New Music Monday for May 10, 2021
Renowned saxophonist
Vincent Herring battles back from a bout with Covid-19 and career-threatening side effects with a defiant and joyful new album, “Preaching to the Choir,” with swinging help from pianist Cyrus Chestnut, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and drummer Johnathan Blake. Herring speaks for nearly all of us when he says, “2020 into 2021 was a morbid nightmare.” He experienced the pandemic first hand, not only contracting the virus but also suffering the same loss of performance opportunities befalling every musician during the past year. Despite the prevailing darkness, the disc delivers a sermon of optimism and hope to the jazz faithful.
“I was able to produce two amazing albums,” Rosado says. “They are very special because they came from a place of despair of what’s going to happen, I’ve got nothing to do, no work, nowhere to go to a place of hope for the future.” Rosado is no stranger to beating the odds. His music isn’t played on Latin commercial radio even though he has won two of the music industry’s biggest awards: a 2012 “Best Tropical Latin Album” Grammy for
Retro, which he recorded with his band, Marlow Rosado y La Riqueña, and a 2015 “Best Children’s Album” Latin Grammy for
Orun is a deeper, almost meditative recording and Rosado’s first Latin jazz album. (He interprets the Yoruba word as meaning a protective ancestral spirit.) The album also marks the first time the Puerto Rican musician has worked with Afro-Cuban jazz legend Chucho Valdés. The veteran musician is a guest artist on the track, “Marlow y Chucho,” which Rosado wrote.
“I was able to produce two amazing albums,” Rosado says. “They are very special because they came from a place of despair of what’s going to happen, I’ve got nothing to do, no work, nowhere to go to a place of hope for the future.”
Andra Day –
United States vs Billie Holiday (Warner Bros): “Cassandra Monique Batie (born December 30, 1984), known professionally as Andra Day, is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. In 2015, she released her debut album, Cheers to the Fall. At the 2016 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for Best R&B Album and the single, “Rise Up”, was nominated for Best R&B Performance. To promote “Rise Up”, she performed the song on The View, the performance earned her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination. Day also appeared alongside Stevie Wonder, who is partially credited for her discovery, in an ad for Apple TV in late 2015. In 2021, she portrayed Billie Holiday in the biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Her stage name was inspired by Holiday, whose nickname was “Lady Day”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andra Day) Her
Various Artists
Volver, Volver - Grupo Gale
Sujetate la Lengua - Eddie Palmieri
Son al Son - Orquesta Aragon featuring Cheo Feliciano
Muneca - Son Boricua
Ay Que Rico - Jose Conde y Ola Fresca
Ay Valeria! - Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca
Angoa - Juanito y la Agresiva Salsa is Spanish for sauce and, when used in a culinary setting, refers to something spicy that adds an extra kick to a dish. By the 1960s, the word salsa had become an umbrella phrase for a variety of Latin, primari.
more »ly Afro-Cuban, music styles. ¡Salsa! features blazing tracks from Colombia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and New York City, where the modern salsa movement took off in the 1960s and 70s. Salsa has since become the musical heartbeat of much of the Latin world and its reach has spread across the globe. The CD features Puerto Rican legends of New York s pioneering salsa scene such as piano virtuoso Eddie Palmieri and singer Cheo Feliciano (guesting with legendary Cuban ensemble O