Double Shot of The Sun of Latin Music

I had the good fortune of two recent interactions with the legendary Eddie Palmieri. The salsa and Latin jazz genius who is an NEA Jazz Master came to Chicago last week for a pair of concerts at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I reached out to him in advance with an interview request that he graciously accepted. I went to the show and was able to meet him afterward. If I had a bucket list, I could now remove "Meet Eddie Palmieri" from it. Hell, after this, I could just throw the list away.

Anyway, it is my additional good fortune to write for Agúzate, a Chicago-based journal of Afro-Latin music & culture. Both the interview with El Maestro and subsequent concert review are reprinted here.

There are also a few photos from my friend Charlie Billups, who tirelessly documents the experience Afro-Latin community of Chicago with his work. You can check more of that here.
__________

Eddie Palmieri: 80 Years and Growing (the interview)

Chicago is a fortunate city in that The Sun of Latin Music, El Maestro Eddie Palmieri, has visited us with various bands in tow four times in as many years. Despite the enormous expense of taking a big band on the road, the good folks at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events have dug deep into their pockets not once, but twice, to bring the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra to Millennium Park. Interspersed with those huge events were a show at the deeply missed Mayne Stage with trumpeter and Simpático album collaborator Brian Lynch and a Latin Jazz Septet performance at Symphony Center.

Chicago’s hot streak continues this Friday when the intimate Old Town School of Folk Music presents the Eddie Palmieri Latin Jazz Band for two shows. The visit follows up the April release of Sabiduria, a richly textured and rhythmically exciting album featuring Eddie’s core band and a diverse cast of guest musicians ranging from Cuban violinist Alfredo de la Fé to New Orleans saxophonist (and Mardi Gras Indian Chief) Donald Harrison and the king of funky drumming himself, Bernard Purdie, who first played with Eddie on the 1971 landmark album Harlem River Drive.

Sabiduria expertly covers everything from Afro-Cuban roots music to New Orleans second line funk, all under the wide umbrella of Latin Jazz. When salsa took a turn into slick corporate vapidity in the early 90’s, Palmieri refused to go along for the ride, instead concentrating his formidable talents as a composer, arranger and pianist into jazz and producing the frankly amazing Palmas in 1994. La Perfecta II in 2002 was something of a return to classic salsa, charanga, and mambo in honor of the 4oth anniversary of his groundbreaking debut as a bandleader, but it, too, was graced with tremendous jazz improvisers given plenty of room to do their thing. Simpático won a much deserved Grammy for best Latin Jazz Album in 2007.

That was followed by a long period of studio silence until filmmaker Bobbito Garcia asked him to contribute music to Doin’ It In the Park, his documentary on New York street basketball, in 2012. Three tunes from those sessions made it to Sabiduria. We have the visionaries at Ropeadope Records to thank for adding nine more and making them all widely available.

Core musicians from these sessions (Vicente “Little Johnny” Rivero congas, Camilo Molina timbales, Louis Fouche alto sax) will be joined by trumpeter Alex Norris and bassist Rubén Rodriguez at the Old Town School shows.

Eddie Palmieri was kind enough to answer a few of my questions when I reached out to him last week.

Don Macica (DM) – I’ve read that you turned to jazz because it’s hard to land salsa gigs, but I also know that you studied the jazz greats along with the Cuban greats when you were coming up in the 50s. Do you have a preference? What do you consider yourself as an artist?

Eddie Palmieri (EP) – I have always been a leader of Orchestra Dance Bands. The writing was on the wall in the early 90’s when the (salsa) genre changed regarding true dance music. The structures were changed to emphasize the vocalist and the tension and resistance needed in the arrangement were abolished. Salsa Romantica or Salsa Sensual became the popular sound and personally I will never succumb to musical mediocrity. So, Latin Jazz was the mission. In 1994 I became a Governor in the New York Chapter of NARAS and I was able to become a driving force for the Academy to recognize and open up a category. I consider myself a sincere musical student. The playback of my discography does not lie.

DM – Sabiduria feels a little bit like a career summation, albeit a very adventurous one. There’s great jazz, but also some very pure Afro-Cuban stuff and the title track is a fat slice of jazz-funk that recalls Harlem River Drive. Is there any separation between these genres in your approach?

EP – Sabiduria, in my opinion, is the greatest “Latin Jazz” recording ever! The personnel that my son Eddie Palmieri II put together and produced was outstanding. Like I said earlier I have always loved musical extensions throughout my career.

DM – What was the inspiration that brought Donald Harrison to Sabiduria?

EP – Donald Harrison has always been a part of this family since Palmas in 1994. We love him dearly and not only is he a great musician but a great human being.

DM – At the age of 80, where do you get your energy and creativity? What does the future hold for Eddie Palmieri?

EP – Getting stronger every day! Chocolate Armenteros, the great Cuban trumpet player, said “When you get to the age of 50 you start counting by ones”, so I am only 30 years old with 60 years of musical and bandstand experience!
__________

Concert Review: The Eddie Palmieri Latin Jazz Band (the review)

Eddie Palmieri brought what was, for the celebrated salsa orchestra leader and NEA Jazz Master, a smallish ensemble with him to the Old Town School of Folk Music on Friday night, but the joyful noise that they made together was a testament to the power of Eddie’s playing, composing and arranging skills. When you add in the charm and personality that El Maestro carries with him always, you have the recipe for a truly special night. Mixing references to both family and his beloved Puerto Rico into the between songs commentary, Eddie engaged the audience emotionally as well as musically.

The evening opened with a solo piano meditation on Palmieri’s late wife, weaving together two compositions, Mi Novia and Life, together in her honor. From there on, though, it was time for el ritmo.

As Eddie said in last week’s Agúzate interview, the man absolutely refuses to indulge in mediocrity. He reiterated this at the show, noting that the harmonic complexities of jazz wed to the African derived rhythms of Cuban drumming are pretty much everything that’s worth doing musically. And, of course, he had a band with him that was spectacular at both.

The all-Puerto Rico rhythm section of bassist Rubén Rodriguez, timbalero Camilo Molina, conguero Vicente “Little Johnny” Rivero and El Rumbero del Piano himself absolutely killed it all night long. Meanwhile, Alex Norris’ trumpet and Louis Fouché’s alto sax burned with fire and grace.

In addition to selections from his latest album Sabiduria, the group went back to the 70s several times for recasts of classic Palmieri tunes like La Libertad Logico, Puerto Rico and Chocolate Ice Cream (written with the great Cuban trumpeter Chocolate Armenteros). Each was introduced with an anecdote from Palmieri’s life about the origins of the song. Some were humorous. Others addressed the tragic situation of Puerto Rico’s slow recovery from Hurricane Maria but also the strength, resilience and pride of the Puerto Rican people, even suggesting that it was time for the island to resume its pre-conquest name of Borikén.

All in all, it was an extraordinary night. Today, as I go back and listen to classic records like Vamanos Pa’l Monte and Sentido, I’ll also have photographer Charlie Billups‘ images from the concert to remind me of just how extraordinary it was. 

 

Hugh Masekela's 50 year journey

If you've read more than one of these Border Radio posts, you know that the subject of migration is endlessly fascinating to me. What happens to people when their lives, culture and art are relocated? I often examine the way the forced migrations of the slave trade brought various African traditions to the Americas, and those traditions formed the basis for so much music, specifically Afro-Latin, jazz and blues. Between those three, you pretty much have the entire foundation of Western popular music, everything from salsa to rock n' roll to hip-hop and electronic dance music.

Near the end of his set at the Old Town School of Folk Music last Friday, South African legend (and really, somebody with a 50+ career in contemporary music is quite deserving of that honorific) Hugh Masekela introduced his late 60s hit Grazing In the Grass by joking that the people in the audience could find it by by looking through their grandparent's LP collections. Me? My copy was on a 45, the little record with the big hole in the middle.

photo: Scott Pollard

Grazing came out in 1968. It's an engagingly cheerful record and one that fit on the radio nicely at a time when the means of music discovery was Top 40, and the charts had room for a little bit of everything: Motown, the Beatles, the Doors, Sly and the Family Stone, the Ramsey Lewis Trio and odd little bits of reggae (though nobody knew what that was yet) like Desmond Dekker's Israelites.

photo: Scott Pollard

I was a kid at the time and had never heard the word apartheid. I didn't know that the creator of these three minutes of aural pleasure was a political exile from his home, and would remain so for another 26 years. I just heard a grooving song that always put a smile on my face. Being 1968, I always assumed that the grass of the title was marijuana. Good times.

Some journeys end up, happily, back home. The crack multigenerational band that Masekela brought to the Old Town School was entirely African and almost all from Cape Town or Johannesburg, the sole exception being a percussionist from Sierra Leone. The music they played was firmly grounded in South African rhythms and harmonies, but to these ears percolated along like really good 70s-era jazz fusion (think Weather Report), mixing pop smarts and showmanship in with funkified bass and a barrage of electric keyboards. Masekela himself doesn't play his flugelhorn much anymore, but it doesn't appear that it's from lack of energy, as the 74 year old danced, sung, played cowbell, joked and otherwise commanded attention with a rough charisma the entire performance. A joy radiated from the stage, but that was set aside for an extended performance of Stimela, a stark song of remembrance that came out in 1974 and was most decidedly not a radio hit, from an album entitled I Am Not Afraid, and later rerecorded as apartheid fell for the album Hope. For a few minutes, Masekela bared the pain in his soul, and his introduction acknowledged that the conditions described in the songs lyrics still applied to far too much of the world.

photo: Scott Pollard

The pictures that accompany this writing were taken by my friend Scott Pollard, and I think they do a tremendous job of capturing Masekela's joy, but also, more importantly, his dignity. I'm glad that I had the fortune of witnessing this performance and its implied message of perseverance in the face of daunting odds. Sometimes, justice prevails and things do get better.

photo: Scott Pollard

Hearing global history

I had the good fortune to attend a concert by the Palestinian-American composer, violinist and oud player Simon Shaheen this past weekend. It’s not the first time I experienced his music. Over a decade ago, he was touring with his fusion band Qantara and I had the privilege of introducing him to the audience at a world music festival less than 10 days after the September 11 attacks. More recently, an orchestra that I worked for presented the Chicago premiere of his Oud Concerto, and I conducted a Q&A with him and the orchestra's conductor prior to the concert.

Both of those were great experiences, but neither prepared me for this weekend.  Simon and his traditional ensemble of string instruments, flute and hand drums performed at the intimate Old Town School of Folk Music before a predominantly Middle Eastern audience. And while it was traditional in the sense that it was acoustic and the selections performed included many older songs, the approach was thoroughly modern, involving new compositions written by Shaheen, a high degree of improvisation and much instrumental wizardry. 

I knew that Shaheen played the violin and was considered a virtuoso, but I had never heard him play it. When I saw Qantara, with its mix of instruments drawing from Arabic, African, Latin, jazz and pop sources, he led on his oud. And, of course, his Oud Concerto featured his solos accompanied by a Western style orchestra. 

In the years since I first heard Shaheen play, I became friends with a violinist who is well versed in classical and jazz improvisation who further incorporates his Afro-Caribbean heritage into his approach to jazz. So, when Shaheen picked up his violin and began to play on the third song, I was almost shocked to hear what sounded like my friend’s playing. The deft improvisation, the insertion of space between notes, the playing inside and outside of the rhythm, and all of it built on a foundation of pan-Arabic music.

And then I heard something else, for in fact pan-Arabic and pan-Latin music share the same source and are merely different stops on an ever continuing journey. Several years ago, I read a book called Cuba and its Music by Ned Sublette. On the first page of the first chapter, Sublette references the Phoenicians.  A people of Semitic origin, they arrived in what would become the Spanish port city of Cádiz in 1100 B.C. (and North African port cities like Casablanca and Algiers).  Over two millennia later, that port would be the European gateway to the “New World”. In between, the Muslim empire grew to encompass the Iberian peninsula, but by 1492 both Muslims and Jews were being expelled as a nascent Spanish identity took hold. The Spaniards began to colonize the Americas, bringing with them a culture heavily influenced by the Arab world. And they also brought slaves from Africa, including North African Muslims and sub-Saharan Yoruba peoples. 

This mix of Spanish and African cultures met various indigenous peoples first in the Caribbean islands, then Central and South America. Arabic musical instruments like the oud had already begun a transformation into guitars, lutes and mandolins. In Cuba, the oud became the laud.

I heard it all at once this past weekend, and it was triggered by not by Shaheen’s oud, but by his violin. He explained that this particular violin was from 18^th century Italy, and to hear Shaheen coax sound out of this very European instrument was akin to hearing my friend coax sound out of his of similar origin, but both serving a non-European purpose. Both musicians are classically trained, and both use that training to express something of themselves and, by doing so, their heritage. All of a sudden, I heard the continuum that connects the Phoenicians to the Spaniards and then on to the Americas, absorbing African sounds, mixing with indigenous traditions, becoming jazz in the U.S., reaching back so that jazz becomes a universal language used by many cultures… well, it was kind of mind blowing. 

My violinist friend James Sanders plays on March 7 at Constellation Chicago with his new ensemble Proyecto Libre (Free Project). In his various musical endeavors, Sanders is a member of an orchestra, leads a Latin jazz band, plays mainstream, composes music for a dance company and collaborates with improvisors from the avant-garde wing of the house of jazz. 

He's trying to bring all of that to Proyecto Libre.

When I attend, I'll also be listening for the Phoenicians.