Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Other things to read ...
I check in regularly with a lot of music blogs, and one of these days I plan to build a list of links for our sidebar here (I think I have too many blogs). But for now I'll just toss in a link to someplace cool every now and then. Today's cool: Africolombia. There you'll find lots of music and album art, but not a lot of narrative/context. Still it's quite a treasure trove. If you're hungry for narrative here's a decent article about the afro-colombian style of champeta.
Turntable Batucada (9/4)
WUAG is welcoming back UNC-Greensboro students with a free screening of the music documentary Brasilintime: Batucada com Discos. From what I can glean, it's about American and Brazilian hip hop djs trying to communicate in a turntable version of a samba batucada. Here's the official trailer:
Next Thursday (9/4) at 7 p.m., at the Weatherspoon Museum of Art, UNC-Greensboro, see calendar.
Next Thursday (9/4) at 7 p.m., at the Weatherspoon Museum of Art, UNC-Greensboro, see calendar.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Rumba takes baby steps
Eduardo and Stephanie say they will offer a beginner's rumba class on 9/7. It will be an intensive workshop for first-timers, no reservation required.
What: Intensive Beginner's Rumba Workshop
When: Sunday, September 7, 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Where: Upstairs studio at Triangle Dance Studios, 2603 S. Miami Blvd, RTP
Cost: $10, open to all.
What: Intensive Beginner's Rumba Workshop
When: Sunday, September 7, 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Where: Upstairs studio at Triangle Dance Studios, 2603 S. Miami Blvd, RTP
Cost: $10, open to all.
"Sería un error perdertelo"
Maybe you want to get your Mexican regional music thang on this weekend. What's the best way to find out about the shows? You can listen to La Ley and hope to hear the ads, or you can head down to the tienda or taquería and see what's up on the wall. So, straight from the soda machine outside the Compare Foods in Raleigh, here are some of this week's events:
Grammy-winning norteño superstars Intocable will be at Disco Rodeo this Friday (August 29). Opening bands are Triny y la Leyenda and Grupo Cosmos. Triny y la Leyenda are a veteran tierra caliente band from Michoacan. I know nothing about Grupo Cosmos, but that's what YouTube's for, isn't it? Based on this video, Grupo Gosmos appears to be a norteño act (not at all to be confused with this awesome a capella/human-beat-box act also called Cosmos).
There was another poster up on the soda machine:
At Vivaldi Night Club on Saturday (August 30): Roddy and his band Rompiendo El Silencio with Costeño de Acapulco, Sendero Musical de Guerrero and Desafiados Musical. I know nothing about these acts, and the Google hasn't been any help at all. But according to the poster, it would be an error to miss it ...
Grammy-winning norteño superstars Intocable will be at Disco Rodeo this Friday (August 29). Opening bands are Triny y la Leyenda and Grupo Cosmos. Triny y la Leyenda are a veteran tierra caliente band from Michoacan. I know nothing about Grupo Cosmos, but that's what YouTube's for, isn't it? Based on this video, Grupo Gosmos appears to be a norteño act (not at all to be confused with this awesome a capella/human-beat-box act also called Cosmos).
There was another poster up on the soda machine:
At Vivaldi Night Club on Saturday (August 30): Roddy and his band Rompiendo El Silencio with Costeño de Acapulco, Sendero Musical de Guerrero and Desafiados Musical. I know nothing about these acts, and the Google hasn't been any help at all. But according to the poster, it would be an error to miss it ...
Bio Ritmo gearing up for album tour
Bio Ritmo, who are set to drop their new Jon Fausty-engineered, full-length album Bionico in September, will be playing at Charlotte's Festival Latinoamericano on Sunday, October 12.
They're just touching down in N.C. before heading out to tour Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and uh, oh yeah, Guelph. That's Ontario. This Richmond band sure gets around. Wonder what the odds are they'll arrange a gig in the Triangle on their way to Charlotte? Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseoh...
Here's a closeup from their last show at the Pour House in June:
Will be dishing more dirt on the CD soon...
They're just touching down in N.C. before heading out to tour Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and uh, oh yeah, Guelph. That's Ontario. This Richmond band sure gets around. Wonder what the odds are they'll arrange a gig in the Triangle on their way to Charlotte? Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseoh...
Here's a closeup from their last show at the Pour House in June:
Will be dishing more dirt on the CD soon...
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Durham Jazz: DeLovely
Durham is a great jazz city. North Carolina is rich soil for its homegrown roots, nurtured by a canopy of jazz education (and appreciation) that stretches across the state.
Local diva Lois DeLoatch sang a gem of a concert on Friday night at the Hayti Heritage Center to release her new CD of jazz spirituals, Hymn to Freedom: Homage to Oscar Peterson.
Backing her were performance faculty from Eastern Carolina University-Greenville and UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as the deans of both Duke and North Carolina Central's jazz programs. Dr. Ira Wiggins (NCCU) played saxophones and flute, John V. Brown (Duke), upright acoustic bass, Ernest Turner (ECU), piano, and Thomas Taylor (NCCU, UNC), drums.
St. Joseph's Performance Hall is literally a sanctuary. As Taylor notes, the intimate hall has the shape and acoustics of a drum. That natural resonance suits DeLoatch's bluesy, low registers and sweet, pliant highs. Her voice was a dancer on traditional spirituals like "This Little Light of Mine," and melodies she cast lyrics to, making them her own, like Bobby Timmons' "Moanin' (Prayer)" and Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom."
The ensemble had opened the concert cold with a stunning instrumental, "In a Sentimental Mood." With the ease of dropping change into a jukebox, they instantly changed the atmosphere to an after hours nostalgia, abetted by Turner's Peterson-evoking touches on piano and Taylor's perpetualism on the brush and snare. Although DeLoatch singled out Wiggins' soprano sax playing, it was his flute playing that really captured my attention. Would be interesting to hear his warm, woody tone and intriguing improvisations go head to head with an Eddy Zervignon or an Andrea Brachfeld in a charanga setting.
One by one, DeLoatch conversed with the instrumentalists in a series of duets. This predilection comes, she says, from her background in a rural church on the Virginia/North Carolina border, where musical accompaniment was minimal and strictly come as you are. DeLoatch's family was in attendance, as were members of the many other 'families' in which she plays a community leadership role as a fundraiser and volunteer, among these: top Duke administrators, St. Joseph's Historic Foundation board members, and the 90.7 FM WNCU radio staff.
Concert proceeds benefitted the St. Joseph's Historic Foundation. DeLoatch's CD is available at Amazon and CD baby.
More live gigs featuring the participants of Friday's show are coming up soon: Sunday night (8/24), Thomas Taylor plays with the sax-led Brian Horton Trio at the new 202 Art Gallery Lounge across from Southpoint. And next Thursday (8/28) at the American Tobacco Complex, John Brown takes his Groove Shop out for a walk. Rather than his usual straight ahead jazz, Brown straps on an electric bass with the Groove Shop to play classic funk and R&B, so come prepared to boogie to Stevie Wonder, Sly, The Gap Band and Earth Wind & Fire.
See the Onda Carolina events calendar for more info.
Local diva Lois DeLoatch sang a gem of a concert on Friday night at the Hayti Heritage Center to release her new CD of jazz spirituals, Hymn to Freedom: Homage to Oscar Peterson.
Backing her were performance faculty from Eastern Carolina University-Greenville and UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as the deans of both Duke and North Carolina Central's jazz programs. Dr. Ira Wiggins (NCCU) played saxophones and flute, John V. Brown (Duke), upright acoustic bass, Ernest Turner (ECU), piano, and Thomas Taylor (NCCU, UNC), drums.
St. Joseph's Performance Hall is literally a sanctuary. As Taylor notes, the intimate hall has the shape and acoustics of a drum. That natural resonance suits DeLoatch's bluesy, low registers and sweet, pliant highs. Her voice was a dancer on traditional spirituals like "This Little Light of Mine," and melodies she cast lyrics to, making them her own, like Bobby Timmons' "Moanin' (Prayer)" and Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom."
The ensemble had opened the concert cold with a stunning instrumental, "In a Sentimental Mood." With the ease of dropping change into a jukebox, they instantly changed the atmosphere to an after hours nostalgia, abetted by Turner's Peterson-evoking touches on piano and Taylor's perpetualism on the brush and snare. Although DeLoatch singled out Wiggins' soprano sax playing, it was his flute playing that really captured my attention. Would be interesting to hear his warm, woody tone and intriguing improvisations go head to head with an Eddy Zervignon or an Andrea Brachfeld in a charanga setting.
One by one, DeLoatch conversed with the instrumentalists in a series of duets. This predilection comes, she says, from her background in a rural church on the Virginia/North Carolina border, where musical accompaniment was minimal and strictly come as you are. DeLoatch's family was in attendance, as were members of the many other 'families' in which she plays a community leadership role as a fundraiser and volunteer, among these: top Duke administrators, St. Joseph's Historic Foundation board members, and the 90.7 FM WNCU radio staff.
Concert proceeds benefitted the St. Joseph's Historic Foundation. DeLoatch's CD is available at Amazon and CD baby.
More live gigs featuring the participants of Friday's show are coming up soon: Sunday night (8/24), Thomas Taylor plays with the sax-led Brian Horton Trio at the new 202 Art Gallery Lounge across from Southpoint. And next Thursday (8/28) at the American Tobacco Complex, John Brown takes his Groove Shop out for a walk. Rather than his usual straight ahead jazz, Brown straps on an electric bass with the Groove Shop to play classic funk and R&B, so come prepared to boogie to Stevie Wonder, Sly, The Gap Band and Earth Wind & Fire.
See the Onda Carolina events calendar for more info.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Santino's Two Sides, Revisited
More on the lineup for La Fiesta del Pueblo...
This is my favorite pull quote from the Indyweek interview I did with Santino in August, 2006:
Personally, I'm more entranced by the videos of Santino singing with Fragil, the band that catapulted him to fame in Peru as a teenager. I can't tell if this is recent reunion footage (?) or vintage '90s TV--and maybe that's a good thing:
Living in L.A., Santino's solo stuff now incorporates gypsy violins, reggaeton, rap, ska, dance, salsa/tropical and of course Andean sounds. His recent incarnation, and likely about what you will experience at La Fiesta, looks more like this:
He really is a Gemini.
This is my favorite pull quote from the Indyweek interview I did with Santino in August, 2006:
"I'm not going to deny that it was a very crazy rock 'n' roll life. The chicks and all that stuff, I really don't focus on all of that. I'm not a sexual object. I'm a Gemini."If there are two sides to Santino, the Peruvian heavy metal rocker vs. craftsman of a more cosmopolitan Latin pop, I'm going to have a hard time choosing. The latest from the Santino camp is that his album, Indiocumentado, has been released by Milan/Time Warner, and they are pushing a new video single, "Nadie Es Como Tu" (his Sting cover of "Every Breath You Take").
--Santino in Indy Weekly, 8/2/06
Personally, I'm more entranced by the videos of Santino singing with Fragil, the band that catapulted him to fame in Peru as a teenager. I can't tell if this is recent reunion footage (?) or vintage '90s TV--and maybe that's a good thing:
Living in L.A., Santino's solo stuff now incorporates gypsy violins, reggaeton, rap, ska, dance, salsa/tropical and of course Andean sounds. His recent incarnation, and likely about what you will experience at La Fiesta, looks more like this:
He really is a Gemini.
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