Max Pollak

Max Pollak: Tapped Into Rhythm

by Leo Sidran
April 24, 2025

Max Pollak was five years old, growing up in suburban Vienna, when he saw Fred Astaire dancing on television. He didn't understand the history. He didn't know the language. But he knew he had to do that. The rhythm, the movement, the magic of it--it spoke to him. And it sent him on a lifelong journey that would eventually lead him from Austria to Harlem, to Havana, and back again. Before he ever put on a pair of ...

Grupo Los Santos: Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea

by Michael P. Gladstone
March 18, 2008

A spirited group of Latin jazz players called Grupos Los Santos offers its brand of music on Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea, which translates to What We Are What Will Be . The title of the group could also be loosely translated to mean that they are not playing a singular type of music but bring in many elements, tempo and cultural diversities.

When “Rumba in the Bronx" begins, it is with a percussive rumba ...

Grupo Los Santos: Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea

by Ernest Barteldes
February 5, 2008

Grupo Los Santos is a New York-based group that successfully looks at Latin and Brazilian jazz from an American point of view. The result is a mixed sonic bag that allows influences from funk and East Coast jazz into the music without compromising the general sound and feel. At their CD release concert at New York's The Jazz Standard in January, 2008, they opened with “Boogie Down Broder," a tune by saxophonist Paul Carlon dedicated to the ...

Grupo Los Santos: Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea

by David Miller
January 10, 2008

Grupo Los Santos is a unique band. Its music is Latin through and through, and yet the musicians come from varying backgrounds. Guitarist Pete Smith has played with Norah Jones, Donald Byrd and Andrew Hill; bassist Dave Ambrosio has recorded with Uzbek and Kyrgyz folk musicians; saxophonist Paul Carlon leads his own band, playing everything from straight-ahead jazz to funk; and drummer William “Beaver" Bausch rounds out the core quartet, and is probably the most experienced in Latin musics. What ...