Kid In The Candy Store
Am I ever excited. I'm off to Toronto's venerable Massey Hall to hear the Afro Cuban All Stars. Led by Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, they are one of the world's leading exponents of Cuban Big Band Music. It's a rich, luscious blend of horns, piano, bass and percussion. It's rhythmically sophisticated and innately danceable at the same time. Despite the complexity of form, it's captivating and direct music.
The All Stars play a fairly traditional style of Cuban music, if you consider something dating from the forties and fifties as traditional. The style dates back to the big band era in the States, and Canada. The Cubans adopted the big band form, and put their own thumbprint on it. The Cuban forms have exerted an influence in jazz and popular music well beyond their borders since they adopted the big band form.
Dizzy Gillespie is largely responsible for introducing the Cuban sound to the world, and owes him a dept for this wonderful introduction. Since this revelation in the mid forties, Cuban music has changed just like everyone else's music. It's only natural. In the early nineties Juan de Marcos Gonzalez tried to track down some of the stars of Cuban music from their big band era. The end result was the justifiably famous Buena Vista Social Club. Ry Cooder certainly had a big hand in it too, but it's largely Gonzalez leadership that made the project possible.
The rest is history as they say. Since then, Gonzalez has been leading his own big bands on tours around the world breathing new life into the now classic sound of Cuban big band music. The old tunes are respectfully performed along with new tunes that complement them. Cuba's present isolation from the world is something that is passing, and fortunately for us, we're getting a glimpse into the heart of Cuban culture and especially their excellent music.
The All Stars play a fairly traditional style of Cuban music, if you consider something dating from the forties and fifties as traditional. The style dates back to the big band era in the States, and Canada. The Cubans adopted the big band form, and put their own thumbprint on it. The Cuban forms have exerted an influence in jazz and popular music well beyond their borders since they adopted the big band form.
Dizzy Gillespie is largely responsible for introducing the Cuban sound to the world, and owes him a dept for this wonderful introduction. Since this revelation in the mid forties, Cuban music has changed just like everyone else's music. It's only natural. In the early nineties Juan de Marcos Gonzalez tried to track down some of the stars of Cuban music from their big band era. The end result was the justifiably famous Buena Vista Social Club. Ry Cooder certainly had a big hand in it too, but it's largely Gonzalez leadership that made the project possible.
The rest is history as they say. Since then, Gonzalez has been leading his own big bands on tours around the world breathing new life into the now classic sound of Cuban big band music. The old tunes are respectfully performed along with new tunes that complement them. Cuba's present isolation from the world is something that is passing, and fortunately for us, we're getting a glimpse into the heart of Cuban culture and especially their excellent music.
posted by othercat @ 6:01 p.m.
1 Comments:
At 10:29 a.m.,
Handsome Jack said…
My hope rests on the fact that Donald Rumsfeld was finally forced to resign. I know it's only a smoke screen and a puppet has been put in his place, but this man has been behind the running disaster of the Middle East for decades.
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