Federico Britos or how Grappelli would have sounded if he had been born in Latin America

17 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in Jazz, Latin Jazz, On Music

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Federico Britos

This piece first appeared in Artburst Miami, on Sept. 2015

Uruguayan violinist Federico Britos, 76, speaks softly and unhurriedly. In the age of 140 characters and flash stories, his answers unfold full of real characters, unexpected details, and tempting side trips. Because he might be South Florida’s most unassuming music star, the unsuspecting listener might take a couple of beats to realize that, yes, he just mentioned in passing that he recorded with Astor Piazzolla and Charlie Haden; that as a youngster, he got to hang out at jam sessions in Montevideo with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman or; while recalling his days living in Cuba, how he played and recorded with major artists such as Orestes Urfé, Chucho Valdés, Bola de Nieve, and Elena Burke.

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5 Concerts in Miami this season.

13 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by in Jazz, On Music

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1. Marc Ribot. Sept. 25, at Miami-Dade County Auditorium.

Guitarist Marc Ribot has done studio work for and collaborated with artists as disparate as Tom Waits, Wilson Pickett, McCoy Tyner and Andrés Calamaro. On his own work, playing electric or acoustic guitar, Ribot has shown not only a remarkable stylistic range — from rock and noise to jazz and Afro-Cuban music — but also the intelligence and technique to make musical exploration accessible (A populist avant-gardist?).

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