Nunca Tarde – a round-up of recent new albums (Itai Kriss, Hermeto Pascoal, Héctor Lavoe, Juana Luna, Bobby Marin and more)

After the August break cometh the month of September: back to school and back to the business of reviewing new sounds. Come now, you can hardly call that “business”! No, indeed. Here for your unbridled pleasure…

Itai Kriss and Televana: All Aboard Vol. 1: Departures (Avenue K Records)

Reading Dan Hobson’s “Outernational Jazz” column in the current issue of Songlines jogged my ailing memory: I’d fully intended to flag up the Grammy-nominated flautist’s album back in July, but… The fact that I didn’t is no reflection on the quality of the album. Made with a group of New York’s finest, the album celebrates “travel and journeys” according to the leader, and incorporates elements of Middle Eastern, North and West African and Brazilian music within an overarching context of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz. It could have easily been a disjointed hotchpotch, but far from it. The diverse elements cohere nicely to form a very classy and rewarding whole. I’d agree with Dan’s four-star verdict and that the splendid “Dakar” is arguably the best of many highlights. And that’s not even to mention Mr. Kriss’s very fine flute-playing.

Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo: Pra você, Ilza (Rocinante)

I’m always surprised to discover that the great bearded one is still with us. Maybe it’s because he’s looked like the Old Man of the Sea for as many years as I can remember. But no, he’s still here, still making his inimitable music – and thank the spirits for that. His current album – which came out in May, so please pardon the delay – is a heartfelt tribute to his wife Ilza, who died in 2000. Since then, Pascoal has apparently kept a notebook (the HP source perhaps) with over 190 songs written in her honour, from which he selected the album’s (digital version) 13 tracks. With a group that includes the seemingly ever-present Itiberê Zwarg on bass (and occasional tuba), the leader breathes them into life in his time-honoured way. Have a look at this instructive preview (showing Pascoal improvising with a glass of water – which actually works remarkably well in the mix) before you go in search of an individual number, since it sheds light on his lifelong improvisatory approach to music. While it’s a singular and perfectly legitimate one, the album leaves you with that faint feeling of dissatisfaction you often get with his music: the sense perhaps of an attractive motif in search of a fully realised composition.

Willie Colón: La Gran Fuga (Craft Latino)

I’ve finally managed to catch up with two more in Craft Latino’s lovingly re-mastered re-issues of classics from the vaults of Fania and its subsidiary labels. Both of them feature the ill-starred legendary vocalist, Héctor Lavoe. The first is one of a raft of collaborations with trombonist, Willie Colón. Dating from 1970, it’s arguably their best known album together, if only for the iconic cover: a pastiche of a Wanted! poster following the dangerous trombonist’s “big break” from a Nuyorican penitentiary. One journalist at the time described it as “masterpiece of Latin music” and listening today to its eight numbers, you can’t help but feel that said journalist was spot-on: the leader is in great form throughout, the band (with Professor Joe Torres particularly rambunctious on piano) is right on the money and Lavoe is… well, nonpareil. Together they cook up a storm on classic numbers like this one, “Barrunto”. But CAUTION – if it prompts you to seek out the LP, you may need to move as fast as a fugitive from the law. This gem came out back in April.

Héctor Lavoe: Reventó (Craft Latino)

Should anyone ever wonder what all the fuss was about – why Lavoe was accorded almost godlike status in New York and his native Puerto Rico, and by the cognoscenti of the Latin music world – delve into his ninth and penultimate solo album before his premature death at 46, exacerbated by drugs and triggered by AIDS. Backed by a band that includes (as on La Gran Fuga) the great percussionist Milton Cardona, Lavoe delivers seven diverse numbers (including his Spanish-language version of Joe Jackson’s “Cancer”!) with such ease, style and grace that the clarity of his performance is almost startling. He handles the signature romantic ballads like the slow-burning, vibe-tastic “Don Fulano de Tal” without any mawkish sentimentality, and delivers up-tempo classic salsa like “La Fama” with panache. The delicious pachanga, “Déjala Que Siga”, with Johnny Pacheco sitting in on flute, wasn’t a favourite of his legion of fans without reason; it’s arguably the stand-out number on an album that enhances the Lavoe legend.

Jan Lundgren & Yamandu Costa: Inner Spirits (ACT)

Occasionally, the German jazz label releases something appropriate for this site. This rather exquisite meeting of the Swedish jazz pianist and the acoustic (seven-string) guitarist from Brazil’s southernmost province of Rio Grande del Sur is one such occasion. Pianist Jan Lundgren has been a staple in this household for at least a decade, while Yamandu Costa is a more recent discovery despite six Grammy nominations. The marriage of northern and southern hemisphere is made in studio heaven: an intimate empathetic meeting of the spirits – not unlike that of Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Hamilton de Holanda highlighted in July – in which the two musicians seem almost to coil around each other as they interpret each other’s original compositions, a pair of Luíz Bonfá songs and a lesser-known Jobim melody, “Garoto”. The emphasis throughout is on the melody, the two artists’ common thread. “That is where we find each other and why we like each other,” Lundgren affirms. The mutual respect and musical chemistry is there throughout this lovely recording.

Juana Luna: Canciones en Blanco y Negro (Folkalist Records)

Another very elegant album now – this one from Argentina via Brooklyn. Juana Luna is a singer-songwriter who moved to New York after graduating in 2013 from Berklee College of Music, Boston. Her “songs in black and white” are delicately accompanied throughout (on four of them by a string quartet), because she wants “to have the room to breathe and be calm” in order to tell her stories. Even without the necessary Spanish, it’s clear from just listening to her phrasing and the timbre of her voice that the stories she tells are engrossing. “Emilia”, for example, is a moving tribute to her great-great-grandmother, who was sent by ship to Argentina from Italy because she got pregnant at 15. Sent alone. And apparently Luna found out about her only last year via her aunt. Four of the canciones are classics of Argentine folklore, linked to her own compositions in “an album about women,” Luna explains. “My whole world is in this album.” Listening to it, if there is an echo of another most elegant singer, Susana Baca, it’s more because this cultivated singer is also South American and also sings in Spanish than because she treads the same musical path. Juana Luna’s sophomore release is a lovely, assured piece of work.

Jon Gold: Guanabara Eyes (Azurea Records)

While indie-folk isn’t this tasteful jazz pianist’s bag, I suspect that Jon Gold could slot seamlessly into Juana Luna’s backing band. While studying chemistry at Santa Cruz university in the hope of becoming a wine-maker, Gold developed a love of Latin music. On finishing his PhD, he went to live and work in Rio de Janeiro, where he met stars like Antonio Carlos Jobim and Hermeto Pascoal. After marrying, he moved back to the States, but he hasn’t lost his love of Brazilian music – as this current release (a follow-up to the critically acclaimed Bossa of Possibilities) confirms. It’s a rich, varied concoction that ranges from solo piano to full bands with complete string orchestras. I prefer the numbers where he keeps it simple and rhythmical, but it’s evident throughout that Gold is a class act. Featuring musicians from the Brazilian scene who have played with the likes of Ivan Lins, Joyce Moreno and Eliane Elias, as well as the vocal talents of Marina Marchi on several tracks, Gold honours Lins on one number and his co-producers Luiz Ribeiro and Mauricio Zottarelli on two others. Guanabara Eyes underlines that Jon Gold’s talents would have been wasted on wine-making.

Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding: Milton + Esperanza (Concord Records)

I haven’t had a chance to take in all of this as yet, as it’s not the kind of thing to listen to on the hoof as it were, but what I’ve heard suggests that this is something every bit as special as the combination of two such distinguished artists. With 16 tracks that include Nascimento classics, new compositions by the American bass-playing singer, re-imaginings of The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” and Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”, a collaboration with Paul Simon and golden guests galore, it’s little wonder that WXPN, The Home of Music Discovery, suggested that “this might just be the biggest collaborative project of the year.” It could even be the most important U.S.-Brazilian collaboration since Nascimento’s venture with Wayne Shorter, Native Dancer. Watch this space and meanwhile listen to the first single from back in May. [How in God’s name did you miss that one? Ed.]

Various Artists: Going Varsity in Mariachi, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Lakeshore Records )

Now here’s a thing! An original motion picture soundtrack. Not too many of these cross my radar screen. This one, though, has all the right credentials: it features music by the Mexican Institute of Sound (as you probably know by now, Camilo Lara), whose film compositional work has already landed him an Emmy; and music by Demián Gálves and the subject of this award-winning documentary, Mariachi Oro de ENHS (the Edinburg North High School team of South Texas). In the way of such heart-warming films, coach Abel Acuña (no relation, I believe, to Alex of Weather Report fame) must turn his inexperienced charges into Mariachi state champions. The soundtrack is a combination of original incidental music and renditions of classics by the ENHS group. As you can hear, they sound pretty damn good. Well done, that coach.

Bobby Marin: We’ve Got a Groovy Thing Going: The Latin Soul of Bobby Marin (Vampisoul)

In the way that I used to do with my meals as a kid, I’ll save the tastiest morsels till last… But I won’t say too much about this one this time, since I want to write in more depth later this month about Bobby Marin, the producer behind so much great Nuyorican music from the era of Boogaloo and Shingaling. Despite over 50 years in the business, he doesn’t even warrant his own Wikipedia page. Vampisoul has just put the record straight with a compilation of 24 of the best records he was involved in: music that exudes the spirit of Joe Bataan, James Brown and Eddie Bo among others. It’s enough at this stage to say that I haven’t enjoyed a single-artist compilation so much since Vampisoul’s similar retrospective of legendary congalero, Chano Pozo.

Edundo Arias: Guepa Je! (Radio Martika)

Based on a cursory but hugely enjoyable listen, I could say something similar about this one. At the very least, it would appear to be right up there with the Belgian boutique label’s marvellous Lúcho Bermudez compilation, The Coastal Invasion, which was one of S&C‘s albums of 2022. Complete with customary comprehensive booklet, the album surveys Arias’ long-lasting career during the ’50s and ’60s, a golden age for Colombian big-band cumbia. I’ll send you straight to the Bandcamp page to read some more about Señor Arias, because if you love the music of that period and you’ve got some money in your pocket, you just can’t go wrong with this.

Right, there we have it for another month. I haven’t had time to catch up on the new Cimafunk release, so I’ll leave that for October. Until then, may I wish you a splendid September, perhaps in the company of one or two of these leaping beauties.

(Cover photograph of Juana Luna by Nicolas Manassi)

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