Nunca Tarde – a round-up of recent new albums (Spanish Harlem Orchestra, João Donato and Donatinho, Aracan, Dora Morelenbaum, Mocofaia and many more)

It’s wet, wild and windy as I write this; proper November weather after all the balmy warmth earlier in the month. The wood fire is burning, the stove-top fan is turning and Christmas is in the offing. Christmas!! Quick… music, maestro, please!

Dafnis Prieto: 3 Sides Of The Coin (Dafnison Music)

I’ll begin proceedings once again by facing my shame squarely and going back to a couple of albums that escaped my attention. A couple of classy Latin jazz albums came out at the end of the (gulp) summer. The first is by Dafnis Prieto, a Cuban drummer who has lived in New York for 25 years, won a Grammy award and has been nominated for another. It’s his 10^th album and it brings back together his Sí o Sí quartet, with Peter Apfelbaum on woodwinds, Martin Bejerano on piano and Ricky Rodríguez on electric bass. The drummer’s musical influences include those of his native Cuba, jazz, funk and European and South Indian classical music. The title suggests that the third side of the coin is an individual’s interpretation of a concrete object. In this track, two different themes coexist and interact harmoniously without ever subverting the other. Like the music at times, cerebral stuff.

Jonathan Powell: Mambo Jazz Party (Circle 9 Records)

As this title suggests, this is a rather more corporal affair – although the party in question is more restrained than rowdy. A former sideman with Eddie Palmieri and Arturo O’Farrill among other noteworthies, Jonathan Powell is a trumpeter with a big burnished tone and a big 18-piece ensemble in support, featuring the likes of trombonist Jimmy Bosch, the great percussionist Luisito Quintero and vocalist Ariacne Trujillo, whose contribution to Chick Corea’s “You’re Everything” exudes class and distinction. The result is distinguished Latin jazz that puts me in mind (on a smaller scale) of Ray Barretto’s New World Spirit combo, which is praise indeed. Here’s one of many classy cuts on the album, typifying its heady mix of mambo rhythms and electric jazz influences.

Spanish Harlem Orchestra: Swing Forever (Ovation)

Talking of Ray Barretto, Oscar Hernández – pianist and musical director of the much loved 13-piece Spanish Harlem Orchestra – has “previous” with the great conguero, going right back to Mr. Hard Hands’ 1979 Rican Struction. He honours his mentor with a new arrangement of Barretto’s “Yo Viné Pa Echar Candela”, just one of many highlights among the 11 tracks of this customarily fine album. The Orchestra is celebrating 24 years of existence and a concomitant reputation as “the leading light of the salsa reconstruction movement”, as Newsday suggests. On Swing Forever, Spanish Harlem Orchestra continue to do what SHO do best: play salsa dura that moves, grooves and swings like crazy.

João Donato and Donatinho : Sintetiza2 (Sound Department)

Released roughly a year after the Brazilian music legend’s death, Sintetiza2 follows 2017’s father-and-son collaboration on Sintetizamor. Including some of his father’s final recordings, Donatinho describes the album as “a realisation of a dream and a way to keep my father’s presence alive through music.” With guests like Russo Passapusso (on the opening “Marina”), Joyce Moreno (on “Imperador”) and Incognito’s Bluey Maunick (on “Love Law”), it’s an album that largely fulfils Donatinho’s hopes. Yes, the vocals on “Love Law” make it sound uncomfortably like Imagination at times and the auto-tune vocal on “Sunshine” should not have been allowed, but the majority of the nine numbers blend modern school with old in a way that leaves you wishing that Donato hadn’t left us when he did. The final track, “Morotó”, for example, encapsulates his dab-hand with a catchy melody.

Nó: Aproar (Peleja Lab Ltda.)

You may remember that I featured a song that a young nouveau bossa (to coin a label) singer-songwriter recorded with João Donato. Well, here’s an album of not dissimilar music recorded in the same studio by two friends of his from Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais. Caio Tavares and Rodrigo Leão go by the name of Nó, which is Portuguese apparently for “node”. They make delicate tuneful music together and although their debut album came out in September, it’s better late than never and well worth flagging it up for your attention.

Aracan: Shadows of Perception (Electric Cowbell Records)

It’s not every day that we feature Colombian music from Sydney, Australia. And why not? We’re an open-minded bunch on Sounds and Colours – particularly when the music is this good. It’s the debut album of an expatriate duo comprised of producer Carlos Arango (who plays guitar with the 15-piece cumbia orchestra, Cumbiamuffin) and classically-trained clarinettist Sebastian Cañas. While broadly electronic in concept, the album weaves all kinds of South American instrumentation courtesy of a plethora of guests to create a dozen kaleidoscopic soundscapes like this one. Dubbing it “downtempo electro-Latino” rather pigeon-holes the enigmatic, hypnotic spells it casts.

Various Artists: Super Disco Pirata – De Tepito Para El Mundo 1965-1980 (Analog Africa)

Time, I reckon, for a couple of compilations – both of which are grrreattt!, as Tony the Tiger once considered Frosties (or some such dietary dynamite). First up, the latest Latino-centric collection from the wonderful Analog Africa label. I’ve already highlighted a couple of singles in keen anticipation – and here it is: 23 tracks and a 28-page booklet (for the CD version), all about the bootleg sounds with which the sonideros of Mexico City would fire up their neighbourhood parties on their mobile sound-systems. Most of it takes the form of cumbia from Colombia, with a few samples from Peru, Ecuador and Mexico itself. Tracks like “Cumbia de Los Bee Gees” (“More Than A Woman” by any other name) and “La Quinta Symphonia de Beethoven” are mad enough to put a smile on the face of a statue, but overall it’s seriously engaging and dance-oriented fare that ticks all the boxes we come to expect from the German label.

Various Artists: Magnífico Boogaloo (Vampisoul)

Meanwhile in Madrid… Vampisoul have come up with another leaping beauty. This one does exactly what it says on the tin without duplicating what you can find on the MAG-nificent four-volume series, Bugalú Tropical. This one might spell “boogaloo” in the American way, but these 22 gems from Peru’s MAG label between the years 1966 and 1975 add up to a worthy successor to the earlier compilations. Joe Cuba’s classic “El Pito” as interpreted by Santiago Silva kicks things off with a bang and there’s little time to calm down and gather your thoughts from there on in. Along the way, there are cuts from some more familiar names – like Los Kintos, Coco Lagos and Mario Allison – along with lesser-known but equally worthy percussive combos. Cricket fans will thrill to Otto de Rojas’ splendid version of Booker T & the MGs’ “Soul Limbo”, which is still used to introduce test-match highlights on terrestrial television. Dance till you drop!

Tiago Caetano: Eco da Baía (Yotanka Records)

“I want to make a sweet album,” the expatriate Brazilian singer-songwriter from the Breton capital of Rennes asserts. He has done just that, slotting him (like Nó above, come to think of it) firmly into the Bruno Berle/Sessa category: Eco da Baía is wistful melodic music recorded in France and mixed by the celebrated musician and producer Leonardo Marques back in Brazil. Reared on his mother’s Brazilian records and influenced by the music of Baden Powell and others, Caetano wrote the nine lush ballads with a heavy dose of melancholic saudade in his grandparents’ home near Saint Malo on the Breton coast. It’s lovely string-driven stuff that will warm the cockles of your heart on a frosty winter’s morning.

Dora Morelenbaum: Pique (Mr. Bongo)

My esteemed “marginal” colleague Andy Cumming reviewed the Bala Desejo front-woman’s first solo album in a recent issue of Songlines. Since I’ve got so much to get through, I could do a lot worse than quote from his glowing assessment – but I can’t find my copy of the issue in question. I’ve hunted high and low. So let me just offer this song as representative of a splendid and richly varied indie-pop album (co-produced incidentally by Ana Franga Elétrico). The voice of today’s Rio De Janeiro is good…

Robin Layne & The Rhythm Makers: Pacifico (Self-released)

Talking of Songlines, I don’t wish to preempt my own review of this one in the next issue, so I’ll merely flag up a very worthy album that features some sparkling marimba-playing by a Canadian percussionist and student of the marimba traditions of Colombia and Mexico. He and his band are based appropriately on the Pacific coast of British Colombia.

Ray & His Court: Ray & His Court (Mr. Bongo)

The same goes for this one, so I’ll keep it brief. Here’s my favourite track from an album that’s well worth the reissue of the 1973 original by Miami-based organist Ray Fernandez and a “court” made up partly of his wife and their two sons.

Las Palabras: Fe (La Castanya)

I flagged up “Escudo y Espada” in my October round-up of new singles. It was taken from this interesting multi-instrumental musician and songwriter’s sophomore album, which is out now on the Barcelona-based label, La Castanya. Just to remind you, Las Palabras is one Rafael Cohen, born in Mexico of Jewish atheist parents from Guatemala and now based in Brooklyn, where all seriously trendy people live. I mentioned Bala Desejo earlier and there’s a certain echo there in the vibrant up-tempo numbers like this one that dominate a very promising album.

Gonzalo Del Val Quinteto feat. Valentina Marentes: Lamentos Mestizos (Segell Microscopi)

Here’s something else from Spain. Gonzalo Del Val is a Spanish award-winning drummer and educator, who has lived latterly in Dublin, where he recorded with the renowned American soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman. The new album, a warm and very tasteful affair, arose from the drummer’s “vital need to express this music, where the traditional sounds of Mexico are intertwined with contemporary arrangements”. Together with Valentina Marentes, a singer of Mexican origin with the kind of voice that recalls Concha Buika, the combo of drums, double bass, piano and guitar present a work that “tries to reformulate the traditional Mexican ‘songbook’ from an open and contemporary perspective”. The nine numbers add up to an album that exudes quality from first to last.

MOMO.: Gira (Batov Records)

Way back in July, I featured a single from the London-based expatriate Brazilian’s eighth (and first UK) album, recorded with the hip-and-mighty from London’s contemporary jazz scene in Stoke Newington’s Total Refreshment Centre. MOMO. – Marcelo Frota by any other name – has won plaudits from the likes of Patti Smith and David Byrne for his songwriting talents and the current album has created considerable interest, with its winning blend of those talents hitched to the fluid grooves laid down by his new collaborators. MOMO.’s a delightful fellow and Gira is chock-full of righteous goodness.

Luizinho do Jêje, Marcelo Galter, Sylvio Fraga: Mocofaia (Rocinante)

And now to call it a day with something rather special… It’s back to Brazil for the debut album of a trio of musicians who call themselves Mocofaia: Grammy-nominated percussionist Luzinho, pianist and arranger Marcelo Galter and Rocinante’s artistic director Sylvio Fraga join forces and talents to create a memorable celebration of Afro-Brazilian creativity. It pays homage to native legends like Donato and Dorival Caymmi, while drawing inspiration from international artists such as the Malian singer Oumou Sangaré, and in the process achieving a true harmony between tradition and modernity. The seven numbers burst with rhythm and creative energy and artistry. This wonderful track, with its shades of the late-lamented Naná Vasconcelos’ Bushdancers, will give you a good idea of what to expect.

Et voilà. Almost time to feed the domestics (the animals, that is). I may be back in December with more, but Christmas it’s Christmas soon, so it may have to wait until early in the New Year, once the hoo-ha has died down. In which case, may I wish you all whatever you wish for over the coming season.

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