Home » Search Center » Results: Javier AQ Ortiz
Results for "Javier AQ Ortiz"
Willie Villegas y Entre Amigos: Dancer's Paradise
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Quick and to the Point: Hard charging Salsa--la Manny Oquendo, Willie Colon, La Perfectaï . Evolution favors those with better mutative luck and improved capacity for adaptation. Musical matters are no exception. Whereas some musical organisms seek survival in newness, others dig into the familiarity of established repertoires, styles and aesthetics with the same ...
Roy Powell Trio: Holus
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Quick and to the Point: A rarity: spontaneous Jazz... . For all the talk of improvisation in jazz, it is not widespread to have musicians draw together at a recording studio and just go with the flow. For all the talk of spontaneous virtuosity in jazz, the percentage of musicians who can gather jointly ...
Elio Villafranca: Incantations Encantaciones
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Yet another Cuban loss is Philadelphia's gain. Enter Elio Villafranca. Incantations Encantaciones, produced alongside Larry Cramer, is his sortie into winning leadership. Sorting out the pianist's musicality, brute force, effervescence, topicality, virtuostic independence (just pay attention in “You Spoke Too Soon" on this regard), patience, candor, and brazen delicacy is not that difficult. This is one ...
Babatunde Lea's Soul Pools
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Babatunde Lea will not forget 2003. Shortly after releasing Soul Pools , his fourth recording as a leader, his inspirer 'Babatunde Olatunji' passed away. Lea's beat, conversely, is livelier than ever and honoring in high spirits the induction of Olatunji into jazz's pantheon of collective memoirs. Conceptually speaking, Lea's latest recording is akin to ...
Elio Villafranca: Schoenberg's Cuban Street
by Javier AQ Ortiz
As we talked on the phone and exchanged e-mails, enough of a view on Elio Villafranca surfaced. The sight, tinted by listening to his Incantations/Encantaciones over several weeks now, is also awash in universal social commonalities among musicians, their craft, industry and conduct. His is also the stereotypical tale of an 'migr' from a dim repressor ...
Celia Cruz Is
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Celia Cruz died on July 16, 2003. It has been reported that she did not recover after a recent brain tumor surgery and finally passed away from cerebral cancer in the company of her husband Pedro Knight. Her website crashed just about three hours after the news of her demise, which isn’t surprising given Cruz’s worldwide ...
Ansasa Trio: Arabian Picnic
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Quick and to the Point : A Slovenian jazz picnic! This Slovenian picnic of Eastern European, Central Asian and Middle Eastern musical fares entails drinking jazz wine from Primorje, cutting some black hash from musky and sticky harmonic and melodic blocks, gingerly and excitedly placed on the bowl of a communal water pipe filled with rose ...
Kelvin Roy: Just Can't Stop
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Quick and to the Point : Smooth jazz vocal coolness. This production ranges from the riff-like monogroove of “You Caught My Eye" to the infectiously accordion grooviness of “Let Your Love Out." Of course, there will be melodically funky pieces such as “Sorta Like You Know," which unfortunately quits when its getting heated ...
Two For Brazil: Take Five
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Quick and to the Point : Rewarding Brazilian jazz. Although over-enthusiastically hailed as a Dave Brubeck-Paul Desmond resurrection in the liner notes, this Take Five isn’t umbilically linked to its illustrious namesake. It is, however, first-rate Brazilian jazz that stands on its own with ease, featuring an infectious emotive largesse, melodic pervasiveness and two festively brilliant ...
Cal Tjader: Latin Concert
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Quick and to the Point : Classic. In hindsight, it is rather easy to understand why this 1958 Cal Tjader group was his best ever. The groove among them is a model of economy, good taste, and simple-yet-profound depth. It sure shows in “The Continental,” with its expertly and tastily executed dynamics converging on Vince Guaraldi’s ...
