Live concert photography of Ibeyi with Sudan Archives at Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival at Prospect Park Bandshell earlier this month.
Category: Afro Caribbean Music
Live Concert Photography: Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival at the Prospect Park Bandshell 6/8/19: Ibeyi with Sudan Archives
New Video: Up-and-Coming Angolan-Portuguese Global Dance Music Artist Pongo Releases Pastel Colored Surrealist Visuals for Sultry “Chora”
Pongo is an up-and-coming Luanda, Angola-born, Lisbon, Portugal-based pop artist. As a child, the Angolan-Portuguese pop artist’s family was forced to feel Angola to escape a lengthy and very bloody civil war that decimated their homeland. Pongo and her family eventually settled in Lisbon, where she’s lived ever since.
The Angolan-Portuguese pop artist got the attention of the acclaimed, Portuguese act Buraka Som Sistema, an electronic dance music act that specialized in a sound that meshed tech beats with zouk, a rapid-fire musical style from Martinique and Guadeloupe and kuduro, an up-tempo dance music genre from Angola that blends elements of soca and samba, in what was dubbed zouk bass and progressive kuduro. In 2008, Buraka Som Sistema released their smash hit, “Kalemba (Wengue Wengue), a single that went on to sell 10 million copies and eventually landed them a MTV Europe Award for Best Portuguese Act. Adding to a growing international profile, the track received co-signs from the likes of Diplo, Hot Chip and Shakira.
Released last year, Pongo’s solo debut Baia EP was a genre-blurring, globalist affair that found the Angolan-Portuguese artist pairing Portuguese lyrics with a sound that meshed elements of Angolan kiduro with Western styles like techno and bass. Released just before her appearance at this year’s Great Escape Festival, the expanded edition of the Baia EP features a new track, “Chora.” Deriving its title from the Portuguese word for “cry,” Pongo’s latest single meshes dancehall, soca and trap within a slick production consisting of glistening bursts of steel drum and snares, stuttering, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and self-assured and vaguely trap and hip-hop inspired vocal delivery from the Angolan Portuguese artist. The Baia EP expanded edition also features remixes of “Chora” by 20syl, who has remixed and re-worked material by King Krule, Schoolboy Q, and Rihanna — and a remix by Anoraak, which will be released through renowned French electronic music label Kitsune next month.
Created by French direction and production duo Rush Hour, the recently released video for “Chora” is a pastel-colored, Dadaesque, pan-African dream, centered around a stunningly beautiful, up-and-coming, global star.
New Video: Thievery Corporation Side Project The Archives Set to Release a Reggae Tribute to Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron was a singer/songwriter, poet and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his influential work between the late 1960s and early 80s, which meshed jazz, blues, soul and funk with spoken word and poetry. Lyrically, his work focused on the sociopolitical issues of the Black community, delivered in a style that sort of resembled rapping; in fact, much ink has been spilled on how Scott-Heron’s breakthrough works Pieces of a Man (particularly, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” ) and Winter in America, have had a momentous influence on contemporary music, particularly on hip-hop and neo soul.
Sadly, during the last decade of his life, Scott-Heron battled drug addiction and as a result had several stints in and out of prison; however, he managed to remain to be a remarkably prolific artist, writing and recording when he was able. Just before he died, the legendary and influential poet and musician released the critically praised album I’m New Here and finished work on a memoir, which was published posthumously. Interestingly, before he died, he went into the studio and recorded extremely stripped down versions of some of his best known and beloved material, accompanied on piano with no overdubbing or extra studio production that was largely unreleased and unheard until XL Recordings released the material as Nothing New on what would have been the legendary artist’s 65th birthday.
Thievery Corporation’s Eric Hilton along with Darryl “Trane” Burke started The Archives as a quest to explore the roots of reggae music. The project’s 2012 self-titled debut was released to critical acclaim. Seven years have passed since their debut, but Burke and Hilton have teamed up to co-produce reggae tribute album celebrating the work of Gil Scott-Heron and his longtime collaborator Brian Jackson that will be released through Hilton’s new label Montserrat House. So what’s the connection between reggae and Gil Scott-Heron, you may be asking? Well, Scott-Heron’s father Gilbert was a famous Jamaican soccer player, who wound up being the first Black player in Scotland’s Celtic League, so the album in some way celebrates the influential poet’s Jamaican heritage, while highlighting his still relevant reflections and thoughts on social justice and chance. “Like Gil’s compositions, reggae contains elements of jazz and soul,“ says Hilton. “It’s the perfect backdrop to Gil’s revolutionary pan-Africanist lyrics.” The album also will feature contributions from Jamaican dub poet Mutabaruka; R&B soul singer Raheem DeVaughn; percussionist Larry McDonald, who was once a member of Scott-Heron’s backing band Amnesia Express; Addis Pablo, the son of reggae legend Augustus Pablo; Kenyatta Hill, the son of Culture’s Joseph Hill; and Brian Jackson, Scott-Heron’s longtime collaborator.
Released on 1971’s Pieces of a Man, “Home Is Where The Hatred Is” may arguably be one of the most heartbreaking and chilling depictions of the hopelessness of life in the Black ghetto and the toll it takes on the song’s narrator and his neighbors. Centered around a brooding and strutting 70s singer/songwriter soul arrangement, the song fits in perfectly with its time, recalling What’s Going On-era Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Bill Withers — but with a restless bitterness and disillusionment that should feel unsettling to those who are sensitive to the plight of their fellow humans. Seeing its release on what would have been Scott-Heron’s 70th birthday, The Archives first Gil Scott-Heron tribute album single “Home Is Where The Hatred Is,” is a shuffling and brooding reggae version of Scott-Heron’s famous track, featuring Thievery Corporation’s St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands-born vocalist Puma Ptah. And while putting a subtle spin on a familiar and well-known song, The Archives manage to retain the song’s still-relevant emotional weight — it’s bitter, disillusionment and frustration. While many Americans — particularly, Whites — may think reggae is all good times and smiles by the beach, reggae has always been protest music, describing the deplorable conditions, frustrations, hopes and dreams of some of the world’s proudest yet poorest people. Let both versions remind you of the dashed hopes, expectations and dreams of those in the South Bronx; Jamaica, Queens; Baltimore; Chicago’s South Side; Gary, IN; Newark, NJ; Camden, NJ; Ferguson, MO; and countless similar places across the country. Isla
The recently released video is split between footage of Puma Ptah walking through the abandoned apartments and dirty alleyways of the hood, and Ptah with the members of The Archives recording the song in the studio and performing it.
New Video: Introducing the Afro-Caribbean Sounds of Charlotte Adigéry
Charlotte Adigéry is an up-and-coming Belgian-Martiniquais singer/songwriter and her forthcoming David and Stephen Dewaele-produced EP Zandoli is centered around storytelling, her mother’s critical lesson of rhythm’s relationship to musicality, the importance of a sense of humor in a difficult work, and more important, her ancestors musical traditions.
The EP’s opening track and latest single is the propulsive and trance-inducing “Patenipat,” a track built around thumping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and a chanted chorus “zandoli pa the ni pat,” a Creole mnemonic that translates into “the gecko didn’t have any legs.” (A zandoli is a commonly found lizard across the Caribbean that’s frequently found climbing the walls of homes across the region.) Interestingly, while based around contemporary electronic music production, the song draws from the Afro-Caribbean tradition, recalling rhythmic drum lines and dance routines — with the participants moving towards a religious ecstasy.
Directed by Joaquim Bayle, the cinematically shot visuals draw from religious ceremonies with Adigéry and all of the participants driven by the propulsive rhythms of the song.
Live Footage: Ibeyi Performs “Deathless” with Harlem Gospel Choir and Onyx Collective on “Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
Deriving their name from the Yoruba word for twins ibeji, the French-Cuban twin sibling duo Ibeyi (pronounced ee-bey-ee), comprised of Lisa-Kainde Diaz and Naomi Diaz have become JOVM mainstays and a critically applauded, internationally recognized act. Interestingly, the Diaz sisters are the daughters of the late and renowned percussionist Anga Diaz, best known as a member of Buena Vista Social Club, and for collaborating with Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez and Compay Segundo. The elder Diaz died when the girls were 11, and upon his death, they studied Yoruba folk songs and the cajon, an Afro-Carribean drum, which their father had specialized in throughout most of his musical career.
While Yoruba is primarily spoken throughout Nigeria and Benin, it has been spoken in some fashion in Cuba since the 1700s when the slave trade brought Africans to the Caribbean — and to the island. When the Diaz sisters began studying their late father’s musical culture and heritage, it gave them a much greater understanding of the man, where he came from while putting them in touch with their ancestral history. Unsurprisingly, the Diaz sister’s self-titled Ibeyi debut, which was released to critical praise in 2015, thematically dealt with the past — the loss of their father, their relationship with each other, their father’s and their own origins and roots, while sonically the duo’s sound possessed elements of contemporary electro pop, hip-hop, jazz, the blues and traditional Yoruba folk music in a way that brought to mind Henry Cole and the Afrobeat Collective‘s Roots Before Branches as both albums conscientiously made a spiritual and musical connection between the African Diaspora in the West and the motherland.
Up until last year though, some time had passed since I had personally written about the Diaz sisters, and as it turned out, they had spent the better part of 2016 writing and recording the material that would comprise their sophomore effort Ash, which XL Records released late last year. Now, as you recall the album’s first album, “Away Away,” lyrically and thematically focused on accepting pain as a necessary part of life, while celebrating life for its complicated entirety. Of course, sonically speaking, the track further cements their reputation for resoundingly positive messages sung with their gorgeous harmonizing paired with slick and swaggering electronic production. However, the material overall reportedly finds the Diaz sisters writing some of the most visceral, politically charged material they’ve released to date; but while centered on who the Diaz sisters are after a year in which racial, gender and sexual identity issues are among the most important and vexing of our current time.
“Deathless,” Ash‘s second single found the Diaz sisters collaborating with contemporary jazz great Kamasi Washington, who contributes saxophone lines that mange to be mournful, outraged, proud, bold and riotous — within a turn of a phrase. The song is inspired by one of the most outrageous and humiliating experiences of Lisa-Kainde Diaz’s life — she was was wrongly arrested by French police for a crime she didn’t commit. Throughout the song is a sense of fear, knowing that the police could practically do anything they wanted without reprisal; of righteous rage that’s palpable yet impotent in the face of a power that can crush you at will; of the burgeoning recognition that you can never escape racism or unfair treatment; and the shame of being made to feel small and worthless while knowing that it’ll happen repeatedly throughout your life. As Lisa Kainde explains in press notes I was writing Deathless as an anthem for everybody!” For every minority. For everybody that feels that they are nothing, that feels small, that feels not cared about and I want them to listen to our song and for three minutes feel large, powerful, deathless. I have a huge amount of respect for people who fought for, what I think, are my rights today and if we all sing together ‘we are deathless, ’they will be living through us into a better world.”
Just the other day, the Diaz sisters made their major television debut performance on Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which features the Harlem Gospel Choir and Isaiah Barr of Onyx Collective on the last day of Black History, as a fiery and passionate reminder of the plight of black folk across the African Diaspora.
New Video: Swedish-born Multi-Instrumentalist and Electronic Music Artist Thornato Connects New York and Ghana In Visuals for Club-Banging New Single “Back It Up”
Thor Partridge is a Swedish-born Cypriot, whose mother encouraged his interest in music at a very young age; in fact, it was common to hear traditional Greek, African and Caribbean music in his home. As the story goes, Partridge’s family relocated to New York when he was a child, and he eventually studied classical piano, jazz guitar and bluegrass banjo. Partridge quickly showed a penchant and interest in production and remixing, when he found that he couldn’t help tinkering with classical piano arrangements.
As an electronic music artist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who writes, records and performs as Thornato, Partridge quickly received international attention with the release of 2016’s groundbreaking, electronic music/drum ‘n’ bass EP Things Will Change. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Partidge’s full-length album Bennu found the up-and-coming multi-instrumentalist becoming a go-to collaborator and producer, contributing to Bollywood scores, as well as playing clubs across the globe.
Friday will mark the release of the Swedish Cypriot’s latest EP Back It Up and the EP’s latest single, title track “Back It Up,” finds the up-and-coming producer, collaborating with Ghanian vocalist Zongo Abongo in a song that lovingly draws from the sounds of the African Diaspora as the song draws from several distinct genres and styles, including 90s Jamaican dancehall, Afro-pop, Champeta, and Dembow in a way that’s simultaneously seamless yet nostalgic, anachronistic yet incredibly post-modern — and perhaps most important of all, the song manages to be a breezy and infectious club banger with quite a bit of thump.
Directed by Justin Conte, the video features Ghanian vocalist Zongo Abongo and dancer Soraya Lundy connecting across the Atlantic Ocean with a bright orange landline phone, essentially sharing a sensual dance between New York and Accra.
New Video: JOVM Mainstays IBEYI Return with Strikingly Gorgeous Visuals for New Single “I Wanna Be Like You”
Over the past three or four years, I’ve written quite a bit about French-Cuban twin sibling act Ibeyi (proounbed ee-bey-ee), who have become JOVM mainstays and an internationally applauded act. And as you may recall, Lisa-Kainde and Naomi Diaz’s self-titled, full-length debut thematically focused on the past as it drew upon the loss of their legendary father Anga Diaz, their relationship with each other, their origins, and a connection to their roots– while sonically meshing elements of contemporary electro pop, hip-hop, jazz, the blues, Cuban folk music and Yoruba folk music in a way that brought Henry Cole and the Afrobeat Collective‘s Roots Before Branches to mind.
The duo’s highly-anticipated sophomore effort Ash was released today and the reportedly the album’s material finds the duo writing some of the most personal, visceral and politically charged material they’ve released to date — and while continuing to be firmly rooted in the Afro-Cuban culture that has influenced their personal and creative lives, the material thematically focuses on who the Diaz sisters are now, in a period in which the world has seemingly turned upside down, and issues of racial, gender and sexual identity continue to be at the core of society’s most vexing sociopolitical issues.
Ash’s fourth and latest single “I Wanna Be Like You” pairs the Diaz Sister’s gorgeous harmonies with a sparse and hyper modern production consisting of Afro-Cuban percussion emphasized with stuttering beats, whistling and shimmering synths and an effortlessly slick and soulful hook but much like it’s predecessors, the song continues a further exploration of the sisters identity within a world in which identity, and being true to it is desperately needed.
Directed by Remi Besse, the recently released video for “I Wanna Be Like You” continue a lengthy string of striking visuals that emphasize the Diaz Sisters unique role as twins and as separate individuals, with their distinct personalities and moods — and of course, throughout they also remind the listener and viewer that they have a profound intimacy.
New Video: JOVM Mainstays Ibeyi Team up with Mala Rodriguez on Sensual New Single “Me Voy”
This weekend will be the among the busiest weekends I’ve had in some time, as I’ll be covering The Meadows Music and Arts Festival, so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to post — but it’ll be absolutely fucking worth it; however, in the meantime, let’s get to the business at hand, right?
Now, over the past three or four years, the French-Cuban twin sibling duo Ibeyi (pronounced ee-bey-ee) have become both internationally applauded and JOVM mainstays. And as you may recall, the duo comprised of Lisa-Kainde Diaz and Naomi Diaz derive their name from the Yoruba word for twins — ibeji. The Diaz Sisters’ self-titled full-length debut was released in 2015 to critical praise, and the album thematically focused on the past — the loss of their legendary father Anga Diaz, their relationship with each other and their origins and a connection to their roots, with the album sonically meshing elements of contemporary electro pop, hip-hop, jazz, the blues and traditional Yoruba folk music in a way that brought Henry Cole and the Afrobeat Collective‘s Roots Before Branches to mind.
Up until recently some time had passed since I had written about the Diaz sisters but as it turns out, they had spent the better part of last year writing and recording the material that would eventually comprise their highly anticipated sophomore, full-length effort Ash, which is slated for a September 29, 2017 through XL Records. The album’s first single “Away Away,” lyrically and thematically focuses on accepting pain as a part of life, and recognizing that it’s a necessary part of life, while celebrating life for its complicated entirety. Of course, sonically speaking, the track further cements their reputation for resoundingly positive messages sung with their gorgeous harmonizing paired with slick and swaggering electronic production. However, the material overall reportedly finds the Diaz sisters writing some of the most visceral, politically charged material they’ve released to date — and while being firmly rooted in Afro-Cuban culture and history, the material thematically centers on the present — who the Diaz sisters are now, after a year in which the world has turned upside down, and issues of racial, gender and sexual identity are at the core of our most vexing political issues.
“Deathless,” Ash‘s second single found the Diaz sisters collaborating with Kamasi Washington, who contributes saxophone lines that mange to be mournful, outraged, proud, bold and riotous — within a turn of a phrase. Thematically speaking, the song is inspired by an outrageous and humiliating experience Lisa-Kainde had when she was 16 — she was wrongly arrested by French police for a crime she didn’t commit. Throughout the song is a sense of fear, knowing that the police could practically do anything they wanted without reprisal; of righteous rage that’s palpable yet impotent in the face of a power that can crush you at will; of the recognition that you can never escape racism or unfair treatment; and the shame of being made to feel small and worthless while knowing that it’ll happen repeatedly throughout your life. As Lisa Kainde explains in press notes I was writing Deathless as an anthem for everybody!” For every minority. For everybody that feels that they are nothing, that feels small, that feels not cared about and I want them to listen to our song and for three minutes feel large, powerful, deathless. I have a huge amount of respect for people who fought for, what I think, are my rights today and if we all sing together ‘we are deathless, ’they will be living through us into a better world.”
“Me Voy,” Ash’s latest single finds the Diaz sisters collaborating with Mala Rodriguez, the Latin Grammy Award-winning rapper known for sensual and provoking lyrics, in a slickly produced and sensual club banger in which Naomi Diaz’s bata is interacted with big, club rocking beats and swooning electronics finds the Diaz sisters singing lyrics completely in Spanish for the first time. As Naomi Diaz explains “English, Spanish and Yoruba inspire us to write different kinds of music and lyrics.” “We needed to sing in Spanish to set a sensual tone for this song. When women feel sensual, not only is it sexy, but also powerful,” adds Lisa-Kaindé Diaz.
Directed by Manson and produced by Canada, the recently released music video features Ibeyi and Mala Rodriguez playing prominent roles. Beginning with the women hanging out together and singing the song, splits time between the women dancing sensually to the beat in front of strobe light or singing the song in a surreal, Adam and Eve-like backdrop.
Currently comprised of Boricua (guitar, production), Chino (bass, backing vocals), Juan Sebastian Bastos (sound engineer), Makambille (vocals), Moniqui (percussion), Poncho (band leader, drums and backing vocals) and Shaka (MC, backing vocals), the Bogota, Columbia-based collective Tribu Baharú specializes in Champeta criolla, an Afro-Colombian folk and dance music that draws from traditional Colombian folk music, Central African Soukous-Rhumba, Soweto Township Jive and other Caribbean musical genres including zouk, calypso, soca, compa and reggae, that originated in the Atlantic costal regions of the South American country; but over the past few years, the collective’s sound has evolved as the act has also been influenced by the soundsystem of Barranquilla and Cartagena. And since the Bogota, Colombia-based collective’s formation in 2009, they have become arguably one of the most important Champeta criolla collectives out there today, as their sound has been championed by globally-minded DJs seeking deep, dance floor friendly, ass shaking grooves.
During the collective’s North American tour last year, they had some free time and stopped at legendary Washington, DC’s legendary Inner Ear/Bastille Studios to record a spontaneous afternoon session, which resulted in the limited release 7 inch 45RPM vinyl single “Made in Tribu Baharú”/”Pa’tras” that renowned, global funk label Electric Cowbell Records will be releasing on April 22, 2017 — Record Store Day.
“Made in Tribu Baharú” is an exuberant and breezy song with a looping, calypso and soca-like groove featuring shimmering guitar chords and Caribbean polyrhythms
paired with chanted call and response lyrics and a dance floor friendly hook. “Pa’tras” manages to sound as though it drew from soca, salsa and meringue as shimmering and looping guitar cords are paired with rolling polyrhythm and an mischievously morphing bridge with a surprising key and tempo change while possessing a similar dance floor friendly hook. And with the recording sessions that created both singles being rather spontaneous, the material possesses a spontaneous, on-the-fly improvised feel of a bunch of guys jamming and sustaining a tight groove.
Live Concert Photography: APAP 2017: Orkesta Mendoza and Vox Sambou at DROM 1/6/17
New Video: A Gorgeous and Thoughtful Ballad from Cuban-born Pianist and Composer Harold Lopez Nussa
Interestingly, the Stateside release of Lopez-Nussa’s latest effort (the album drops here on Friday) comes as the US has begun to lift the embargo started during the Kennedy Administration and normalize diplomatic, cultural and trade relations — and in fact, it’ll be the first album by a Cuban-based artist to see a complete international release in more than 50 years. Now last month I wrote about two singles from the album “Mozambique en Mi B” and “Feria,” two tracks which possessed an understated and elegant simplicity that made them sound and feel timeless, as they nodded at bop-era jazz — hinting at the charm and mischievous wit and stunning melodicism of Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk but meshing that with a breezy and danceable tropicalia and Afro-Cuban/Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms. The album’s latest single, album title track “El Viaje” continues within the same vein of its preceding singles as the track consists of gently propulsive Afro-Caribbean percussion, a gorgeous, a stately horn line paired with the a sensual interplay between Wade’s tender and yearning vocals and Lopez Nussa’s dexterous blocks of piano chords providing melody and emotional heft in a breathtakingly gorgeous and accessible ballad.
The recently released video for the song splits its focus between a man walking down dusty roads and canopied forests to a yet unknown destination and footage of the musicians recording the song and hanging out in the studio — and interestingly enough, the video evokes the joy and wonder in traveling to someplace completely new; the profoundly lonely recognition of being a stranger in a strange place, where you don’t understand the language; the longing for seeing a face like yours in a crowd; the longing for home and the joy of returning home.
Classically trained Havana, Cuba-born and based jazz pianist and composer Harold Lopez-Nussa was born into a very musical family. Not only are his father and uncle are both working musicians, his late mother Mayra Torres was a highly-regarded piano teacher. When Lopez-Nussa turned eight, he began studying at Manuel Saumell Elementary School of Music, then the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and finally graduating with a degree in classical piano from the Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA). “I studied classical music and that’s all I did until I was 18,” Lopez-Nussa said in press notes. Then came jazz.
“Jazz was scary. Improvisation was scary. That idea of not knowing what you are going to play . . “the Cuban pianist and composer explains. “At school I learned the works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven and then it was all very clear. That permanent risk in which jazz musicians find themselves in all the time was terrifying—of course, now I find myself in that risk all the time.” And yet interestingly enough, throughout his recording career Lopez-Nussa has found himself moving between classical, jazz and pop music rather easily. He has recorded a rendition of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Fourth Piano Concerto” with Cuba’s National Symphony Orchestra back in 2003; has won the First Prize and Audience Price of the Jazz Solo Piano Compeition at the Monterux Jazz Festival in 2005; has collaborated with David Sanchez, Christian Scott and Stefon Harris on Ninety Miles in 2011; has made an appearance on Esencial, an album of compositions by revered Cuban classical guitarist, composer and conductor Leo Brouwer, also in 2011; and as far as more popular projects, he was involved in the Cuba volume of Rhythms del Mundo, which had him recording songs with members of the world-famous Buena Vista Social Club; and he spent three years as part of the Omara Portuondo’s tuouring band — and naturally those experiences have deeply influenced the Cuban pianist and composer’s own personal style and aesthetic.
El Viaje, Lopez-Nussa’s latest full-length effort features the Cuban pianist and composer’s trio, which includes his younger brother Ruy Adrian Lopez-Nussa (drums and percussion) and Senegalese bassist and vocalist Alune Wade, as well as guest appearances from the Lopez-Nussas father Ruy Francisco on drums, Mayquel González on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Dreiser Durruthy and Adel González on percussion. Alune Wade’s collaboration with Lopez-Nussa goes back to when the duo worked together on Havana-Paris-Dakar, and as Lopez-Nussa explains, “Having a non-Cuban musician on this recording speaks to our contact with other cultures. Especially with African culture, which is so far from ours geographically and yet so close. Every time we play, I believe we enter into a journey we are creating.”
Interestingly, the upcoming Stateside release of Lopez-Nussa’s latest effort comes as the US has begun to lift the embargo started during the Kennedy Administration and normalize diplomatic, cultural and trade relations — and in fact, it’ll be the first album by a Cuban-based artist to see a complete international release in more than 50 years. And as a teaser of what you should expect to hear off the album and the Cuban pianist and composer’s Stateside tour, you can check out two singles from the album “Mozambique en Mi B” and “Feria.” And from both tracks, Lopez-Nussa’s compositions possess an understated and elegant simplicity that makes both “Mozambique en Mi B” and “Feria” sound and feel timeless; in some way, they nod at bop era jazz — hinting at the charm and mischievous wit and stunning melodicism of Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk but meshing that with a breezy and danceable tropicalia and Afro-Cuban/Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms. And while mining from somewhat familiar territory, if you’ve listened to as much jazz as I have, the material possesses a vitality that separates it from countless others. Check out how the interplay between Lopez-Nussa’s piano chords and Wade’s bass and vocals seem as though they’re flirtatiously dancing with each other on “Feria,” while “Mozambique en Mi B,” sounds as though it were heavily influenced by samba and includes a deft and gorgeous Lopez-Nussa solo — and it’s in those moments that the Havana-born and based pianist and composer reveals himself as arguably one of the more inventive, contemporary composers you’ll come across.
Tour Dates
Aug 10 / The Opera House at Boothbay Harbor / Boothbay Harbor, ME
Aug 11 / Payomet Performing Arts Center / Truro, MA
Aug 12 / Shalin Liu Performance Center / Rockport, MA
Aug 14 / SFJAZZ Center Miner Auditorium / San Francisco, CA
Aug 14 / San Jose Jazz Summer Fest Jade Leaf Lounge / San Jose, CA
Aug 15 / Kuumbwa Jazz Center / Santa Cruz, CA
Aug 18 / Vail Jazz Festival (Special Guest w. Maraca) / Vail, CO
Aug 19 / Aspen Snowmass Jazz Festival (Special Guest w. Maraca) / Aspen, CO
Aug 30 / Cotton Club / Tokyo, Japan
Sept 2 / Musashino Swing Hall / Musashino (Tokyo), Japan
Sept 3 / NHIC Tokyo JazzFest (Forum Hall A) / Tokyo, Japan
Sept 4 / Detroit Jazz Festival / Detroit, MI
Sept 5 / Detroit Jazz Festival / Detroit, MI
Oct 4 / Gateway City Arts / Holyoke, MA
Oct 5 / Museum of Fine Arts / Boston, MA
Oct 6 – 7 / The Berrie Center (Ramapo College) / Mahwah, NJ
Oct 8 / The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Terrace Club) /Washington, DC
Oct 11 / Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (Jazz at Lincoln Center) / New York, NY
Oct 13 / The Side Door / Old Lyme, CT
Oct 14 / BRIC Jazz Festival / Brooklyn, NY
Oct 15 / Chris’ Jazz Cafe / Philadelphia, PA
Oct 18 / Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant / Minneapolis, MN
Oct 19 / SPACE-Society for the Preservation of Art & Culture Evanston /Evanston (Chicago), IL
Oct 21 / The Dirty Dog Cafe / Detroit (Grosse Point), MI
Oct 22 / The Dirty Dog / Detroit (Grosse Point), MI
Oct 23 / Baur’s Listening Lounge / Denver, CO
Oct 27 / Blue Whale / Los Angeles, CA
May 6 / Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center / Davie, FL
New Video: OkayPlayer Catches Up with French-Cuban Sibling Duo Ibeyi For an Acapella Rendition of “Ibeyi (Outro)” in Central Park
Deriving their name from the Yoruba word for twins, ibeji, electro pop act Ibeyi (pronounced ee-bey-ee) are comprised of 19 year-old French-Cuban twin sibling duo, Lisa-Kainde Diaz and Naomi Diaz, who come from a rather […]