Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Salsa De Bahia Volume 2 - A Collection of San Francisco Bay Area Salsa and Latin Jazz

Music that draws on its roots for nourishment is music that has the best chance to remain vital and strong.  Latin jazz has thrived in San Francisco since the late 1950s, and Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 2 Hoy y Ayer proves that it continues to evolve and flourish.  

The percolating rhythms, passionate improvisation and dynamic orchestration that characterize the best elements of the genre exemplified by such Bay Area legends as Cal Tjader, Armando Peraza, and Poncho Sanchez, can still be heard in noted artists and ensembles including Gladys 'Bobi" Cespedes, Roger Glenn, Kat Parra, the Pacific Mambo Orchestra and Rico Pabon.

Where the first volume of Salsa de la Bahia documented the recent era of 2000 to 2010, Volume 2 moves both backward and forward in time, covering the late 1980s up to 1999, and continuing on from 201o to 2013, making the case all the while that Latin jazz, SF-style, is alive and well because it grows in well-nourished soil. Artists featured on Volume 2 are the local legends, Orquesta Batachanga, Carlos Federico-Smart, Pete Excovedo and Orestes Vilato, heard with Los Kimbos 90.  These performers and ensembles provide  dazzling picture of San Francisco Latin jazz at its most encompassing, as Bay Area artists welcomed exciting musical influences from Cuba.  Other artist on the album include Wayne Wallace and his Latin Jazz Quintet; singers Cecilia Englehart and Kat Parra, heard with the band Tanaora; vocalist Gladys "Bobi" Cespedes; Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Roger Glenn; La Mixta Criolla; Rico Pabo; Pacific Mambo Orchestra and the all-star unit Estrellas De La Bahia, led by Wallace and Edgardo Cambon.


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