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Bobby Sanabria / Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra: Tito Puente Masterworks Live!!!
by Dan Bilawsky
If the Latin Jazz community had its own Mount Rushmore, then Tito Puente's face would be there, right beside the images of Machito and Mario Bauzá. All three men are viewed as patriarchs and/or key figures in the evolution of the Afro-Cuban musical movement and, despite Puente being the only non-Cuban on that list, Bauzá himself paid him the ultimate compliment when he said that “no one in the world has done more for Afro-Cuban music than Tito Puente." While ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria: Kenya Revisited LIVE!!! (feat. Candido)
by Graham L. Flanagan
Led by percussionist Bobby Sanabria, the Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra delivers a worthy tribute to one of the greatest AfroCuban jazz recordings ever made: Machito's Kenya. Recorded in 1957, Kenya exists for many as one of the essential albums of its kind. It's absolutely appropriate that, more than half a century later, someone should honor its legacy with a live performance. The Afro-Cuban Orchestra proves to be worthy of tackling such a massive endeavor. ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria / Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra: Kenya Revisited Live!!!
by Alain Londes
2009 is a key year in Latin music education and rediscovery. Kenya Revisited Live!!! is the culmination of Bobby Sanabria's effort to recreate Machito & The Afro-Cubans' defining 1957 masterpiece, Kenya: Afro-Cuban Jazz (Roulette), under the direction of Mario Bauzá. It's a real bridge between Afro-Cuban music and jazz, featuring the Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra with special guest/NEA jazz master Cándido Camero on congas for three tunes. The show starts off with “Frenzy," a ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria / Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra: Kenya Revisited Live!!!
by Edward Blanco
In 1957, Cuban band leader, singer and composer Francisco Raul Gutierrez Grillo de Ayala, AKA “Machito," his Afro-Cuban big band, along with co-founder Mario Bauza, Cannonball Adderley and Basie trumpeter Joe Newman, released an album titled Kenya (Roulette), which, at the time, became instrumental in launching the Afro-Cuban or Latin jazz genre. Multiple Grammy nominee Bobby Sanabria pays homage to Machito, Bauza and their ground-breaking album directing the Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra in a live concert recording ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria / Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra: Kenya Revisited Live !!!
by Woodrow Wilkins
A full horn section combined with an ensemble of percussionists usually means one thing: Afro-Cuban jazz. Conductor Bobby Sanabria and the Manhattan School of Music's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra capture the essence of this style of music by paying tribute to a landmark recording.Kenya Revisited Live!!!, originally recorded in 1957 by Machito and his Afro-Cubans, featuring Cannonball Adderley, is widely hailed as a first- rate assembly of this style of music. With updated music and new arrangements the orchestra ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria: Afro-Cuban Storyteller
by Jason Crane
Bobby Sanabria is a living museum of Afro-Cuban music. Sanabria is a percussionist, drummer and educator who is at the forefront of Afro-Cuban music—particularly the frontier where it intersects with jazz. In 2007, Sanabria released Big Band Urban Folktales (Jazzheads, 2007), an album he says takes the music “beyond the 21st century." Jason Crane, AAJ contributor and host of The Jazz Session, sat down with Sanabria in May 2007 to talk about the history of Afro-Cuban music, Sanabria's own career, ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria: Big Band Urban Folktales
by Martin Longley
Born in the Bronx and hailing from a Puerto Rican background, percussionist Bobby Sanabria has mastered every conceivable form of AfroLatin music, from New York salsa to Cuban son and even down to Brazilian samba. This album comes across as a demonstration record for everything that he and his thrilling big band can accomplish. Illuminating though they are, it might be best to lay off reading Dr. Robert Farris Thompson's booklet notes until after a few spins ...
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