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Genre:
World
Release Date: 05/13/2003
Forged from the collision of musics and cultures both black and white,
Latin music and
jazz have enjoyed a long period of cross-fertilization, ranging from Latinized boppers like
Dizzy Gillespie (with the aid of
Mario Bauza and
Chano Pozo) to the advent of serious
Latin jazz fusion courtesy of the
Concord Picante label's modern recordings of
Latin maestros
Tito Puente and
Eddie Palmieri.
The Rough Guide to Latin Jazz focuses overwhelmingly on the latter, skipping over 50 years of
Latin and
jazz history to deliver songs from a host of latter-day players including
Poncho Sanchez,
Manny Oquendo, and
Snowboy as well as seminal names like
Puente,
Palmieri, and
Mongo Santamaria. At that, the compilers are very successful. Choosing performances with a heavy
jazz emphasis by
Latin bands, the disc illustrates which
jazz players have exerted an influence on the '80s and '90s players:
Wayne Shorter for one, a constant experimenter in
Latin idioms with two compositions here, and
Chick Corea, another
fusion-era innovator. On a version of
Shorter's
hard bop standard "Speak No Evil," Jimmy Bosch's trombone wails engagingly, indulging in some furious playing with
David Sanchez on tenor, while
Corea's
"China" was reinvented by
Puente in 1986 for one of the best performances of his career.
"Maraca's Tumbao" from
Havana Flute Summit boasts a trio of excellent flutists:
Jane Bunnett and
Orlando "Maraca" Valle, plus Cuban legend
Richard Egues, in an
improvisation worthy of the finest Cuban jam sessions. Entries by
Roland Vazquez and
William Cepeda pack a postmodern punch, while the newest track (
Eddie Palmieri's
"Our Routine") is a frenetic nine-minute jam from the man who made Latin history with his
la Perfecta group nearly 40 years earlier. Surprisingly, the oldest performance is a little flat --
Mongo Santamaria's
"Princess," a nugget from 1976, has a few great solos from
Santamaria but also some terribly dated synthesizer work. As
Rough Guide compilers often state, their volumes are meant to inspire a listener's passion instead of rank as definitive collections; that's certainly true for
The Rough Guide to Latin Jazz, which sounds excellent but would've benefited from a wider historical range.
~John Bush, All Music Guide
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