Articles by Javier AQ Ortiz
Michael O’Neill: Michael O’Neill
by Javier AQ Ortiz
When Michael O'Neill isn't touring with George Benson he does his thing and Touch the Past is his thing. For this Yamaha-sponsored guitarist, the recording is a compliment to the so-called Blue Note era of jazz. His radio-friendly songs, however, don't seem to dwell much in the past, and are very much in the here and now, as this is certainly not a Blue Note production; it's O'Neill through and through. O'Neill is a wise and mature ...
read moreOur Latin Groove: Bringin’ It All On Back!
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Percussionist Gerardo Rosales' production resembles a piece of roughhewn North Carolina outdoor mountain cabin furniture: solid, durable, attractive, functional...and just plain charming. Under the moniker Our Latin Groove, paying homage to the heyday of the Fania label and the film production Our Latin Thing, the group courageously avails itself of neglected '60s Latin/New York musical styles when the boogaloo, the shingaling and their cognates had their limelighted time, as well as the ruling '70s period of salsa. The results are ...
read moreShimrit Shoshan: Keep It Movin’
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Paying the proverbial musical dues is part and parcel of a musician's evolution, and an unavoidable experience that can be as trying as it can be rewarding. The common jazz lore takes for granted that doing so in New York puts a musician in an altogether singular phylum in the jazz evolutionary tree. Pianist/composer Shimrit Shoshan has, since 2004, been voraciously vitaminizing her learned background in that famed city with academic studies, mentors and gigs. Enter Keep It Movin' the ...
read moreEdwin Bonilla: Homenaje a los Rumberos
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Homenaje a los Rumberos is a hyper-swinging and high-octane danceable salsa recording by Edwin Bonilla, that truly takes dancers as its true North. Bonilla, who keeps an awfully busy schedule performing and working as a first-call studio percussionist for quite a broad assortment of groups and figures, became a darling of the international salsa DJ scene with his penchant for hardcore, get-down-and-dirty productions under his name. This is the type of music popularly referred to in Spanish as capable of ...
read moreSopla, Andrea Brachfeld! Blow!
by Javier AQ Ortiz
A visit to a New York afterhours dive during the heyday of salsa in the mid 1970s would most likely afford the chance to see charanga groups such as Típica Novel, Orquesta Broadway or Charanga 76, furiously competing against each other-- with flutist Andrea Brachfeld holding her own among a bunch of hardcore characters, musical and otherwise, who were adding their own distinctive chapters to the history of this Cuban music. It's a style that owes much to its New ...
read morePaulinho Garcia: My Very Life
by Javier AQ Ortiz
My Very Life, by Paulinho Garcia, is a release from Chicago Sessions--a subscription label service “featuring the best Chicago jazz artists." Many years ago Garcia realized that it pays to be a toucan in a land of penguins and he has been leaving his mark in the Windy City--and beyond--ever since.
This recording finds Garcia under a somewhat different spotlight. For example, although his recent solo work and his recordings with Two for Brazil do not feature much of his ...
read morePaulinho Garcia: Portrait in Black and White
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Paulinho Garcia milks much from sheer simplicity. The liner notes state that he recorded Portrait in Black and White “as if I was in my own living room." Garcia succeeded. Accompanied by his Spanish guitar, this release is characterized by its overall openheartedness and cool intimacy.
His cozy voice travels through a well-trodden repertoire of Brazilian and jazz compositions singing in English and Portuguese with “Adiós mi Sueño" being the sole exception in Spanish. His slightly accented English ...
read moreEnoch Smith, Jr.: Church boy
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Pianist and composer Enoch Smith, Jr. appears in the recorded jazz landscape fully blossomed, ripened and in full swing. His thrilling ChurchBboy bears a brazen and welcomed Christian musical engraving that offers proof of expected influences from classical, soul, gospel music and the Protestant Christian hymnody. However, there's no denying the Latin and Caribbean tinges, such as on the reggae-like “Untitled (No Words)." In a repertoire that pretty much divides itself neatly in half between lively and mid-tempo material, just ...
read moreEric Vloeimans: Hyper Fugimundi Gatecrash
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Few musicians from Holland are seen in the U.S., let alone in South Florida, but when they are, it is a rewarding experience. Although Eric Vloeimans is virtually unknown as a leader on North American shores, he is no stranger to audiences familiar with some European jazz markets, where he is held in high regard. The inventive and award-winning trumpet player performed in the U.S. with the likes of the Frank Foster Big Band and the Duke Ellington Band while ...
read moreTrumpeter Eric Vloeimans' Fugimundi at Tigertail, Miami Beach
by Javier AQ Ortiz
The Eric Vloeimans Trio: Fugimundi Byron Carlyle Theater Miami Beach, FL October 10, 2008
Art with Edge is the title and conceptual framework for the 29th season of Tigertail, a festival of the arts in Miami Beach. With support ranging from the Consulate General of the Netherlands to Barefoot Wine and Bubbly, Grolsch, Prima Pasta and Rain Organics, South Florida had the truly rare opportunity to hear the Eric Vloeimans Trio aka Fugimundi
The Dutch trumpeter and ...
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