Luisito Quintero - PERCUSSION MADNESS

[JSngry]

Quite possibly!

http://www.dustygroove.com/browse.php?kwfi...1&incl_cs=1

One of the greatest albums we've heard from the hands of Louie Vega since his Nuyorican Soul project of a decade back -- a mostly-Latin session built around the talents of percussionist Luisito Quintero, and featuring tracks in a mix of traditional and current dancefloor modes! There's hardly any of the house here that you might expect from the Vega name -- and instead, the record bristles with raw acoustic energy from Quintero and a host of great guests that include Hilton Ruiz, Brian Lynch, Nestor Torres, Milton Cardona, Jose Mangual, and Blaze! And while Luisito certainly brings in plenty of Afro-Cuban percussion to the record, the tracks themselve stretch out in a real variety of pan-global influences -- including Brazilian fusion, 21st century soul, and some of the best cross-cultural styles coming out of the current New York scene. The whole thing's great -- Latin jazz at the core, but with so much more added on top -- and titles include "Percussion Madness", "M'Bongi", "Our Love", "Love Remains The Same", "Oshgarina", "Four Beat Mambo", "Acid", "Quintero's Jam", "Tumbao", "Gabagada Gabagada Gabogodo Gabogodo", and "Aquilas Coisas Todas".

Yeah, that's about it. Old school descarga meets new school pan-global dance music. If you're a stone Latin freak, you should dig it. If you like "Latin-Jazz", you should dig it. If you like good danceable grooves with music of substance on top, you should dig it. If you don't like any of that stuff, you probably won't dig it.

But if you do, this puppy is coming highly recommended. Replay-for-listening value is off the hook, as is the fun factor.

Instant classic it just might be!

Edited January 13, 2007 by JSngry

[JSngry]

Let me reinforce - this is not a "house" or "dance" album. This is first and foremost and old school descarga album that you can dance to (just like the old ones). But if you know Louie Vega's (and/or his MAW partner Kenny Dope's) work, you know that more and more of this type thing has been infiltraing their house work (and marvellously so) over the last 10 or so years.

This album, though, is pretty much pure early 21-st century Nuyorican/Afro/Brazillian/etc. jamming of a very high quality with state-of-the-art recording/production.

Edited January 13, 2007 by JSngry

[JSngry]

Hey, screw Da' Bastids on this one (unless you got a J-import fetish). They got it at Amazon for $16.98, and you can order it through the O-Boards link.

[Joe G]

The one track I've heard (thanks Jim) was damn good. Took me a few bars to find the downbeat - I love it when that happens!

[JSngry]

Joe - check your email tommorow.

[Joe G]

Loving it! :rsmile:

[CJ Shearn]

I might have to check this out based on the talk you guys are giving it!

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Thanks Jim!

Could this quite possibly be one of Hilton Ruiz's last recorded efforts? He was responsible for introing me to some guy named Sam Rivers on that "Something Grand" album that really truly was. I also thought his and Palmieri's work on the "Nuyorican Soul" disc was somethin' else.

edit to add:myspace

(and whaddahek is "thanks for the add"?, i always just blamed society at large)

Edited January 13, 2007 by Man with the Golden Arm

[JSngry]

Could this quite possibly be one of Hilton Ruiz's last recorded efforts?

Seems possible.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thanks Jim - another immediate sale! Got one from Amazon UK for $11.66 - Zowie!

I don't have to say, "it better be good". I KNOW it will be.

MG

[mikeweil]

Found a cheap copy on amazon.de and ordered - thanks for the recommendation!

[JSngry]

Mike, I know you're pretty hardcore about the whole descarga/Afro-Cuban thing. Hope this satisfies, as it is not entirely old school. But for the most part, I think you'll enjoy it.

[JSngry]

Could this quite possibly be one of Hilton Ruiz's last recorded efforts? He was responsible for introing me to some guy named Sam Rivers on that "Something Grand" album that really truly was. I also thought his and Palmieri's work on the "Nuyorican Soul" disc was somethin' else.

Agreed.

Are you familiar w/Ruiz' work a decade or so earlier than that on Jerry Gonzalez' Ya Yo Me Cure? That was the first "mainstream" (as if an American Clave side could be considered "mainstream" ) use of the word "Nuyoriqueno" that I remember, although it had certainly been in street use a few years or more before that.

Anyway, Ruiz is all over that one, and his version of "I Love Lucy" is one of those things that you can take straight or as a sly joke and end up the same place either way. He wa certainly a unique talent, he was!

[marcello]

Luisito Quintero has played in Jeff "Tain" Watts groups. One group had Tain, Quintero, Paul Bollenback, David Budway, John Benitez and Joe Locke on vibes and Marimba.

With the addition of Quintero, the whole band , especially when the marimba was included, took on a whole different approach and direction.

Edited January 14, 2007 by marcello

[JSngry]

John Benitez is another genre-crossing/defying mofo who turns up in a lot of interesting places across the musical spectrum. Guys like that you can just sort of "look for" and get a good cross-sampling of what's going on in a lot of different places.

He's got one side out on his own that I know of, another descarga type thing that didn't really hit me too hard. But he's on lots of other things that do, including some Monday Michiru things. Cat defintiely gets around!

[marcello]

Jon Benitez plays with my buddy, vibes/marimba player Christos Rafalides, in Christos' group : Manhattan Vibes:

Manhattan Vibes

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Is he any relaton of Chewy?

MG

[mikeweil]

Mike, I know you're pretty hardcore about the whole descarga/Afro-Cuban thing. Hope this satisfies, as it is not entirely old school. But for the most part, I think you'll enjoy it.

Jim, I don't care so much about schools, as longs as it's well done, which is the case here, definitively!

(Fast service BTW - odered Sunday afternoon from an amazon seller, and the CD was in my mailbox on Tuesday morning!)

I love this! His new takes on two old Tito Puente percussion classics, Four Beat Mambo and Son Montuno, had me dancin' around the house! They're every bit as good as the originals, in their own way.

Quintero is a damn fine timbales player (quite the opposite to Amadito Valdes of the Cuban All Stars, who called it a "limited instrument" in the Buena Vista Social Club movie!). This is deeply connected to the tradition, stretches the limits, grooves like mad, etc. - a much better debut than the late Angá Diaz' CD on World Circuit.

My only (minor) complaint is that the two Brazilian and Afro-Pop numbers each misled me as far as understanding his vision is concerned - and due to the click-track-led overdubs his groove on the Fela Kuti number isn't nearly as organic as the original. It's all there, but a little too tight. This guy has to watch out that overdubbing and studio technique doesn't overwhelm his spirit - taking this into account he did a damn good job on it all.

Thanks for the recommendation, Jim - my percussion students loved it, too, later that day!

If you dig percussion heavy stuff, check out Pancho Quinto's CDs, too - some of the wildest rumba based stuff I ever heard!

Rumba Sin Fronteras

En El Solar la Cueva Del Humo

Edited January 17, 2007 by mikeweil

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

(Fast service BTW - odered Sunday afternoon from an amazon seller, and the CD was in my mailbox on Tuesday morning!)

And I ordered mine from an Amazon UK seller on Saturday and still haven't got it! How come you get preferential treatment, Mike?

MG

[JSngry]

Mike's got the chango thing happenin' , doncha' know.

[JSngry]

And I'm sure that this is strictly a matter of personal taste (i.e. - no sense arguing about it), but I thoroughly enjoyed the few "poppish" tracks. There's a lot of this going on in the "dance underground", Afro/Latin/Brazillian grooves being brought into the mix, and unlike such attempts of decades past (remember Manolo Badrena's solo lp on A&M?), I'm hearing/feeling assimilation w/o extermination. To me, that's a healthy thing, especially when you consider the possibilities of the opposite dynamic as it's being played out culturally across the world today. Sure, you lose a bit of "native authenticity", but what's gained in terms of society moving ahead is not to be dismissed, I think. Staying seperate except by destructive means is going to prove to be impossible for almost all of us, and coming together is just so damn....easy if we just relax, let it happen, and keep it on the good side spiritually.

[rostasi]

Good article from David Byrne in 1999:

I Hate World Music

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

This article appeared in the October 3, 1999 New York Times.

I thought that it was an interesting read, and have copied it here for your perusal. David Byrne, as you may/should know, was a member of the band Talking Heads. Since leaving that band he has become quite a proponent of international music, including being the head of a terrific record label which happens to provide many of the great bands you hear each week on WIDR World.

Crossing Music's Borders: 'I Hate World Music'

By DAVID BYRNE

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I hate world music. That's probably one of the perverse reasons I have been asked to write about it. The term is a catchall that commonly refers to non-Western music of any and all sorts, popular music, traditional music and even classical music. It's a marketing as well as a pseudomusical term -- and a name for a bin in the record store signifying stuff that doesn't belong anywhere else in the store. What's in that bin ranges from the most blatantly commercial music produced by a country, like Hindi film music (the singer Asha Bhosle being the best well known example), to the ultra-sophisticated, super-cosmopolitan art-pop of Brazil (Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé, Carlinhos Brown); from the somewhat bizarre and surreal concept of a former Bulgarian state-run folkloric choir being arranged by classically trained, Soviet-era composers (Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares) to Norteño songs from Texas and northern Mexico glorifying the exploits of drug dealers (Los Tigres del Norte).

Albums by Selena, Ricky Martin and Los Del Rio (the Macarena kings), artists who sell millions of records in the United States alone, are racked next to field recordings of Thai hill tribes. Equating apples and oranges indeed.

So, from a purely democratic standpoint, one in which all music is equal, regardless of sales and slickness of production, this is a musical utopia.

So Why Am I Complaining?

In my experience, the use of the term world music is a way of dismissing artists or their music as irrelevant to one's own life. It's a way of relegating this "thing" into the realm of something exotic and therefore cute, weird but safe, because exotica is beautiful but irrelevant; they are, by definition, not like us. Maybe that's why I hate the term. It groups everything and anything that isn't "us" into "them." This grouping is a convenient way of not seeing a band or artist as a creative individual, albeit from a culture somewhat different from that seen on American television. It's a label for anything at all that is not sung in English or anything that doesn't fit into the Anglo-Western pop universe this year. (So Ricky Martin is allowed out of the world music ghetto -- for a while, anyway. Next year, who knows? If he makes a plena record, he might have to go back to the salsa bins and the Latin mom and pop record stores.) It's a none too subtle way of reasserting the hegemony of Western pop culture. It ghettoizes most of the world's music. A bold and audacious move, White Man!

There is some terrific music being made all over the world. In fact, there is more music, in sheer quantity, currently defined as world music, than any other kind. Not just kinds of music, but volume of recordings as well. When we talk about world music we find ourselves talking about 99 percent of the music on this planet. It would be strange to imagine, as many multinational corporations seem to, that Western pop holds the copyright on musical creativity.

No, the fact is, Western pop is the fast food of music, and there is more exciting creative music making going on outside the Western pop tradition than inside it. There is so much incredible noise happening that we'll never exhaust it. For example, there are guitar bands in Africa that can be, if you let them, as inspiring and transporting as any kind of rock, pop, soul, funk or disco you grew up with. And what is exciting for me is that they have taken elements of global (Western?) music apart, examined the pieces to see what might be of use and then re-invented and reassembled the parts to their own ends. Thus creating something entirely new. (Femi Kuti gave a great show the other night that was part Coltrane, part James Brown and all African, just like his daddy, Fela Kuti, the great Nigerian musical mastermind.)

To restrict your listening to English-language pop is like deciding to eat the same meal for the rest of your life. The "no-surprise surprise," as the Holiday Inn advertisement claims, is reassuring, I guess, but lacks kick. As ridiculous as they often sound, the conservative critics of rock-and-roll, and more recently of techno and rave, are not far off the mark. For at it's best, music truly is subversive and dangerous. Thank the gods.

Hearing the right piece of music at the right time of your life can inspire a radical change, destructive personal behavior or even fascist politics. Sometimes all at the same time.

On the other hand, music can inspire love, religious ecstasy, cathartic release, social bonding and a glimpse of another dimension. A sense that there is another time, another space and another, better, universe. It can heal a broken heart, offer a shoulder to cry on and a friend when no one else understands. There are times when you want to be transported, to get your mind around some stuff it never encountered before. And what if the thing transporting you doesn't come from your neighborhood?

Why Bother?

This interest in music not like that made in our own little villages (Dumbarton, Scotland, and Arbutus, Md., in my own case) is not, as it's often claimed, cultural tourism, because once you've let something in, let it grab hold of you, you're forever changed. Of course, you can also listen and remain completely unaffected and unmoved -- like a tourist. Your loss. The fact is, after listening to some of this music for a while, it probably won't seem exotic any more, even if you still don't understand all the words. Thinking of things as exotic is only cool when it's your sister, your co-worker or wife; it's sometimes beneficial to exoticize that which has become overly familiar. But in other circumstances, viewing people and cultures as exotic is a distancing mechanism that too often allows for exploitation and racism.

Maybe it's naïve, but I would love to believe that once you grow to love some aspect of a culture -- its music, for instance -- you can never again think of the people of that culture as less than yourself. I would like to believe that if I am deeply moved by a song originating from some place other than my own hometown, then I have in some way shared an experience with the people of that culture. I have been pleasantly contaminated. I can identify in some small way with it and its people. Not that I will ever experience music exactly the same way as those who make it. I am not Hank Williams, or even Hank Jr., but I can still love his music and be moved by it. Doesn't mean I have to live like him. Or take as many drugs as he did, or, for that matter, as much as the great flamenco singer Cameron de la Isla did.

That's what art does; it communicates the vibe, the feeling, the attitude toward our lives, in a way that is personal and universal at the same time. And we don't have to go through all the personal torment that the artist went through to get it. I would like to think that if you love a piece of music, how can you help but love, or at least respect, the producers of it? On the other hand, I know plenty of racists who love "soul" music, rap and rhthym-and-blues, so dream on, Dave.

The Myth of the Authentic

The issue of "authenticity" is such a weird can of worms. Westerners get obsessed with it. They agonize over which is the "true" music, the real deal. I question the authenticity of some of the new-age ethnofusion music that's out there, but I also know that to rule out everything I personally abhor would be to rule out the possibility of a future miracle. Everybody knows the world has two types of music -- my kind and everyone else's. And even my kind ain't always so great.

What is considered authentic today was probably some kind of bastard fusion a few years ago. An all-Japanese salsa orchestra's record (Orquestra de la Luz) was No. 1 on the salsa charts in the United States not long ago. Did the New York salseros care? No, most loved the songs and were frankly amazed. African guitar bands were doing their level best to copy Cuban rumbas, and in their twisted failure thay came up with something new. So let's not make any rules about who can make a specific style of music.

Mr. Juju himself, King Sunny Adé, name-checks the country and western crooner Jim Reeves as an influence. True. Rumor has it that the famous Balinese monkey chant was coordinated and choreographed by a German! The first South African pop record I bought was all tunes with American car race themes -- the Indy 500 and the like. With sound effects, too! So let's forget about this authenticity bugaboo. If you are transported by the music, then knowing that the creators had open ears can only add to the enjoyment.

White folks needed to see Leadbelly in prison garb to feel they were getting the real thing. They need to be assured that rappers are "keeping it real," they need their Cuban musicians old and sweet, their Eastern and Asian artists "spiritual." The myths and clichés of national and cultural traits flourish in the marketing of music. There is the myth of the untutored, innocent savant whose rhymes contain funky Zen-like pearls of wisdom -- the myth that exotic "traditional" music is more honest, more soulful and more in touch with a people's real and true feelings than the kid wearing jeans and the latest sports gear on Mexican television.

There is a perverse need to see foreign performers in their native dress rather than in the T-shirts and baggies that they usually wear off stage. We don't want them looking too much like us, because then we assume that their music is calculated, marketed, impure. Heaven forbid they should be at least as aware of the larger world as we are. All of which might be true, but more important, their larger awareness might also be relevant to their music, which in turn might connect it to our own lives and situations. Heaven forbid.

La Nueva Generación

In the last couple of years, there have been any number of articles in newspapers and magazines about how Latin music in particular was finally going to become hugely popular in the U.S. of A. Half -- yes, half -- of the current top 10 singles in Britain, that hot and sweaty country, are sort of Latin, if you count Geri Halliwell's "Mi Chico Latino," and why not? The others are watered-down remakes of Perez Prado's hits from the 50's and 60's. The Buena Vista Social Club record is the No. 1 selling record, in any category, in funky Germany. Les Nubians, a French-African group, is getting played on urban (translate as "black") radio in America. So is this a trend or what? Are these more than summer novelty tunes for anglos? Are we really going to learn to dance, or is this some kind of aberration?

But what about the alterna-Latino bands that are touring the United States and Europe in increasing numbers. The Columbian band Bloque (which, I confess, is on my label) was named best band of the year by a Chicago critic; Los Fabulosos Cadillacs won a Grammy last year. Both bands, and many, many others, mix the grooves of their neighborhoods with the sounds and attitudes of the North American tunes they also grew up with. They are a generation with a double heritage, and their music expresses it.

It's tough for this bunch to crack the American market: they're not always cute, safe or exotic. Their music is often more innovative than that of their northern counterparts, which is intimidating. And as cool as they are, they insist on singing in their own language, to an audience that identifies completely with them, thereby making it more difficult to gain a foothold in the States.

These bands are the musical equivalent of a generation of Latin American writers, including Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, José Amado and Mario Vargas Llosa, that was referred to as the Boom. These musicians are defining their generation, finding a unique voice, and will influence countless others outside their home countries. Here, I believe, is where change will happen. Although they don't sell very many records yet, these and others (for things analogous to this are happening everywhere, in Africa, in Morocco, in Turkey) will plant the seeds, and while I enjoy hearing Ricky Martin's merengue on the radio, these others will change my life.

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Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company

That's such a great article, except for where he thinks the future lies, Rod, that I thought I'd set it out in full. This is what I've been saying for a good many years, only not as well.

MG

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Just listening in to a newly arrived platter

... better have Monday save some room in the week for ...

[Harold_Z]

Weighing in a bit late. The two tracks I heard of Percussion Madness are totally smokin'.

Good stuff is still happenin' and that's encouraging. As Jim has pointed out - It's out there but you have to look for it.