Nu Yorica Roots!: The Rise of Latin Music in New York City in the 1960's
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Free Music Notes for Nu Yorica Roots!: The Rise of Latin Music in New York City in the 1960's
Free Music Review: Boricua to the bone!
Hit: 5 Stars
This is some of the best traditional Latin music from New York, most of it has a true old fashined jazzy salsa feel and flavor to it. There is also soulful boogaloo, funk, some of the best Latin jazz I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying, and chants/drumming jam that sounds like the Afro-Rican bomba style (Druma Kuyi). It also commemorates the Afro-Latin elements of our music with dignity and pride and is therefore accurately described as ROOTS music, with a clear African flavor and stamp. If you're Afro-Rican, PLEASE get this! You'll definitely enjoy it!!!Free Music Review: It's a good feeling
Hit: 4 Stars
This compilation serves as abundant proof for those who still need it that "fusion", in other words musical hybridization, happens whenever a collection of artists find themselves in a new situation and must respond in their own way. The "roots" of the title has a double meaning, then: it refers to the Cuban and Puerto Rican roots (at the very root is Africa) of this music, but it's also another perspective on the melting pot of New York City as reflected by its Latino musicians; though the fusion of influences here is more subtle than that heard on the original Nu Yorica! compilation, the stew boils with a similar popping viscosity (leading in some cases to a thermal breakdown.) Many of the greats of Latin music are represented, among them Eddie Palmieri with one of his earliest masterpieces "My Spiritual Indian", which prefaces the bolder experiment of "Un Dia Bonita" (found on the original Nu Yorica set.) Percussion masters Mongo Santamaria and Tito Puente show up with seminal tracks, Tito's typically-ebullient and Mongo's typically-rootical, with the strong and beautiful raw chants and percussion of "Druma Kuyi."
Much of the most contemporary-sounding material comes when Latin and black idioms meet. Witness the opening "Together", a monster proto-funk jam pinned down by a sped-up montuno piano motif, or even Joe Bataan's bugulu "Riot (It's a Good Feeling)" which contains in its innocent party-flavored groove a commentary on the mood of the "wild guys" who have had enough and must throw a brick at something.