Various Artists Viva CuBop! Jazz the Afro-Cuban Way (CuBop) The fact that CuBop, the Latin jazz arm of the independent label Ubiquity, has released twenty-two records in three years is proof enough that something is going right with “the little Latin jazz label that could.” The label’s first compilation, Viva…
Sizzla Be I Strong (VP) That Sizzla can lick a riddim like no one else was evident as early as 1994’s Black and Comely, his first album that saw him do lyrical battle alongside singer Mikey General. Turning out the biblically weighted “Song of Solomon” with the coarse, spine-tingling chant…
Zap Mama A Ma Zone (Luaka Bop/Virgin) Afro-European group Zap Mama has always refused to submit to the control of categorization: all the better to reimagine musical, as well as human, possibilities. A Ma Zone, Zap Mama’s fourth album, continues a progression that began with the group’s 1993 self-titled debut…
On paper at least, Onda Sonora — Red Hot + Lisbon, the latest Red Hot release to donate its proceeds to fund AIDS research, is a shaky concept at best. Gathering superstars from various nations who sing in Portuguese (such as Brazilians Caetano Veloso, Marisa Monte, and Carlinhos Brown; the…
Ever since jazz saxophonist Stan Getz journeyed to Rio de Janeiro in 1963 to record with some then-little-known Brazilian musicians named Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, the phrase “Brazilian music” has, to most American ears, conjured images of cool, sophisticated guitar strumming and delicately hushed vocals intoning the praises…
Cuban Roots Cuban Roots Revisited (Cubop) If Cuban Roots Revisited were simply a tip of the hat to an influential Afro-Cuban recording of 30 years ago, it still would be worth the time and effort. The original Cuban Roots album, released in 1968, was enormously influential (and currently impossible to…
Cuban Roots Cuban Roots Revisited (Cubop) If Cuban Roots Revisited were simply a tip of the hat to an influential Afro-Cuban recording of 30 years ago, it still would be worth the time and effort. The original Cuban Roots album, released in 1968, was enormously influential (and currently impossible to…
Holy Modal Rounders Too Much Fun (Rounder) Some words of warning: If your idea of great ’60s folk music is Peter, Paul, & Mary; if you have issues with the vision of gray-haired hippies partying like it’s 1969; or if you have any aversion to whooping and hollering; you should…
Salif Keita Mama (Metro Blue) If you wanted to oversimplify the short history of Afro-pop into neat categories, it would be easy. King Sunny Ade has the beats, Youssou N’Dour has the hits, and Salif Keita has the voice. But even that summation would need some updating with the release…
Salif Keita Mama (Metro Blue) If you wanted to oversimplify the short history of Afro-pop into neat categories, it would be easy. King Sunny Ade has the beats, Youssou N’Dour has the hits, and Salif Keita has the voice. But even that summation would need some updating with the release…
Drum and bass is a genre notable for its rhythmic innovation and an ever-changing cutting edge that seems to mutate with the week’s latest twelve-inch single. It’s also all too often marked by a startling lack of musicality. A typical drum and bass single usually starts off establishing the now-familiar…
Eliades Ochoa y el Cuarteto Patria Sublime Illusion (Higher Octave Music) It isn’t hard to find a silver lining in Buena Vista Social Club, the enchantingly sensual collaboration between Ry Cooder and some of Cuba’s legendary-but-almost-forgotten musicians that became an unexpected worldwide smash. But one of the sweetest aftershocks is…
Percussionist Francisco Aguabella is emphatic when asked whether anyone else can perform the types of rhythms he has been playing since he came to the United States from Cuba in 1957. “No,” he says in his heavy Cuban accent, “nobody else can play these rhythms because I’m the only one…
Vinicius Cantuaria Tucumo (Verve) Maybe Brazilians are just musically superior to the rest of us. It’s food for thought not only because the leading lights of Brazilian popular music — artists such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, who defined the genre in the late Sixties — are still releasing…
Carlinhos Brown Omelete Man (Metro Blue) Omelete Man, the wide-ranging new album by Brazilian singer and multi-instrumentalist Carlinhos Brown, may surprise listeners whose image of Brazilian music is confined to the sophisticated bossa nova of J‹o Gilberto or the intelligent international pop of Caetano Veloso. It shouldn’t though, because over…
