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Plena Libre

Plena Libre combines the traditional Plena and Bomba rhythms with other Afro-Caribbean styles and jazz to create a contagious dance music that honors the group’s deep sense of the unique indigenous musical traditions, while embracing modern sounds.

The trailblazing Plena Libre has been thrilling international audiences for nearly three decades. Masters of the traditional Puerto Rican plena and bomba styles, Plena Libre fuses well-loved traditions with modern Afro-Caribbean influences, putting a new and always electrifying spin on this scintillating music. With mesmerizing hand drumming, raucous horns, and soaring three-part vocal harmonies, this multi-Grammy Award–nominated band always brings the heat.

Captivating and moving audiences over the course of a 30-year, 15-album career, this fine-tuned, original band of 12 virtuoso musicians has only gotten better with age.

Awards

Multi Grammy Award Nominated

Plena Libre: Evoluci

by AAJ Staff
October 28, 2005

To most of the world, the music of Puerto Rico is synonymous with salsa, the peppy, jazzed-up Afro-Caribbean music that surfaced in New York in the late '60s and sparked an enduring popular dance movement all its own. But the island is home for several other varieties of folkloric and popular music as well. (Strictly speaking, “salsa" was always more a marketing term than any specific style, in all truth. Even today the genre is still pretty wide open, and ...

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Extended Analysis

Plena Libre:

by Javier AQ Ortiz
August 10, 2004

Plena Libre ¡Estamos gozando! Times Square Records 2004

In spite of the often quoted nationalistic blurbage found in liner notes, press releases, the printed press and even so-called scholarly sources, the bomba and plena genres aren't a sure fire formula for musical success, nor are they as popular as they are made to be at times. As it is true of assorted other musical styles in current and past history, the plena ...

“A mad weave of polyrhythms that simply sizzle.” - The Boston Herald