Jazz Articles

Joyce: Just A Little Bit Crazy

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
January 16, 2004

The late, great Elis Regina was the first major artist to record Joyce's songs, and there are some similarities in their approach: both are honest, passionate, fluid and pitch-perfect, with a minimum of vocal pyrotechnics and often the distinct sound of a smile. While delivering the sultry and sunny sambas the world has come to expect from Brazilian vocalists, Joyce also gets adventurous, transcending stylistic and cultural borders.

In line with the title of Just a Little ...

William Cepeda and Afrorican Jazz: My Roots & Beyond

by Eric Saidel
June 1, 1999

William Cepeda is a man with a mission. His goal is aptly given by the title of his cd, his debut as a leader. He wants to introduce us to the music of his roots and beyond. Cepeda takes the rhythms, the dances, of Puerto Rican music, and uses them as the basis for Jazz. As Paquito D'Rivera tells us in the liner notes, Latin Jazz has been based on the music of Brazil and Cuba, but rarely on the ...

William Cepeda and Afrorican JazzGrupo AfroBoricua: Bombazo

by Eric Saidel
June 1, 1999

This CD represents William Cepeda's attempt to educate us in the ways and rhythms of the music of his native Puerto Rico. The music is based in the drums and rhythms brought to Puerto Rico as a consequence of the African slave trade. The melody instruments are, for the most part, limited to the voices of the lead vocalists. However, more often than not, these are used as percussion instruments as well: the vocals are dominated by call and response ...

Grupo Afro-Boricua: Bombazo

by AAJ Staff
May 1, 1999

William Cepeda is a man on a mission. For some time the trombonist for the United Nation Orchestra has stressed the music of Puerto Rico, so we do not forget its contribution to the Latin sound. His album Afrorican Jazz: My Roots and Beyond put a big band atop bomba drums and “versa negro” chanting (Capeda calls it a precursor to rap.) This album is more folkish: traditional tunes and chants (some originals too), sung in high voice with deep ...

Grupo Afro Boricua: Bombazo

by Jack Bowers
February 1, 1999

Dizzy Gillespie would have loved this. No Jazz to speak of, at least as we normally employ the term, but an abundance of captivating and colorful Latin rhythms from Puerto Rico, home of Grupo Afro Boricua and its director, William Cepeda. Grupo Afro, it says in the liner notes, is a leading exponent of Puerto Rico’s traditional musical forms, the bomba and plena, the former composed of rhythmic variations that grew out of the African slave experience in colonial Puerto ...