Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2023: Reggaeton, Salsa,Bachata, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx

Oh , that’s probably a better comparison

It’s okay. Lewis Kahn too.

Barry Rogers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgxR4JhlsBs

I kinda like this Maffio & Christian Alacea LAtin pop take on Blue Suede Shoes

x-post - still no New York Times obit for Jon Fausty

Listening to El Alfa again now. ILX search shows a few folks have posted about him over the last few years. Dominican rapper with a distinctive voice . He's on the new Kali Uchis single Munekita too

I like his rapid fire cartoon like voice

El Alfa just had a packed Madison Square Garden gig

Saw someone compare El Alfa’s voice to Elmo of Sesame Street

I previewed El Alfa Sunday gig for the Washington City Paper

RIP Orlando Marin at 88. Bronx, NY based Puerto Rican timbalero/percussionist extraordinaire

This is the most insane festival lineup I've ever seen: Besame Mucho in Austin, Texas, March 2024:

https://assets-global.website-files.com/61fb01e42f9e1e4db41b42b1/65404ecee2ec7aab25943002_BesameMucho_2024v2%202.jpg

Highlights from the four stages:

- Los Tigres Del Norte, Grupo Frontera, Bronco, Alicia Villareal, Ramon Ayala, Los Tucanes De Tijuana
- Banda MS De Sergio Lizarraga, Banda Los Recoditos, Banda El Recodo
- Caifanes, Cafe Tacuba, Juanes, El Tri, Maldita Vecindad, Molotov, Mago De Oz, Elefante, Kinky, Duncan Dhu, El Gran Silencio
- Gloria Trevi, Alejandra Guzman, Reik, Fey, Belinda, Belanova, Elvis Crespo

Trad Mexican stage ; alt rock Mexico stage; and pop ballad drama one . Yep, you don’t usually see all those together

x-post- Orlando Marin was great. RIP . I should post some youtube videos of that late percussionist

https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/at-77-last-mambo-king-refuses-to-let-the-rhythm-fade/

After his first high school mambo dance class, he taught himself timbales — shallow, high-tuned drums — and started a neighborhood band in the South Bronx, with a future Grammy winner, Eddie Palmieri, then a 14-year-old prodigy.

2011 article on Orlando Marin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hTSs9utKpk

I listened to Harold López-Nussa Timba a la Americana featuring Grégoire Maret with Luques Curtis & Ruy Adrian López-Nussa, and was not impressed. Bland Latin Jazz without much timba

They are touring US now .

I guess it’s not surprising that I am underwhelmed by Lopez-Nussa Latin jazz billed as timba

From an email I was sent:

Mambo Diablo Tito Puente is still “The King of Latin Music.”

The Mambo Legends Orchestra is his old band with special guests who played with him and were mentored by him.

The All-Star lineup features John “Dandy” Rodriguez, Ronnie Puente and Tito Puente Jr; Carlos Henriquez, Jimmy Delgado, Louis Bauzó, Ray Vega, Humberto Rámirez from Puerto Rico, Lucrecia (singing Celia Cruz), Dominican Yolanda Duke (singing La Lupe), and Jeremy Bosch (singing Vicentico Valdes, Santos Colon, and more).

If you love mambo, salsa, and bolero, you will love this concert.

Sat Nov 11 at Hostos Center in the Bronx

Grammys 2024 songwriter of the year nominee:

Edgar Barrera

• Cuestion De Tiempo (Don Omar) (T)

• Falsa Alarma (En Vivo) (Grupo Firme) (T)

• Gucci Los Paños (Karol G) (T)

• La Despedida (Christian Nodal) (T)

• Mi Ex Tenía Razón (Karol G) (T)

• Que Vuelvas (Various Artists) (T)

• Un Cumbión Dolido (Christian Nodal) (T)

• un x100to (Grupo Frontera & Bad Bunny) (T)

• Yo Pr1mero (Rels B) (S)

Grammys nominees for Feb 2024

33. Best Latin Jazz Album

For vocal or instrumental albums containing greater than 75% playing time of newly recorded material. The intent of this category is to recognize recordings that represent the blending of jazz with Latin, Iberian-American, Brazilian, and Argentinian tango music.

Quietude
Eliane Elias

My Heart Speaks
Ivan Lins With The Tblisi Symphony Orchestra

Vox Humana
Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band

Cometa
Luciana Souza & Trio Corrente

El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2
Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo

Grammys nominees for Feb 2024

56. Best Latin Pop Album

For albums containing greater than 75% playing time of new Latin pop recordings.

La Cuarta Hoja
Pablo Alborán

Beautiful Humans, Vol. 1
AleMor

A Ciegas
Paula Arenas

La Neta
Pedro Capó

Don Juan
Maluma

X Mí (Vol. 1)
Gaby Moreno

57. Best Música Urbana Album

For albums containing greater than 75% playing time of new Música Urbana recordings.

SATURNO
Rauw Alejandro

MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO
Karol G

DATA
Tainy

58. Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album

For albums containing greater than 75% playing time of new Latin rock or alternative recordings.

MARTÍNEZ
Cabra

Leche De Tigre
Diamante Eléctrico

Vida Cotidiana
Juanes

De Todas Las Flores
Natalia Lafourcade

EADDA9223
Fito Paez

59. Best Música Mexicana Album (Including Tejano)

For albums containing greater than 75% playing time of new regional Mexican (banda, norteño, corridos, gruperos, mariachi, ranchera and Tejano) recordings.

Bordado A Mano
Ana Bárbara

La Sánchez
Lila Downs

Motherflower
Flor De Toloache

Amor Como En Las Películas De Antes
Lupita Infante

GÉNESIS
Peso Pluma

60. Best Tropical Latin Album

For albums containing greater than 75% playing time of new tropical Latin recordings.

Siembra: 45º Aniversario (En Vivo en el Coliseo de Puerto Rico, 14 de Mayo 2022)
Rubén Blades Con Roberto Delgado & Orquesta

Voy A Ti
Luis Figueroa

Niche Sinfónico
Grupo Niche Y Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia

VIDA
Omara Portuondo

MIMY & TONY
Tony Succar, Mimy Succar

Escalona Nunca Se Había Grabado Así
Carlos Vives

59. Best Música Mexicana Album (Including Tejano)

No Grupo Frontera? No Yahritza y Su Esencia? The Grammys fuck it up again.

Weird how some categories have 5 nominees, others 6, and others 3

Only 3 nominations for musica Urbana Grammys seems crazy to me

Omara Portuondo album Vida is now out

The Latin Grammys are tonight Thursday. In Spain for the first time. Airing @ 8 ET in US on Univision, Unimas, and Galavision. On RTVE in Espana

Barrera, 32, is likely to gather even more trophies on Thursday night, when the 24th annual Latin Grammys are broadcast from Seville, Spain. He is the most-nominated musician this year, with 13 citations including producer and songwriter of the year. In some categories, Barrera is competing against himself. Two songs he co-wrote are nominated for song of the year, while three each are nominated as best tropical song and best regional Mexican song...

...Barrera is also the main songwriter for Grupo Frontera, an accordion-topped, cumbia-based regional Mexican band from his hometown, McAllen, Texas. He heard them playing for a handful of people at the opening of his brother-in-law’s tire shop in 2022. Barrera co-wrote and co-produced Grupo Frontera’s collaboration with Bad Bunny, “Un x100to,” a Top 5 pop single in the United States Barrera grew up in southern Texas, near the Mexican border, and he soaked up both American and Latin American music; his father was in a cumbia band and had a large record collection. Barrera named his own label and publishing company BorderKid because, he told Billboard, “I’m always in the middle.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/arts/music/edgar-barrera-latin-grammys.html

Looks like Latin Grammys are happening now in Spain and of course are on tape delay tonight in US. Edgar Barrera won composer of the year

https://x.com/LatinGRAMMYs/status/1725222077689373021?s=20

x-post - Jon Pareles in NY Times on the American Grammys snubs of Latin music acts

Emerging Latin stars get left behind.
After a year in which Latin music continued to explode on streaming services and forge all sorts of cross-cultural hybrids, this year’s Grammy nominations are, well, puzzling. Edgar Barrera, the Mexican American songwriter who has collaborated on hit after hit for singers across the Americas, is rightfully a nominee for songwriter of the year. But there’s no best new artist nomination for Peso Pluma, the cutting-voiced Mexican songwriter whose career skyrocketed in 2022 and 2023 — he’s touring arenas this year — and who bridges regional Mexican corridos and Latin trap. Peso Pluma’s 2023 album, “Génesis,” is just tucked among the nominees for música mexicana. Other emerging Mexican-rooted acts that had a blockbuster year — among them Eslabon Armado, Grupo Frontera, Grupo Firme, Christian Nodal and Natanael Cano — go unmentioned.

Then there’s the oddity of the música urbana category. Its three — only three — nominees are deserving: the reggaeton producer Tainy, the electronics-loving pop experimenter Rauw Alejandro and the Colombian songwriter Karol G, whose 2023 album, “Mañana Será Bonito,” was the first Spanish-language album by a woman to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200. But música urbana — encompassing reggaeton, Latin hip-hop, dembow, Latin trap and more — is a crowded, competitive, hugely popular format. The Grammys couldn’t find five nominees? All they had to do was turn on the radio. JON PARELES

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/arts/music/grammy-awards-snubs-surprises.html

Billboard on Latin Grammys snubs and surprises

https://www.billboard.com/lists/2023-latin-grammy-awards-snubs-surprises/

Rolling Stone on snubs from nominations time in September :

WHEN THE LATIN Grammys announced its nominees last week, the corridos tumbados of Rancho Humilde’s top acts were notably missing from its list. Not a single project from the likes of Fuerza Régida, Natanael Cano, or Junior H made the cut.

https://x.com/RollingStone/status/1706734471783784719?s=20

LA Times also took American Grammys to task for snubbing Mexican regional music

Karol G won a couple of Billboard Music Awards and performed too (in water)

https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/listings/items/grupo-niche-and-hector-acosta-nov-24/

I previewed Colombian salsa greats Grupo Niche gig at MGM National Harbor tonight, but going to be busy with family, so will miss the show. Oh well

dang i would love to see them -- classic!!

Me too.

Listening now to DJ Jim Byers play mambo and boogaloo and stuff on WPFW . Great stuff . He's on to 8 pm ET and his show is archived on the WPFW website.

I didn’t know they still were a going concern.

Grupo Niche have had many membership changes but they're still at it

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/theater/buena-vista-social-club-musical-cuban.html

Buena Vista Social Club becomes an off -Broadway musical with actors playing the musicians, the songs in Spanish, and the dialogue in English. Short off-Broadway run at Linda Gross Theater in NY through Jan 7

Buena Vista musical sold out when I am up in NYC area December 14 and 15. Not seeing Old school salsa gigs at Hostos in Bronx on those nights. Need to check Tickeri closer to date also. Maybe Barbes has something

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/this-great-new-book-chronicles-the-indie-blog-era-across-latin-america-and-its-diaspora/

Isabelia Herrera talks to author of new Spanish language book re early 2000s Latin indie

If you are a millennial elder (or viejiennal, as I like to say in Spanish), you might remember a time between the mid 2000s and early ’10s when it felt like music blogs ruled the world. Back then, entire scenes and careers blossomed thanks to websites run by overeager nerds who fawned over artists no one else cared about. This is the largely extinct ecosystem that inspired Testigos del fin del mundo, Javier A. Rodríguez-Camacho’s ambitious survey of the last decade of Ibero-American (or U.S. Latine, Latin American, and Spanish) indie music.

Cool. I don’t know anything about any of that stuff at all.

Jon Pareles in NY Times has Karol G album in his best of 2023 list

And Pareles has Peso Pluma and Kali Uchis in his additional top 20

Just got a copy of Eddie Palmieri's Live at the University of Puerto Rico in the mail. It's a double LP recorded in 1971, while the campus was full of demonstrations and battles between students and cops; it's been edited down to a single CD in the US (and on streaming services) but the whole thing is available as a 2CD set in Japan, so that's what I bought.

Cool to get the full thing

That jazz critics poll always has a separate “Latin” category. But it doesn’t get posted till January I think

*NPR Jazz Piano X-Mas w/ Cuban pianists Melvis Santa, Alfredo Rodriguez, & Hilario Duran @ Kennedy Center tonight Saturday December 2 (pricey ticket)

Anyone know these pianists? I don't . Need to research 'em

I still haven’t googled those Cuban pianists