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Do you enjoy Latin music? Would you like to get more involved in this genre and share your passion for Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba, Merengue and more. Why not joint our Global Team of volunteers as a correspondent?
You can ask for more details with no obligation and we’ll be happy to talk to you about the benefits that come with the role [Read more…] about ISM / December 2024
Much prominence is given to singers, musicians and the visible part of the entertainment in general, but there is not enough talk of those who make it possible for the aforementioned to record what they have created for their audience. That is why we wanted to talk to Jennifer Freedman, better known as ”La Chiqui Some” and Agustin Someillan, who is known as ”El Some”.
Singer Jennifer Freedman and trumpeter Agustin Someillan in the studio
Jennifer started in music with percussion in 2005, but moved away from it for a few years to pursue other activities until other artists and groups called her to play with them. She was then invited to attend some rehearsals at Mam-Ax Studios, where by a twist of fate, there was a man named Someillan who already had a studio at that time. They still did not know each other at that time, but soon, one would be very important for the other’s professional life.
In 2018, she had to go again to the same building, which is when she finally met Agustin, who tells her that she was in the wrong place and had to go to another office. Her visit to Mam-Ax was intended to participate in the recording of a single for singer Freddy Nieves, but that chance encounter would help her to learn that both she and Agustín had a partner in common, who recommended her to work together.
After that, both accepted and began to know each other better, which led ”El Some” to advise Jennifer on her singing and other details of the business. At the same time, the girl was beginning to see music as something much more serious, since it was only a hobby for her by then. She had certain doubts because she had not jumped right into music professionally, but Agustín convinced her to try to start a career as such, to which she ended up giving in.
The owner of the studio did not have the support of anyone at that time, so he had the great idea of partnering with Jennifer and bringing together their qualities in the same project.
In the case of ”El Some”, he comes from a musical family and studied music in Cuba. He became a trumpet player just like his father. Back in his country of origin, he was fortunate to accompany many orchestras such as the Sexteto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro, with which he was nominated for Latin Grammy in 2014.
Having decided his country did not provide him with all the opportunities he needed as an artist at that time, he tried his luck in New Jersey, where he currently resides as does Jennifer, with whom he currently shares the Sonority Record Studios project.
At this moment, they are creating the album ”Los Some Son” as an idea of Jennifer herself to get people know ”El Some”’s career. Among the guests of the project, we can mention former Los Van Van singer Pedrito Calvo, former Los Van Van singer Melly Cartero, Jennifer herself, singer Frankie Vazquez, pianist Arturo Ortiz, among many others.
Agustin has been in the studio for almost 12 years, while Jennifer has only been there for five, but that has not stopped them from getting together perfectly, of course. He has always liked to play the trumpet, but his neighbors started to complain about the constant noise coming from his house, so he decided to look for a place to make music without disturbing anyone.
However, before that, he was already working on music at home, to the point that he produced an album for José Mangual from his own home, which he describes as ”a huge odyssey”, since he did not have the conditions to complete a job of that magnitude. That is when he decides to look for a space more conditioned to record and produce, so he acquires half of the space he currently uses and elongated it after partnering with Jennifer.
There were implements they did not possess the knowledge to use, but little by little, they were learning on their to create the brand they have today and the prestige that they acquired in the Latin music community with so much sacrifice.
”Although this is not a big studio, great things have happened here. There is a great vibe and we make very good music” said ”El Some” about what has been achieved with this space, which has become their musical home.
The studio has a vacuum-sealing cabin and everything necessary for mixing, mastering, editing, recording and much more.
At the moment of expanding the studio, Agustin had already named the place ”Some Son”, but once he and Jennifer became partners, they started to think about how to market it more effectively in the United States. Since everything they did there had to do with sonority, they opted for something with that word, so the studio ended up being called Sonority Music Studios.
Both are listed as company managers and ”El Some” focuses on the music, creation, engineering and production side. On the other hand, Jennifer is much more focused on the administrative part, contracts, bookings, among other details of this type.
Seeing what they were achieving with the studio, they felt they could expand a little more to other facets, so both artists also engaged in founding their own band that they called ”Los Some Son” in homage to the ”El Some”’s family of trumpeters and Cuban salsa music in general.
In conclusion, both the studio and the band are formed by the same team, so both projects go hand in hand.
His musical training took place at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, where he studied clarinet, piano and harmony, New York and Boston, where he was the first African student and also the first African to earn a PhD from Berklee College of Music; there he was trained in vibraphone and percussion.
Later he combined the influence of jazz and Latin music with traditional Ethiopian music.
My desire to start making Ethio-jazz began in London while I was studying there in the 1950s; then I knew I wanted to be different with my music. I looked for musicians from different African backgrounds and saw that they were successful and promoted the culture of their country.
However, there was very little from East Africa and Ethiopia, so I decided at that point that I would create something unique based on the rich heritage of our music and show how much we have contributed to the world of music in general.
That journey began to take shape at Berklee College in Bastan. I was the first African musician to study there and that period was very important for me.
Ethiopian cultural music is based on four modes tezeta, bati, anchihoy and Ambassel and within my music, I knew that those modes could not be played.
They had to remain at the center of my music or the whole character of the sound would change and become distorted. I began to add beautiful colors with chords, voicings, bass lines and rhythm sections, writing progressions that fit together well. It’s very difficult to write 12-note music around the Ethiopian modes without destroying them.
In the mid-’60s I returned to Addis, but I kept going back and forth to the United States.
At that time, no one was fusing Ethiopian music with jazz.
In my country there was the First National Theater Orchestra, and both the police and the army had their own orchestras.
There were also bands like the Echoes and the Ras Band.
Musicians at that time based their melodies strictly on the four Ethiopian modes, using techniques like the “canon,” with melodic lines echoing each other.
With Ethiopian jazz, I consciously wanted to expand and explore the modes in different ways.
I formed a group called The Ethiopian Quintet in New York, made up of a mix of Ethiopian, Latino, and African-American musicians (there weren’t many Ethiopian musicians in the United States at that time).
The band included trumpeter and pianist Rudy Houston, who later played with Yambu, and Felix Torres, who played with Sonora Ponceña.
So, with the Ethiopian Quintet, I wanted to show the African contribution to Latin music and it was my first opportunity to experiment and start developing my vision of Ethio-Jazz with this band.
With the American and Puerto Rican musicians in the group we created a different atmosphere and arrangements.
It was a great opportunity for me and they loved what I was writing and the direction I was trying to take.
We did quite a few concerts, some Spanish weddings, events upstate New York and in Manhattan.
We played at the Village Gate with Dave Pike, a great friend of mine at the time, one of the world’s greatest vibraphone players. He played a lot with Herbie Mann and I remember sitting in to watch one of his recording sessions.
I saw a lot of other great musicians in concert, from Coltrane to Bud Powell and Bill Evans. On the New York live circuit I met a producer called Gil Snapper.
Gil was a very nice and interesting guy and worked with musicians of many different styles.
He picked up on my music very quickly; we got on well and he invited me to record with The Ethiopian Quintet, so our first albums with him were ‘Afro Latin Soul’ Volumes 1 and 2, both recorded during 1966.
On the first volume, I performed an adaptation of an old Ethiopian warrior song, ‘I Faram Gami I Faram’.
I would have liked to have an Ethiopian singer for the song, but it was sung in Latin and the lyrics were translated to the singer so he could sing it in Spanish.
On this album, one of my favorites is my composition ‘Girl From Addis Ababa’, which worked very well as a fusion of Ethiopian modes and R&R rhythms, an indicator of the more refined Ethiopian jazz sound of my later album for Worthy, ‘Mulatu Of Ethiopia’ (1972). It also included my new arrangement of the 1950s tune ‘Lover’s Mambo’.
Both albums include nice arrangements also by Oscar Garcia, Rudy Houston and Gil Snapper as well.
I feel proud of the recording when I listen to it again. It was an important moment in my career and it was a very interesting and progressive time to be in New York in the mid-60s.
I was there at the same time as Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba and Fela Kuti and, each in their own way, we tried to do our part to put Africa on the map of contemporary jazz.
Mulatu Astatke, April 2018
Mulatu Astatke & His Ethiopian Quintet – Afro-Latin Soul (1966, R-2018)
Tracks: Afro Latin Soul: 01. I Faram Gami I Faram (Mulatu Astatke)
02. Mascaram Setaba (Mulatu Astatke)
03. Shagu (Mulatu Astatke)
04. One For Buzayhew (Mulatu Astatke) ke)
05. Alone In The Crowd (Gil Snapper)
06. Almaz (Mulatu Astatke)
07. Mulatu’s Hideaway (Mulatu Astatke)
08. Askum (Rudy Houston)
09. A Kiss Before Dawn (Gil Snapper & Weiss)
10. Playboy Cha Cha (Oscar Garcia) Afro Latin Soul Vol. 2:
11. The Panther (Boogaloo) (Rudy Houston)
Konjit (Pretty) (Oscar Garcia)
Soul Power (Rudy Houston)
Lover’s Mambo (Traditional, Arr. Mulatu Astatke)
Love Mood For Two (Rudy Houston)
Jijiger (Rudy Houston)
Girl From Addis Ababa (Mulatu Astatke)
Karayu (Oscar Garcia)
Raina (Rudy Houston)
Musicians:
Mulatu Astatke (Vibraphone, Piano, Drums)
Rudy Houston (Piano, Trumpet)
Robert Cuadrado (Bass)
Felix Torres / John Perez (Congas / Bongos on Vol. 1)
Pete Iglesias (Congas on Vol. 2)
Tony Pearson (Timbales)
Information provided (October 5, 2024)
Also Read: Flora Purim has earned her two Grammy nominations for Best Female Jazz Performance
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chick Corea And Return To Forever – Light As A Feather (1973)
Tracks:
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)
Information provided (February 21, 2009)
Sources:
Santiago Giordano: He is a musician, teacher and music critic
Latin America / Venezuela / Caracas
A great musician is someone who can enlighten the stage only with his/her presence, this is the case when Maite Hontele is on stage. Full-house, the stage full of colors and all the audience is ready to dance and enjoy the best rhythm: SALSA!
International Salsa Magazine had the honor to be part of the last concert of Maite Hontele, the incredible dutch trumpeter, in Caracas, Venezuela.
The silence is interrupted with the beautiful sound of a characteristic trumpet playing a melody, the stage gets full of musicians and Maite comes out with the biggest smile that characterize her.
She starts with a speech where she explains how thankful she is for being there, talks a little bit about Colombia, and then the party starts! Two hours full of hits of herself, Oscar d’ Leon, and many other artists, with the performance of her Colombian band by her side.
But let’s get deeper in who is her. Maite Hontelé is a trumpeter who was born in Utrecht, Holland, and was raised with music. Her parents owned a huge collection of salsa and son Cubano, and every day she would listen to Latin music, quite unusual for a Dutch girl. After playing a few years with the local brass band, she decided to become a musician, and studied latin and jazz trumpet at the Conservatory of Rotterdam.
Her first big tour was life-changing. She went to Colombia, the country where she now lives. In 2004, Maite Hontelé toured with the world-famous Buena Vista Social Club. In 2009 Maite launched her first album, Llegó la Mona, a salsa-tribute to Colombian music. This album was made with the purpose to tour more in Colombia. Among the gigs she played was the Medellin Jazz Festival.
That year has been very important for her. Not only did Maite record her first album, she also found the place where she wanted to continue to live and make music. That’s when she decided to move to Medellin, Colombia.
In 2010, she released her second production, Mujer Sonora. The album is focused on oldschool styles such as son and charanga, but also contains some spicy salsa-tracks.
This album was presented at the 2010 North Sea Jazz Festival, and on various international tours. In 2011 and 2012 Maite toured many countries with her band, and was a guest with Ruben Blades, Yuri Buenaventura, Issac Delgado, Diego Galé (DVD-recording), Juan Carlos Coronel, Oscar D’León, and many others.
Her 3rd album, Déjame Asi, was released in April 2013. She is currently touring Europe and Latin America.
“My Outlaw Loredo is the most elegant gig-bag in the universe. A perfect match for me!” Maite Hontelé
The show ends with the best energy. Maite is not only an amazing trumpeter, but also a great singer and composer. We are glad to be part of his musical journey.
