Search Results for: Cuban music

Joshua Levine and his quartet have a lot of Guataca

Joshua Levine, artistically known as Josh Levine, is one of so many examples of Americans who, without having any type of Latin roots, fall under the charm of our beautiful music and do not hesitate to make it their way of life. That is why we wanted to talk to Josh, born in New York City, a little more about his career and what brought him to where he is today.

Josh posing with his double bass — Bandleader and bassist Josh Levine posing with his double bass

Josh’s beginnings in music

The first instrument that drew Josh’s attention as a child was the piano, as his babysitter was a piano teacher and offered him some lessons to satisfy his curiosity. The interesting thing is that his teaching was more focused on the ear than on reading music as such, showing that there are musicians perfectly capable of playing without needing a musical score.

However, like any child, he began to have other interests such as skating, to which he devoted much of his time back then. About 10 or 11 years later, his father, who was a great jazz fan, used to listen to this genre at home frequently, to the point that the young man once again felt that passion for what he had practiced so many years ago and began to listen a little more intently to the artists his father enjoyed.

Seeing his son’s growing taste for jazz, Josh’s father decided to take him to a concert featuring Cedar Walton’s piano trio with Ron Carter on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. He was so impressed by their performance that he decided to study bass that same day, as at the time it seemed to him the most understandable and easiest instrument to learn because of its few notes at once.

He got so good that he even became part of his high school band, a group from where great artists emerged including Carlos Henriquez, a great musical luminary who has worked with Celiz Cruz, Eddie Palmieri and Ruben Blades and is the current bass player for the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Interest in Latin music

For those same years, Josh also learned Spanish and clarified that he does not have any Latin ancestry, so this was not the motive behind his interest in this music. However, he grew up in a neighborhood in Manhattan where many Latino families lived, especially Caribbeans from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

Josh and Jainardo — Josh Levine next to Puerto Rican singer and percussionist Jainardo Batista

Meanwhile, he was also studying biology in college and a little jazz and classical music. Upon graduation, by pure chance, he met a young Venezuelan musician named Roberto Fuentes, who was the director of Alpargata Cantorum (a very famous Venezuelan musical comedy and theater group in the 70s), who wanted to form a band with him and a few other musicians. Fuentes showed Josh a lot of Venezuelan folkloric music, taught him to play cuatro and made him listen to several songs typical of Venezuelan music such as ”Barlovento”, ”El Alma Llanera”, ”La Vaca Mariposa”, ”Pajarillo Verde” and many more.

As for classic salsa, he made him listen to Ismael Rivera, Rubén Blades, Willie Colón and many others.

Other groups Josh was in

Having been in the group with Fuentes gave him what he needed to make contact with many other groups, including that of José Luis Martínez, who was very close to Juan Carlos Formell Sr. Thanks to Martinez he learned a great deal about Cuban music, the way Cuban son is played on the bass, the pronunciation of words in the Cuban dialect, among other things.

His big break came when he met Jainardo Batista, whom he was a big fan of when he was in his band Nu Guajiro (or Nu D’lux, as it would end up being called). It turns out that Josh went every Sunday to hear them play at the club where they were at the time and, after 10 years of following their music, they finally invited him to play with them.

After a while, the group disbanded, but Josh and Jainardo did not lose touch. And not only that, but they continued playing together and had the idea of forming something new.

Jainardo, Jeremy, Gabriel, and Josh — Percussionist Jainardo Batista, flautist Jeremy Bosch, Pianist Gabriel Chakarji, and bassist Josh Levine

Cuarteto Guataca

Cuarteto Guataca was born when Josh and Jainardo decided to form a new group after the breakup of Nu D’lux and counted with the participation of Dominican arranger, composer and tres player Román Lajara and Puerto Rican producer, composer and flutist Jeremy Bosch. He describes them both as musical prodigies, to the point of telling us that Lajara was the representative of the Cuban tres as an instrument at the 2024 National Jazz Day in Morocco.

Josh, Jainardo, Román and Jeremy were the members of the original quartet, but they did not play for a living because it was not enough, but as a sort of part-time job. For the same reason, the four of them also worked on other projects at the same time, as is usually the way with New York today.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, they started playing in city parks to earn some tips during the quarantine, leading their audiences to grow tremendously and many venues began to hire them to play in their open spaces. At a time when musicians were out of work, they had events at least six out of seven days to a week.

This led to them to be ready to get in a studio for the first time and record their first album, which was released in 2022 and is available on all digital platforms for all to enjoy. It should be noted that Román was not playing as often with Cuarteto Guataca, so he was replaced by Venezuelan producer, composer and pianist Gabriel Chakarji until he got back some time later.

Salsa, territory of joy.

Latin America / Venezuela / Caracas

Salsa, territory of joy, language of celebration, enjoyment of the towns and their people, was born from a confluence of facts, geniuses and rhythms. Confluence that happened in the faith of the same religion: Afro-Cuban music.

And that mixture, which Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz cleverly described as “similar to the tomato sauce that is put on hamburgers to give them flavor”, was summed up in the insightful sentence of the occasional witness, the journalist Phidias Escalona: “the music that you make is salsa. From now on we will call it sauce”.

The year was 1968 and although the new rhythm already existed, there had been no consensus on the name. And that consensus began to emerge -perhaps for the first time- on the album “Los Durisimos The Strong Ones, Salsa y Control”, by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. Later, Richie himself would add: “The word was born around us, (however,) if it weren’t for (Jerry) Masucci there would be no salsa, because he brought it to the world.”

In 1960s New York Harlem, black Americans had begun to like Latin music, despite not speaking Spanish.

Ama a tu musa como a ti mismo - Salsa — Ama a tu musa como a ti mismo – Salsa

The guajira dazzled them until they made them dance. Believing that the mixture of boogaloo, blues, mambo, guaguancó or son montuno, was a variant of the boogaloo invented by Chubby Checker, the new rhythm was founded, incorporating the concepts of the Latin spirit in their interpretations and that -technically- they would add to the baggage : percussion, piano, violins, trumpets, trombones and whatever instrument would serve to give it flavor and richness.

Cocola' Wears - Venezuela Salsa — Cocola’ Wears – Venezuela Salsa

Musically, for example, the so-called “blue notes” would be added (that is how the overtones of the acoustically weak E and B notes, last to be added to the scale, where they would be relocated between Lam and Lam) would be added to the new fusions. Then came the downloads and phrases that we know until now as characteristics of salsa.

Thus the sauce was born. And so it has been transformed, always within the circle that encloses joy, passion and enjoyment, history, experiences, fortune or misfortune, seen from different perspectives: urban, social, sensual or everyday.

Juan Karlos Jiménez talks about his orchestra Salsa Nueva Band and freelance career

Los Angeles is an inexhaustible source of Latin talent and this is proven every day with a large number of singers, musicians and groups that give all for all in each of their performances, with which they manage to earn a privileged place in the city and California’s music scene.

On this occasion, we talked with the great Mexican percussionist Juan Karlos Jimenez, with whom we had the privilege of making contact to learn more about his career and contributions to Latin music in US territory.

Juan Karlos’ beginnings in music

Juan Karlos was born in Veracruz, place he describes as ”one of the most salsa-loving cities in Mexico”. The first musical influence in the artist’s life has been his own father, who played a lot of Cuban music of the time when Juan Karlos was still a child, and among his favorite groups and artists were La Orquesta Aragón and Tito Puente.

Of his four brothers, he was the only one who devoted himself to music professionally and wanted to take salsa as a foundation, being something exceedingly rare for a Mexican, since most of the population does not usually see this genre as part of the typical music of the country. However, Juan Karlos also points out that, since Veracruz is located in the tropical part of the country, the city has a lot of Caribbean musical influence. This was one of the reasons that led the artist to become so passionate about salsa.

In addition to music, he also studied a degree in communication and graphic design at the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac, Guadalajara. As for the communication part, being a 13-year-old boy, he began working at a radio station, which would be the beginning of interest he would have in the not too distant future for locution in a much more formal way. This led him to work in very prestigious places in Mexico such as Televisa Radio, giving him the necessary experience to know how to handle himself as a musician in relation to the media when he would promote his orchestra years later.

While I was university studying, I worked in a music store and one day I had to serve to the Cuban Afro-jazz singer Rosalía de Cuba, who invited me to attend Cuban nights of which she was part of in restaurants and clubs in Guadalajara. One night, I was encouraged to go and started playing with one of the trios that performed that day and the leader of the group was so fascinated with my skills as a percussionist that he hired me permanently in exchange for 150 Mexican pesos per performance” said Juan Karlos about his time as a student.

He also pointed out that in order to reach such a good level, he took a few classes with the late Cuban arranger, composer and bongocero Adalberto Alvarez, leader of the group Son 14, thanks to whom he was able to play percussion so efficiently.

Today, he exercises his skills as a graphic designer with his orchestra Sangre Nueva Band, since he is the one who creates the album covers, flyers and artwork in general related to his musical project.

Juan Karlos posing — Juan Karlos Jiménez posing for camera

Moving to the United States

When Juan Karlos was just going to form his first band in Guadalajara, he met Maika Miller, who played for the Mexico’s Philharmonic orchestra and would be his partner for several years. Some time after they married, Milka was offered a master’s degree in Los Angeles and asked her husband to go with her, to which he gladly accepted because of the new opportunities he would have in his new home.

A few years later, he retried creating his group in her new city of residence after 15 years of hard work. And while Juan Karlos and Milka are no longer a couple, they continue to be part of the same musical project, which they have baptized Sangre Nueva Band.

However, in order to reach that point, he had to gain a lot of experience playing and perfecting his technique, but fortunately, many groups gave him the opportunity to make a living and be better every day at what he did, such as Conjunto Son 14, Carache, Santiago de Cuba, Rosalía de Cuba, Johnny Blas Y Afro Libre Orquesta, La Orquesta de Yari Moré, Tabaco y Ron, among others.

His first attempt at creating an orchestra was Jazz Son, which he founded with Maika in Mexico with the idea that his music would be based on the fusion of jazz and son, but his plans were postponed with their sudden move to the United States. Finally, in 2009, he managed to found the orchestra he has today, which he called Sangre Nueva Band.

Even so, he never stopped playing independently for other artists such as Gilberto Santa Rosa, Victor Manuelle, Ruben Blades, Cheo Feliciano and many more.

Juan Karlos playing — Juan Karlos Jiménez playing and recording in a studio

Salsa Nueva Band

One of the things that led Juan Karlos to create his own orchestra in Los Angeles was his desire to be the leader of his own project. He says he feels fortunate and grateful to be able to play with other orchestras, but in his own words ”it is better to be the head of mouse than the tail of a lion”. For the same reason, the idea of working in his own business without having to rely on other orchestras or singers was always in his head.

When he decided it was time, he had a chance encounter with an Armenian musician who, from the street, saw his congas in the back of his car, asked him if he was a musician and invited him to play at a nightclub next Saturday. By that time, he had managed to gather six musicians playing three congas, a trumpet and a bongo. On the same day, a music entrepreneur asked him to play at another venue, so he ventured to enlarge the group and was asked to name the band, which he called ”Sangre Nueva”.

Today, Juan Karlos is very happy with all the musicians who accompany him on this adventure and hopes that they will stay with him for a long time.

Chick Corea Pianist, composer, arranger, producer, teacher. Acoustic and Electric

Surrounded by music since childhood, Armando Anthony Corea walked a path in which he shone like few others, accompanied by musicians who make up an encyclopedia of jazz.

Pianist, composer, arranger, producer, teacher. Acoustic and electric. Chick Corea was one of the most influential musicians in the vast universe that is jazz and surely one of the most important figures in global music of this time. In addition to being artistically prolific, he was commercially successful. For this reason, it would also be impossible to explain the music of this time without the example of Chick Corea.

Chick Corea Pianist, composer, arranger, producer, teacher. Acoustic and Electric

Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on June 12, 1941, to a family of Calabrian origin. At the age of four, he began to play the piano, encouraged by his father, a jazz trumpeter who led a Dixieland band in Boston in the 1930s and 1940s.

Surrounded by music, young Armando was soon introduced to the heroes of bebop. The music of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, and Lester Young would leave a notable mark on his education. At the age of eight, he began studying classical piano with Salvatore Sullo, an Italian-born concert pianist who, in addition to his love of Mozart, opened up the world of composition to him.

Always tied to a confusing timeline, the first released recording of the original configuration of Return to Forever was actually its second session.

An initial ECM studio date made in February 1972 was not released until after the band had changed in 1975.

The Polydor/Verve recording from October 1972 is actually this 1973 release, which features the same band with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Airto Moreira, Joe Farrell, and Flora Purim. There is no need to make distinctions, as both are five-star albums, showcasing many of the keyboardist’s enduring, instantly recognizable and highly melodic compositions.

Farrell’s joyous flute, Purim’s wordless vocals, Airto’s electrifying percussion and Clarke’s deft electric bass lines are wrapped up in a stew of Brazilian samba and Corea’s Fender Rhodes electric piano, and certainly set the tone and the highest bar for the music of the groups that will come after. “Captain Marvel,” the seed of the Farrell- and Purim-less band that expanded into a full concept album with Stan Getz, is here as a vaporous fusion samba with Corea dancing on the keys.

By now, the beautiful “500 Miles High” has become Purim’s signature song with Neville Potter lyrics and Corea’s stabbing chords, and unfortunately became a hippie anti-drug anthem.

Perhaps Corea’s definitive song of all time, and covered ad infinitum by professional and school bands, “Spain” retains the quirky melody, clapping interlude, up-and-down dynamics, exciting improvisational section and variation in time, tempo and colourations that always spark interest despite a length of close to ten minutes.

“You’re Everything” is a romantic classic that has surely been heard at many a wedding, with another Potter lyric sung to heaven by Purim, while the title track is Purim’s lyrics in a looser musical framework, with Clarke’s graphic merging with Corea and Farrell’s piercing flute work.

Chick Corea - John Patitucci - Dave Weckl — Chick Corea – John Patitucci – Dave Weckl

As much as the others have become icons, Farrell’s extraordinary sound on this date should never be trivialised or underestimated.

The final track, “Children’s Song,” was a springboard for several of Corea’s full-length album projects, and is heard here for the first time in trio format with a slow, Christmas motif.

The expanded version of this recording includes many alternate takes of four of these selections, but also includes “Matrix,” which was not on any RTF album, and there are four versions of “What Game Shall We Play Today?”, which was only available on the ECM release.

From a historical perspective, this is the most important work of Corea’s career, very different from his earlier progressive or improvisational efforts, and the pivotal beginning of his career as the most popular contemporary jazz keyboardist in history. Michael G. Nasto.

Chick Corea And Return To Forever – Light As A Feather (1973)

Tracks:

You’re Everything
Light As A Feather
Captain Marvel
500 Miles High
Children’s Song
Spain

Musicians:

Chick Corea (Fender Rhodes, electric piano)

Stanley Clarke (Double bass)

Joe Farrell (Tenor sax, soprano sax, flute)

Flora Purim (Voice, percussion)

Airto Moreira (Drums)

Chick Corea And Return To Forever - Light As A Feather (1973) — Chick Corea And Return To Forever – Light As A Feather (1973)

Information provided (February 21, 2009)

Sources:

L’Òstia Latin Jazz

Santiago Giordano: He is a musician, teacher and music critic

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The son montuno was born in the area of Santiago de Cuba

It was constituted by a mixture, in perfect harmony, of the African sonorous roots with the metric and the style of versification of Spanish origin. Although it presents a rhythmic base similar to the son, they do not have a common origin.

This rhythm is a product of the same phenomenon of transculturation that other genres of the Cuban traditional music have undergone by the hybridization of cultures.

Uncertainties about the origin of son montuno

According to Fuentes Matons himself, he is only a compiler of the verses and the authors were the sisters Micaela and Teodora Ginés, who wrote the lyrics in Santiago de Cuba around 1560.

The son montuno was born in the area of Santiago de Cuba

But this story does not have sufficient evidence, and may be the result of the author’s modesty, the oldest son montuno that is collected is that of Ma’Teodora, from 1893.

Many authors assure that the real author is Fuentes Matons, in an attempt to validate the musical roots of the Island. What is certain is that the expansion of this rhythm from the 18th century in Cuba was very fast.

In addition, due to the migration of Caribbean people to Cuba, the mixture with sonorities coming from Haiti, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico became more and more frequent Haiti, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico.

Evolution and popularity of son montuno in the 20th century.

From the 19th century onwards, migration from East to West was significant.

This was due to the wars of independence that had taken place in the eastern part of the island.

This migration brought as a consequence that the rhythm also expanded and mixed with the rhythms that already existed in the West.

In the western provinces, mainly in Havana and Matanzas, there was the concept of a band composed of six or seven members, which favored the new genre.

Arsenio Rodríguez (1911-1970), known as “el ciego maravilloso” (the wonderful blind man), was one of the great musicians who brought this sonority to the forefront.

Among his most popular works are “Papa upa”, “Mami, me gustó”, “La vida es sueño”, “La yuca de Catalina”, among many others.

The lyrics are characterized by the picaresque jocularity, the simplicity of the message, the easy to memorize refrains and the exchange with the public in occasional interpretations.

The orchestra, on the other hand, does perform complex improvisations and virtuoso musical combinations. Arsenio Rodríguez popularized the rhythm worldwide, opening a space for traditional Cuban music in the 1950s.

Arsenio Rodríguez (1911-1970), known as “el ciego maravilloso”, was one of the great musicians who brought this sonority to the forefront.

Legacy of Son montuno

The legacy of this Cuban rhythm is present in genres such as Latin salsa, mambo, Latin jazz, timba and chachachá. Some outstanding musicians kept its rhythmic base and incorporated their own melodic creations.

Among these are: Benny Moré, Pío Leyva, Roberto Faz, among many others.

The primitive instruments of the Cuban son are the Cuban tres, the bongo, the maracas, the claves and the marimbula.

The Cuban tres is a kind of guitar with three pairs of strings. The bongo constantly improvises. The maracas and claves accompany the guitar and the bongo.

The marimbula was used as a bass in the traditional Cuban son.

Later, other instruments such as the guitar, double bass, trumpet and timbales were added.

What kind of instruments did the African slaves bring to Cuba?

Among the typical instruments we find the chekeré, the güiro and the batá drums. The chekeré in Cuba is also known as ágbe.

The basic instrumental ensemble is made up of a series of string instruments (jarana, requinto or son guitar, leona) and percussion instruments (pandero, quijada de burro, marimbol, tarima for zapateado), to which other instruments have been added in recent experiments (violin, double bass, cajón, etc.).

What is the national instrument of Cuba?

The Cuban BongóThis small double drum is considered by many to be the most characteristic instrument of Cuba — The Cuban Bongó
This small double drum is considered by many to be the most characteristic instrument of Cuba

The Cuban bongo

This small double drum is by many considered the most characteristic instrument of Cuba.

It is easy to identify the bongo at first glance as it has been used and popularized in countless celebrations until it has become an indispensable instrument.

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