04 Monday Jun 2018
Posted in Home, Latin Jazz, On Music
Eddie Palmieri at the Olympia Theater in Miami, Saturday.
Photo by Luis Olazábal. The Rhythm Foundation
Maestro Eddie Palmieri has always done things his way so, well, what if he has been celebrating his 80th birthday for almost a year and a half now? (The actual date was Dec. 15th, 2016). At the Olympia Theater in Miami, Saturday, he entered the stage gingerly, with the help of an assistant, but once he sat at the piano, he showed his familiar wit, verve, and capacity to surprise.
01 Tuesday May 2018
Posted in Home, In Other Words, On Music
Mohannad Nasser at Espai Multicultural Sankofa, Valencia
VALENCIA, Spain. While back home, a savage war seems to go on without an end in sight, Syrian oudist and composer Mohannad Nasser offered Sunday a deeply soulful musical response. There were no political statements. None were intended and none were needed. The beauty and humanity of the performance said it all.
Playing before a full room at Espai Intercultural Sankofa, a multicultural neighborhood space in Valencia, Spain; Nasser chose to perform without amplification and it paid off handsomely. Unmediated by electronics, the warm, soft sound of the oud — an ancient, 12 strings, pear-shaped lute that is a mainstay in many Middle Eastern and North African music genres — spoke in a human scale — gently, imperfectly, and rich in nuance.
26 Thursday Apr 2018
Innov Gnawa in performance. Master Hassan Ben Jafaar, sintir, on the left; Samir LanGus, second from the left.
Deceptively simple, at once direct and mysterious, earthy and spiritual, Gnawa music is the expression of the black community of Morocco which, initially, according to scholars, was comprised of black slaves who, over time, became free as historical circumstances changed.
Associating and translating cultural experiences are exercises fraught with peril. But if this all sounds oddly familiar, it might explain why Gnawa music has often been called “the blues of Morocco.”
“Gnawa is the mother of jazz and blues,” says Samir LanGus, the founding member of Innov Gnawa, a Brooklyn-based group appearing at the North Beach Bandshell Saturday. “Gnawa [music] stayed in Africa, and jazz and blues came to the West. What we sing about, the troubles and joys of everyday life, it’s the blues.”
Jazz With an Accent 