Jazz Articles about Carlos Maldonado

About Carlos Maldonado

Album Review

Rachel Therrien is a Canadian composer and trumpet player who has been around for some time, though her name may be unfamiliar. Therrien's musical journey has taken her from Rimouski, Quebec to Havana, Cuba via New York City and Colombia. Her Latin Jazz Project is nothing if not arresting, and probably merits a name like avant-garde Latin jazz, although labels inevitably just confuse matters. Listen very carefully, because if Jerry Gonzalez, Freddie Hubbard and Chicago all seem to stroll through ...

Album Review

Michael Eckroth Group: Human Geography

Read "Human Geography" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
November 27, 2024

Grammy-nominated pianist/composer Micael Eckroth follows up his highly acclaimed Plena (Truth Revolution Records, 2021) with the vibrant and robust Human Geography, melding the sounds of contemporary jazz with elements of Afro-Caribbean music while exploring his affinity for the Latin sound and “paying homage to the culture of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the vast amalgam that comprise jazz." An Assistant Professor of music, jazz piano at Florida International University, Eckroth's geographical location in the diverse Anglo and mixed Hispanic community of ...

Album Review

Michael Eckroth Group: Plena

by Dan Bilawsky
December 21, 2021

Michael Eckroth had clear goals in mind for this project--"to create music that was lyrical, modern, true to its Afro-Latin roots, but never purist in its approach"--and he's accomplished his mission with gusto. Through Plena, this Grammy-nominated pianist/composer delivers a program of original music that, while acknowledging folkloric traditions, doesn't buy into their formal strictures and structures. Instead, Eckroth deals in forward-thinking offshoots and branch realities that beautifully extend on--and past--those points. Essentially working with two different ...

Album Review

Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble: Dreaming In Lions

Read "Dreaming In Lions" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
October 8, 2021

Music for dance comes in a variety of forms. At one end of the spectrum are abstract soundscapes composed without reference to the choreography with which they share the stage; an example being John Cage's work with the choreographer Merce Cunningham. At the other end of the spectrum is music written in close collaboration with the choreographer; an example being Igor Stravinsky's work for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which reached its peak in 1910 with The Firebird, jointly realized by ...