Hi,
a new review for last Sonido Isleno's CD on air on RADIOVINILEMANIA
in Italy

http://www.vinilemania.net/vSONIDOISLENO.htm

Ciao ciao P

courtesy: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/


Vive Jazz
Sonido Isleno | Tresero Productions (2005)

By Budd Kopman
Vive Jazz is a prime example of what "Latin jazz" really means.
Benjamin Lapidus, who leads the longstanding group Sonido Isleño,
says, "I look for ways to put jazz into Latin music rather than
making Latin music subordinate to jazz, which is the classic notion
of Latin Jazz. I try to present musical situations that can bring
folklore and jazz together in a straightforward fashion, so that the
listener doesn't lose the harmonic complexity of jazz."
Lapidus, born to first-generation American Jewish Brooklynites, has
spent much of his adult life studying Latin, particularly Cuban,
jazz first-hand both in Cuba and on the streets of the Latin
neighborhoods of New York City. He earned degrees from the Oberlin
Conservatory and won a grant to study with Steve Lacy in Paris; he's
played with people like Joe McPhee, as well as virtually everyone in
the Latin jazz community.

Sonido Isleño was primarily a string and percussion band until
Lapidus expanded it for this recording with saxophone, trumpet and
other instruments to deepen the jazz feel. Speaking as one who's not
particularly enthralled with the repetitive and simplistic aspects
of much of Latin jazz, Vive Jazz was a breath of fresh air and an
intense trip to many musical worlds.

Lapidus the guitarist can hang with anyone, and during his solos on
this instrument, the jazz component takes over. However, he is also
an acknowledged virtuoso on the Cuban tres, a guitar-like instrument
with three sets of double strings—and when he plays this, as on as
in "East of el Son, Wes del Tres," he really merges the two musical
worlds, sounding authentic while at the same time moving the tres
beyond its folk limits and into the jazz world.

The title tune, by far the longest track, is named after a poem that
a fourteen-year-old boy, Manuel Antonio Duenas Peluffo, wrote after
hearing Sonido Isleño play in 2004. It is the perfect example of
what Lapidus is trying to do, as it changes rhythms between pure
jazz and Latin. "Ornetteando" is dedicated to Ornette Coleman and
features the most wonderful juxtaposition of Coleman-esque out-there
playing against Latin rhythms, only to be answered by tres and tenor
in the Latin style.

"Taino" starts out with a straight and very cool jazz guitar intro
that Lapidus says started as an "etude for a familiar jazz harmonic
sequence," only to be met by a subtle rumba rhythm, and it takes off
from there, as it offered him "a chance to play the changes in a new
rhythmic context."

Saying this music is full of energy is an understatement, but there
is much more here than the typical blaring horns and ringing
cowbell; Vive Jazz really is an authentic effort to merge two
musical worlds. Marvelous.

Visit Sonido Isleño on the web.



Track listing: La Suerga; East of el Son, Wes del Tres; Taino; Vive
Jazz; Heebaro; Tambora; Ornetteando; M&D; Green Mill Mambo;
Dialectics of a Soplapote.

Personnel: Benjamin Lapidus: guitar, tres, cuatro, marimbula, coro;
Francisco Javier Cotto: bass, coro; Felix Sanabria: congas, chekere,
pandereta; Michael Molina: bongo, compana, chekere, pandereta;
Hector M. Torres: timbales, guagua, guiro, coro; Paul Carlon: tenor
saxophone, flute; Evan Rapport: alto saxophone (9); Matt Ray: piano,
side-splitting humor (4); Harvie S.: bass (4); William Bausch:
drumset (4); Greg Glassman: trumpet (4); Pedro Pablo Martinez: lead
vocals, coro (4); Alberto "1st Mate Bertie Joe" Levy: poem
recitation (4); Jonathan Troncoso: tambora, guira (6); Juan Usera:
pandereta (10); Jainardo Batista: guia, coro, maracas (2), guia,
coro (7); Antonio DeVivo: coro, bongo de monte, guayo (2).

Style: Latin/World