Hi,
a new review for this great Band from Canada on air on
RADIOVINILEMANIA in Italy!!!

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

Ciao ciao P

courtesy: http://www.torontodancesalsa.ca


Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Artist Review - The Jazzmen of Salsa
Nina and Alfred had made a good start into this blog, but have been
swamped by a few non-salsa priorities. We're ramping up for some
well needed vacation time, but won't leave our readers hanging until
our return. We're headed for Asia, and being the salsa addicts we
are, we hope to report on the salsa world all the way out from the
Far East but until then, we'll be posting a few reviews of salsa
music artists and hopefully another club review.

The Jazzmen of Salsa - Les Jazzmen de la Salsa

Who are the Jazzmen of Salsa? We'd never heard of them, and Sharon
lent us some of their material to check them out. When we first saw
the cover, our initial thoughts were less than promising. A bunch of
jazz musicians from Montreal playing some sort of jazz fusion salsa?
Even a lesser skeptic would have had their suspicions. Happily for
our ears, this group delivers more than a lukewarm blasphemy of
salsa. Their energy and creativity is very listenable and for the
most part danceable. For those unfamiliar thes terms, there can be
salsa music that can be nice to listen to, but difficult to dance to
and sometimes vice versa. It is best of course for the artist when
their music is both nice to listen to and fun to dance to.

As their name implies, the group attempts to add jazz elements into
an underlying salsa beat and style. They do this without being
repetitive, and are able to change things to keep things from
becoming tedious. The song titled Hip Salsa Hop has a typical salsa
keyboard pattern at first but unexpectedly breaks into a jazzy
styled break. The tune definitely makes one want to hop, especially
to the tight horns and saxophone playing off one another. Hip hop it
is not, but the smooth blues style of this song definitely makes one
wish it wouldn't stop.

As for the song labeled Cowboy's Salsa, the humor of such a
combination really shows itself in this tune. It is fun and
demonstrates the composer's creativity and the musician's ability to
adjust to the fusion of styles. The clave in combination to the
music makes one wonder if a whinnying horse will crash through with
a cowboy at any point. There is a video on the group's website that
shows a couple named Eve and Thomasz dancing to this song in
costume, and are a fun complement to this song.

Salsa's Boogie sounds like somebody convinced a Dixieland jazz band
to play salsa. At times it is hard to pick out the salsa in this
song, but the the clave is there and it is difficult to fault
someone for trying something new and fresh.

So in general, this group does well to bring something new to the
salsa world. More for those with an open mind than a purist, the
manage to bring a bit of both genres without ruining either. Not an
easy task, and that in itself deserves an applause. This band looks
like a fun group to see live, so hopefully they swing by Toronto
someday.

You can visit The Jazzmen of Salsa at their website:
http://www.thejazzmenofsalsa.com/