Category Archives: Latin Jazz

Cuban Pianist Roberto Fonseca Performs on Livestreaming Music Festival From Havana Saturday

27 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in Home, Jazz, Latin Jazz, On Music

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Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca performs in the weekend-long online festival “Tunturuntu pa ‘tu casa,” from Havana, Cuba, in an Instagram Live concert tomorrow Saturday, 5:30 to 6 p.m. EST time.

This weekend’s performances represent the second installment of the event, the first live streaming music festival from Cuba. The previous edition took place on March 18 to 22 and featured artists such as Cimafunk, Daymé Arocena, and Alain Pérez. This weekend´s announced performers include Dayramir González, Zule Guerra, Haila María Mompié, Luna Manzanares and Suylén Milanés. Only today´s schedule was available at Tunturuntu´s site.

The event was organized by Tunturuntu, a cultural platform, in collaboration with Fonoma, a phone recharge service. Each artist offers his or her performance on their personal platform.

Having an online festival from Cuba is a testament to the Cubans’ ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit, especially when considering the troubled history and high cost of accessing the web from the island. In fact, in a story on Fonoma’s blog, writer Jose Raul notes that “the high cost of internet in Cuba, it’s an obstacle for the festival’s impact on the island, but is important that the message gets to everyone: stay at home, connect with your family, your friends and with music.”

Sound advice — in Cuba and wherever you are reading this. Stay safe.

Betsayda Machado and Parranda El Clavo: Small Town, Powerful Music

11 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by in Home, In Other Words, Latin Jazz, On Music

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Betsayda Machado and Parranda El Clavo. Photo by Luis Acosta

Countries in the Caribbean and Latin America such as Cuba, Brazil, and Colombia have long-established the wealth of their musical traditions on the global stage. But the extraordinary variety and richness of Venezuelan music remain largely a secret hidden in plain view, in some cases to Venezuelans themselves.

Betsayda Machado and Parranda El Clavo are helping to change that as they put a spotlight on Afro-Venezuelan traditions and music. They will be appearing in concert this Saturday, March 14 at Downtown Doral Park, as part of the city and The Rhythm Foundation’s joint musical and cultural event, “Ritmo Doral.”

(This event has been canceled because of coronavirus concerns.)

“What people know about Venezuelan music, outside and inside the country, is the ‘joropo.’ That seems to be the one genre that identifies Venezuelan culture, and there is so much more,” says Machado, during a Spanish-language phone interview from the Boston area. The group was there performing and conducting workshops at Brandeis University.

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Arturo O’Farrill – Family, Jazz and the Music of Cuba, Revisited

26 Thursday Dec 2019

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Arturo O’Farrill Photo by Laura Mariet ©

Born in Mexico City and raised in New York City, pianist, composer and educator Arturo O’Farrill grew up close to Cuba and its culture.
Geography and physical distances can be just an illusion. After all, O’Farrill is the son of the great, late Cuban composer and arranger Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill and is himself a leading figure in Afro-Cuban jazz. Deepening the connection, in the past two decades, professional and family reasons have taken O’Farrill to his father’s homeland.

The results include albums such as Cuba: The Conversation Continues, which was recorded in Havana and features his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and several top-flight Cuban musicians. The album earned a 2016 Grammy nomination, and O’Farrill won a Grammy, his sixth, for “Best Instrumental Composition” for the “Afro Latin Jazz Suite,” the centerpiece of the recording.

In 2017, O’Farrill also celebrated Cuban music history – and his family´s – in a moving collaboration with Cuban pianist, composer and arranger Chucho Valdes, son of the late Cuban pianist, composer and arranger Bebo Valdes, another essential figure in the history of modern Afro-Cuban music and a friend of Chico O’Farrill. The resulting Familia, a tribute to the elders, is a multigenerational recording that features younger musical members of both families.
O’Farrill and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra will present some of this work, and more, in “Jazz Roots: Cuba: New Perspectives” on Jan. 10 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

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