salsa no question, but with rocking strings and those fine coros. A pile of trombones, too. Cool, and real. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Simply beautiful son from Colombia. Well recorded, perfectly played, earthy and honest. Good tres playing by Luis Enrique Lozano, one of the band's singers. At times the singing reminds me of Pedro Luis Ferrer. There's plenty of new material here, but the band also covers "Sarandonga" and "Oye El Cha-Cha" and Arsenio Rodriguez's "Las Tres Marias." This stuff's been worked out in performance; there aren't any shoelaces left untied. Super professional. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Latin music meets Steve Reich, on the first track, where the motoric elements in both musics meet and are accentuated. The rest of the music here, played by a Seattle based Latin jazz group, blends all sorts of stuff, including Cuban religious percussion, played by Michael Spiro among others, with a jazz and descarga sensibility. The band does some cool stuff, including harmonizing the dianas on "Donde Estabas Anoche," the piece by Ignacio Piñiero. Fred Hoadley plays the tres on the tunes; he moves to piano for Abdullah Ibrahim's "Bombella," a tune that brings out the Tyner/Coltrane in the band; the band sounds pretty comfortable doing it too. There's a sweetness to the whole project that is its main strength. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Here's an idea that hasn't really taken off, which is surprising: the group, from Philadelphia, mix Afro Cuban religious percussion with a sort of free/post/bop jazz approach. At times it could be related to the Art Ensemble of Chicago, let's say, with some electronica thrown in. Whatever the references, it's good, the eight piece group (with four guests), rocking in rhythm, the music big and broad and open, another innovation in the rapidly growing field of Latin jazz, Santeria meets the avant guard. Highly good and highly recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Sublime isn't the half of it. Here comes a working band, one that could be heard all over New York when there were more clubs to play. It's a charanga road band, and solid. But Bailando is better than just solid; the band's come to play, and the whole album just sounds damn good, with better than good singing, and a great, swinging string section along with a sparkling coro. Connie Grossman, the flutist, has the Cuban sound down perfectly, and the group's resume - listed extensively in the liner notes - makes the band the most educated group working the Latin circuit in New York. This is good. Just listen to the veteran bassist Marino Solano if you want a thrill. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Oscar Hernandez's beautiful creation cruises into its third album, United We Swing. And while there's a sense of mission in the orchestra - to preserve the glories of what happened in New York and Puerto Rico in the late '60s and 70s - the music is so strong and so alive, that it hardly feels like a preservation project. As anyone who's seen the orchestra live knows, this can be a vanguard type of experience, improvised, modern and fantastically heavy. On the record, that side's pulled in, with the classical side of the band emphasized (though there's plenty of slick harmony; check out Sonny Bravo's arrangement of Willie Torres' "Se Formo la Rumba", plus a new emphasis on pop coros, from the era. And check out the arrangements: on "En El Tiempo Del Palladium" Gil Lopez had the percussion slapping out rhythms in tandem, only to give way to a trumpet soloist, and then Marco Bermudez, who achieves a vocal quality that brings back images of Santitos Colón, Tito Puente's singer. Speaking of singers Ray De La Paz is on the recording and he tears it up, his improvisations parting the sea of horns and percussion; Paul Simon, with whom Hernández worked on the much misunderstood and brilliant "The Capeman" shows up to sing his "Late in the Evening." On tunes like "Salsa Pa'l Bailador" De La Paz sounds as if he's singing a lament to lost love; in fact, he's singing about dancers and the music - which makes sense, because in this world, that connection - between dancers and music - deserves the same weight, attention and power that love might have in other popular musics. It's all profound, and if the world were in order, Hernández would get a McArthur grant to keep the orchestra going another few years. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: So here's the big problem for salsa; reggaeton has made it sound stiff, and old fashioned, rhythmically flat. The challenge, then, is to make salsa that won't sound dumb next to Daddy Yankee. The obvious way to juice salsa is to include a rapper; it doesn't work too well. Along comes Michael Stuart to show us how it can be done. It's done by making the music harder than before, changing the sound of the music, using the studio to change the vocals, making sure the tumbao isn't the same old thing, making the rhythm section sound electric, tough, and letting Stuart soneo, his nasal voice sounding so street you'd think that Daddy Yankee would ask him to help out. This is a classic, the best salsa record put out in the United States in a good long time. With a guest spot by Tito Rojas. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: It's hard not to love this stuff, a charanga orchestra from Havana, not built for tourists or French producers or any other nostalgists. This is dance music, for the present, rocking over an electric bass, with tempos way beyond the stately tempos demanded by people looking at the past. This is a Tropical band, the sort that'd play for elders on Sunday afternoons, before the Havana club was closed down. The music feels local, specific, and unvarnished, useful for its constituents, funky and untamed. And it's really, really good, inching its way up into the top ten of the year. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Here's a hot band from Santiago de Cuba, thick in the timba. Sur Caribe is like those burning bands that used to come out of the country, say a zydeco band from Lafeyette, LA, that scalp an audience with their ferocity. Sur Caribe's a bit country compared to slick timba from Havana, but the band has something else, a wildness, an originality that isn't always heard in the big city. Percussion's way up here, and you can tell that the band's used to playing fast, loud and dirty all night long. When they lock into a tumbao - "Sin Papeles" - the music become hypnotic, the coro misting over the groove; you can see the singer's eyes rolling up into his head. I'd like to hear the 17 minute version of these tunes. Guess we'll have to wait for the live album Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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Vital new timba-pop release from one of the hippest groups in Cuba. Ricardo Leyva, author and arranger of all tracks on Credenciales, continues to impress with his originality and capacity to orchestrate the best available talent. This band can rock - listen to "Yo Soy Tu Varón" and the party track "Que Sucede Men" a few of the many tracks here that make me want to see this band live. I'm not alone, inside the liners there are stamps of approval - words of praise - by Juan Formell, David Calzado, Giraldo Piloto, César "Pupy" Pedroso, Amadito Valdés, Eliades Ochoa and Pedrito Calvo. And they've got some credentials. With invited guests María Ochoa, Jenisey Valdés Y Jorge Leliebre (Orquesta Van Van) and Conga De Los Hoyos, Santiago De Cuba. Highly Recommended. [BP 5/26/06]

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EditorsPick: Taylor was one of jazz's stars in the 1950s, when this album was recorded; he'd already put in time with Machito's orchestra, and recorded his own date with Machito's rhythm section. This session motors along over the drive of Candido's playing; Taylor's lines, metronomically perfect, groove over the pulse. Candido gets plenty of solo time here, and it's good to hear him at the peak of his powers, precise, perfect. Candido's playing over the drummer is nothing but amazing, and it's easy to lose oneself his designs. They play "Mambo Inn," "Love for Sale" and some Taylor originals. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Round two for the timba band from Miami, Florida. Weirdly, the recording is the best timba record to show up in a year or so, in part because the band's getting better and better, but also because the straight up timba scene in Cuba is seemingly over. Arroz Con Mango takes its cues from the late 1990s in Havana with funky, funky bass parts and hard working tumbaos, breakdowns, and singers who nab odd parts of a tune's harmony. As on its first album, the band takes on an older tune, "Pare Cochero." There's even a tune praising Miami, the sort of thing that would have been sung about Havana; here it sounds political. And another tune takes on the state of being in exile. Anyway, it's hard rocking timba, the sort that hardly ever gets recorded anymore. Ripe for dancefloors, easy on the ears, and well done, all the way through. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Hard-core timba, made in Miami, and holding the flame for the music that isn't that often heard in Cuba anymore. This is bar band music at its best, a non-stop, rocking album that has everything the genre asks for: good tumbaos, decent singing, good choices in tempos, an older hit - Adalberto's "A Bayamo en Coche." There isn't a moment that lets up (ok, a ballad), just tough, charging timba, with a big horn section, a big coro and a big sound. There's a bit of rapping, but by and large, we're talking about classic, modern timba at its best. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Here's a Rosetta stone for understanding all the interconnections between Mexico, specifically Vera Cruz, and Cuba. Toña, a Mexican singer from that city, ran a pretty good son group in the Cuban style, recording in the 1950s. She's not much of a sonera, but she's a pretty great singer, with a smooth, creamy voice that worked best on ballads, of which she sang a ton. And while historically important recordings can sometimes just be that, Toña actually made some slick music that I can listen too more than once. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Oh yeah, finally, a son record that rocks. And it does it with a rhythmic sense that isn't always heard on son records, rougher, older. At times the singing sounds almost Mexican; the music's from Baracoa, in Guantanamo province. This stuff just feels so good, so unproduced, so street, you can imagine coming across the band playing in a dusty town square in the country in Cuba. Even the recording suggests amps blowing up; the bass is overdriven and distorted. There's nothing fancy about the harmony, but the music is just so well played, so full of life, it's a joy. Lots of classic tunes, too, including "Sarandonga," "Mayari," "La Guajarita" and more. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Ok, check out the group: Ricky Gonzalez, Bobby Allende, Marc Quiñones, Carlos Henriquez, Sammy Garcia, Wichi Camacho, Pupi Santiago, Johnny Rivera, Luisito Quintero, Mario Rivera and plenty more. What's it add up too? One of the best hard salsa discs to show up in a long time. Now check out the singers: Tito Allen, Junior Gonzalez, George Lamond, and Johnny Rivera, and they to a person put some serious swing on the recording. This stuff sounds modern but classic - they do some Hector Lavoe/Willie Colón and Celia Cruz/Pacheco material - and it's set up perfectly for DJs and dancefloors. The tempos are up, everything's in tune, the recording's clear and bright and full. The band does some more electric stuff; it's a momentary delay in the action, and the action is just hard, real salsa. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: All right for the old school. Here's some classic salsa, slowly building to its explosions, Tricoche's improvisations snaking their way through the arrangements. A great group of Puerto Rican musicians back him up and it's hard not to appreciate the sense of relaxation that he brings to the music; most of the tunes are up-tempo. The arrangements are full of distinct touches, and a thick, full coro sparkles, and his voice, percussive and accurate, animates the show. The real deal, in 3-D, and great for any party. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A recording that captures the Haitian influence in Caridad de Oriente. It's a folklore recording, and beautiful, and important addition to the vital, if often overlooked music from French descendants in the area. It's like rumba but with different rhythms, and it's sung in Spanish and French. Another detail in the larger picture of what is the Caribbean, and Cuba. Well recorded, and with good notes. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Valdés, from Cuba and a longtime resident of New York, recorded the tunes on the album with his rhythm section in New York. The horns and coros were added in Havana, and the mixture is pretty great, great enough you wish that Valdés could go to Havana and record the whole thing there. This is a descarga, of which Valdés, a senior statesman of the music in New York, would know something about. And when he solos, his chords dropping percussively, he draws out an extraordinary sound from the piano. There's some incredible singing, too, with Juan Pina singing with the sort of high tenor voice that older singers had - singers like Pio Leyva. Lazaro More, Paniagua and Cordovi are there, singing also, and the coro includes Ciso Guanche and Jose Lussón, Jr.. And the tracks last, the way descarga tracks should. The highest praise I can give the recording is that it gives me the same sort of pleasure I get from the brilliant series of SAR recordings made in the '70s and '80s. I guess it's not surprising that Valdés was an integral part of those records also. Non-stop pleasure. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Back in stock! The type of record you put on when you want the music to make you feel good, for a long time. Recorded in 1998 it's about as graceful as you can get, a descarga record that just grooves and grooves and grooves; five of the tunes are over nine minutes long. Bebo is on cruise control, his piano figures settling the mostly Spanish band into a groove, letting the soloists take their time. And his improvisations, they're the thing you wait for. Highly recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Back in stock! Reinón, a saxophonist and bandleader from Barcelona, was smart enough to hook up in the late '90s with the overlooked pianist Valdes and include him in two projects, the Latin Jazz Octet and the Latin Big Band. The big band, like the octet, is a work of joy; Valdes composed a suite that lasts nearly an hour, and it's exceptional. It swings, lightly. The band, rehearsed, articulates the arrangements perfectly. Four of the pieces last over ten minutes, the montunos motoring with all the cool of a 12-cylinder engine. Highly recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: The main repository of the Cuban piano tradition comes forth with a solo work. After scoring big with a set of records that have made him, in his eighties, one of the most important Cuban musicians internationally, Valdes puts together a set of music by classical composers, including Ignacio Cervantes, Lecuona and others, adding tunes by Sindo Garay, Antonio Romeu, Ignacio Pineiro and more. It's pretty amazing, to have the classical work performed by a pianist who swings. And his sense of play, and sense for melody, for the spaces between notes, all invigorate the performances. There's not much like this, oddly enough, in the Cuban discography, and it's essential. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Originally released with the DVD in PAL format. Now available here on NTSC... Here was our original review: Yet another gem from Bebo, whose late career is as prolific and fertile as any time in life. The album includes two CDs, one called Suite Cubana, the other El Solar de Bebo. Suite Cubana is a big band album that features some of the best musicians in the Latin world, including the reeds of Paquito, Bobby Porcelli, Mario Rivera and Bob Franceschini, the trumpets of Michael Philip Mossman, Diego Urcola, Ray Vega, the trombones of J. P. Torres, Luis Bonilla and Papo Vazquez. The rhythm section includes John Benitez on bass Dafnis on drums, Milton Cardona on percussion, along with Joe Gonzalez and Rickard Valdez. It's a big band Latin jazz record, and it swings fully, with huge orchestral swells. It's firmly in the orchestral vocabulary of the 40s through 1960s, and as usual, the music is laden with Bebo's grace. The second cd includes Paquito, J.P Torres, Diego Urcola, Andy Gonzalez, Milton Cardona, Jimmy Delgado and Steve Berrios on drums, along with a few others. It's astonishingly intimate, and like all Bebo albums the music is profoundly knowing, moving carefully between the swing of the United States and the swing of Cuba. It's almost intentionally small, with edited, minimal gestures suggesting world of music and experience. The DVD is Bebo being interviewed by producer Nat Chediak, as well as behind-the-scene footage of rehearsals. These records, in a hundred years, will be considered great examples of a style and a way of thinking. They're not to be underestimated. Highly recommended. DVD: NTSC format. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Wow, here's a find. Bebo, well-recorded in Cuba in 1959, fronting his entire orchestra. And what a sound, big, full and detailed; this is one of the best recordings I've ever heard from this time in Cuba. It's stately, graceful music, orchestral, with beautiful arrangements and perfect playing. On "El Cumbanchero," the heat picks up, fueled by percussion. Be forewarned: Bebo doesn't play much piano here; the stars of the show are the band, and the arrangements, and his always-impeccable sense of tempo. This is easily the equivalent of any of the great bands of the time, Machito, or the Titos. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Hmm. Chucho, now recording again in Cuba? Interesting, interesting. Anyway, he's put together an hour long program of solo piano, focusing on Cuban music. Can't argue that he knows what he's doing, though the shadow of his father's honesty and grace fall heavily on the project. Still, an introspective retrospective of Cuban music, from one of that country's heavies. Tunes include "Por Nuestra Cobardia," and more. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Smoking salsa dura from a Colombian singer who's working in a sound that reminds me how great the Puerto Rican/New York scene once was. Valdés arranges and sings and the music, tight and taut, cranks out dance floor pleasure. The level of ballads and pan-Caribbean hit mongering is way down; here's a party record that doesn't insult anybody's intelligence. Salsa done right. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: I like these projects, where Cubans are thrown together with Gypsies from Spain and France. This one brings together the Familia Valera Miranda, one of the great Cuban son groups with Catalan gypsies from the districts of Perpignan. The liner notes are fascinating, underscoring that the gypsies had been singing Cuban and Puerto Rican songs for decades, having transformed them for their own uses. So the band plays tunes familiar to both sides of the ocean, including "El Negro Bembon," "Sarandonga," "Santa Barbara," "Bilongo" and more. It's really nice music, ably played and sung, and always giving off a sense of good humor and generosity. It's son, with a Spanish accent. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Familia Valera Miranda Son Asi The first family of the son, Santiagero style, checks in. Pure acoustic son, with Enrique Valera, the son of the leader Felix, playing jazz substitutions on the cuatro occasionally. It's beautiful, tranquil music, redolent of the past. Though it's not from the past: it's played every night in Santiago. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Modern jazz, American style, played by a Cuban pianist with an American rhythm section of Ben Street on bass and Adam Cruz on drums. Seamus Blake on tenor saxophone allows Valera's harmonic sense to really come out, comping behind the long and twisted lines. Valera's own playing is strong and modern and insistent, and for a debut recording Historia isn't just suggestive of good things to come, it's just good. It's thoughtful, also, shadowing the best of say, Andrew Hill, if he'd been a touch more like McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Valera, a pianist from Cuba living in the United States, has pulled together a set of music that's deeply ambitious. He's taken an exceptional group - Joel Frahm on saxophone, James Genus on bass and Ernesto Simpson on drums - and blended them on seven tracks with a woodwind group. The music's light and intelligent, and well written, and when Valera's improvisations bust through the writing, it becomes exciting. It's modern in the post-Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock way, and often brilliant, his lines compressing then floating. Frahm, one of the unsung heroes of the modern saxophone in jazz, rips it up, also, and on the quartet tracks the rhythms stiffen up, with more interplay between Valera and Simpson. A major piece of work. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Here's a cool date from Cuba, headlined by the saxophonist Valido. Backed by an all-star group of musicians, including the trumpeters El Niño Chappottin and Frank Padrón, with coros and singing by Jose Lusson, Ciso Guanche and Michel Calvo. On plenty of tracks the band sounds like some McCoy Tyner/Cuba fusion project, due to the playing of the pianist Vicente Garcia. Valido's a decent enough saxophonist, but it's the group that makes things happen, with a sort of timba descarga action going on. There's great playing all over this, with Osmany Salazar, the bassist, giving a lesson in modern Latin bass playing. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Yeah, it's good. Even with the departure of Pedro Calvo and Pupy, the band sounds good, and big. As usual, the topic's religion, and the base of the group is in the thump and detail in Samuel Formell's drumming. And there's the ever-present sound of violins and trombones. The piano seat's taken over by Roberto Rodriguez, who does a fine job, and one of the group's newer singers, Yenisel Valdes, who if I'm not totally spaced out, sang with NG La Banda, is a serious improviser, capable of stretching out for half an hour on a tune. Mayito Rivera is also on hand, and another other new singer, Abdel Rasalps, sounds like Pedro Calvo, which is ok; once the group settles into a groove, one has to give up the fact that the mighty band sounds unstoppable, and that Chapeando is a classic. The Formell harmony is all intact, the melodies, too. Pupy and his band have taken over Havana with their new sound, but I'd bet that Chapeando fields some hits. Ain't nothing like this. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Here's one that comes with one of the better titles I've read in a long time. The West Coast group, lead by the trombonist Wallace, who has worked with Conjunto Cespedes, Peter Escovedo, Machete ensemble and more, is helped by some of the West Coast all stars including John Santos and Michael Spiro on percussion. It's a fine recording that draws on the African Atlantic, mixing jazz improvisational abilities with musical ideas from across the Americas. Cuba's deeply in evidence, as is funk and salsa. There's good playing all over this, and decent singing in Spanish and English. Totally enjoyable. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: The record opens with the first slow Colombian salsa tune I've ever heard. It takes its time to take off, too. But Welsare, a singer from San Juan in Colombia, moves slowly, grooving his way through a baritone saxophone, trumpets, great gear-like piano figures, and a nice enough coro. This is serious late night salsa, unrushed, amazingly recorded, swinging, well sung, in tune. What gets me the most are its tempos, easy, relaxed, chilled-out without being sluggish. The band takes rhythm as art, the art of the medium slow burned groove, and I like it; it feels really, really good. Nothing like it out there, at all. Since when did dance music slow down? Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Produced by Luny Tunes, and featuring a pile of guest artists, including Ja Rule, the album moves between Latin rap and reggaeton. Daddy Yankee shows up on a tune, Paleta with what?!!, a female coro that goes like this "Paleta, dame paleta" Who would have imagined? Anyway, it's reggaeton at it's hottest, the music of our time, street tested, good for the birthday parties of 13 year old girls. Dance fool, dance. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: One of the great Cuban rumba groups, tragically under recorded, comes with a new work that opens with, gulp, a piece that's helped out by synthesizer. Thankfully the synthesist went out for a drink for much of the rest of the hour plus recording. And the results are special, fine coros, fine lead singing, and percussion that in its precision is one of the wonders of the 21st century. And there's a woman lead singer; the group does a long suite to the Yoruban gods, along with a Congo piece, and a conga, and a guaguancó with a high-speed rap, which is as far as I know the first recording of a rumba group with a rapper. There's also a flamenco piece. Phew. Highly recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A third Valle brother - the others are Luis and Maraca - is the least experimental of the trio. Yumuri leads a long-standing dance group in Havana, one that's never really gone for timba or son. What he traffics in is simple: dance floor salsa, played by Cuban musicians. It's an amazingly precise and swinging version of salsa. His shout outs include Havana, Puerto Rico and Oriente, and he's uses a Colombian styled coro, so he's got his eyes on the outside world. This is international salsa, perfect for DJs, perfect for the dance floor, as good as salsa gets, and from Cuba of all places. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Zenon's one of the most important figures in New York's jazz renaissance, Latin-style, and Jibaro will keep the reputation-building process going forward. There are excruciating beautiful moments - check out the melody to "Punto Cubano" - along with ventures into the jazz sublime - listen to the opening piano solo on "Jibaro." Zenon's working with the usual cast of characters, including Luis Perdomo on piano, Hans Glawischnig on bass and Antonio Sanchez, and they deal with the precise arrangements, backing the thick felt sound of Zenon's saxophone. His improvising is motivic, and individual, and while there may be references to Puerto Rican country music, what I hear is really sophisticated modern jazz at its best. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: A great compilation of great tracks by the more modern stars of the Envidia stable. There's even a track by Isaac Delgado, from his last recording - who knows with Envidia? So there are tracks by Michel Maza, Pedrito Calvo, Tirso Duarte, Arnoldo Y La Cosmopolita, Nelson Manuel and more. Some of it's unreleased, stuff that maybe never made the original albums, and it's all good, mostly dance music -- with a few slower tracks --from Cuba. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Three cds of the best of the mountain that is the Cuban wing of the Envidia catalog. Starting off with the brilliant, hard-core timba/salsa of Pedro Calvo, moving through stately charanga, jazz influenced descargas, deep salsa and more, this compilation is a boon to the party, and great for djs, since it takes the best track of a bunch of albums and glues them all together. Hard not to let the three cds just hang around the cd player. And ignore the weird concept, that these are the hits seen on Cuban television; only in a world where Envidia runs the country. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: Fasten your seat belts, says Gallego on the first track, rapping over percussion, and he isn't kidding because the production brings together some of the best reggaeton rappers - Tego Calderon and Don Omar along with the singers Gilberto Santa Rosa, Papo Rosario,Victor Manuelle, Domingo Quiñones, Tito Nieves, and more. For those of you who can't stand reggaeton, don't worry, half of the tracks here are salsa dura, with the reggaetoners paired off with salseros and relegated to asides or commentary, while the singers rocking the place over a great band. Even with Tego Calderon and Victor Manuelle take an easy walk through "Che Che Cole", where Calderon raps part of the way through, there's still the tough band backing them up; it brings Tego into salsa, not the other way around. And Tego sounds good in the context, too. Three big guys, Tito Nieves and Pedro Brull and John Erick, work through "Los Gorditos", talking about salsa gorda, with Erick rapping at times over the band, then a short percussion break. It works great. Historic music, and a nice attempt to get the two musics to work together. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: What a weird and great compilation. It takes on the intellectual wing of Cuban music in the early 1970s, the academics and music school graduates who had a certain access to some music of the outside world, albeit from a distance, both cultural and chronological. So who do we here in the fabric of the bands? We hear Sly Stone and Fela and other African pop, and funk and Earth, Wind and Fire and Brazilian music. There's tons of funk in the basslines and the trap drumming, and there are some classics, like Irakere's "Bacalao Con Pan" and unknown stuff by groups like Los Tainos and Los 5-U-4. Juan Pablo Torres Y Algo Nuevo have three tunes, and they're wildly good. So strange; here's a culture closing down while the arts are opening up. Cuba suffers from both a cultural superiority complex and a sense of isolation and inferiority; people on the album are trying to catch up with the worldwide explosion brought on by the 1960s. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
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EditorsPick: The third installment of a series by the producer Geno Acosta, mixing musicians from Cuba with musicians from Puerto Rico. This is the heaviest lot yet, with the Cuban contingent including Roberto and Pedro Calvo and Jenisel Valdez from Van Van, Tony Cala from NG La Banda, Issac Delgado and Aramis Galindo. They're joined by Jerry Medina and Andy Montañez; I imagine it's hard to get Puerto Rican singers to kick in, due to the trouble given to Montañez by anti Cuban forces here. The musicians are amazing, too, including Tony Pérez, Chucho, Jose Lugo, Giovanni Hidalgo, Changuito and more. And on and on; there are duets, including Issac and Tony Cala, and some lukewarm instrumentals. At its best this stuff's history. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
Original Price: $15.98
Now: $12.78
Outstanding collaborative effort with the best musicians and vocalists from both Cuba and Puerto Rico. Produced by Geño Acosta who gave us the acclaimed De Aqui Pa'lla (1994) and De Allá Pa'cá: Cuba Le Canta A Puerto Rico (1996), Son Cuba y Puerto Rico features a *ton* of musical royalty from both islands: Tony Perez, José Lugo, Chucho Valdés, John Benitez, Jorge Reyes, Giovanni Hidalgo, Cachete Maldonado, Tito De Gracia, José L. Quintana (Changuito), Pancho Amat, Elpidio Chapotín, Julito Padrón, and José Luis Cortéz y NG La Banda. The singers? Check this out: Roberto Hernández, Jenisel Valdéz, Tony Calá, Jerry Medina, Andy Montañez, Osvaldo Román, Pedro Calvo, Issac Delgado, Aramis Galindo, and Coco Freeman. Whoa!

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EditorsPick: A collection of modern alt-pop from the Latin American world, mainly rap stuff, and slightly dated at that. The countries? Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and even New York. There's ska and rap from Colombia, rap/reggaeton from Argentina and on and on. Super good compilation; ignore the dummy lefty liner notes, and the inclusion of what must be friends of the compiler - see Ska Cubano. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous)
Original Price: $16.98
Now: $13.58
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