Some Of Our Favorite Music

6/3 Mike Kaplan’s picks:

Classic:   The Good, The Bad. The Ugly – Willie Colon (with Ruben Blades, Hector Lavoe and Yomo Toro).  The eclectic & often exciting Willie Colon.  Mining the roots with his own individual take on bombas, plenas, guarachas from Puerto Rico and spicing them up with that strong WC trombone section sound coming at you.  Hector Lavoe and Yomo Toro on quatro really shine on this material.  Also doing some nice takes on Brazilian feel & on these 2 cuts there is a full horn section… I believe “El Cazangero” marks Ruben Blades’ first recorded appearance with El Malo.

Newer:   Baile/Dance – Pablo Mayor & Folklore Urbano – A fantastic mix of the tipico (traditional) and progressive, often in the course of the same song.  The leader Pablo Mayor originally hails from Cali, Columbia and this cd contains some of the hippest takes on & updating of traditional Columbian music and Cumbia this listener has heard.  Folklore Urbano also blends other  Caribbean & Latin music styles and jazz in a natural & exciting fashion.  Pianist/arranger Mayor has arranged the horn section  (comprised of flute, trumpet, euphonium, alto sax and baritone sax) very distinctively and effectively to set off the vocals, when the horns aren’t featured on their own instrumentals.  The rhythm section and vocalists in this group are also quite fine.  As an added bonus, if Folklore Urbano is caught live, one can also experience some fine traditional dancing on stage.