Afro-Latin Music

  Listening to Leonor Dely and Millero Congo's latest cd TALISMAN, one is impressed by many things at once: the power of her voice the power of the band's rhythms, the way the band easily glides from sacred African religious-derived beats to dance rhythms and back.

 Although Lenor is from Columbia, her sound has touches of Cuba, Africa, the Caribbean and the whole of South America.

    TALISMAN is one of the boldest, rootsy-est bands I've ever heard.

 Although there are string and wind players in Millero Congo, the drum section propels the sound more than any band I've ever heard - including Santana or Tito Puente.

 It's amazing to hear Andean flutes mixed with chanting and a powerful beat: the drummers switch from one type of drum to another constantly, using drums from all over Latin America.

 Many times the music sounds so sacred (like Santaria) that the listener feels like an intruder peeking in someplace he's not supposed to be, while other cuts are quite welcoming.

 Strong music; very uplifting.

 AFRO-LATIN PARTY is basically  hot Latin-American dance music a.k.a. Afro-Cuban music: the bands come from all over the world because like jazz and rock and roll, Afro-Cuban salsa has spread to all corners of the globe; especially to Africa, where the roots of the sound are very deep.

 The West African group Africando is now considered one of the best 'Latin' groups in the world, Jose Miangual Jr. mixes in a little jazz with his salsa, Pepe and the Bottle Blondes (love that name) hail from Portland, Oregon and are a fabulously entertaining throwback band (Pepe has a voice that can sound like a young Desi Arnez).

 Ska Cubano is a mix of London ska and Cuban musicians: their version of the classic 'Babalu' will have you laughing out loud.

 Cubismo is a real shocker: a New York-style Latin band from Croatia, of all places! Play this tune for your friends, then have them guess where the band is from: no-one will ever get it, especially after the Spanish vocals.

 Ronald Rubinel's 'Salsa Kolo' is from that hotbed of Latin music, Paris, France: its leader is originally from Martinique. Ronald Rubinel is a keyboardist and producer who has played with Kassav and many others; but until recently has not shown his knowledge of Afro-Cuban sounds.

 Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca should be familiar to all Afro-Cuban music fans: Lemvo was born and raised in the Congo where an Africanized form of Cuban-derived rhumba has been popular for more than fifty years.  Lemvo relocated to the United States and built a killer kick-ass band that fuses Congolese rhumba with hot salsa and Cuban/Latin jazz.

 Anyone with legs who can sit down while listening to this band needs to see a doctor.

 And that's not all: there are other cuts featuring Chico Alvarez from New York and Nicholas Mentheim with Africando.

 Put on your dancing shoes and turn up the volume!

  Although Tania Libertad is not actually of African descent she did grow up on the Afro-Peruvian coast, absorbing the sounds of the black Peruvian community in which she started singing at an early age. She has spent most of the last three decades exploring the black Latin American traditions from many countries, but with her last two cds she returns to the sounds of the Peruvian coast.

 On NEGRO COLOR Tania explores the idea of letting other Afro-Latin traditions influence, in a subtle way, her Afro-Peruvian music: for the most part, it works very well.  Although primarily an acoustic sound, Libertad's NEGRO COLOR is not folkloric: it's closer to what some folks call 'cocktail jazz' - not that you'd need to be drinking to enjoy it.

 Listen to the way Libertad does the great Brazilian singer/songwriter Chic Buarque's 'Funeral del Labrador', then picks things up with 'Samba Malato', which will remind listeners of other Afro-Peruvian singers.

 Though she's been singing and recording for decades, Tania Libertad chooses to interpret the songs of others rather than write her own.  In this way she reminds me of the great jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday: no matter who may have written a tune, when Tania Libertad sings it, she does it her way.

 Libertad has passion, she has style, and she has a beautiful voice mixed with dedication to her tradition.