Macaco presents Puerto Presente
The new album by Macaco released 24th of August 2009 already sold more than 40.000 copies (gold) and there were 140.000 downloads up to now, a real success these days. This fifth album is again a mixture of rap, rumba, pop, funk and reggae in Spanish. All summer he toured in Spain with his “Moving” tour. Over 200.000 people saw him live and at the end of this month there will be another concert in Madrid. His hitsingle “Moving” (lyrics below) was presented in a National Geographic videoclip to celebrate earth day and called for sustainable life on mother earth. Read the rest of this entry »
Best flamenco pop
The album Vengo Venenoso by Antonio Carmona, first solo album of the frontman of Ketama, Spain’s most popular flamenco fusion band for twenty years. The album that was released in 2006 is still very popular and this album hit gold in the Spanish charts. Vengo Venenoso offers the best flamenco Spanish pop artist of a top artist in the flamenco genre.
Antonio Carmona
Antonio Carmona Amaya, artistic name Antonio Carmona was born in Granada on the 21st of May 1965 and lives in Madrid. He is one of the best performers of the new flamenco and fusion with other music styles and has developed the genre for many years with his band Ketama. He is the son of a famous guitar player in the flamenco world: Juan “El Habichuela” He is a very good percussionist on the cajon and an example for many other cajon players in the flamenco music.
antonio carmona
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Gypsy Groove
This Putumayo compilation was released in 2007 and is offering dance music with Balkan beats and gypsy jams from the dance floors of Eastern Europe. This kind of music is one of the hottest styles in world music and as always with the Putumayo Groove series it is made to make you dance, feel good and forget your troubles. It’s a blend of traditional gypsy, Balkan and Eastern European music with hip-hop and electronic beats.
Music Charity
A portion of Putumayo’s proceeds from the sale of Gypsy Groove will be donated to the Roma Education Fund in support of its educational policies and programs that support quality education for the Roma people
Review Putumayo Presents Gypsy Groove
The compilation contains eleven tracks of which four are remixes. The CD starts with !DelaDap a band from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and other Eastern and Central European countries. “Zsa Manca” (come with me) invites the listener to dance celebrate and be happy. Lyrics are in the Roma language, but don’t worry, you don’t have to understand them to get on moving.
Putumayo Presents Gypsy Groove
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Paco de Lucia Live
Live in America was released in 1993. It contains eight live recorded tracks from the 1992 tour in the United States of Paco de Lucia and his Sextet. It is the second live recording by the Sextet.
The first one is called “Live One Summer Night” and was released in 1984.
The Sextet with their demolishing sound play a fairly big part of the repertoire from the albums Siroco and Zyryab. The song Zyryab live is played in an extra extended version here. Almost thirteen minutes of music full of improvisation. The orginal arabic flavour is given up and it is played more in a style that is closer to jazz music. Mainly because of the big role of Jorge Pardo on saxophone.
Paco de Lucia & Sextet Live in America
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Best of Salsa Around the World
Salsa Around the World is a compilation with 12 tracks by the world music label Putumayo presenting a variety of salsa styles from all over the world. Salsa means sauce and you could compare the different countries versions of “Salsa” with the different tastes you also will find in their kitchens. Enjoy a Latin dance party featuring salsa from India, Morocco, Curaçao Finland, Japan and other countries.
Travel the World in Salsa style
Salsa Around the World starts in Scotland with “El Sol de La Noche” (The clear midnight sun) by Salsa Celtica. A band that was founded in 1995 fusing the traditional music of Scotland with Latin grooves. Bagpipes, fiddles and pennywhistles blend with the afro-cuban rhythms in an unexpected natural way.
Salsa Around the World
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The Opera Orpheus
Le Concert des Nations-La Capella Reial de Catalunya Jordi Savall
DVD Opera performed in Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona
This Opera about Orpheus,the Greek hero whose songs could charm both gods and wild beasts and coax the trees and rocks into dance, has achieved an emblematic status as a metaphor for the power of music.
On this DVD in excellent DTS quality, Jordi Savall conducts Le Concert des Nations, La Capella Reial de Catalunya and the leading soloists of early opera in a beautiful period production of Monteverdi’s favola in musica staged at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2002.L’Orfeo is sung in Italian with English, French, German and Spanish subtitles.
L’Orfeo, favola in musica was first performed before the Accademia degl’Invaghiti on 24 February 1607 in a now unidentifiable room in the ducal palace at Mantua, and was published in Venice in 1609. Gilbert Deflo’s stage direction reflects the sublime art and imagery found in Mantua’s Palazzo Ducale with its famous Hall of Mirrors.
In the DVDs extra features Gilbert Deflo is explaining what inspired him to stage the opera the way it is performed here.
Prologo L'Orfeo
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Boogaloo music
The Rough Guide to Boogaloo is an introduction with 18 tracks to the Boogaloo, a fusion of Cuban Salsa and American Soul. It emerged in the late sixties and early seventies in New York’s barrios and was a real burning dance craze in that time. Boogaloo was born out of the creativity of the USA-born Latinos of that time, who musically grafted American culture on to their Latin roots.
Tito Puente and his Orchestra, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto and Fania Al Stars are some of the most famous performes that can be found on this excellent compilation. “A Deeper Shade of Soul” is a good example of the quality of this music. It was written in 1968 by Ray Barretto and sampled by the Dutch Band Urban Dance Squad in 1991.
The Rough Guide to Boogaloo
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Who is El Arrebato
Javier Labandón El Arrebato is a Spanish singer songwriter in the rumba pop style. He started his career in 1988 with the band Piel Morena accompanied by two friends from Seville, where he was born. With them he scored his first hits until 1999 when the band Piel Morena split and stopped playing. Piel Morena and Camela belonged to the same label and thanks to this El Arrebato got very good friends with Diona Martin from Camela. El Arrebato sent a demo to Dioni and he sent it to his label EMI, and so he recorded his first album “Poquito a poco” (little by little). This was a bigger success than he expected.
After this came “Una noche con arte” and “Que salga el sol por donde Quiera” and a “Grandes Exitos” (Best Of) album.His success was growing with every album and then he composed the hymn of the Seville football club which was a huge hit especially among the Seville supporters of course. In 2006 he released “Un Cuartito Pa Mis Cosas” showing a lot of evolution in his style and in 2008 he released “Mundologia“.
Of this album the track “Hoy todo va a salirme bien” is the most optimistic, positive and happy song ever heard in these times of crisis. He is singing:“Hoy va a ser un día grande, hoy todo va a salirme bien. Tengo a la luna de mi parte, hay energía positiva en cada poro de mi piel, no se me quita la sonrisa, estoy contento…”
So this one is already recommended for everyone who want to feel good and stop complaining about this …..(prefer not to mention the C-word again).
El Arrebato Mundologia
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Music charity album by Putumayo
Putumayo is a great label and a lot of their compilations are really guaranteed to make you feel good. This one is no exception. The gentle rhythms of samba, bossa nova and more by legendary artists and fresh new voices on this Acoustic Brazil album are the perfect soundtrack for a long hot summer. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this album will be donated to AMENCAR, an organization dedicated to the struggle for civil rights of children in Brazil. So don’t forget, buy it and support this music charity.Up to now already 250,000 have been sold and let’s hope there will be more.
Other Brazilian Putumayo CDs are: Brazilian Playground (Putumayo Kids series), Brazilian Lounge, Brazilian Groove, Samba Bossa Nova and Brasileiro. Recently a new one has been released “Brazilian Café”.
A lot of Brazilian rhythms are used in pop music (mainly bossa nova) and this Acoustic Brazil CD is a good way to discover the original basic rhythm. It focuses on the more introspective music of this musical treasure land.
Twenty years ago I got fascinated with this beautiful music. Thanks to a compilation by David Byrne called Brazil Classics. Still one of the best compilations to have a real good view on Brazilian Music. I would also recommend the CD released the year after in 1990 on the Luaka Bop label titled “O Samba”.
The album Acoustic Brazil
But let’s talk about this album now.The album contains 12 songs. It starts with “Aquele Frevo Axe” by Gal Costa. This track, a sweet sounding bossa nova reminds me of the famous classic “The girl from Ipanema” that probably started the bossa nova revival, later called New Wave and Nouvelle Vague. She’s one of Brazil’s legendary artists together with Paulinho da Viola (2nd Track), Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso.
Acoustic Brazil
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The King of Rumba from Barcelona
Peret, “El Rey de la Rumba” (The King of Rumba”) released this album Que Levante El Dedo after many years of silence. Pere Pubill Calaf, his real name, was born in 1935 near Barcelona. In the seventies he was a superstar and had many rumba hits. If you are old enough..you will probably remember “Un Borriquito como Tu” that was a mega hit in 1971. On the cover of the CD we now see an older man who still has got that twinkle in his eyes, as he used to have so many years ago.
The rumba catalana, as it is called now, was almost invented by Peret. Singer, composer and musician, he was known for his way of playing called “el ventilador” (the fan). A lot of his songs are satirical and Que Levante El Dedo is no exception. Of course you must understand a bit of Spanish, but if you watch the video on Youtube of for e.g. “Jalamandru”, you will see this man has a lot of sharp wit.
Peret Que Levante El Dedo
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