Tag: Latin Grammy

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: John Finbury Teams Up with Bruna Black on Breezy and Soulful “Chão De Nuvem”

Andover, MA-based Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated drummer and composer John Finbury spent his teenaged years playing in rock bands at New York’s The Bitter End. Finbury went on to study classical piano, music theory and composition at the Longy School of Music at Bard College and at Boston University.

Back in 2014, the Andover-based musician and composer released The Green Flash, a four song EP of four original compositions of Brazilian jazz. All four songs received nominations for the 2015 American Songwriting Awards with “SambaDan” winning for Best Instrumental. Finbury followed The Green Flash EP with 2015’s 11-song Brazilian jazz effort Imaginário featuring vocalist Marcella Camargo and some of Boston’s best players, including Fernando Huergo, Mark Walker, Tim Ray, Claudio Ragazzi, Roberto Cassan and Ricardo Monzon. Finbury surprised the Latin music world when Imaginário track “A Chama Verde” received a Latin Grammy nomination for Song of the Year.

2017’s Pitanga was released to critical acclaim. Adding to a rapidly growing profile in the Latin music scene, Finbury’s third album, the Emilio D. Miler-produced Sorte!, which saw him collaborating with vocalist Thalma de Freitas and an All-Star band featuring Vitor Gonçalves, Chico Pinheiro, Duduka de Fonseca, John Patitucci, Rogerio Boccato and Airto Moreira received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Latin Jazz album.

2020 saw the release of two albums of originals: American Nocturnes: Final Days of July featured intimate chamber jazz compositions featuring arrangements for piano, cello, guitar, accordion and harmonica — and Quatro, a Latin jazz album featuring Lagos Herrera, Chano Domínguez, John Pattiucci and Antonio Sánchez.

During the pandemic, the Andover-based musician and composer collaborated with French jazz vocalist Camille Bertault. They recorded and released “Look at What a Mess You Made of Me,” which featured Christian McBride (bass) and “Boulevard,” which featured Larry Gouldings (organ) and Billy Martin (drums).

In 2021, following the death of the legendary Chick Correa, Finbury and de Freitas wrote and recorded “Ring The Bells” as a tribute to the man and his heavily influential work.

Las year, Finbury wrote and released three original Brazilian jazz compositions recorded in São Paulo by Mestrinho (accordion), Michael Pipoquinho (bass), Cainã Cavalcante (guitar), Celso de Almeida (drums) and Leo Rodrigues (percussion).

This year looks to be very busy year for Finbury: He continued an ongoing collaboration with Magos Herrera and recorded and released three original compositions of Chamber Jazz. The Andover-based musician and composer also continued his successful collaboration with Miler, who introduced him to rising São Paulo-based singer/songwriter Bruna Black.

Black wound up contributing vocals to Finbury’s forthcoming album — and wrote the lyrics to two of them, including the album’s latest single “Chão De Nuvem.” Featuring a soulful yet breezy arrangement of fluttering accordion, a supple bass line, shuffling percussion to create a song that effortlessly and gorgeously meshes elements of samba, jazz fusion and pop that serves as a perfect vehicle for Black’s languorous and soulful delivery.

The song describes the São Paulo-based artist describing her journey in music starting with her breakthrough appearance on Brazil’s The Voice, and her rapid rise to fame with AVUA — and her collaboration with Finbury and his All-Star cast of musicians that brought her to New York.

Look for the album in Spring 2024.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Estereomance Releases a Lush and Contemplative Visual for “Crimson Queen”

Formed last year, the El Paso, TX/Ciudad Juarez, Mexico borderplex trio Estereomance, featuring Adria, Paulina and Manu can trace their origins to several years earlier — to mutual friendships and a serendipitous meeting. In 2017 Adria had a family member, who at the time was battling cancer. Adria and her family hosted a benefit event for that family member — and as it turns out, Manu also attended that same benefit.

Knowing that Adria was going through a difficult time, Manu invited her to hike through the Franklin Mountains during New Year’s 2017/2018. During that hiking trip, the pair got to know each other a bit better. After the Franklin Mountains hiking trip, Manu invited Adria into the studio to record a cover of Cultura Profectica‘s “De Antes” that would be dedicated to her family member. Sadly, that family member succumbed to the disease; but the pair began a musical collaboration that eventually lead to them falling in love. Coincidentally, Estereomance’s Paulina is a mutual friend of both Manu and Adria: Paulina and Adria have been friends for the better part of the past decade, while Manu and Paulina have collaborated on a number of projects, including acts that have been nominated for Latin Grammys  — and they’ve also been longtime friends.

Interestingly, when the trio got together to write material, they discovered that they ere all in a similar creative transitional phase, and that they had an immediate chemistry. Since then the band has developed a creative process that has been successful for them: Manu frequently composes beats while having coffee. Paulina then creates improvised ideas to compliment the beats and then Adria comes up with lyrics. Their creative process has largely been created by the bandmembers’ individual experiences and their desire to have their work centered around openness, fearlessness and following what they believe. (Adria is a classically trained violinist and actor, who has performed in orchestras and on stage in plays; Paulina is a vocalist who has performed with a number of different musical projects; and Manu is a bassist, sound engineer and producer, who has worked with an eclectic array of artists at Sonic Ranch Studios.

The trio’s latest single is the lush and slow-burning “Crimson Queen.” Featuring shimmering synth arpeggios, Adria’s achingly plaintive vocals, a two-step inducing rhythm and an enormous hook, “Crimson Queen” is late70s/early 80s inspired synth pop confection that sounds as though it could easily be part of the Stranger Things soundtrack while centered around an unfulfilled yearning.  “Through time, women’s worth has long been measured by physical beauty and more recently with rise of social media, quantified by the number of likes i response to it,” the band says in press notes. And as a result the song touches upon the increasing social pressure placed on both men and women to fit into a standardized concept of beauty and attractiveness, as well as vanity, obsession and insecurity.

Directed by Luisa Gonzalez, the recently released video for “Crimson Queen” is a lush, nouvelle vague and 70s inspired fever dream that emphasis the vanity, obsession and insecurity at the heart of the song by following three pageant contestants, whose every quality and imperfection are judged and critiqued. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstay El Dusty Teams Up with Tiano Bless on a Sultry Club Banger

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written quite a bit about the  Corpus Christi, TX-based JOVM mainstay producer, DJ and electronic music artist, El Dusty. And as you amy recall, the Corpus Christi-born JOVM pioneer has received attention across the blogosphere as a pioneer of a sub-genre he’s dubbed “nu cumbia,” which features elements of hip-hop. drum ‘n’ bass, house music and samples of classic and beloved cumbia songs in a swaggering, genre-defying and club banging take on traditional border music. 

Not only has El Dusty received a a Latin Grammy nomination for his work, he was named on of Rolling Stone‘s 10 New Artists You Need to Know, Billboard‘s New Latin Act and to Watch and was placed on Pandora‘s Latin Artists to Watch. He’s also played at EDC Las Vegas, EDC Mexico, Ciudad Sonido Festival, Fiesta De La Flor, Universal Records‘ Latin Grammy Showcase, Brisk Bodega Tour, the Mad Decent Block Party, Austin City Limits, SXSW, and others.  And adding to a growing profile, the Corpus Christi-born and-based JOVM mainstay released his full-length debut, last year’s Cumbia City, an album that found him pushing his sound and approach in new directions, further revealing why he has quickly become a highly sought-after producer and collaborator. 

Since the release of Cumbia City, El Dusty has been busy producing original music and collaborating with a variety of artists on releases through his independent label Americano Label. His latest single “El Pescador” is a sultry, two-step inducing club banger, centered around thumping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, a classic cumbia sample that prominently features accordion and Latin percussion and an enormous hook paired with 2012 Rototom Latin contest winner, drummer and vocalist Tiano Bless contributing hip-hop inspired rhymes to the proceedings. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay El Dusty Returns with a Swaggering, Genre Mashing, Club Banger

Born Horacio Olivera, El Dusty is a  Corpus Christi, TX-based JOVM mainstay producer, DJ and electronic music artist, who has seen attention across the blogosphere as a pioneer of a sub-genre he’s dubbed “nu-cumbia,” which features elements of hip-hop, drum ‘n’ bass and house music and samples of classic and beloved cumbia songs — with the end result being a swaggering, club-banging take on Latin music that as you may recall resulted in a Latin Grammy nomination. Adding to a growing profile, the Corpus Christi, TX-based producer, DJ and electronic music artist has bee named one of Rolling Stone’s 10 New Artists You Need to Know, Billboard’s New Latin Act and to Watch and was placed on Pandora’s Latin Artists to Watch. He’s also played at EDC Las Vegas, EDC Mexico, Ciudad Sonido Festival, Fiesta De La Flor, Universal Records’ Latin Grammy Showcase, Brisk Bodega Tour, the Mad Decent Block Party, Austin City Limits, SXSW, and others.

Olivera’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Cumbia City is slated for a May 11, 2018 release through AfterCluv Records, and while the album will further his reputation as one of electronic Latin music’s highly-sought after producers and collaborators, the album also finds Olivera pushing his signature sound in new directions as the album’s material crosses genres, trends and cultures while redefining what both Latin music and electronic music should and could sound like. “This album is cool as hell and funky!” Olivera says in press notes. “This takes the old with the new and it becomes a new style, a new song, a new genre – it is more than Cumbia, it’s electronic styles with live drums and modern beats.” El Dusty adds “I approach the whole album with live recordings in mind. Every sample was re-recorded live to create a mashed up turntable-like production meets a song-like format.” Unsurprisingly, El Dusty’s full-length debut, is deeply influenced by his musical upbringing which included Tejano anthems, Chicano soul music, classic rock, boom bap hip hop, house music, drum ‘n’ bass, turntablism, but mashed up and re-imagined for a new generation of bass-heavy and soundsystem music.

Album title track “Cumbia City” is a swaggering track around tweeter and woofer rocking boom bap beats, trap snares, an iconic sample from San Jacinto,  Colombia-born cumbia star Andres Landero and Boogat spitting fire in Spanish — and while mischievously bending and playing with genre boundaries, it’s an anthemic and crowd pleasing banger.

Set on the streets of Corpus Christi, the brightly colored video for “La Cumbia” is a cinematically shot video that features dancers of all ages and from a variety of the city’s cultural traditions — from the ancient and contemporary — to the song’s thumping beats.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: The Beguiling, Captivating Gina Chavez on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert

As the Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Gina Chavez has explained in interviews, her sophomore effort up.rooted, which was released last year, is ““a rhythmic exploration of who I am” – “a sonic garden of stories from an ethnically mixed woman on […]